Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Health And Social Service Needs In A Northeastern Metropolitan Area: Ethnic Group Differences, Paul D. Cleary, Harold W. Demone Jr.

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Data from a representative sample of Boston area residents were analyzed to examine differences among ethnic populations in perceived needs and use of services for eight problem areas. The areas studied were: employment problems; financial problems; problems of the aged living alone; alcohol problems; personal; family or marital problems; child behavior or education problems; the need for homemaker services; and the need for a home nurse. The results indicate substantial differences between perceived needs and reported use of services, and both those factors varied by ethnic identification.

The Relationship Of Race, Socioeconomic Status And Marital Status To Kin Networks, Ferol E. Mennen

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Data from a purposive sample of families of elementary school children in New Orleans regarding contact and assistance with extended family members was analyzed to see if race, socioeconomic status or marital status predicted involvement in a kin network. Analysis of variance revealed that black and lower class families had higher levels of contact and black families had higher levels on one of the assistance measures. However when the distance from the extended family was used as a covariate the relationship disappeared. Marital status had no ability to predict.

Commentary: The "Negro" Problem In The 1980s, Wornie L. Reed

Trotter Review

Since 1984 the National Research Council (NRC) of the National Academy of Science has been conducting a study on the status of black Americans. And since 1986 the William Monroe Trotter Institute has been conducting a similar study. The Trotter Institute study was developed because we wanted to have the widest possible discussion of the present condition of blacks and the social policy implications of that condition.

Book Review: The Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner City, The Underclass, And Public Policy By William Julius Wilson, James Jennings

Trotter Review

William Julius Wilson’s The Truly Disadvantaged represents the debate of the last 10 to 20 years about race, poverty, and public policy. Part of Wilson’s rationale for the book is the belief that conservative policy analysts and ideologues have gained the upper hand in presenting their case about black urban poverty. He hopes to provide a framework of liberal analysis that will allow a better understanding of the causes of the intensifying black poverty.

Scientific Racism: Persistence And Change, William Edwards

Trotter Review

In the United States, World War II was hailed as the “war to end all wars.” The war itself was considered a classic confrontation between the forces of liberal democracy and those of German fascism. Inherent in the ideology of nazism was Adolf Hitler’s “final solution,” the specter of rule by a nation committed to genocide. The Third Reich was dedicated to the proposition of “Aryan superiority.” The Allied Forces, dedicated to the principles of democracy and freedom (though there were inconsistencies between principle and practice), vigorously opposed the geopolitical intentions of Hitler’s regime and its pronounced policy of racial …

Dynamics Of Minority Education: An Index To The Status Of Race And Ethnic Relations In The United States, James E. Blackwell

Trotter Review

Throughout this century scholars and legal experts have devoted special attention to the issue of race and ethnicity as a determinant of life chances in the United States. Some of the more influential treatises in the social and behavioral sciences, many of which have become classics, addressed fundamental, derivative (and often more compelling) extensions of race and ethnicity. They focused on such topics as race-based group dominance, ethnic stratification, structural inequality based upon racial or ethnic identification, beliefs in inherent racial superiority and status privilege, class exploitation, the nature of prejudice, and the maintenance of power over groups defined as …

Recisions, Organizational Conditions And Job Satisfaction Among Black And White Human Service Workers: A Research Note, R. L. Mcneely

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Despite the growing attention evident in the human services literature on the related topics of job satisfaction and burnout, virtually none of the empirical studies published to date have examined the possible influences of recent federal and state cutbacks in human service funding levels on the job satisfaction of human service workers. One outcome of these cutbacks has been the curtailment of services offered by county welfare departments, often achieved by reducing the number of public welfare workers through hiring freezes, attrition, layoffs, etc. The remaining public welfare workers often have then been placed in the unenviable position of trying …

Roxbury, Boston, And The Boston Smsa: Socioeconomic Trends 1960-1985, Sally Brewster Moulton

New England Journal of Public Policy

Socioeconomic trends for a primarily black and poor urban area, Roxbury, Massachusetts, are compared to those of the surrounding city of Boston and the Boston Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area (SMSA) for the period 1960 to 1985. Patterns in income, poverty, labor force participation, educational attainment, and racial composition are examined for each of the three areas. The chief purpose of the analysis is to determine the nature of gaps between Roxbury residents and the rest of the metropolitan area as well as the ways in which such gaps have changed over time.

