This longitudinal study examined the experience of caregiving among a nationally-representative sample of 10,537 middle-aged adults participating in Wave 1 and Wave 2 of the Health and Retirement Study. Individuals were classified as parent caregivers, child caregivers, and multiple (parent and child) caregivers. The low incidence of multiple caregiving found among these middle-aged adults questions the validity of the phenomenon described as the "sandwich generation." Females comprised the majority of the parent, child, and multiple caregiving groups. Contrary to expectations, Black and Latina caregivers were not more likely than whites to hold parent and multiple caregiving roles. A high frequency of caregiving role losses and a low frequency of caregiving role assumptions occurred between Wave 1 and Wave 2. Most notable was the finding that 41% of multiple caregivers and 70% of parent caregivers in Wave 1 became noncaregivers in Wave 2. In addition, only.4% and 6.5% of women assumed multiple care and parent care, respectively. These findings suggest that the experience of caregiving during the middle-generation years is of short duration and likely to decrease over time. No support was found for the "caregiving pile up effect" (Doress-Worters, 1994) among those holding multiple caregiving roles. Rather, female caregivers experienced a decrease in well-being regardless of their caregiving role transitions, while caregivers who gained or maintained caregiving reported better physical health than those who lost caregiving. In addition, caregivers' well-being did not differ from that of noncaregivers, with the exception of ADLs (better for caregivers). Ethnicity was found to play an important and complex role in predicting transitions in caregiving and well-being. As hypothesized, being a Black or Latina caregiver who lost parent care predicted worse well-being. With regards to the maintenance or assumption of child care, however, being a minority woman accounted for worse well-being. The negative consequences of child caregiving for Latinas is especially intriguing given their greater likelihood to maintain child care. There was some support for the notion that minorities' traditional family values in support of caregiving predict better well-being for women maintaining child care or for multiple caregivers.

The purpose of the study was to explore parents' socialization goals and to describe the patterns of caregiver-child social interaction for the sample of 6 Chinese American toddlers, whose parents immigrated to this country recently. The theoretical framework for the study was Vygotsky's sociocultural approach which assumes that children's thinking derives from human social relations and is embedded in the sociocultural context. The study used a qualitative method of data collection and analysis. Data collection included a demographic questionnaire, two focused interviews and videotaped observations of caregiver-child interactions in everyday activities and joint play. The analysis focused on how caregivers guided and facilitated children's learning and adaptation to life in a North American setting. Parental goals were identified and five themes immerged from the interview data: a focus on learning; an emphasis on developing a loving relationship with the child; an emphasis on bringing up a moral child; an emphasis on guided independence and on adopting the values of the host culture while maintaining the values of their own cultural heritage. Links between the patterns of parent-child interaction and the parental goals were explored. The parents' conscious, creative synthesis of cultural values and practice were discussed. Implication for teachers and clinicians were suggested.

Jewish Americans have been incredibly adept in public relations, and this study traces the ways in which Jewish narratives were used in the twentieth century to perform cultural work for the community. We Are Chosen begins with the premise that established Jews in Galveston, Montreal, New York, and Buenos Aires defined Jewishness in attractive terms in the early 1900s for political expediency, to challenge negative perceptions by non-Jews and promote esteem among Jews, and that these terms continue to inform conceptions of Jewish identity. Geographically, the project looks beyond (as well as in) New York, focuses on three dominant tropes (giving, mobility, and assimilation), and examines how and why these themes effectively translate religious election (“chosenness”) in the secular sphere. Jewish narratives and their ennobling rhetorics are often taken as a matter of course, even in the field of Jewish American Studies, but should be understood as products of a particular historical moment. As vehicles for positive public relations, Jewish narratives mask voices deemed unattractive or potentially threatening. Drawing from essays, organizational reports, periodical and historical writings, and works of Jewish American literature, individual chapters put dominant and protesting voices in conversation with one another and explore why some images are deemed “good for the Jews” and others are considered self-hating. Examining the history of Jews in other places does not detract from the importance of New York to Jewish American history or memory, but insists that there are more complex and dynamic stories that include, but are not limited to, New York and its mythic Lower East Side.

