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South-east Asian girls are frequently categorised as 'Asian' without taking into consideration their gender or religious up bringing. South-east Asian girls are not a homogeneous cluster as perceived by ethnocentric British establishments and institutions. They are discernible, for example, by religion, sect, linguistic association, caste and country of origin. The Asian culture has the prevalent image of being peculiarly oppressive and restrictive for women and the pronouncements of the 'community leaders' are often relied upon, and not the views of women themselves. Hence it is important to permit women to verbalise about their own situation and views. Researchers have, in the past, used their personal experience in formulating hypotheses. Being a British born Asian, one appreciates that the attitudes and aspirations of young Asian women are changing and more research is obligatory if educational establishments and other institutions are to understand and help their Asian female colleagues and students better, by aiding the policy making process and practice. This research has explored the relationship between religious upbringing and attitudes of Asian girls and women in higher education towards school education, further education, employment and settlement. The case study was intended to be illuminative. It was found that the girls answered in different ways and it was clear that some of the responses were clearly categorised by their religion. The findings suggest that if institutions in Britain fail to understand the contrasting effects of religion on ethnic minority students then South-east Asian students will experience 'creedism' and lack of support due to the non-religious orientated assumptions made.

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Master of Arts / In the southwest corner of China, the confluence of cultural diversity and national integration have produced a new kind of voice in the Chinese language: an ethnic voice. Speaking fluently in the Chinese nation’s language and culturally beyond its Han foundations, minority ethnic writers or shaoshu minzu in China are inciting a challenge to the traditional conceptions of Chineseness. In the PRC, the re-imagining of the boundaries between ethnicity, nation, and the globe is being produced in ethnic voices that resist the monopolizing narratives of the CCP and the Han cultural center. Furthermore, in the West where the antiquated conception of China as a monolithic Other is still often employed, the existence of these ethnic voices of difference demands a (re)cognition of its multifaceted and interwoven ethnic, political, and social composition. Three ethnic poets from the southwest are examined in this thesis: Woeser (Tibetan), He Xiaozhu (Miao), and Jimu Langge (Yi). They represent the trajectory of ethnic voice in China along the paradigms of local/ethnic vision, national culture, and global connections. By being both within and outside the Chinese nation and culture, they express a hybrid struggle that exists within the collision of ethnic minority cultures and the Han cultural center. Like the hybridity of postcolonial literature, this is a collision that cannot be reduced to it parts, yet also privileges the glocal impetus of ethnically centered vision. The poets’ voices speak the voice of difference within China, the Chinese language, and Chineseness throughout the world.

This study examined the influence of contextual risk factors and parental depression on the social-emotional functioning of very young children. Ninety-four young children were recruited as part of a larger ongoing research project recruiting caregivers and children from Early Head Start programs in South Florida. Children ranged in age from 12 to 36 months and included 65 girls and 29 boys. There were 94 caregivers in the current study: 91 mothers, 2 fathers, and 1 foster mother. Caregivers were diverse in terms of age, ranging from 19 to 42 years of age (M = 27.31, SD = 5.75), ethnicity (84% African- or Caribbean-American, 14.9% Hispanic/Latino, and 1.1% Mixed/Other), and in number of years of school completed, ranging from 1 to 16 years (M = 12.02, SD = 1.91). The current study employed a cumulative risk factor perspective in examining the social-emotional functioning of infants and toddlers. Specifically, the current study tested both a threshold model and a linear model of cumulative risk. Study measures included a background questionnaire, a measure of parental depression, a measure of parenting stress, a measure of child exposure to violence, and a measure of traumatic life events in a child?s life. Further analyses examined ethnicity as a moderator of the relationship between cumulative risk and difficulties with social-emotional functioning. Results showed a significant linear relationship between cumulative risk and social-emotional functioning. However, ethnicity did not moderate this relationship. When individual risk factors were examined post hoc, parental depression, stressful parent-child interactions, having a child with special needs, and community violence were shown to significantly predict difficulties with social-emotional functioning among very young children. These data have important implications for prevention and intervention efforts.