Made in America: Perspectives on Friendship in West African Immigrant Families

This qualitative study compared West African immigrant parents’ and adolescents’ perspectives on parental monitoring of adolescents’ peer groups. Parents (n = 31) and adolescent children (n = 25) were interviewed using focus groups and individual interviews, and data were analyzed using a grounded theory approach. Parents expressed a general concern about external influences on their children, particularly their mistrust of their children’s friends. Adolescents reported that they were aware of their parents’ fears and described their attempts to manage their parents’ concerns while simultaneously maintaining friendships with same-ethnic and other-ethnic peers. This study offers both parent and adolescent perspectives in an effort to better understand adolescents’ peer socialization and parental monitoring among West African immigrant families, one of the fastest growing demographic groups in the United States. Recommendations for mental health professions are discussed.     

Muslims in the West: A select bibliography

The presence of Muslims in the West has posed a challenge to the self-assured populations of Europe. This bibliography provides an overview of available scholarship in the English language on the situation of Muslims in Western Europe and in areas of traditional European settlement. It is demonstrable that the conditions they face vary according to established relationships between religion and state in each country, the laws that govern immigration, naturalization and citizenship, the heritage of tolerance, the acceptance of alternative social values and the willingness to allow Muslim participation in the democratic process.     

Gender Roles in Immigrant Families: Parenting Views, Practices, and Child Development

Ecological and acculturation frameworks are especially central to understanding the experiences of immigrant populations and to date, current research has yielded new conceptual and methodological tools for documenting the cultural and developmental processes of children and their families. This special issue of 12 articles focuses on immigrant families and the importance of gender along various dimensions: parental roles, parent–child relationships, child outcomes. The collection of articles also represents various innovative methodologies used, including quantitative and qualitative approaches.     

Important Considerations in the Counseling Process of Immigrant Venezuelan Families

Recent increases in the number of Venezuelan immigrant families in the United States and/or Canada have contributed to the need for developing effective assessment and counseling strategies to help this population integrate into their new environment. Assessment of Venezuelan families may be achieved effectively when therapists are able to delineate, without stereotyping, the contribution of culture to the presenting complaint and symptomatology. This article presents therapeutic considerations relating to Venezuelan families. Guidelines for gathering clinical information are discussed.     

守望相助 穆斯林温暖人心的抗疫故事

这是人类历史上一个不同寻常的冬春之交,新型冠状病毒感染的肺炎疫情成为这段时日对所有人的严峻考验。坚决遏制疫情蔓延势头!坚决打赢疫情防控阻击战!这是一场没有旁观者的全民行动,是一场齐心协力的人民战争。在这场人民的战疫中,在这场病毒与生命、疫情与人性的较量中,穆斯林冲锋陷阵、一往无前,用无疆大爱构筑起一个个温暖人心的抗疫故事。     

Family Therapy with English Caribbean Immigrant Families in the United States: Issues of Emigration, Immigration, Culture, and Race

Many English Caribbean families in the United States are referred for therapy because of difficulties related to their adaptation to a new country/culture. This paper focuses on the intra-familial, and the family-larger system transitional/adjustment difficulties experienced by these families and presents issues specific to therapy with them. Effective therapy with English Caribbean families and their subsystems requires that therapists communicate to these families an understanding of their concerns, be knowledgeable about heterogeneity in cultural values and traditions, and create a therapeutic atmosphere in which families can feel valued and respected. Recommendations for therapists are presented and discussed.     

基督宗教对海外华人移民活动的影响——近代福建地区的三次集体移民活动述评

近代福建,天主教区、华人基督徒、新教传教士分别参与、发动和组织了当地天主教徒、基督教徒移民非洲、东南亚地区的集体移民活动.本文尝试结合基督教研究与华侨华人史研究,对这三次集体移民做一述评,分析比较移民活动参与者、组织者及其社会角色的异同.文章认为,近代基督宗教在华人移民海外运动中扮演的角色多元,性质复杂,不仅影响着华侨华人移民运动的发展,亦为华人信徒提供了一个普世性的社会流动网络,使基督宗教成为海外华人宗教的重要组成部分.     

Immigrant Youth and Employment: Lessons Learned from the Analysis of LSIC and 82 Lived Stories

Finding a job has become a critical challenge to many youth. Immigrant youth, who have been a key part of the global migrants, are particularly vulnerable when entering the job market of the host country due to various structural barriers. However, in both public policy discourse and research, their labour market experience tends to be overlooked. In this paper, we report the employment experience of recently arrived immigrant youth based on an analysis of the LSIC and findings of in-depth interviews of 82 immigrant youth in four cities in Canada. Our results reveal that recently arrived immigrant youth tend to work in lower-skilled employment, experience significant delays in finding employment, have difficulties with foreign credential recognition, and have fewer means to access to job markets.     