The psychodynamics of white racism is not a well-theorized phenomenon. Traditional discourse on racism has primarily focused on “black doings and sufferings, not white anxieties and fear” (West, 1993). In other words, approaches to the study of white racism tend to emphasize the general ways in which people of color are adversely impacted by acts of prejudice committed by white people. Approaches that emphasize the victim's experience often obscure the particular ways in which the perpetrators of racism should be scrutinized and analyzed. This conceptual study is a departure from the traditional perspectives, focusing instead on the perpetrators of racism, white racists. Specifically, this dissertation will examine the psychodynamics of white racial attitudes and actions. In this study, I propose that white racial attitudes are the expression of anti-black feelings and emotions that lie at the core of white racists (Feagin & Vera, 1995). In this study, I explore these feelings and emotions as they relate to black upward mobility, in particular, blacks that are perceived to be a threat to the dominant social and economic power structures. Unlike the economic approach to examining white racism, which is not concerned with the emotional and psychological elements of racism, the psychological approach views racism in part as an extension of the emotional reactions whites exhibit when threatened by changes in patterns of white domination and black subordination (Schwartz & Disch, 1970). In other words, whites who are racists tend to view life as a zero-sum game in which black gains represent white losses (Feagin & Vera, 1995). This approach to the study of white racism also provides a plausible explanation for extreme manifestations of racism. This is illustrated through the case studies of heavyweight prizefighters Jack Johnson and Muhammad Ali. White reactions to these prizefighters and their behaviors both in and outside the ring are indicative of the psychological dimensions of white racism.

Oklahoma is home to over fifty tribes or sovereign nations relocated during the era of U.S. Government removal. The tribes display their own unique cultural heritage, which combine elements of traditional culture with the frontier heritage of the American West. The health care context of these Native communities is pluralistic including elements of traditional health practices, intertribal health perspectives, and medical care delivery by the Indian Health Service and community health services. This case study is a biocultural evaluation of the health of the Caddo tribe utilizing historical reconstruction, ethnographic methods, qualitative, and quantitative methods of health characterization of the contemporary population. The orientation is integrative to understand what I term the "health matrix" of this population. The health matrix is the biocultural interface where the interaction of social processes and biopsychological relations is monitored through an understanding of how cultural and biological variables intersect and overlap. The purpose is to understand social and behavioral processes, specifically social relations and cultural support mechanisms, on biological health. The main goal of the dissertation was to track Caddo health through time and to develop a tribe-specific morbidity and mortality profile to understand contemporary health patterns and issues facing the tribe. Defining the limits of the Caddo sample population and distinguishing them from other Native Americans in the area was a catalyst for developing an Indian Health Service grant to assess the health needs of the local population and work toward community program development. Political economic factors influencing the tribe were instrumental in the execution and delivery of the research and served to highlight areas of tribal dynamics and contradictions. This case study allows for a consideration of cultural and personal context in health behavior and profiles. A broad range of methodological techniques were combined to understand the complexity of the health matrix within this community. Although specifically focused on one tribe, the dissertation has theoretical implications for communities grappling with implementing community health care programs. This work presents sociopolitical and personal issues that impact individual health, as well as community programs, and incorporates Native Americans and anthropologists, or other consultants who work within these communities.

This qualitative study investigated how White student affairs practitioners described and reflected on the practice of race awareness education. The methods of data collection included semi-structured, in-depth interviews and some field observations with ten White student affairs practitioners from diverse university and college settings throughout the United States. The principal focus of this study was to acquire knowledge as to: (1) what informs practitioners about their practice; (2) why they make the decisions they do regarding their approach to race awareness education; and (3) how has their practice changed over time. Practitioners were also asked to reflect on what it meant to be doing this work as a student affairs practitioner. The findings suggested emergent themes related to the relationship between the practitioner, the practice, and their reflection. Themes regarding the practitioners' background centered on their intrinsic motivation; reliance on experiential learning; and the importance of tracking their own White identity development. In their narratives about the practice, themes emerged regarding the range of interventions utilized in the field; pedagogical issues related to impacting students' learning at the cognitive, affective, and behavioral levels; the use of self as a teaching tool; and viewing practice as an art form. In their reflections, practitioners spoke of the challenges inherent in evaluation; their desired changes; minor shifts that occurred with their practice; and the need for processes to insure reflective thought. The study concludes with a discussion of the implications for further research.

