Ethnic Conversions : Family, Community, Women, and Kinwork

According to the straight-line theory of assimilation, ethnic groups by the third or fourth generation should be entirely assimilated into mainstream society and should identify themselves as Americans. Yet there has been a resurgence of ethnicity among white ethnics in the United States that has led to a renewed interest in particular ethnic groups and their cultures. Third- and fourth-generation European Americans claim an ethnic identity even though their ties to their ancestral homeland may be tenuous. Lithuanian Americans in Kansas City, Kansas, in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s would seem to provide support for the straight-line theory of assimilation, yet since the 1980s they have reconstituted themselves through the Lithuanians of America organization and are experiencing a renewal of their ethnic identity. The Lithuanian American community in Seattle, Washington, also experienced ebbs and flows in the activism and unity of its members. The community was active at the turn of the twentieth century, next revitalized by Lithuanian emigres following World War II, and then became active again in the late 1970s after a decade of inaction. Members of the two groups were given questionnaires in the early 1990s to address the ethnic identity fluctuations as well as the role of non-ethnics in the organizations. One of the more exciting findings from the surveys and from participant observation was the extensive role of ethnic converts in the Kansas City organization, and their lesser (but still significant) role in the Seattle Lithuanian-American community

The Importance of Families and Communities in Understanding Ethnicity

Social science provides us with a variety of theories that attempt to explain the dynamics of race and ethnicity. Many of these theories are concerned with the basic question of ethnic difference: its origins, persistence, and decline. In the contemporary literature on immigration to the United States and on how immigrants adjust to that relocation, assimilation and the persistence of ethnic identity have often been considered polar opposites.^1 Researchers, however, are beginning to find that both processes often occur simultaneously, as when immigrants become acculturated into American society but also maintain or even construct distinct ethnic identities, often symbolically. ^2 Even though a generation of immigrants may give up their ethnic identities, adopt the host language, and intermarry, their children or grandchildren may choose to renew ancestral ethnicities, and in so doing, may even contribute to the re-ethnicization of their parents as adults. Ethnicity (and ethnic identity), therefore, is both a conservative force as well as an agent of change.^3 The articles in this special issue of Ethnic Studies Review explore the dynamics of ethnicity in the United States and contextualize the experience of various groups within families and communities

The effect of blade aerodynamic modelling on the prediction of high-frequency rotor airloads

Interactions between the blades and vortical structures within the wake of a helicopter rotor are a significant source of impulsive loading and noise, particularly in descending flight. Brown's Vorticity Transport Model has been used to investigate the influence of the fidelity of the local blade aerodynamic model on the accuracy with which the high-frequency airloads associated with blade-vortex interactions can be predicted. The Vorticity Transport Model yields a very accurate representation of the structure of the wake, and allows significant flexibility in the way that the blade loading, and hence the source of vorticity into the wake, can be represented. Two models for the local blade aerodynamics are compared. The first is a simple lifting-line model and the second is a somewhat more sophisticated lifting-chord model based on unsteady thin aerofoil theory. A marked improvement in accuracy of the predicted high-frequency airloads of the HART II rotor is obtained when the lifting-chord model for the blade aerodynamics is used instead of the lifting-line type approach. Errors in the amplitude and phase of the loading peaks are reduced and the quality of the prediction is affected to a lesser extent by the computational resolution of the wake. Indeed, the lifting-line model increasingly overpredicts the amplitude of the lift response to blade-vortex interactions as the computational grid is refined, exposing clearly the fundamental deficiencies in this commonly-used approach particularly when modelling the aerodynamic response of the blade to interactions with vortices that are much smaller than its chord. In comparison, the airloads that are predicted using the lifting-chord model are relatively insensitive to the resolution of the computation, and there are fundamental reasons to believe that properly converged numerical solutions may be attainable using this approach

The production and deployment of an on-line video learning bank in a skills training environment

This paper describes the introduction of videos as aids in clinical skills teaching. Although the process explored focuses on a nursing clinical skills environment it is relevant to many other disciplines. With the introduction of the pre-registration degree in nursing in Ireland in 2002, the formerly hospital-based schools of nursing amalgamated into larger programmes with their affiliated higher education institutes (HEIs). The result was a considerable increase in class sizes. The current average annual cohort in the School of Nursing, Dublin City University (DCU) is 240 students. This has resulted in a need to review the way we teach clinical skills on campus. These skills form a large part of the programme and are taught to students in the school-based simulated nursing environment to prepare them for their practical experience in the clinical environment. Until 2006 the skills had been taught to groups of 25-30 students using a demonstration and practice technique. This teaching method has posed a number of problems: •Learning experiences vary depending on the mix of demonstration and practice in each session. •It can be difficult for students to absorb all of the information presented in a single demonstration. •It is highly resource intensive. It was decided that video technology incorporating a large scale deployment of skills videos over a video web server, in conjunction with a shift in emphasis in the teaching contact sessions could offer a useful tool to aid the teaching process. This paper will discuss the production process, the implementation of the project in the teaching environment and the evaluation findings

Ireland's Trading Potential with Central and Eastern European Countries: A Gravity Study

Using a gravity model, we estimate the magnitude of potential trade flows between Ireland and the five CEEC countries currently negotiating accession to the EU. We find that Irish exports were already close to their "normal" level in 1994, but that imports from the CEECs were still only half of their "normal" size. The value of estimated "normal" trade corresponds to 0.8 percent of Irish GNP. The actual share in 1994 was 0.5 percent. EU enlargement would raise Ireland-CEEC trade to 1.2 percent of GNP. The short-term scope for trade expansion therefore appears to be modest. Stronger potential for trade growth emerges in the "long-term" scenario, which assumes partial income convergence of the EU and the CEECs. According to our upper-limit estimate in the convergence scenario, the value of Irish trade with the CEECs could reach 7.7 percent of Irish GNP in 2020.

Selected Readings on Ethnicity, Family and Community

Selected Readings on Ethnicity, Family and Community; compiled by Mary E. Kelly, Central Missouri State University, and Thomas W. Sanchez, University of Nebraska- Lincoln

Ireland’s Trading Potential with Central and Eastern European Countries - A Gravity Study

Using a gravity model, we estimate the magnitude of potential trade flows between Ireland and the five CEEC countries which are currently negotiating accession to the EU. We find that Irish exports were already close to their “normal” level in 1994, but that imports from the CEECs were still less than half of their potential size. The value of estimated potential trade corresponds to 0.8 per cent of Irish GNP. The actual share in 1994 was 0.5 per cent. EU enlargement would raise Ireland-CEEC trade to 1.2 per cent of GNP. The short-term scope for trade expansion therefore appears to be modest. Stronger potential for trade growth emerges in the “long-term” scenario, which assumes partial income convergence of the EU and the CEECs. According to our upper-limit estimate in the convergence scenario, the value of Irish trade with the CEECs could reach 8.3 per cent of Irish GNP in 2020.