Negotiating Racial Identity

Abstract

Counseling research on racial identity development among multiracial people has largely overlooked the complexity of these individuals' social experiences and how their multiple realities result in various racial identities. The assumptions that individuals with one Black and one White parent can only understand themselves as “Black” or “biracial” have been socially, culturally and politically constructed, providing a misguided foundation for models of racial identity. Here, we present findings from a study of 177 biracial individuals that illustrate the multidimensionality of racial identity among this population. We focus on the mechanism of interactional validation in identity construction to better understand the particular dilemmas faced by biracial women and formulate appropriate therapeutic approaches.     

Negotiating Identity: Post-colonial Ethics and Transnational Adoption

This paper examines the overwhelming desire of transnational adoptees to establish a connection with their origins in order to both come to terms with the past and develop an understanding of their identity. It considers the ethical ramifications of the commodification of human bodies. It is suggested that the idea of displacement is most helpful in approaching questions of transnational adoption. In this way, we can look at transnational adoption as a ‘beginning’—one that disappears into the present moment, becoming the constitutive reality underlying Derrida's concern with displacement—rather than its origin. For, what does the quest for a return to the point of origin entail? Transnational adoptees, when they embark on the journey of reclaiming their past, of coming to terms with their sense of loss, realise that there is no simple comfort in returning—that they are inevitably caught in the two worlds in which they co-exist. It is through this recognition of the traces that are contained in them, through this displacement, that they are able to negotiate identity.     

Maintaining Men's Dominance: Negotiating Identity and Power When She Earns More

This article examines the power dynamics in marriages where wives earn substantially more than their husbands based on in-depth interviews with husbands and wives in 30 couples. The results demonstrate how normative gender expectations constrain interactions between spouses and how spouses in these unconventional marriages struggle to construct appropriate gender identities that are more or less consistent with the conventional expectations that men should be breadwinners and women should be homemakers. These data represent an important counterpoint to the growing body of quantitative work that demonstrates that a woman's power diminishes as her income exceeds her husband's by illuminating how men's power is preserved within marriage, even in the absence of their traditional economic dominance.     

Outness and Identity in Context: Negotiating Sexual Disclosure in LGBT Campaigns

With Tammy Baldwin’s historic election to the US Senate, the future of LGBT politics appears increasingly optimistic; however, despite electoral progress, feminist and political science research on LGBT campaigns retains antiquated conceptions of outness. My article studies the impact of identity and outness on LGBT campaigns from a non-binary, multi-dimensional perspective. Beyond mere sexual disclosure itself, I find that where, when, and how a candidate reveals her/his sexual orientation bears predominant impact on LGBT campaigns. Through a holistic framework, I present innovative questions and perspective for researchers studying the effects of LGBT identity and outness in US electoral politics.     

Family Climate and Identity Style During Late Adolescence

This study explored the association between family environment, parent-adolescent relationships, and identity style in late adolescence. A sample of 351 first year students at the University of Guelph completed a survey in 1994. A modest association was found between family environment and identity style. Adolescents from cohesive families tended to have normative identity styles and adolescents from expressive families were less likely to have diffuse/avoidant identity styles. Parent-adolescent relationships were not associated with identity style. These findings provide partial support for the theory that family relationships are an important predictor of individual differences in identity style during adolescence.     

Gendered Constructions of Power During Discourse About Sexual Harassment: Negotiating Competing Meanings

A qualitative study using same-sex and mixed-sex focus groups and stimulated recall interviews was designed to identify and explore gendered constructions of power during discourse about sexual harassment. It was discovered that the men tended to construct power as hierarchically held by individuals with formal authority. Consequently, they tended to view sexual harassers as managers and supervisors. Women tended to view power as a negotiated process in which power was gained and lost through interactions. Consequently, the women tended to perceive all members of an organization as possible harassers. When these men and women were given an opportunity to discuss these issues during mixed gendered interactions, they failed to recognize the gendered constructions of power. Implications are discussed.     

Negotiating Safety and Wellbeing: The Collaboration Between Faith-Based Communities and Public Health During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Journal of Religion and Health - The COVID-19 pandemic led to lockdown measures where congregational faith-based activities were prohibited. With time, the collateral impacts of confinement emerged...     