The study focuses on the relationship between child care use and labor force participation among American mothers. The major research questions addressed are: (1) What is the nature of mothers' child care arrangements and how have these changed in the last two decades?; (2) What is the cost of and satisfaction with these arrangements?; (3) What are the determinants of types of child care used?; (4) What conflicts does child care pose for employed mothers; (5) To what extent is lack of child care a constraint to mothers who want to work for pay? Evidence on variation in child care use and conflicts with child care controlling for income level, race/ethnicity and marital status is presented. Data were analyzed from (1) a 1988 survey of a random sample of 989 working mothers of preschool age children in South Chicago, Camden and Newark, New Jersey, (2) a 1983-1984 survey of a random sample of 1694 low income black and Hispanic, single mothers in five U.S. cities and (3) a 24 month followup survey of 428 of the 1694 single mothers interviewed in 1983. Data from the 1975 National Child Care Consumer Study and from a 1985 supplement to the Survey of Income and Program Participation were also utilized. Since 1975, child care provided by relatives is the most common primary child care arrangements used by mothers. The reliance on family members is particularly prevalent among poor, single black and Hispanic mothers despite an overwhelming preference for group child care centers suggesting an absence of choice over type of child care used among these mothers. Problems with cost, availability and quality of child care have prevented substantial numbers of currently employed mothers from working in the past, or caused them to change jobs of job schedules. Among nonemployed mothers, lack of child care is a constraint to employment and a greater constraint to job search activities for poor, single mothers than for middle income mothers. Among poor, single mothers, a major obstacle to labor force participation is lack of job benefits.

This investigation explored through intensive case studies the coping progress of a group of Jewish individuals and also recorded the areas in which they simultaneously observed the Jewish religious mourning rituals. The in-depth interviews of fiver persons, three women and two men, and selections from two additional interviews have been recorded. Their losses included both parents and both spouses. They were invited by the researcher when reports of their losses appeared in the newspaper obituary columns. Each subject was personally interviewed three times to coincide with the three stages of the Jewish ritual practice. The questionnaires utilized to evaluate the subjects' grief and coping were based upon questions developed in three previous studies: (a) The study of the Attachment Theory and Multiple Dimensions of Grief by Selby C. Jacobs, et al. (1986) of the Department of Psychiatry at Yale University. (b) The Expanded Texas Inventory of Grief developed by Sidney Zisook, et al. (1982). (c) The Center of Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale. The questionnaires to determine the areas of the subjects' observance or non-observance, of the Jewish ritual system were developed by this researcher. The purpose of this study was to provide the two parallel records of grief coping and structured mourning procedure observance so that future researchers might have a basis for determining the influence of the latter on the former. An additional result is that in all cases the subjects themselves commented on what, if anything, observing the ritual meant to them. A further area of future study could, therefore, be to determine how one's own perception of the ritual one is observing determines the effect it has upon one's grief coping. In the Summary and Recommendations observations are made on the efficacy of the questionnaire instruments employed in the studies mentioned above. Suggestions for improving their usefulness are made.

This exploratory study looks at Chinese-Caucasian interracially married parents' experience of raising their children. The goal is to characterize these parents' stances toward their children's ethnic identity. A semi-structured, clinical interview was developed for the study in order to gather information about the respondent's family and individual histories, as well as their childrearing practices and beliefs. The sample consisted of 29 interracially married parents who had at least one child older than nine years old. Eight intraracially married Chinese parents were also interviewed for comparison purposes. The interview data was subjected to a content analysis which generated the following six-dimensional conceptual framework of ethnic identity: (1) Group Identification; (2)Ethnic Continuity; (3) Physical Characteristics; (4) Objective Culture; (5) Subjective Culture; (6) Sociopolitical Consciousness. It was found that parents did not feel that their children's ethnic identity was the focus of a great deal of concern. Parents also emphasized that it had rarely been a source of psychological or social difficulty for their children. The ethnic identity of the Chinese parent was stressed far more than the ethnic identity of the Caucasian parent. Surprisingly, parents expressed very little concern about their children's racial marginality or the issue of racial continuity. On a conscious level, parents were more strongly committed to "group identification" and "objective culture." In actual practice, however, their commitment in these areas carried a great deal of ambivalence. On an unconscious level, parents were most likely to pass down "subjective culture." This was the one area of regular cultural conflict in these families, particularly around expectations about family roles. These parents' greatest concern revolved around their children losing their Chinese culture. However, parents were generally unsuccessful when they tried to actively guide their children in an ethnic direction. Parents stressed that their children's most durable ethnic commitments developed largely independently of their own efforts to influence, emphasizing that their own personal ethnic involvements (modelling) seemed to have the most impact. The study concludes by offering some integrative comments about the nature of ethnic identity and the forces that propel it across generations. An important area of future research would be to talk with these parents' biracial children about their ethnic identities.

The Black Panther Party existed for a very short period of time, but within this period they established themselves as a central force in the Afrikan American human rights/civil rights movements. Over the past twenty years the history of the Black Panther Party has been conspicuously missing from material on the 1960's. Particularly, there is an absence of material concerning the rank-and-file grassroots activities. In documenting the grassroots efforts of the Black Panther Party, this study emphasizes the community organizing of the Party in a manner which encourages the student/reader to analyze the effectiveness and relevance of grassroots organizing as a means for developing social change and acquiring Afrikan American self-determination.