The findings indicate that, despite growth in income, …

Lead Poisoning: A Health Epidemic In The Black Community, Wornie L. Reed

Trotter Review

Lead poisoning in humans has been identified as a cause of high blood pressure, heart disease, birth defects, complications in pregnancies and developmental problems in infants. It is a health problem of epidemic dimensions in the black community. This serious health problem is yet another example of the production of “illth” in the modern society. As the means of production create wealth for some sectors of society they also create illth.

Racial Insularity At The Core: Contemporary American Racial Attitudes, A. Wade Smith

Trotter Review

Survey research scientists have been interested in American racial attitudes ever since the craft has achieved a reasonable degree of precision. White attitudes toward blacks constitute the longest running topic in survey research. However, as a result of dramatic and systematic changes in racial attitudes and because of the changing nature of race relations per se, there may be less agreement now about the structure of American racial values than at any time since World War II. This paper will provide a capsule presentation of the major findings of recent research on racial attitudes and a brief summary of the …

An Analysis Of The General Well-Being Of Blacks And Whites: Results Of A National Study, Sonjia Parker Redmond

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The importance of race as a factor in mental health status has been a topic of controversy. This study examines racial variances in the relationship between selected socio-demographic variables and general well-being. The study also examines the appropriateness of an additive versus an interactive statistical model for this investigation.

Unlike other recent community based mental health studies, this study revealed significant differences between the general well-being of Blacks and Whites. Blacks continued to exhibit significantly lower levels of well-being even after adjustments were made for income, education, marital status, sex, age and place of residence. Statistical interaction was found between …

U.S. Women And Hiv Infection, P. Clay Stephens

New England Journal of Public Policy

Women are inadequately provided with HIV services and education and are differentially denied access to these. Divisions of race, ethnicity, economic class, and religion, among others, are compounded by sexual discrimination within each of these categories.

Review of current data on women with AIDS reveals that the reporting methods used convey a false impression that women are not at significant risk. Moreover, the persons indirectly affected by AIDS are predominantly women — mothers, sisters, partners, family members, teachers, and human service workers. Thus, AIDS is more of a women's issue than the statistics imply.

Women, as a gender-defined class, face …

[Review Of] William L. Andrews. To Tell A Free Story: The First Century Of Afro-American Autobiography, 1760-1865, Suzanne Stutman

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

William L. Andrews' To Tell a Free Story is a fine study of the history and development of the Afro-American narrative in its first century. Andrews presents the narrative in the hands of its creators as a dynamic form which, when studied for its process of telling, expresses the movement of its writers from an absence of self to a celebration of both self and community. It follows in the footsteps of Andrew's' other important contributions to the field of black studies, and promises to serve as a resource to which other studies of the genre can look.

[Review Of] Lucia Chiavola Birnbaum. Liberazione Della Donna. Feminism In Italy, Phylis Cancilla Martinelli

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

A book on feminism in Italy might draw a bewildered look from the average American. The image of Italian women, cultivated by the popular media, is of either a sultry sex pot or a black garbed mamma stirring a spaghetti pot. In both examples these women are seen as subservient to the Italian male. It is unfortunate that these images are so pervasive, and that accurate information on Italian women in our society is limited, since their experiences can be instructive.

[Review Of] John Bodnar. The Transplanted: A History Of Immigrants In Urban America, Gloria Eive

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

The Transplanted is represented as a synthesis of the immigrant experience in urban America. Bodnar posits the confrontation with capitalism as sole explanation for migration, emigration and immigrant behavior in the new country. His stated intent is to "rescue" immigration history from older views of immigrants as hapless victims of circumstance.

