Focused on comparative ethnic studies and intersectionality, the author commences with a discussion about Barack Obama's historic inauguration and the Asian American literature classroom. This essay argues that courses, programs, and departments focused on ethnicity, race, gender, class, and sexuality remain important precisely because they…

There are increasing numbers of multiracial families created through marriage, adoption, birth, and a growing population of multiracial persons. Multiracials are a hidden but dominant group of transracially adopted children in both the United Kingdom and the United States. This paper introduces findings from an interpretive study of 25…

Objective: To study actual and perceived substance use in Canadian university students and to compare these rates with US peers. Participants: Students (N = 1,203) from a large Canadian university. Methods: Participants were surveyed using items from the National College Health (NCHA) Assessment of the American College Health Association…

Cultural norms affect the likelihood that child sexual abuse will be discovered by an adult or disclosed by a child. Cultural norms also affect whether abused children's families will report child sexual abuse to authorities. This article explores the ways ethnic and religious culture affect child sexual abuse disclosure and reporting, both in the…

Social institutions that have been around for thousands of years generally change slowly, when they change at all. But that's not the way things have been playing out with marriage and family since the middle of the 20th Century. Some scholars argue that in the past five decades, the basic architecture of these age-old institutions has changed as…

Shortly after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina became clear, NBC televised "A Concert for Hurricane Relief," a star-studded event watched by more than fourteen million Americans. Perhaps the most memorable moment of the evening had little to do with charity. Hip-hop artist Kanye West went "off-script" during a live segment…

Nineteenth-century American leaders in education came to advocate a redesign of the schoolroom that resulted in its being seen as more the province of female teachers than of male teachers. This discourse of reform serves as a case study of how space itself may be rhetorically "gendered." (Contains 1 figure and 9 notes.)

Domestic violence continues to be a serious problem for women in the United States. As a result, the battered women's movement has been tireless in campaigning for greater awareness of the issue, tougher penalties against offenders, and public vigilance against potential batterers, including fathers from dissolving families. In reaction to this…

Cross-sectional studies find a positive relationship between a state's welfare benefits and single motherhood. But is this evidence of a "welfare effect" or rather of cross state differences in social attitudes that influence both policy and behavior? This paper demonstrates that the spatial variation in welfare policy long preceded the…

Examination of data from four General Social Surveys (1976, 1977, 1980, 1982) focuses on questions related to intellectual freedom, especially library censorship. Responses are analyzed together with selected demographic variables to determine which broad segments of society give majority support to censorship and which do not. (7 references) (EJS)

For more than 250 years, Americans have shared a vision of a democracy in which all citizens understand, appreciate, and engage actively in civic and political life. In recent decades, however, increasing numbers of Americans have disengaged from civic and political institutions such as voluntary associations, religious congregations,…