Immigration from Africa to the United States: key insights from recent research

Immigration from Africa to the United States has increased dramatically in the past three decades. This paper summarizes recent findings on the growth of African immigration to the United States in recent years. In doing so, it highlights shifting sociodemographic profiles of these “new African Americans” or “new Americans,” profiling the increasing diversity, yet also racialized portrait of this group. Key patterns of immigration shown include the changing racial and gender composition of immigrants, as well as rising immigration from a wider range of African countries. Some key theoretical and practical implications are outlined

Engaging Students in Instruction Through Active Learning: A Research Based, Student-Centered Approach to Teaching

RCAW Scholar-Teacher Awar

Disability and access to courts: Assessing the accessibility of U.S. federal judiciary homepages thirty years after the ADA

Using basic accessibility standards, the presence or absence of essential usability features, and site accessibility statements, this study evaluates the accessibility of the home pages of the federal judiciary — those of the U.S. district, Appellate and specialty courts, the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts (AO), the Federal Judicial Center (FJC), and the main homepage of PACER, the federal judiciary’s e-filing and e-records access system. Software evaluations reveal detected instances of a narrow set of accessibility issues, including scripts with no accompanying functional text, images/server-side image maps with no text equivalents/descriptors, and inaccessible forms. Manual evaluations of Web sites show a high proportion (about 67 percent) of the home pages provided skip navigation links, whereas smaller proportions provided direct or indirect links to accessibility information — about 15 percent and 12 percent, respectively, as well as controls for manipulating font size (about 12 percent). Notably, a sizeable proportion (about 45 percent) of home pages provided direct or indirect links to a “BrowseAloud” explanation and download page, apparently in lieu of information on accessibility. Finally, content analysis of existing Web site accessibility pages and policy statements show a high degree of variation, with some being exceptionally detailed and informative, and some less so

Racial Resentment And Attitudes Toward The Use Of Force By Police: An Over-Time Trend Analysis

On the heels of recent police shootings of an unarmed Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, Walter Scott in North Charleston, South Carolina, and the death of Freddy Gray in Baltimore, Maryland, that stoked racial tensions, this article examines how beliefs about race and racial inequality influence whites’ attitudes toward the use of force by the police since the mid-1980s. Our main dependent measure is a composite index (“Police Force Index”) constructed from four survey items from the 1986–2012 National Opinion Research Center\u27s General Social Survey (GSS). Results show that (1) beliefs about race do indeed significantly predict whites’ attitudes toward police use of force, and more importantly, (2) this effect has remained constant since the mid-1980s. We discuss theoretical and practical implications of these findings and suggestions for future research

The Significance Of Place: The Impact Of Urban And Regional Residence On Gender-Role Attitudes

The study assesses the overall impact of place of residence (urban and Southern) on gender-role attitudes. Past research has often implicated timing of socialization, posing that attitudinal formation occurs either during childhood or adulthood. We propose an additional and more nuanced model that points to place by arguing that social relations in urban and Southern locations have long-lasting and powerful effects on attitudes. Using nationally representative data, we test this theoretical model by assessing whether the attitudes of urban and Southern in- and out-migrants differ from those of lifelong residents. Looking at lifelong residents and migrants, we further assess whether the impact of place will eventually diminish over time. Overall, results show that, particularly for lifelong urban residents, early socialization may be more important in impacting gender-role attitudes. With respect to region, the place based model appears more appropriate. However, it is the non-South location that seems more potent in maintaining and changing gender-role attitudes. Findings also suggest the importance of place on gender role attitudes has declined over the last 30 years. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed

Socioeconomic achievement among Arab immigrants in the U.S.A: The influence of region of origin and gender

Based on the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS) data derived from 2001–2013 samples of the American Community Surveys, we examine the impact of region of origin and gender on socioeconomic achievement variation among Arab immigrants in the USA. Region of origin includes North Africa (Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, and Sudan), Levant (Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq), and the Arabian Peninsula (Bahrain, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen). This examination is particularly important given the prevailing scholarly consensus that Arab immigrants are collectively portrayed as socioeconomically successful. Our analyses suggest two key findings. First, we find that region of origin is not a consistent predictor of earnings. While Arab immigrants from North Africa earned significantly less than those from the Levant, this was only true for males. No significant effect is found for region of origin in all other comparisons (both overall and when the analysis is restricted to males or females). Second, and by contrast, gender, net of other variables is a powerful predictor of earnings (both within regions and across regions)

The Interaction Of Race And Gender: Changing Gender-Role Attitudes, 1974-2006

Objective. The purpose of this article is to assess over-time trends in the interactive effects of gender and race on attitudes toward the changing roles of women in U.S. society. Methods. This article uses data from the 1974-2006 General Social Survey. Gender-role attitudes are measured using two composite indices of traditionalism. Results. We find black females tend to hold less traditional gender-role attitudes than their black male, white male, and white female counterparts. Black and white males tend to hold similar attitudes toward women entering politics, but differ significantly in their attitudes toward women working outside the home and its impact on children. Assessing over-time trends, we find the difference between black females and the other social groups to be generally diminishing. This convergence is more pronounced for white and black females. The difference in attitudes toward women entering politics between black females and white males, on the other hand, appears to be maintaining over time. Conclusions. These findings support the idea that the labor force participation for women may have provided the groundwork for the evolution of attitudes for men and women. As white women in particular increase participation in the workforce, ideologies regarding the place of women in U.S. society have shifted. © 2009 by the Southwestern Social Science Association

Engaging Students in Instruction Through Active Learning: A Research Based, Student-Centered Approach to Teaching

RCAW Scholar-Teacher Awar