Nigerians are an integral part of the nursing profession, yet there is no literature on their common health risks, such as homesickness, isolation and suicide ideation. The purpose of this study was to investigate the association between lack of acculturation, social support, and self-esteem and mental health among Nigerian nursing students. Berry's model of acculturation was used which identifies individuals perception of self in relation to their ethnic culture and the host culture. A sample of 76 Nigerian nursing students enrolled in Baccalaureate nursing programs from 3 universities in the District of Columbia and Maryland participated in the study. Data were obtained using an online survey of 69 items assessing their acculturation, social support, self-esteem and their mental health. A descriptive cross sectional design was used. Analysis of the data included descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation, multiple regression, and ANOVA. The final regression model revealed that acculturation, companionship construct of social support and self-esteem are predictors of mental health status as shown by the adjusted R squared (R2 = 0.638). Recommendations are for universities to commit to increasing acculturation, social support, and self-esteem among foreign students in an effort to decrease isolation and improve their mental health. It is also recommended that future studies should be conducted on social isolation of subcultures to improve acculturation and reduce incidence of low self-esteem among foreign students within the American society. The strategies would create positive social change for healthcare organizations and nurse educators, resulting in an increase of ethnic diverse nurses and reducing the shortage of nurses in the USA.

In Denmark, the public discourse says that "proper" integration entails the foreigner gaining a fundamental understanding of Danish history, language and culture. I argue that this narrative is at odds with the desire on the part of some foreigners to preserve their cultural identity while still achieving socio-economic assimilation. I also argue that the integration narrative represents a strong desire among many native Danes to hold on to fixed and traditional notions of what constitutes Danish identity. This desire also creates an invisible (but ever-present) barrier that holds many ethnics on the fringes of Danish society. Demark is in the midst of what Cem Özdemir (2008) aptly described as an "integration challenge," where these nations have a severe barrier preventing full integration of ethnic populations—an inability (or perhaps resistance) to view the immigrant or foreign national as a potential citizen with equal rights, protections and duties. The default position of the Danish government and the majority of its native population has been to define the immigrant or foreign national by his or her country or origin, color or religion and to construct Danish identity in opposition to the characteristics of "the other."

History abounds with cases indicating the difficult period societies have gone through after gaining independence from external, and/or internal group domination. During the transition to independence, and after independence the future for most countries remains unstable and uncertain. Some countries eventually attain stability, then move into gradual economic growth, and finally shift to desired democracies. However, this stage is reached after a protracted period of political and economic strife, and also after several setbacks. This study seeks to determine if the differences created and accentuated by forty years of apartheid rule will continue, and be problematic in post-apartheid South Africa. Data for the study were collected from historically disadvantaged South Africans (DSA) using survey questionnaires. The following are some of the findings. Responses on political ideologies were diverse and widely varied, thus indicating an area of potential conflict. An overwhelming majority of the respondents, however, supported the notion of a person, one vote, in a unitary state. Also the majority of the respondents preferred a mixed economy. The majority of the respondents disagreed that blacks will seek to avenge themselves for past unfair practises, however they agreed that if conditions do not improve at a satisfactory pace, whites would be targets of hostility. Another finding of the study was the existence and presence of social and political distance between the various black race groups. Also, whilst there was general agreement on the role of the scarcity of jobs in stimulating conflict, there were significant differences of opinion on the role of ethnic affiliations. Implications of these findings for a future South Africa are discussed later in the dissertation.

<p> Research on second-generation Mexican American males who attain a doctoral degree is limited. Often, the data presented clusters Mexican Americans under the Latina/o or Hispanic ethnic group, focuses on factors that hindered educational attainment or details Latino male experiences in context of their Latina female counterparts. Mexican-Americans are the largest subgroup of this ethnic group yet little is known about their post-secondary educational experiences. Rather than focusing on barriers, this study concentrated on the factors that influenced eight Mexican American males from California who attained their doctorates from a doctoral-granting university within California.</p><p> Arguably, the self-efficacious men of this study believed in their academic prowess, but found ability was not enough. Numerous other strategies were needed to help facilitate degree attainment: 1) Being goal-oriented served as the central cause to remain relentless; 2) Interaction with various types of mentorship which came from all aspects of life (academic, home, work); 3) Involvement from a culturally aligned dissertation chair; 4) Surrounding oneself with an inner circle of family and friends and academic peers; and 5) Viewing student loans as an investment that facilitated future aspirations and not as an obstacle. These factors didn&rsquo;t clash against one another; rather, they complemented each other by providing different types of encouragement, support and direction at different times throughout their ascent. However, having a culturally aligned dissertation chair was viewed as the most critical factor toward degree attainment.</p>

