Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Contributors
- Foreword
- Preface
- 1 Natural Experiments, Causal Influences, and Policy Development
- 2 Growing Up Ethnic in the United Kingdom and the United States: Comparative Contexts for Youth Development
- 3 The Multiple Facets of Ethnicity
- 4 Educational Attainments: Ethnic Differences in the United Kingdom
- 5 Race and Ethnic Inequality in Educational Attainment in the United States
- 6 Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Crime and Delinquency in the United States
- 7 Explaining Ethnic Variations in Crime and Antisocial Behavior in the United Kingdom
- 8 Cultural Differences in the Effects of Physical Punishment
- 9 Ethnicity and Mental Health: The Example of Schizophrenia in the African-Caribbean Population in Europe
- 10 Ethnic Variations in Youth Suicide
- 11 Ethnicity and Intergenerational Identities and Adaptations in Britain: The Socio-Political Context
- 12 Assimilation, Dissimilation, and Ethnic Identities: The Experience of Children of Immigrants in the United States
- 13 Deciphering Ethnicity: Reflections on Research Opportunities
- Author Index
- Subject Index
Foreword
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 July 2014
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Contributors
- Foreword
- Preface
- 1 Natural Experiments, Causal Influences, and Policy Development
- 2 Growing Up Ethnic in the United Kingdom and the United States: Comparative Contexts for Youth Development
- 3 The Multiple Facets of Ethnicity
- 4 Educational Attainments: Ethnic Differences in the United Kingdom
- 5 Race and Ethnic Inequality in Educational Attainment in the United States
- 6 Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Crime and Delinquency in the United States
- 7 Explaining Ethnic Variations in Crime and Antisocial Behavior in the United Kingdom
- 8 Cultural Differences in the Effects of Physical Punishment
- 9 Ethnicity and Mental Health: The Example of Schizophrenia in the African-Caribbean Population in Europe
- 10 Ethnic Variations in Youth Suicide
- 11 Ethnicity and Intergenerational Identities and Adaptations in Britain: The Socio-Political Context
- 12 Assimilation, Dissimilation, and Ethnic Identities: The Experience of Children of Immigrants in the United States
- 13 Deciphering Ethnicity: Reflections on Research Opportunities
- Author Index
- Subject Index
Summary
Over the years, ethnic minority groups have often been viewed by both the media and the general population as “problems.” For some this has been because they have been viewed as representing social disadvantage, and for others because they have been seen as genetically inferior. Currently, many countries are in the midst of intense political debate about the supposed way in which immigrant groups are undermining the host culture and asylum seekers are constituting a burden on the state. The Jacobs Foundation has been concerned with the reality that some ethnic minority groups do indeed experience difficulties and, equally, with the fact that the prevailing stereotypes are usually misleading in several rather different ways. Accordingly, we were very pleased to initiate and sponsor the international, interdisciplinary conference that provided the basis for this edited volume.
The Foundation was keen that both the conference and the book would provide an incisive, insightful new look at ethnicity, and the contributors to this book have done this in admirable fashion. Three main themes constitute the basis for this truly fresh approach to ethnicity. First, there is discussion of the many facets of ethnicity. It is not an objective “thing.” Rather it is a complex amalgam of cultural traditions, religion, geography, skin color, facial appearance, self-identification, host labeling, political decisions and genetic background. Each of these facets may be crucially important in different circumstances, but often they pull in different directions. Moreover, some of the facets are dimensional and some are categorical.
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- Information
- Ethnicity and Causal Mechanisms , pp. xi - xiiPublisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2005