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<p> This study was an exploration of factors that impact the perceived quality of life among Russian-speaking immigrants in the United States. Specifically, the study was designed to investigate what type of relationship (if any) exists (direction and strength) between one&rsquo;s desire to immigrate, sense of having a choice, the accuracy of preimmigration expectations, and quality of life after immigration. This researcher sought to understand whether desire and choice to immigrate and accuracy of one&rsquo;s expectations about immigration as measured by a survey can significantly predict changes in quality of life as measured by Q-LES-Q-18 (in general and in its facets). This research question was examined using a series of multiple regressions. Post hoc studies included an examination of the relationship between quality of life as measured by participant responses to the Q-LES-Q-18 and subjective happiness, as measured by modified SHS. Posthoc analyses further explored relationships between demographic factors, income, language fluency, relationship status, and other variables with quality of life after immigration. Finally, open-ended questions were used to provide pertinent narrative to help explain the conclusions gathered from quantitative data. The perceived accuracy of expectations about immigration was found to be a major predictor of quality of life after immigration. It had unique, significant contributions to the prediction of physical heath, subjective feelings, leisure time, and general activities aspects of quality of life. Quality of life in all of its aspects was highly connected to ability to use the language (speak, understand, and communicate) of the dominant culture. Income strongly and positively correlated with participants&rsquo; subjective feelings, general activity, and life satisfaction.</p>

<p>Abstract In the fall of 2005, France experienced the most important series of riots in its recent history. The unrest lasted for three weeks and expanded from the Paris suburbs or ?banlieues? to some three hundred towns in the entire country. However, the expansion effect was the result of forces at play between the rioters, the government, and the media. The ?event? became a spectacle that staged an asymmetrical communication between these three actors, opening a space for ?play.? The riot can be seen as a play in three acts: first; the tragedy in Clichy, the subsequent Paris Suburbs burning, and finally a performance of the absurd, erupting in the provinces. Through the play element, this dissertation explores what the public sphere and the ?paper riot? circled around but did not address fully. The notion of ?jeu? in French translates to play and game in English (in their multiple forms). Thus, this work examines the nature of these forms of play. It reveals the political game as mostly a linguistic one and that of the media as a play on images. In that process, the fusion of politics with the media offered an official version of the riots, a spectacular one. The play of the rioters took shape in the ?contagion? effect that made the riots national. When television channels realized their broadcast of the unrest had a role to play in the spreading of the unrest, they soon realized the irony and the limitations of their role. For the rioters though, play did not oppose the political, but quite the opposite: it equaled resistance for a brief moment. While the majority of the audience understood some of the hardship that the youth in the ?banlieues? experiences on a daily basis, overall it did not understand the rioters? acts, burning cars, gymnasiums and schools in their own neighborhoods. In that sense, the spectacle brought attention on the treatment of visible minorities in France but it failed to decipher their means of expression. Resume A l?automne 2005, la France a connu la serie d?emeutes la plus importante de ses banlieues. A l?origine, la mort de deux adolescents de Clichy-sous-Bois poursuivis par la police a declenche trois semaines de violences en region parisienne d?abord, puis en province. Toutefois, la gestion politique des emeutes ainsi que les representations mediatiques des violences ont joue un role dans l?expansion des emeutes et ce qui a fait < l?evenement >. Dans cet entrelacs d?echanges s?est tisse l?espace d?un jeu ephemere qui a mis en scene la communication asymetrique de ses acteurs et le dialogue de sourd qui sevit entre les institutions francaises et la banlieue. Tel un theatre de rue, l?emeute a pris la forme d?une piece en trois actes : la tragedie a Clichy, suivie d?une phase francilienne pour culminer avec une performance de l?absurde en province. Les trois acteurs de l?emeute ont forme le jeu politique, de nature linguistique, le jeu mediatique, un jeu d?images et enfin le jeu des emeutiers. En effet, afin de repondre a un jeu perdu d?avance, les emeutiers ont developpe un jeu dans l?expansion des emeutes a l?echelle nationale. Entre nihilisme et emancipation, entre phase ludique et acte de resistance, le jeu ne s?oppose ni au serieux, ni au politique. Au contraire, cette these demontre la nature politique du jeu. Pourtant, si l?opinion publique a pu reconnaitre l?existence d?un malaise profond vecu et partage par la jeunesse des quartiers, dans l?ensemble elle n?a pas compris et approuve le mode d?expression des emeutiers. Dans ce sens, le spectacle a bien mis en lumiere l?urgence d?une remise en cause du traitement des minorites visibles en France, toutefois il n?a pas su decrypter le mode operatoire des emeutiers.

<p> This dissertation investigates how the Holocaust and postwar sovietization shaped the dynamics of Jewish communities and ordinary life in southwestern Ukraine. I examine the relationship between state policy and the sphere of Jewish religious practice. Two research questions motivated this study: (1) What was the trajectory of the lives of Eastern European Jews who came back from Nazi concentration camps? and (2) How did Jews negotiate their religious and public identities in an everyday setting? To examine these questions, the study illuminates the postwar life of one group of Jewish Holocaust survivors in the periphery of the Soviet Union. Literature on postwar Soviet Jewry has focused almost exclusively on the lives of elites in the center. This study enhances our understanding of Jewish integration into Soviet society. </p><p> I used oral history, collected during my own ethnographic fieldwork in Israel and Ukraine, as well as state archives to analyze processes of return and integration. Interviews with ordinary people permit a social perspective on political developments and communal reconstruction. Statistical data and official communication provide the framework necessary to show the dynamics of Jewish life. Combining archival material with oral history demonstrates that the impact of Soviet rule on Jewish life after World War II is more complex than previously portrayed. Topics examined include the liberation from Nazi concentration camps, arrival experiences in Transcarpathia, the reconstruction of private and public Jewish life in the late 1940s and everyday Jewish practice in the 1950s and early 60s. </p><p> Ordinary Jews fully integrated into society, succeeded in their careers and expressed their Jewish identity through religious practice. The findings include individual negotiation of demands in secular society and the methods of circumventing obstacles that restricted religious practice. The analysis of the interviews, however, prompts a reconsideration of postwar Soviet Jewish life with regard to persecution and emigration narratives.</p>

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