Ithe Effect of Ethnicity on Personal and Communi Ty Development (original) (raw)
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Explorations in Ethnic Studies, 1996
Social science provides us with a variety of theories that attempt to explain the dynamics of race and ethnicity. Many of these theories are concerned with the basic question of ethnic difference: its origins, persistence, and decline. In the contemporary literature on immigration to the United States and on how immigrants adjust to that relocation, assimilation and the persistence of ethnic identity have often been considered polar opposites. Researchers, however, are beginning to find that both processes often occur simultaneously, as when immigrants become acculturated into American society but also maintain or even construct distinct ethnic identities, often “symbolically.” Even though a generation of immigrants may give up their ethnic identities, adopt the host language, and intermarry, their children or grandchildren may choose to renew ancestral ethnicities, and in so doing, may even contribute to the re-ethnicization of their parents as adults. Ethnicity (and ethnic identit...
Ethnic Identity Development in Schools among First Generation Immigrants in the United States
Today, Americans increasingly concerned about the matter of immigration in the United States. A growing number believe that immigrants are burden to the country, taking jobs and housing and creating strains on the health care system. Many Americans are also worry about the cultural impact of the expanding number of newcomers to the U.S. This paper aims to present a brief but concise discussion by reviewing literature that deals on the development of ethnic identity of first generation immigrants' students in the U.S. This is a relevant study since the influx of immigrants coming in the U.S. has made great impact on the overall societal changes.
Racial and Ethnic Identity and Development
New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, 1999
Racial and ethnic identity are critical parts of the overall framework of individual and collective identity. For some especially visible and legally defined minority populations in the United States, racial and ethnic identity are manifested in very conscious ways. This manifestation is triggered most often by two conflicting social and cultural influences. First, deep conscious immersion into cultural traditions and values through religious, familial, neighborhood, and educational communities instills a positive sense of ethnic identity and confidence. Second, and in contrast, individuals often must filter ethnic identity through negative treatment and media messages received from others because of their race and ethnicity. These messages make it clear that people with minority status have a different ethnic make-up and one that is less than desirable within mainstream society. Others, especially white Americans, manifest ethnic and racial identity in mostly unconscious ways through their behaviors, values, beliefs, and assumptions. For them, ethnicity is usually invisible and unconscious because societal norms have been constructed around their racial, ethnic, and cultural frameworks, values, and priorities and then referred to as "standard American culture" rather than as "ethnic identity." This unconscious ethnic identity manifests itself in daily behaviors, attitudes, and ways of doing things. Unlike many minority cultures, there is little conscious instilling of specific ethnic identity through white communities, nor is differential ethnic treatment often identified in the media of white cultures. As we discuss throughout this chapter, everyone benefits from the development of a conscious ethnic identity and benefits as well when multicultural frameworks are used in their learning environments.
The effect of ethnicity on personal and community development
1973
My interviews pointed out certain concepts concerning ethnicity which were important to the ethnic. These included ethnicity's relationship to a "feeling of warmth, sharing and closeness", "pride in what you are", "knowledge of your background to better understand self and others", and "concept of identity.* Case studies by Vita Sommers and Elizabeth Hartwell illustrate the cultural identity problems, differences and needs of the ethnics which could influence their participation in society and their response to various social services.
International Journal of Literacy, Culture, and Language Education
Identity is an issue that everyone struggles with on a daily basis while constantly changing, adapting, and becoming agents of the social spheres in which we participate. At large, a society and its social demands mold us into becoming agents of that society. Literacy and education are at the heart of this social molding, from within the family sphere to the larger social spheres. But how can one reformat all the sociocultural training he/she has received in order to adapt to a new social sphere and simply change, lose, and gain identity? These questions are significant to multicultural societies such as US and Canada, and even more prevalent with respect to immigrant populations. Using autoethnographical data and literature in this area, this paper discusses the issues of immigrant identity and literacy in twofold: a) the lack of attention to immigration and acculturation phenomena; b) the importance of understanding immigrant students’ experiences and the need for diversification ...
School Community Journal, 2014
It has been projected that 33% of all school children will be from immigrant households by the year 2040 (Suarez-Orozco et al., 2010). For school personnel (e.g., administrators, counselors, teachers) working with immigrant youth and adolescents, understanding ethnic identity development is an essential cultural competency. In this essay, the authors outline how the family, peer, and school contexts can influence a student's ethnic identity, along with suggested activities that utilize ethnic identity development to enhance student personal/social development. Greater personal/social development of individual students and greater integration of marginalized ethnic groups can contribute to a healthier school community. Informal methods of evaluating outcomes are also identified.
Ethnogenesis: Coming of Age in Immigrant America
Ethnicities: Children of Immigrants in America, 2001
At the dawn of a new century, new American ethnic groups are forming faster than ever before. The emerging ethnic groups of the United States in the 21 st century will be the children and grandchildren of today's immigrants. Their numbers and diversity will ensure that the process will have a profound societal impact. This new era of mass immigrationand hence of ethnogenesis-now overwhelmingly non-European in composition, is raising familiar doubts about the assimilability of the newcomers and alarms that they might become consigned to a vast multiethnic underclass, on the other side of a new 21 st century "color line." While assimilation may still represent the master process in the study of today's immigrants, it is a process subject to too many contingencies and affected by too many variables to render the image of a relatively uniform and straightforward path convincing. Instead, the present generation of children of immigrants is better defined as undergoing a process of "segmented assimilation" where outcomes vary across immigrant minorities, and where rapid integration and acceptance into the American mainstream represent just one possible alternative. Why this is so-and how it is that different groups may come to assimilate to different sectors of American society-is a complex story that is explored in this book. The chapters that follow examine systematically a wide range of factors that shape the incorporation of youths of diverse national origins-Mexican, Cuban, Nicaraguan, Filipino, Vietnamese, Haitian, Jamaican and other West Indian-coming of age in immigrant families on both coasts of the United States. They are based on an analysis of a rich new data set collected by the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study (CILS), the largest to date in the United States.