The purpose of this thesis is to explore various aspects of pastoral care and counselling in the black churches in Britain. The first aspect of caring that has been explored is acceptance. When people are genuinely accepted by others there is the possibility for personal growth and development to take place. Such acceptance can be therapeutic. It contains health-giving qualities and is a means towards greater self-acceptance, especially by those who may be affected by a sense of poor value in the way they see themselves. The second aspect is understanding. Part of what is discussed here is that people who are connected by and share similar life experiences, are equipped to care for each other in ways that those who are detached outsiders may not be able to. In other words, caring which is based on understanding is enhanced when the relationship is between persons who are party to the same difficulties. The third and fourth categories consist of an examination of pastoral care within the context of housing and unemployment conditions. Aspects of care which are featured are those that entail sharing, support, and the promotion of self-help endeavours such as repairs done to the homes of church members. There is caring through the personal presence of individuals in the form of visits to homes, prayers offered and encouragement given. Ways in which such responses contribute to the affirmation of worth and the empowering of individuals so that they are able to take control of the adverse circumstances which affect them, are caring factors which have been explored as well. The fifth area looks at the black family. Caring under the aegis of a network of support systems that nurtures and sustains individuals is featured. The sixth category is worship. Most of the ritual aspects and component features which combine to make worship a fulfilling and satisfying experience are assessed. Finally, the conclusion points to other related areas which might be looked at.

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How are music, literature and migration connected? How are these transnational conversations affecting the way countries construct their national discourses today? This dissertation studies how gender and race are constructed and questioned in the 'cross-genre' dialogue among contemporary urban literature, performance, and reggaeton music produced in Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, and New York City from the1990s-2000s. This ongoing dialogue of marginalized music and literature, made possible by the accessibility of new media, results in a unique urban configuration in which gender and racial identities are negotiated, resulting in the reinforcement of a trans-Caribbean cultural circuit. Following a non-traditional structural approach this dissertation proposes a new analytical and reading model beginning with the Puerto Rican diaspora's cultural production in New York City as a point of departure, and from there expands to the rest of the Spanish Caribbean. I specifically focus on the writings of poets Willie Perdomo (NYC), and Guillermo Rebollo Gil (PR), the videos and lyrics of the reggaeton artists Tego Calderón and Calle 13 (PR), and the music and literary work of Rita Indiana Hernández (DR) in order analyze the complex interplay between music and literary texts to convey gender and racial imaginaries. I conclude that these literary, cultural, and performative texts abolish "national" configurations and are being replaced by broader definitions of "us," race, and gender to address the complexities of contemporary Caribbean transnational identitary circuits. / text

This study examined the influence of acculturation on disordered eating attitudes and behaviours of Afro-Caribbean women living in Canada. 134 Afro-Caribbean women, aged 18-35 years, completed an online questionnaire evaluating body satisfaction, two indices of acculturation, adaptation and maintenance, and disordered eating attitudes and behaviours. One domain of acculturation, Canadian cultural adaptation, was found to moderate the relation between body satisfaction and disordered eating: Those who most strongly identified with Canadian culture had the strongest relation between body dissatisfaction and disordered eating and attitudes. Disordered eating attitudes and behaviours were reported most often in individuals with high Canadian cultural adaptation and identification with Canadian values. Suggestions for further research and clinical implications are discussed

The purpose of this study was to validate the Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure (MEIM) on a sample of Afro-Caribbean college students. Participants were drawn from a larger national study on culture and identity collected at 26 universities from across the United States. Students included in this sample were either born in a Caribbean country, or had one or both parents from a Caribbean country. The students completed various measures of culture and identity. The ones utilized in this study were ethnic identity (Multigroup Ethnic Identity Measure), self-esteem (Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale) and depression (Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale). Analyses were conducted using the Statistics Package for the Social Sciences and AMOS (SPSS for Windows Version 16.0.2, 2008). A confirmatory factor analysis was utilized in order to confirm the hypothesized factor structure of the MEIM with this sample in terms of goodness of fit. Correlations to determine the internal reliability and construct validity of the MEIM and multivariate analysis of variance to determine group differences within the sample were conducted. Additionally, criterion validity was examined between the MEIM and measures of self-esteem and depression. The results of this study indicate that the MEIM is a two factor structure for Afro-Caribbean college students. The results suggested adequate to good internal item consistency on all measures utilized with this sample. With regard to concurrent validity, the relationship between self-esteem and ethnic identity in this sample wasn't as remarkable and supportive of past research where there has been a more distinct and robust relationship. There was a statistically significant positive correlation with the affirmation subscale and depression. This was not true for the total MEIM measure and the exploration subscale. Ethnic identity does not have the same relationship with self-esteem and depression as it has in previously studied Black/African American and minority populations in the United States.

