Acculturation and adaptation of immigrant adolescents in Greek urban schools

The purpose of this study was to examine the acculturation, psychological well-being, and school adjustment of Pontian adolescents from the former Soviet Union (FSU-Pontians), who are immigrants of the diaspora living in Greece, compared with an immigrant group from Albania and native Greek classmates. The sample included 165 FSU-Pontian immigrants, 272 immigrants from Albania, and their 525 Greek classmates (mean age = 13.7 years). School adjustment data were obtained using multiple methods and informants. Students also reported their subjective well-being and acculturation via multiple measures. Findings indicated that FSU-Pontian adolescents, although they are Greek citizens, had a stronger ethnic and a lower host-national orientation than did Albanian students. Both immigrant groups experienced similar difficulties in school adjustment. Involvement in Greek culture was a salient predictor of school adjustment, while involvement in one's ethnic culture was related to subjective well-being. Findings suggest that the acculturation expectations of host country members may be related to immigrants' acculturation orientations.     

IMMIGRATION, NATIONALISM, AND HUMAN RIGHTS

Abstract: Michael Walzer and David Miller defend the authority of democratic states to determine who will be allowed entry and membership. In support of this view they have claimed that the domestic solidarity necessary for social justice is threatened by the unregulated influx of outsiders. This empirical thesis proves to be false when applied to the United States, where heavy Latino and Latina immigration is more likely to increase civic solidarity than to diminish it. Seen in this light, the positions of Jürgen Habermas and Carol Gould, giving human rights priority over democratic sovereignty in decisions about membership, cannot be criticized as utopian. Liberal philosophers can also defend open borders as a way to give oppressed peoples representation inside powerful countries where state decisions often threaten access to essential resources and basic freedoms in their home countries.     

ABUNDANT NATURE'S LONG-TERM OPENNESS TO HUMANE BIOCULTURAL DESIGNS

Not by Genes Alone excellently explains Peter J. Richerson and Robert Boyd's important ideas about human gene‐culture co‐evolution to a broader audience but remains short of a larger vision of civilization. Several decades ago Ralph Burhoe had seen that fertile possibility in Richerson and Boyd's work. I suggest getting past present reductionistic customs to a scientific perspective having an integral place for virtue. Subsystem agency is part of this view, as is the driving role of abundance, whose ultimate origins are in the mysterious, quintessentially energetic Big Bang. The free‐rider problem may not impede higher social organization as inexorably as Richerson and Boyd believe; “the tragedy” of enervating leakage from “the commons” may often be less influential than an invigorating flow of externalities to the commons. Eukaryotic origins mark the origin of inevitable wider sharing as higher living systems evolve. I use a metaphor of flesh and spirit in drawing a parallel between that turning point and the wide sharing that occurs in civilization. This helps solve the enigma of the demographic transition. Why do so many productive participants in first‐world societies severely restrict their selfish‐gene reproduction to below replacement birth rate? It is not because culture is maladaptive but because civilization's brain and womb have become partially differentiated in distinct populations. Considerations of social boundaries, myths of sacrifice, and human creativity help in understanding how human social evolution taps potentials present in reality. Human beings' diverse vigorous activities—the organized ones and the inadvertent ones, the wise and the foolish, the good and the bad, the carefully thoughtful and the merely playful—provide the ground of being, or primordial soup, for cultural entities that transcend our intentions. If we have it right for the most part and are fortunate, we will continue to emerge at higher levels.     

Distributive Justice for Others,Collective Angst,and Support for Exclusion of Immigrants

Harsh treatment of others can reflect an underlying motivation to view the world as fair and just and also a dispositional tendency to believe in justice. However, there is a critical need to refine and expand existing knowledge, not only to identify underlying psychological processes but also to better understand how justice may be implicated in support for exclusionary policies. Across two studies, we show that support for policies that restrict immigrants is exclusively associated with thoughts about fair outcomes for other people (distributive justice for others). In Study 1, Americans' dispositional tendency to believe in distributive justice for others was associated with greater support for a policy proposing to further restrict immigrant job seekers' capacity to gain employment in the United States. In Study 2, we experimentally primed thoughts about justice in a sample of U.S. police officers. Support for a policy that mandated stricter policing of illegal immigration was strongest among officers who first thought about fair outcomes for other people, relative to other unique justice primes. Across both studies, distributive justice for others was associated with greater collective angst—perceived threat towards the future existence of Americans. Moreover, collective angst mediated the link between distributive justice for others and support for restrictive policies. Overall, this research suggests that thoughts about distributive justice for others can especially diminish compassion towards immigrants and other underprivileged groups via support for exclusionary policies. In addition, merely thinking about distributive justice for others may be sufficient to amplify social callousness.     

