Design Your Own Life! Thoughts on Ethnicity, Race, and Parenting Biracial Children

In an increasingly multicultural society interracial families and their biracial or multiracial children are defying stagnant socially constructed concepts of race and racial categorization. In this paper, I present a narrative based on three ninety-minute in-depth phenomenological interviews (Seidman, 2006) focused on one participant’s life history and how he understands and makes meaning of his role as the parent of biracial children. Informed by a hermeneutic framework, the narrative presents a story of how the participant has come to understand himself and his children racially, ethnically, and culturally thorough his own intra- and interpersonal development. Parenting his children emerges as a strong influence on his process of de-constructing the concept of race and co-constructing new meanings for it. The narrative illustrates how, while honoring themselves and their communities, this person and his family dismantle some of the most ubiquitous ideas of our society concerning the construct of race

Children Speak About Interethnic and Interracial Friendships in the Classroom: Lessons for Teachers

In this article, the author discusses her research on children\u27s perspectives of interracial and interethnic friendships in a multiethnic school and highlights children\u27s voices on these intergroup friendships. Schools are important spaces in which social and cultural competencies necessary to the formation of intergroup friendships may be supported (Zirkel, 2008). Schools provide settings in which children learn about themselves and other children, adults, and the society in which they live. Steinitz & Solomon (1989) describe schools as sites of identity, places where young people draw conclusions about what sort of people they are, what society has in store for them, and what they can therefore hope for (p. 135). In this context, teachers, staff, and administrators may act as important models and facilitators for young children as they develop intra and inter-personally. Therefore, in this article, the author also examines how the school supports or mitigates these intergroup friendships. Implications for educators are discussed

At Risk Means a Minority Kid: Deconstructing Deficit Discourses in the Study of Risk in Education and Human Services

Unexamined use of ubiquitous terms such as “at risk” in education and human service courses can lead to reifying raced, classed, and gendered deficit perspectives of youth and youth work. This paper examines the social construction of the term “at risk,” following students in four education and human services undergraduate and graduate courses and the work of two counselor and teacher educators as they engaged their students in the process of deconstructing and interrogating this term. Findings reveal that students enter the classroom with raced and classed assumptions of who is at risk. Students demonstrate a deficit orientation that contextualizes risk at the individual level, with students’ definitions of “at risk” often not including white youth engaged in risk behaviors. By engaging in explicitly taught critical inquiry and analysis of the discourses of risk, students began to voice more critical views of the term “at risk,” understand the socially constructed nature of the concept, and adopt a more systemic perspective of the social and political implications for educational and human service practice

Teaching and Learning for this Moment: How a Trauma Informed Lens Can Guide Our Praxis

In this time of COVID-19, continued and relentless violence against BIPOC, organized resistance by many young people, and violent institutionalized attempts to suppress resistance, demonstrations and social change movements, what should educators be thinking about as we return to our college classrooms? In this short piece, we share our thinking and experience about our students’ psycho-social needs and our belief that faculty must be focused both on students’ and faculty’s socio-political context and students’ and faculty’s emotional wellbeing as we think about teaching and learning for this moment

Problematizing the Conceptual Framework of Interculturalism and its Pedagogical Extension of Intercultural Education: Theoretical Perspectives and Their Implications

A new intercultural framework for education is being developed as a pedagogical response to increasingly multi-ethnic societies in Europe. This framework has been gaining ground during the last decade within EU Institutions (Commission of the European Communities, European Commission, Council of Ministers, OECD, OSCE) and the Council of Europe Documents and replacing multiculturalism as the guiding framework. This shift has generated an ardent debate between multiculturalists and interculturalists. Indeed, there is much criticism of the interculturalist framework. This article positions itself within this current debate and offers a critical analysis of the conceptual mapping of interculturalism within which there are tensions, ambiguities, and often conflicting goals and strategies. In addition, this work highlights the problematic dynamics intrinsic in the theoretical framework of interculturalism as a political and philosophical framework as well as in its pedagogical manifestation in educational settings as intercultural education. We analyze this educational framework from a stance of sociology of education taking into account the institution of schooling as one that is contextualized in existing socio-political dynamics, narratives, and lived-realities

Supporting Interethnic and Interracial Friendships Among Youth to Reduce Prejudice and Racism in Schools: The Role of the School Counselor

Supporting interethnic and interracial friendships in schools among children and adolescents is an important part of a progressive educational agenda informed in equity, social justice frameworks, and critical multicultural education that leads to a reduction in racial prejudice. Positive intergroup contact is a necessary condition in prejudice reduction and the development of positive racial attitudes among ethnically and racially diverse groups of children and adolescents. School counseling initiatives focused on promoting interethnic and interracial friendships can have significant individual and systemic consequences such as: improving social, emotional, and cultural competence among youth; prejudice reduction; and the creation of equitable educational spaces informed in multicultural and social justice worldviews