<p>In spite of a host of early twenty-first century claims regarding the dawn of a "post-racial" or "anti-racial" era, race remains an important problem for understanding contemporary power. This dissertation provides a genealogical examination of the multiple forms and functions that comprise white raciality in the twenty-first century United States. Situating whiteness in relation to the social and financial circuitry of neoliberal globalization, I contend that it is an inextricable component of an emergent mode of governmentality. A critique of scholarly work in and around Whiteness Studies conditions the theoretical interventions of the project as a whole and grounds my argument for a new framework of analysis. </p><p>Following the work of Michel Foucault, I investigate the development of a novel form of whiteness whose undergirding logic functions not by differentiation but by way of similitude. Instead of emphasizing and enforcing exclusions upon difference, this `sympathetic' form of raciality works to neutralize and recuperate it. Finally, via Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, I discuss the necessity of reimagining race ontologically as well as epistemologically, and confronting its collusion with other forms of power in order to analyze the risks that the flexibilization of whiteness poses--to subjects living under its rule and to its own conditions of existence.</p> / Dissertation

This research examines the relationship between 'race' and class in Britain. This is achieved by considering how these two concepts articulate in the overall structuring of class relationships in a society which is typified by the incorporatation of black labour into a majority white society, This relationship is examined through an investigation of those black workers who occupy a position in the objectively defined middle class. The basic theme underlying this research is that 'race, in the form of structural racism, plays a significant role at two levels. Firstly, it serves to structure the class position of black labour in Britain. Secondly, it serves to determine the type of race, class and political consciousness generated by black labour. The study was carried out in the London area. Occupation was used as an indicator of 'objective' class position when selecting respondents to be included in the two survey populations required for the research. A 'network' approach was used to actually locate the respondents. In-depth interviews were carried out with all the respondents. The study concludes that the concepts of 'race' and class are not independent of each other in the overall structuring of class relationships between black and white labour. It is argued that the inter-relationship identified between these two concepts serves to highlight the fact that the structural position of black labour, the type of consciousness generated and the type of decisions taken by those who took part in the research are to a large extent a result of the structural constraints deriving from the effects of structural racism in Britain.

'British Racial Discourse' is a study of political discourse about race and race-related matters. The explanatory theory is adapted from current sociological studies of ideology with a heavy emphasis on the tradition developed from Marx and Engels's Feuerbach. The empirical data is drawn from the parliamentary debates on immigration and the Race Relations Bills, Conservative and Labour Party Conference Reports, and a set of interviews with Wolverhampton Borough councillors. Although the thesis has broader significance for British political discourse about race, it is particularly concerned with the responses of members of the two main political parties, rather than with the more overt and sensational racism of certain extreme Right-wing groups. Indeed, as the study progresses, it focuses more and more narrowly on the phenomenon of 'deracialised' discourse, and the details of the predominantly class-based justificatory systems of the Conservative and Labour Parties. Of particular interest are the argument forms (used in the debates on immigration and race relations) which manage to obscure the white electorate's responsibility for prejudice and discrimination. Such discoursive forms are of major significance for understanding British race relations, and their detailed examination provides an insight into the way in which 'ideological facades' are created and maintained.