Negotiating Problems of Written Argumentation

Studies from many countries report that secondary school students do not master written argumentation well enough. This article presents a case study from lower secondary school where the question of problems in written argumentation is approached from a different angle: instead of focusing on argumentative weaknesses in student texts, it concentrates on what students are capable of and struggle with when they write argumentative texts in cooperation with a scaffolding teacher. Findings from this study show that a clear text pattern communicated through teaching and teacher response helped weak as well as strong writers to improve common problems related to audience awareness and the structure of argumentative texts. In cooperation with a commenting teacher all students were also able to support a standpoint with more reasons and to strengthen their own position by refuting a counterargument, although to varying degrees. However, only a couple of revised texts suggest that students had the will, skill and insight needed to follow up teacher response that encouraged a more distanced view on heated debates, conflict negotiations, self-reflection and critical thinking.     

Objective Threat of Unemployment and Situational Uncertainty During a Restructuring: Associations with Perceived Job Insecurity and Strain

Purpose  

This study investigates objective threat of unemployment and situational uncertainty following restructuring in relation to perceived job insecurity and associated strain.     

A Primer on Unemployment

This article discusses the definition and causes of unemployment, national unemployment rates since 1929, and workers who typically experience the highest incidence of job loss.     

Negotiating an Open Marriage in Couple Therapy

Open marriages as arrangements between married couples to explore sexual and emotional intimacy with partners outside the marriage have been documented in research in other countries. This paper focuses on two case examples of couples seen in therapy to negotiate an open marriage. This is a new therapeutic trend in India, driven by various social and cultural changes. The therapeutic processes and the key challenges in working with couples in open marriages are outlined. Implications for couple therapy practice in the Indian socio-cultural context are explored.     

Identity Closure: A Fifth Identity Status

This study examined identity status and self-actualization of young adults (N = 41), who were administered a revised identity interview (based on Marcia's interview) and a measure of self-actualization (the Personal Orientation Inventory). A fifth status, identity closure, was added to account for status regression and re-foreclosure, found in previous studies. This addition prompted a revision of the operational definition of identity achievement to include three criteria: exploration, tentative commitment, and openness to alternatives. Open achieved individuals scored higher than closed individuals on the measure of self-actualization, suggesting some validity for the revised operational definition of identity achievement and providing support for Eriksonian theory. Theoretical implications and the development of a revised paradigm are discussed.     

Marketing Social Work Skills and Negotiating Personal Contracts

This paper illustrates, through three case situations, several problems facing professional social workers who attempt to enter the marketplace as independent contractors, consultants, or private practitioners. An historical rationale is presented to explain why the professional associations and formal educational programs have not adequately prepared nor encouraged practitioners wishing to enter this arena and compete against other human service professionals. Finally, eleven areas that social work professionals need to consider prior to marketing their skills and engaging in personal contracts have been identified and categorized.     

Negotiating Indigenous Metaphysics as Educational Philosophy in Ethiopia

In Ethiopia, the history of the use of modern philosophical categories in education is short. This is because the country’s modern education itself is barely 100 years old. What is not so short, however, is the history of the use of indigenous metaphysics in temehert (traditional education), which goes back as far as the introduction of Christianity to Ethiopia—to the fourth century A.D. Since its inception, education has had a close, if ambivalent, relationship with different philosophical tenets, with the advocates of each tenet trying to formulate educational philosophy around its own unique metaphysical narrative. While some narratives arose from indigenous legends, others were imported (and domesticated in some cases) from abroad. The recent tendency of educational philosophy in Ethiopia has a slightly ‘(post)modernist’ philosophical flavor to it, even though it might not be self-consciously postmodernist in nature. In this essay, I intend to show how a deliberate, or unwitting, de-link with indigenous metaphysics could affect the trajectory, and also the success, of the educational system in Ethiopia. After a brief paradigmatic characterization of two metaphysical categories and their underlying narratives, I critically unravel the ethno-federalist metaphysics of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF). I focus on the ethno-federalist system because it is an incumbent philosophy. After discussing a nascent remedy proposed by Maimire Mennasemay, viz., the notion of ‘nostalgic memory,’ best known as tezeta, I argue for the primacy of the notion of ‘covenant thinking,’ also known as qal-kidan, as a better alternative.     

Unemployment and Health: Selection Effects

A large number of studies have shown that the unemployed are less healthy, both physically and psychologically, than the employed. The explanation may be that unemployment has negative health effects. An alternative, or additional, explanation is that healthy persons are less likely to become unemployed or more likely to find new employment if they become unemployed. Such effects of health on employment status are generally referred to as selection effects. The present paper analyses to what extent such selection effects are present in the Norwegian labour market. Panel data with observations made in 1989 and 1993 are used. The analyses show that people with psychological problems are more likely to be laid off, and there is also some evidence that psychological or physical health problems may reduce the chances of finding a new job if one has become unemployed. It is of particular interest that these selection effects can be documented for a country like Norway, which has strong legislation supporting worker rights and a quite high degree of unionization.