Is Diversity Enough? Exploring Intergroup Friendships in Italian Multiethnic Schools

Italian schools are increasingly diverse spaces in which children of different racial and ethnic backgrounds, religious beliefs, and cultural-linguistic practices interact daily. Thus, these spaces provide fertile ground for a continuum of relational experiences from positive intergroup relationships and friendships to tensions and experiences of discrimination and marginalization. Research has demonstrated that diverse spaces can be ideal for positive intergroup contact, intergroup dialogue and the formation of intergroup friendship, which have been associated with prejudice reduction and a decrease in intergroup anxiety. Employing a theoretical framework based on intergroup contact theory (Allport, 1954) and research on intergroup friendships, (Pettigrew & Tropp, 2000; 2008; Pettigrew, Tropp, Wagner, & Christ, 2011; Lease & Blake, 2005) this article adds to a nascent interest in sociology of education research on intergroup relations and friendships in Italian multiethnic schools. A large sample (n=1314) of middle school students attending multiethnic classrooms in Southern Italy were surveyed to understand the extent of their intergroup relationships, perspectives on intergroup relations, and intergroup cooperative as well as discriminatory behaviors. Findings reveal that the majority of the children in the sample report having intergroup friendships. Native Italian children report fewer intergroup friendships while non-Italian children report higher levels of intergroup friendships. Yet, native Italian children report getting along better with peers while non-Italian students report getting along less well with peers

A Cross-Cultural Study of Italian and U.S. Children\u27s Perceptions of Interethnic and Interracial Friendships in Two Urban Schools

This cross-cultural and cross-sectional study investigated Italian and US children’s perceptions of interethnic and interracial friendships, also known as intergroup friendships. A total sample of 226 children attending two urban, elementary schools in a middle-sized Northeastern US city and a middle-sized northern Italian city, were interviewed employing the questionnaire. Results indicate that Italian and US children’s perceptions of intra-racial and interracial friendships differed with students of color in the US rating intragroup friendships more positively than intergroup ones. In addition, students of color in Italy and white students in the US rated intergroup and intragroup friendships similarly

Identification of genetic variants associated with Huntington's disease progression: a genome-wide association study

Background Huntington's disease is caused by a CAG repeat expansion in the huntingtin gene, HTT. Age at onset has been used as a quantitative phenotype in genetic analysis looking for Huntington's disease modifiers, but is hard to define and not always available. Therefore, we aimed to generate a novel measure of disease progression and to identify genetic markers associated with this progression measure. Methods We generated a progression score on the basis of principal component analysis of prospectively acquired longitudinal changes in motor, cognitive, and imaging measures in the 218 indivduals in the TRACK-HD cohort of Huntington's disease gene mutation carriers (data collected 2008–11). We generated a parallel progression score using data from 1773 previously genotyped participants from the European Huntington's Disease Network REGISTRY study of Huntington's disease mutation carriers (data collected 2003–13). We did a genome-wide association analyses in terms of progression for 216 TRACK-HD participants and 1773 REGISTRY participants, then a meta-analysis of these results was undertaken. Findings Longitudinal motor, cognitive, and imaging scores were correlated with each other in TRACK-HD participants, justifying use of a single, cross-domain measure of disease progression in both studies. The TRACK-HD and REGISTRY progression measures were correlated with each other (r=0·674), and with age at onset (TRACK-HD, r=0·315; REGISTRY, r=0·234). The meta-analysis of progression in TRACK-HD and REGISTRY gave a genome-wide significant signal (p=1·12 × 10−10) on chromosome 5 spanning three genes: MSH3, DHFR, and MTRNR2L2. The genes in this locus were associated with progression in TRACK-HD (MSH3 p=2·94 × 10−8 DHFR p=8·37 × 10−7 MTRNR2L2 p=2·15 × 10−9) and to a lesser extent in REGISTRY (MSH3 p=9·36 × 10−4 DHFR p=8·45 × 10−4 MTRNR2L2 p=1·20 × 10−3). The lead single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) in TRACK-HD (rs557874766) was genome-wide significant in the meta-analysis (p=1·58 × 10−8), and encodes an aminoacid change (Pro67Ala) in MSH3. In TRACK-HD, each copy of the minor allele at this SNP was associated with a 0·4 units per year (95% CI 0·16–0·66) reduction in the rate of change of the Unified Huntington's Disease Rating Scale (UHDRS) Total Motor Score, and a reduction of 0·12 units per year (95% CI 0·06–0·18) in the rate of change of UHDRS Total Functional Capacity score. These associations remained significant after adjusting for age of onset. Interpretation The multidomain progression measure in TRACK-HD was associated with a functional variant that was genome-wide significant in our meta-analysis. The association in only 216 participants implies that the progression measure is a sensitive reflection of disease burden, that the effect size at this locus is large, or both. Knockout of Msh3 reduces somatic expansion in Huntington's disease mouse models, suggesting this mechanism as an area for future therapeutic investigation