Sir William Macpherson's conclusion - following his public inquiry into the racist murder of the black teenager Stephen Lawrence in 1993 - that the Metropolitan Police was 'institutionally racist', was a seminal moment for policing in Britain. The publication of the Macpherson report in 1999 has been rightly regarded as a victory for the Stephen Lawrence Family Campaign (SLFC), whose activities had been crucial in building pressure on the newly-elected Labour Government to hold a public inquiry into the Metropolitan Police's murder investigation. However, to focus solely on the Lawrence case, and the SLFC, is to obscure the existence of a longer struggle waged by black Londoners to expose the racism that had affected their experience of policing since the Second World War. This thesis explores the development of grassroots political activism within London's Afro-Caribbean community around the issue of policing from 1945 to 1993. Using material from local community archives, this thesis represents the first attempt at documenting the history of race and policing in London from the perspective of the capital's Afro-Caribbean population. Moreover, by taking the end of the Second World War as its starting point, it also breaks new ground in charting the way Afro-Caribbean people in London organised politically in opposition to racist policing prior to the murder of Stephen Lawrence in 1993. Ever since people of Afro-Caribbean descent began to settle in London in increasing numbers in the aftermath of the Second World War, they have continually expressed concern about the way they were policed. While opposition to policing initially emerged in a highly unorganised form, this was fundamentally altered by the arrival of the British black power movement in the late 1960s. Despite its short existence, black power's emphasis upon independent black grassroots political activism outlived the movement and became a feature of the way black Londoners' challenged racist policing during the 1970s and 1980s. Therefore, this thesis contends that the grassroots political campaign that developed around the case of Stephen Lawrence cannot be viewed in isolation from the historical efforts of black people in London to expose racism within the Metropolitan Police.

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Despite the high incidence of prostate cancer (PC) amongst men of African descent, there is a paucity of qualitative data that explores how Afro-Caribbean men perceive their risk, susceptibility to, and management of this disease. This phenomenological study sought to explore and analyze beliefs about PC in a sample of Afro-Caribbean men who reside in the United States (U.S.). The research questions considered the perceptions, beliefs, and lived experiences of participants. The conceptual framework is a synthesis of the health belief model (HBM) and the theory of reasoned action (TRA), primarily because the TRA allows for a culturally-based relevance and perspective that is lacking in the HBM. Data were collected using in-depth interviews from a purposive sample of 13 U.S. participants from 7 Caribbean territories, who provided detailed descriptions of their perceptions. Data management and inductive, iterative analysis were facilitated through the use of the NVivo 10 software program. This study found that participants had a low level of awareness and education about PC, but they also believed that if PC were caught early, they have a good chance of a long life. There was no indication that culture played a significant role in their attitudes, beliefs, and perceptions of the disease. Education about PC should be targeted to this population as well as their significant others. In addition, qualitative research is needed to compare perspectives of Afro-Caribbean, African American, and African men who all reside in the United States. This study may contribute to positive social change by providing practical strategies that may increase screening and early diagnosis among Afro-Caribbean men, thereby reducing the mortality from this disease.

The purpose of this project was to examine how Afro-Caribbean girls from the island of Sint Maarten narrate, navigate and negotiate their girlhood experiences. As a Black woman from Sint Maarten, this project is important due to the lack of sociological scholarship surrounding Black girls in the Dutch West Indies. This project utilized a qualitative approach that involved interview participant photography and semi-structured audio and video recorded interviews with 9 Afro-Caribbean girls who were 14-, 16- and 17-years old living in Sint Maarten. I analyzed the interview data and interpreted it using a combination of Black, Caribbean and transnational feminist frameworks which I named Afro-Caribbean transnational feminism. This framework specifically centers the lives and lived experiences of the girls. The findings show that Afro-Caribbean girls in Sint Maarten navigate their social worlds by negotiating different aspects of their lives, including their hair, appearance and food consumption to in various ways resist heteronormative ideas in Sint Maarten. This data serves as an important starting point and experiential reference to understand Afro-Caribbean girlhood in the Caribbean broadly, and specifically in the Dutch West Indies. / Master of Science / The purpose of this project was to examine how Afro-Caribbean girls from the island of Sint Maarten narrate, navigate and negotiate their girlhood experiences. As a Black woman from Sint Maarten, this project is important due to the lack of sociological scholarship surrounding Black girls in the Dutch West Indies. This project utilized a qualitative approach that involved interview participant photography and audio and video recorded interviews guided by a set of questions. There were 9 Afro-Caribbean girls who were 14-, 16- and 17-years old living in Sint Maarten who participated in the project. I analyzed and interpreted their responses using a combination of Black, Caribbean and transnational feminist frameworks which I named Afro-Caribbean transnational feminism. This framework specifically centers the lives and lived experiences of the girls. The findings show that Afro-Caribbean girls in Sint Maarten navigate their social worlds by negotiating different aspects of their lives including, hair, appearance, and food consumption to in various ways resist heteronormative views, which aligns biological sex, sexuality, gender identity and gender roles, in Sint Maarten. This data serves as an important starting point and experiential reference to understand Afro-Caribbean girlhood in the Caribbean broadly, and specifically in the Dutch West Indies.