[Review Of] Silvester Brito. Red Cedar Warrior, Simon J. Ortiz

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

Red Cedar Warrior, the collection of poems by S.J. Brito, is very obvious in its depiction of trepidations against Native Americans, in its mourning for the loss of culture and traditions, and its expression of anger. We easily see the obvious signs of Native Americanism in most of the poems included in his book. The warrior could not be anything other than Native American, astride a pony, feathered and painted. There are the drums, the ceremonial life, the peyote prayers, the shamans, and such references. We easily see the images and hear the voices that most let us know of …

[Review Of] Vinson Brown. Native Americans Of The Pacific Coast, William Oandasan

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

In the introduction to Native Americans of the Pacific Coast, Vinson Brown presents many admirable ambitions for any scholar writing on human existence. Brown proclaims that he will attempt to make the first Americans "live" in the style of the 1500s to 1700s during the "days of old" and of "glory and independence." He then proceeds to assert that, in order to accomplish this goal, antiquated concepts used to "justify" the conquest of tribal Peoples must be "put aside." He urges us, "instead," to be inquisitive and open so that we can "see and hear" what indigenous life was like …

[Review Of] John J. Bukowczyk. And My Children Do Not Know Me: A History Of The Polish Americans, Joseph T. Makarewicz

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

Bukowczyk provides us with an easily readable and brief general history of Polish Americans. Unfortunately, there is nothing new in it. The works of Helena Z. Lopata, Victor Greene, Ewa Morawaka, and John Bodnar give a more intimate understanding of Polonia.

[Review Of] Carlos Bulosan. America Is In The Heart: A Personal History, S. E. Solberg

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

First published in 1946, America Is in the Heart has reached a seventh printing (1986). Carlos Bulosan's "personal history" has evidenced remarkable staying power, and that mainly in the Asian American ethnic communities and the academic programs which describe and support them. This is all the more remarkable in a book that has been damned by Philippine critics for giving a distorted view of the Philippines, and by American critics for distorting the history of the Filipino in America. Despite all this, the popularity, and the sense of "rightness" that surrounds the book can be explained rather easily once certain …

[Review Of] Jane Campbell. Mythic Black Fiction: The Transformation Of History, Abby H. P. Werlock

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

Jane Campbell's timely study -- a revision of her 1977 Ph.D. dissertation -- appears as an early and sustained response to Afro-American mythmaking, one of the central concerns of current black scholarship. Campbell posits that, to counter the dehumanized experience of blacks in America, Afro-American writers from 1853 to the present have utilized the romance genre to infuse history "with a mythic dimension," thereby transforming their characters from victims into actors who can change history. Beginning with William Wells Brown's Clotel (1853) and ending with David Bradley's The Chaneysville Incident 1981), Campbell's exploration of the transcendent nature of black writing …

[Review Of] Sarah Blacher Cohen, Ed. From Hester Street To Hollywood: The Jewish-American Stage And Screen, Louise Mayo

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

The considerable Jewish American presence on the stage and screen (and now television), has long been marveled at and discussed. Jewish "dominance" in mass media has been a source of pride to Jews and anguish to anti-semites. Nevertheless, it has only been since the 1960s that numbers have been translated into content. From Hester Street to Hollywood attempts to analyze the Jewish presence and experience in areas as varied as serious drama and stand-up comedy.

[Review Of] Nicholas Colangelo, Dick Dustin, And Cecelia H. Foxley, Eds. Multicultural Nonsexist Education: A Human Relations Approach, Margaret A. Laughlin

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

Despite earlier efforts to reduce prejudice and eliminate discrimination, the decade of the 1980s continues to be marked by ongoing assaults on human dignity. Enforcement of earlier hard-earned civil rights laws are declining, oppression of various groups and individuals in our society continues, and attitudes of prejudice and examples of discrimination are reported in the media on a regular basis. Adults are often unable or unwilling to confront their own values, beliefs, and behaviors concerning human oppression. As a result, young people are often presented with inaccurate, incomplete, or inadequate information concerning forces which help to shape our institutions and …