Content and predictors of the ethnic identity of Russian-speaking immigrant adolescents in Finland

The content and predictors of the ethnic identity of Russian-speaking immigrant adolescents ( N =170) in Finland were investigated. The ethnic identity of immigrants was found to be composed of two dimensions, one reflecting the cognitive, evaluative and emotional components of their Russian identity and the other reflecting those of their Finnish identity. The ethnic and linguistic self-identifications of adolescents were strongly related to the extent of and the value given to the Russian and Finnish identity, but neither to the frequency of using nor to their proficiency in the respective languages. The immigrants' perceptions of the relationships with parents were strongly related to their Russian identity. This association was, however, very different for girls and boys. In addition, the Russian contact orientation and Russian language use were strong predictors of the adolescents' Russian identity, whereas their Finnish contact orientation and Finnish language use strongly predicted their Finnish identity.     

Political Rhetoric,Immigration Attitudes,and Contemporary Prejudice: A Mexican American Dilemma

Abstract

The authors examined political candidates' social stereotypes of Mexican immigrants in mainstream media accounts. From those popular themes, they formed semantic differential scales, which they administered to participants (N = 201) with 1 of 4 scenarios describing an illegal immigrant: of Mexican vs. English Canadian descent and with vs. without several parking tickets. Consistent with contemporary theories of prejudice (J. F. Dovidio & S. L. Gaertner, 1996), the participants indicated the greatest agreement with the pejorative themes when the immigrant described was of Mexican descent and had accumulated parking tickets. Psychologically, the parking tickets served as a nonethnic rationale for discriminating against that ethnic group. The authors discuss the social and public policy implications of Mexican immigration as a political phenomenon.     

Psychological Factors Associated with Support for Suicide Bombing in the Muslim Diaspora

A robust literature on ingroup versus outgroup conflict suggests that perceived discrimination may be an important factor in intergroup aggression. Yet, to date, no studies have tested the hypothesis that the perception of being the victim of anti‐Muslim discrimination might be associated with support for anti‐Western political violence. We undertook an analysis of two Pew Global Attitudes Surveys: (1) a 2006 data set surveying 1,627 adult Muslim residents of Great Britain, France, Germany, and Spain and (2) a 2007 data surveying 1,050 adult Muslim residents of the United States. Our analyses support the conclusions that younger age and perceived discrimination are both associated with support of suicide bombing in these Muslim diaspora populations. Study 1 found that a bad experience of discrimination increased the odds of justifying suicide bombing among European Muslims by a factor of 3.4. Study 2 found that experienced discrimination was associated with justification of suicide bombing among American Muslims. If further investigations confirm that perceived discrimination is a risk factor for support for political violence, initiatives to reduce discrimination would theoretically reduce the risk of terrorism. We discuss the challenge of breaking the vicious cycle of intergroup prejudice and radicalization.     

From the body: an exchange on scholarship and advocacy

Abstract

In this article, the authors draw from their own experiences working among religious congregations that minister to unauthorized immigrants in the new destinations in the U.S. to reflect on the relationship between scholarship and advocacy. They argue that because of the scholar's embodied condition, his/her location in networks of relations characterized by power differentials, scholarship will always involve a measure of advocacy, invariably containing judgments not only about what counts as legitimate and authoritative methods, arguments, and data for the religious-studies scholarly ‘community,’ but also about the place of the scholar and her/his scholarly community in the larger society. However, as their own experiences show, not all forms of advocacy are equal – they vary in their level of publicness, as well as the intensity and type of the engagement – and these various modalities carry potential payoffs and pitfalls. Thus, rather than trying to draw fixed, sharp, and ultimately untenable boundaries between scholarship and advocacy, the task is to develop a reflexive, pragmatic, and experimental attitude that can allow for these two dimensions of praxis to benefit from each other, animated by a critical approach and an emancipatory interest focused on the intractable problems and defining dilemmas of our age.     

Not in My Backyard! Authoritarianism,Social Dominance Orientation,and Support for Strict Immigration Policies at Home and Abroad

Many controversial immigration policies have recently emerged across the United States and abroad. We explore the role of national context in shaping support for such policies. Specifically, we examine whether the extent to which ideological attitudes—Right‐Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) and Social Dominance Orientation (SDO)—predict policy support is moderated by the national context of the policy. Across three studies, United States citizens read about a controversial immigration policy affecting either their own country (United States) or a foreign country (Israel or Singapore) and indicated their support for the policy. Results reveal that SDO predicts policy support, regardless of its national context; this effect is mediated by perceived competition. Conversely, RWA predicts policy support only if the policy affects domestic immigration; this effect is mediated by perceptions of cultural threat. Consistent with prior research, the present findings highlight the role of perceived cultural threat to one's ingroup and perceived competition in shaping attitudes toward immigration and shed light on some of the motivations underlying the recent rise in popularity of strict immigration policies.