This thesis examines the teachers' and the pupils' relations in_the schooling of blac k boys. The study using the ° methodology of participant observation focusses on one school (Kilby) in an area of black population in an English city. The thesis' s intentions are two fold: firstly, in order to examine these relations, two major aspects of their interaction are addressed, that of the absence of teachers from conventional :'orace-relations' research, and, the identification and examination of the anti-school pupils' sub-cultures. Two substantive questions are asked: what is the response of the teachers to the schooling of black pupils? and, what is the meaning of the pupils' resistance to schooling? Secondly, in attempting to answer these questions and offer a critique of the dominant ~race-relations' culturalist explanation of black youth's response to schooling, a theoretical framework nas been developed which takes account of both the 'econo~c' and the 'sociological' perspectives. Methodology allowed and pointed to the importance of examining the teachers' ideologies and practices as well as those of the black boys. It is argued that a class analysis of the racially structured British society is more adequate than the conventional ethnic approach in explaining the black boys' location within Kilby school. Hence, it is posited that the major problem in the schooling of black youth is not that of their culture but of racism, which pervasively structures the social reality at Kilby school. Racism is mediated both through the existing institutional framew~rk that discriminates against working-class youth and through the operation of race specific mechanisms, such as the process of racist stereotyping. It is thus further argued that the Kilby school teachers are of central causal significance to the problems that the boys encounter. Furthermore, it is in response to these racist ideologies and practices that both West Indian and Asian pupils develop specific forms of collective resistance, which are seen to be linked to the wider black community, as legitimate strategies of survival.

This study of attitudes to race and ethnicity is based on data derived from a questionnaire administered by the researcher to a multi-ethnic/multi-racial sample of 598 pupils and students in March 1974 Trinidad. A supplementary experiment was conducted in February 1979, involving 121 students These data are employed as a pivotal point for a broader discussion of the significance of race and ethnicity in the society" and the interpretation of these findings is sought in the society's modern history and the inter-ethnic rivalries, disputes and beliefs imposed in large measure by the structure of the society. All respondents, regardless of race, ascribed characteristic patterns of prestige, in political, economic, social and cultural terms, to the different racial groups. Generally the different races subscribe to essentially similar stereotypes of other racial groups (the findings of this part of the study were limited by a very low response rate however). Indians were portrayed as hardworking' and 'ambitious'&dot; Chinese were seen as 'business-minded' and 'hardworking'&dot; Indians were described as too culturally separate, and the Chinese as mean&dot; The Negroes were seen as lazy and lacking business ability, whites were portrayed as 'racists', 'exploiters' and possessing high socio economic status* These stereotypes like the prestige rankings, reflect the historically ascribed roles of the different groups in colonial society. In addition there were several indications of own-group/out-group polarisations among the primary groups (i.e. negro, Indian, white and Chinese) in their close friendship associations, admitted ethnic preferences, and attitudes to the two dominant cultures - Indian and creole. There was some variation between the groups in the extent of own-group preference&dot; The mixed-race group emerged as the most popular out-group, perhaps because respondents wished to display the ideal of non-racism, or because of the mixed-race's mainstream status in creole society. The mixed race does not have the full status of an out-group vis a vis any one of the primary groups it occupies a relatively neutral position. These results suggest that the mode of introduction of diverse ethnic and racial groups, to perform definite roles on plantations, set in motion a chain of events whereby race and ethnicity have emerged as salient reference points around which individuals organise them-selves, for the accruing of social rewards and the imputation of social propensities and potentialities. This process forms the basis for inter-ethnic and inter-racial rivalries and tensions. The implications seem clear; unless the social structure is altered towards a more positive base, supportive of the needs of all, irrespective of race and/or ethnicity, the threat of open conflict stemming from inter-ethnic and/or inter-racial conflict and tensions will persist.

<p> This project argues that the National Park Service (NPS) functions as an agent of the state in perpetuating American imperialism throughout the Pacific World through presenting WWII narratives of sacrifice as worthy of inclusion into the nation. These narratives, I argue, reinforce American occupation in islands and regions that have contested relations to the nation. This project is informed by scholarship in rhetorical criticism of public memory and in American Studies analyses of the nation as an empire. Methodologically, I have combined fieldwork at each park site and official public interpretive materials, with historical archives related to the formation, design, and management of the parks to understand the relationship between past and present. Part I of this project examines War in the Pacific National Historical Park in the American territory of Guam and American Memorial Park in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. I focus my argument here on how NPS narratives of WWII cannot be separated from historical and contemporary American military interests in the Mariana Islands and the Pacific World. Part II approaches the three units of the World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument in Hawai&rsquo;i, Alaska, and California, with each state&rsquo;s focus, development, and accessibility being appreciably different. I argue that all are concerned with the legacies of militarized land use and narratives of sacrifice for and belonging to the nation.</p>