Child Discipline and Physical Abuse in Immigrant Latino Families: Reducing Violence and Misunderstandings

This article examines common areas of misunderstanding between professionals and low‐income Latino families concerning issues of physical abuse. It argues that low‐income immigrant children deserve the same protection from harsh physical punishment as all other children. This ar ticle suggests culturally competent ways for counselors to work with Latino families to eliminate all forms of violence toward children including corporal punishment. Finally, this article argues that the systemic stresses on low‐income Latino immigrant families must be acknowledged and reduced when addressing child discipline and abuse.     

Loneliness and Acculturation Among Adolescents From Immigrant Families in Portugal1

The aims of this study were to find out the degree of loneliness among adolescents with immigrant backgrounds in Portugal and the factors that may predict the level of loneliness among them. The study sample consisted of 313 adolescents. The mean duration of sojourn in Portugal for the sample was 8.2 years (SD= 4.8). They were asked to complete a questionnaire. A control group involving 363 Portuguese youth was also included in the study. There were no significant differences between adolescents from immigrant families and Portuguese adolescents who have never migrated in terms of level of loneliness. The strongest predictors of loneliness were self-esteem, duration of sojourn, and perceived discrimination. Implications of the study for counselors are suggested.     

Parental Influence on Children during Educational Television Viewing in Immigrant Families

It has been suggested by researchers that educational television programmes may support the language and literacy development for children, especially those in immigrant families. In an immigrant family, many family characteristics appear to be related to educational television programme viewing of children at home, for example, parental acculturation (the process of adapting to the new culture) and parental mediation (supervision and guidance) of television viewing. In the present work, the parental influence on children during educational television viewing was studied quantitatively, based on a sample (n = 171) of immigrant families with children aged 3–6 years collected across the U.S. The results have revealed that significant differences existed between Asian and Hispanic groups in coviewing mediation and in their children's educational television viewing. Furthermore, language in parental acculturation significantly predicted instructive and restrictive parental mediation, and parental occupation significantly predicted language in parental acculturation. This study initiates the attention to the topic of educational television viewing in immigrant families, which warrants further investigations in the future as the Asian and Hispanic immigrant population increases rapidly in the U.S. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Dynamics in the Notions of Sexuality Among Three Generations of Bulgarian Muslims

Based on ethnographic research in a Muslim town in Bulgaria, this study provides a comparative analysis, exploring the modernization of sex and sexuality within three generations of Pomaks (Slavic Muslims). Although the modernization of sexuality was “postponed” by the repression against Muslims in Bulgaria during communism known as “Rebirth process”, the results from the study show that the detraditionalization of sexuality is not a rapid and recent process and that different (hidden) forms of sexual/intimate interaction have existed long before the democratic changes after 1989. The liberalization of the sexual attitudes after 1989 was strongly intensified by the opening of a high school in the community, the development of the local economy, and the influence of media. The emerging non-traditional models of sexual behavior and attitudes are initiated primarily by women with higher education within the context of women rights and independence. However, the modernization is not a homogeneous linear process but is rather adapted to the local customs and expectations and depends greatly on the educational status of women. Paying particular attention to the women’s sexuality, this study analyzes the processes of detraditionalization of sexuality in comparison to another Muslim community in Bulgaria known for its re-traditionalization in terms of gender and sexuality because of the influence of Arabic organizations. The results suggest that the ethnic isolation and the following need for ethnic identification of Pomaks has intensified two opposite tendencies regarding sexual attitudes in two similar communities.     

Expanding Possibilities: Flexibility and Solidarity with Under-resourced Immigrant Families During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The novel coronavirus has added new anxieties and forms of grieving to the myriad practical and emotional burdens already present in the lives of underserved and uninsured immigrant families and communities. In this article, we relate our experiences since the COVID-19 crisis to the lessons we have learned over time as mental health professionals working with families in no-cost, student-managed community comprehensive health clinics in academic-community partnerships. We compare and contrast the learnings of flexibility of time, space, procedures, or attendance we acquired in this clinical community setting during regular times, with the new challenges families and therapists face, and the adaptations needed to continue to work with our clients in culturally responsive and empowering ways during the COVID-19 pandemic. We describe families, students, professionals, promotoras (community links), and IT support staff joining together in solidarity as the creative problem solvers of new possibilities when families do not have access to Wi-Fi, smartphones, or computers, or suffer overcrowding and lack of privacy. We describe many anxieties related to economic insecurity or fear of facing death alone, but also how to visualize expanding possibilities in styles of parenting or types of emotional support among family members as elements of hope that may endure beyond these unprecedented tragic times of loss and uncertainty.