The civil war that started in Syria in 2011 began as a series of political disputes between government forces and opposition groups. Tension mounted when citizens of Syria called for their president, Bashar al-Assad, to step down from power. When government forces resisted the will of the people, and instead used force against them, the country descended into all-out war. Two distinct groups surfaced in opposition to one another, with opposition rebels fighting against the Syrian regime. But as the war progressed these two groups began to display religious characteristics. Opposition groups began to represent a Sunnī Muslim rebel force, while regime forces where represented by the Alawite sect, and as the war continued elements of jihādism began to surface within the fighting. Syria’s sectarian rifts began to reveal themselves as religious factions became more involved in the fighting. These rifts are a result of centuries of violence and tension between Sunnī Muslim and Alawites in the country. Their theological beliefs differ extensively from one another, and over the course of history these differences have led to clashes between the two groups. The study looks at the historical interactions between Sunnī Muslims and the Alawites in Syria, and identifies the theological differences between the two groups. The study then uses these two elements to understand the religious violence that Syria is experiencing, and why such intolerance is happening between the religious factions of the country. / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2014. / tm2015 / Science of Religion and Missiology / MA / Unrestricted

Människan är en social varelse och att tillhöra ett socialt sammanhang är centralt. Syftet med detta arbete är att studera hur individer från etniska minoritetsgrupper agerar för att möta det omgivande samhället. Denna studie har använt sig av en kvalitativ metod där sju semistrukturerade intervjuer gjorts för att besvara studiens syfte och frågeställningar. Studien genomfördes med fyra kvinnor och tre män, där majoriteten är födda och uppväxta i Sverige och där två är födda utomlands men uppväxta i Sverige. Studiens resultat visar att etniska minoriteter upplever att samhället har få om några förväntningar syftar istället på att de i mötet med samhället så möter de även på fördomar. Studiens fynd enligt deltagarnas upplevelser av assimilation i mötet med samhället är att roller tas av olika etniska minoriteter för att motbevisa fördomar eller för att bevisa att de är kapabla till minst lika mycket som alla andra. Alla deltagare har anammat sina dubbla identiteter och menar att alla deras identiteter, de nationella och etniska, tillsammans blir en helhet. Majoriteten menar att i mötet med samhället framhäver de en version av sig, de gör sig aldrig till i sitt rolltagande dock tonar de ner andra sidor för att inte mottagaren skall tro att dennes fördomar har bekräftats. / Man is a social being and to belong to a social context is essential. The purpose of this work is to study how individuals from ethnic minority groups act in the meeting with society. This study has used a qualitative method where seven semi-structured interviews have been executed to answer the study's purpose and questions. The study was conducted with four women and three men, where the majority were born and raised in Sweden and where two were born abroad but raised in Sweden. The results of the study show that ethnic minorities feel that society has few if any expectations. They mean that in the encounter with society, they also encounter prejudices. The study's findings, according to the participants' experiences of assimilation in the encounter with society, is that roles are taken by different ethnic minorities to rebut prejudices or to prove that they are capable of at least as much as everyone else. All participants have adopted their dual identities and believe that all their identities, national and ethnic, are in a combination a definition of their whole identity. They believe that in the encounter with the society, they emphasize a version of themselves, they never pretend to be someone else, however, they tone down certain aspects of themselves so that the recipient doesn’t think that his prejudices are correct.

Syftet med den här studien var att undersöka hur poliser på Malta beskriver minoritetsgrupper samt att utifrån polisernas egna beskrivningar undersöka hur de förhåller sig till de minoritetsgrupper som de möter i arbetet. Studien är kvalitativ och har genomförts genom intervjuer på poliser. Resultatet visade på att två grupper problematiserades utifrån polisernas arbete och det var östeuropéer och muslimer. Framställningen av dessa grupper tyder på en andraism. / The purpose of this study was to investigate how Maltese police officers describe minority groups and to, based on the police's own descriptions, examine how they relate to the minority groups they encounter at work. The study is qualitative and has been conducted through interviews with police officers. The result showed that two groups were discussed based on how they affect their work and that was The Eastern Europeans and Muslims. The presentation of these groups indicated a otherization.

South Africa is a melting pot and a meeting place for a multitude of "races", representing an optimal arena for understanding the psychology of contact and desegregation. This study focuses on the spatial arrangement of minority identities, through continued informal segregation, among the Indian minority of Mokopane. Drawing on 28 open-ended interviews, segregation is explored in everyday interactions and spaces. Working within a spatial-discursive framework, critical discourse analysis is employed, paired with a basic observational and descriptive analysis. Participants' discursive constructions overwhelmingly demonstrate patterns of informal segregation among the Indian minority community, within the micro-ecology of contact. Caught within a sandwiched or "buffer" identity, issues of space constantly inform negotiating conceptions of "Indianness". In mapping the dialogue of the Indian community, a story of the evolution of segregation emerges, creating a replication of internal divisions. This study ultimately demonstrates the need for a spatial-discursive orientation and a more "embodied" turn in our understanding of segregation.

No description available.

