A General History of the Polish Immigration in America
The first Polish presence in North America lies shrouded in the mists of historical legend. There most certainly were Poles in the Jamestown colony as early as 1608; yet there exists only fragmentary and inconclusive evidence regarding either an earlier Polish presence or the purpose and activities of those who settled in colonial Virginia. There ......
These distinctive animal and human tales offer a rich source of Ute culture for anyone interested in the peoples of the Great Basin. The 102 stories are ribald, sometimes violent, yet delicately balanced and full of humor. In addition to Smith's transcriptions from Ute storytellers, Ute Tales contains photographs made in 1909 by Edward Sapir and ......
The Supreme Court and Minorities in Contemporary America
The controversies surrounding the nominations, confirmations, and rejections of recent Supreme Court justices, and the increasingly conservative nature of the Court, have focused attention on the Supreme Court as never before. Although the Supreme Court is commonly understood to be the guardian of minority rights against the tyranny of the ......
In this volume, Thomas unites two traditions in social science - critical theory and qualitative research - in an attempt to apply a critical world view to the conventional logic of cultural inquiry. Rather than standing in opposition to traditional ethnography, it offers a style of considering the direct relationship between knowledge, society and political action. Thomas addresses the question: if the duty of the researcher entails the righting of social wrongs as well as producing valid research results, how is it possible to juxtapose the two goals? He defines the rules and guidelines for a praxis-oriented ethnographic tradition, one both ideologically engaged and scientifically valid. In addition, he outlines the various types of critical ethnography, explaining the tenets of each and how research can be carried out under these frameworks.
This book compares contemporary racism in the US and the Netherlands through in-depth interviews with fifty-five black women. As an interdisciplinary analysis of gendered social constructions of racism, it breaks new ground. Essed problematizes and reinterprets many of the meanings and everyday practices that the majority of society has come to take for granted. She addresses crucial but largely neglected dimensions of racism: how it is experienced; how black women recognize its covert manifestations; how they acquire this knowledge; and how they challenge racism in everyday life. To answer these questions, over two thousand experiences of black women are analyzed within a theoretical framework that integrates the disciplines of macro- and micro-sociology, social psychology, discourse analysis, race relations theory and women's studies. The samples include only black women with higher education. Many of their experiences of racism involve the `elite' among the dominant group. The book seriously challenges both the notion of Dutch tolerance and the idea that US racism is a problem of the past. Understanding Everyday Racism is thus urgent reading.
The effects of social and environmental conditions on mental health, and the need to understand ethnic values and attitudes when developing helping strategies are the major themes of this volume, which is aimed at raising awareness of the effects of ethnicity on adolescent mental health.
How does everyday talk contribute to the spread and acceptance of ethnic prejudice? Communicating Racism is a revealing interdisciplinary study of ethnic prejudices and the ways in which they are diffused through interpersonal communication and intergroup interaction. In this clearly written and comprehensive study, van Dijk establishes a crucial link between the cognitive, social and communicative dimensions of racism. He examines: the social psychology of ethnic attitudes; the cognitive psychology of ethnic prejudice; and the social context of prejudice; the interpersonal communication of racism. By analysing informal discourse and the reproduction of racism within the white majority, the author offers us a new understanding of many deep-rooted and poorly understood patterns of prejudice.