[Review Of] Carmen Gertrudis Espinosa. The Freeing Of The Deer-And Other New Mexico Indian Myths, Silvester J. Brito

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

The Freeing of the Deer is an unusual collection of southwest American Indian-Spanish lore. What makes the book so distinct is that it offers the reader the unique opportunity to appreciate Native American tales which have been preserved in Spanish and translated into English. Moreover, there is a special feature to this collection, for the English-Spanish versions are set up en-face. This collection of Native American world views as seen through their Spanish renditions also makes this an important book to have in one's library. There is, however, a drawback to this collection, namely the lack of eloquence in translation …

[Review Of] Rodney Frey. The World Of The Crow Indians: As Driftwood Lodges, Robert Gish

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

Ethnographic studies have long been plagued by questions of credibility. Can the ethnographer believe his or her sources? And, in turn, can readers believe the ethnographer? Ronald Frey knows full well that such issues of "believability" plague anyone attempting to understand a culture's otherness from the outside. He is determined to explain general historical, religious, and cultural aspects of "the world of the Crow Indians" from as close to the inside as he possibly can tell them.

[Review Of] Minrose C. Gwin. Black And White Women Of The Old South: The Peculiar Sisterhood In American Literature, Louise Mayo

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

In this book, Minrose Gwin explores the interrelationships between women as a model of Southern racial experiences. In order to understand "this volatile, often violent connection between black and white women of the Old South," she examines a wide variety of books including proslavery and abolitionist fiction of the mid-nineteenth century, slave narratives, diaries, and modern fictional versions of the Southern slave experience by Faulkner, Cather and Margaret Walker.

[Review Of] Shivalingappa S. Halli. How Minority Status Affects Fertility: Asian Groups In Canada, Celia J. Wintz

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

The broad subject of ethnicity and its impact on the social behavior of immigrant and minority groups is topical and is of interest both to scholars and to the general public. As a result, Halli's study of fertility rates among Asian immigrants and their descendants in Canada addresses a timely subject.

[Review Of] Katherine Spencer Halpern, Mary E. Holt, And Susan Brown Mcgreevy.Guide To The Microfilm Edition Of The Washington Matthews Papers, Paul G. Zolbrod

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

Today it is being argued that ethnology and literature intersect in some useful ways. Yet Washington Matthews demonstrated as much a century ago, before either of those disciplines had been developed within the American academic system. And although it has been overlooked, his achievement in having done so is considerable, as this potentially useful volume suggests.

[Review Of] Trudier Harris. Black Women In The Fiction Of James Baldwin, Kathleen Hickok

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

Trudier Harris walks a narrow line between a feminist critique of James Baldwin's shortcomings as a masculinist writer and a critical appreciation of the complexity and progression in Baldwin's fictional portrayals of black women. It is not an easy maneuver, but her balance is sure and steady.

[Review Of] Dirk Hoerder, Ed. The Immigrant Labor Press In North America, 1840s-70s (Three Volumes), Cary D. Wintz

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

Dirk Hoerder has undertaken a truly mammoth task -- the identification, analysis, and the location of surviving collections of the immigrant labor press published in the United States and Canada from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. For the most part his efforts have been successful. Without question he has provided researchers interested in the American immigrant experience or American labor history with a valuable research tool.

[Review Of] Langston Hughes. I Wonder As I Wander: An Autobiographical Journey, Cary D. Wintz

Explorations in Sights and Sounds

I Wonder As I Wander, originally published in 1956, is the second and last volume of Langston Hughes's autobiography. In the first volume, The Big Sea, Hughes focused on his early life and his involvement in the Harlem Renaissance; to a large degree it constitutes his memoirs of the Harlem Renaissance. I Wonder As I Wander is more personal. It is an account of his experiences and his musings during the 1930s, after he had distanced himself from the Harlem Renaissance, while he was in the most political phase of his long career, and while his travels took him across …