Denna magisteruppsats presenterar och analyserar religionens roll i upproret i södra Thailand som ibland benämns terrorism. Genom att använda teorier som behandlar nationsbygge och nationalitet, religion som en kulturell identitet, samt teorier om globalisering och terrorism, visar denna uppsats att det inte går att dra slutsatsen att religion är den enda orsaken till upproret. Denna uppsats visar dessutom att varken religiös terrorism eller religiös nationalism behöver innebära religiös övertygelse, eftersom religion förutom många andra saker kan markera en kulturell tillhörighet. / This thesis presents and analyses the role of religion in the insurgency in the south of Thailand, that is sometimes labelled terrorism. By using theories on nation building and nationalism, religion as a cultural identity and theories on globalisation and terrorism, this thesis shows that it cannot be concluded that religion is the sole problem of the insurgency in the south of Thailand. This thesis, in addition, shows that religion is political and a source of identity and that neither religious terrorism nor religious nationalism have to imply religious belief, since religion can be a marker of cultural belonging, among many things.

No / The importance of increasing exercise to prevent falls among older adults remains a key worldwide public health priority. However, older adults do not necessarily take up exercise as a preventative measure for falls. This qualitative study aimed to explore the beliefs of community-dwelling South Asian and White British older adults aged 60 to 70 about falls and exercise for fall prevention through 15 focus groups (n = 87) and 40 in-depth interviews. Data were transcribed verbatim and analyzed using a framework approach. Data analysis identified six salient beliefs that influenced older adults’ intention to exercise for fall prevention. In general, older adults aged 60 to 70 did not acknowledge their risk of falling and were not motivated to exercise simply to help prevent falls. Positive beliefs were found to be an unlikely barrier to taking up exercise for fall prevention for those who had experienced a fall. The implications for health promotion and health professionals with this group of older adults are discussed.

Yes / Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities suffer from disproportionately poorer health than the general population. This issue has been recently exemplified by the large numbers of infection rates and deaths caused by covid-19 in BAME populations. Future research has the potential to improve health outcomes for these groups. High quality research priority setting is crucial to effectively consider the needs of the most vulnerable groups of the population. The purpose of this systematic review is to identify existing research priority studies conducted for BAME health and to determine the extent to which they followed good practice principles for research priority setting. Method: Included studies were identified by searching Medline, Cinnahl, PsychINFO, Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection, as well as searches in grey literature. Search terms included “research priority setting”, “research prioritisation”, “research agenda”, “Black and minority ethnic”, “ethnic group”. Studies were included if they identified or elicited research priorities for BAME health and if they outlined a process of conducting a research prioritisation exercise. A checklist of Nine Common Themes of Good Practice in research priority setting was used as a methodological framework to evaluate the research priority processes of each study. Results: Out of 1514 citations initially obtained, 17 studies were included in the final synthesis. Topic areas for their research prioritisation exercise included suicide prevention, knee surgery, mental health, preterm birth, and child obesity. Public and patient involvement was included in eleven studies. Methods of research prioritisation included workshops, Delphi techniques, surveys, focus groups and interviews. The quality of empirical evidence was diverse. None of the exercises followed all good practice principles as outlined in the checklist. Areas that were lacking in particular were: the lack of a comprehensive approach to guide the process; limited use of criteria to guide discussion around priorities; unequal or no representation from ethnic minorities, and poor evaluation of their own processes. Conclusions: Research priority setting practices were found to mostly not follow good practice guidelines which aim to ensure rigour in priority setting activities and support the inclusion of BAME communities in establishing the research agenda. Research is unlikely to deliver useful findings that can support relevant research and positive change for BAME communities unless they fulfil areas of good practice such as inclusivity of key stakeholders’ input, planning for implementation of identified priorities, criteria for deciding on priorities, and evaluation of their processes in research priority setting. / This work was supported by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) under its Applied Research Collaboration (ARC) Yorkshire and Humber in the form of Ph.D. funding to HI [NIHR200166], the UK Prevention Research Partnership (UKPRP) in the form of funding to JW and RM [MR/S037527/1], the NIHR Clinical Research Network in the form of funding to JW, and the NIHR ARC Yorkshire and Humber in the form of funding to RM.

This paper presents the results of a critical discourse analysis of a selection of Canada’s security texts and argues that the country’s security discourses construct Muslims as dangerous and different from the normative Canadian. The research relies on a social constructionist understanding of discourse and the recognition that our state’s representatives and agents, operating from positions of discursive power, wield disproportionate influence in directing the national conversation and managing the signals that shape our social attitudes and imaginaries. By persistently qualifying terrorism with Islam, portraying the terrorist figure as a religiously and ideologically-motivated actor opposed to ‘Western values’ and by casting suspicion on the ordinary behaviour of Muslims, Canada’s security discourses produce a mental model in which Islam and its followers are associated with a propensity for terrorist violence. The discourses also naturalize the idea that Muslims are in need of surveillance, not only by the state’s agents, but by the public itself. When examined alongside a body of research illustrating Canada’s ‘visible minority’ population continues to be negatively affected by dominant group discrimination, the results of the study raise questions about the culpability of state representatives in the reproduction of ideas of difference which continue to inform the country’s social imaginary and hinder the equality and inclusivity of minority groups within the national collective.

The objective of this study is to define differences and similarities in certain aspects of education, experience, and business practices of White, Black, and Latin American small businessmen, and approximately fifty questions relating to their operations were asked.