Search Results (30)

This article examines how Slovenia’s post-communist approach to diversity management marginalizes minorities from the former Yugoslav republics. The constitution grants cultural rights and parliamentary representation to Italian and Hungarian minorities, but communities from Bosnia, Serbia, North Macedonia, Kosovo, and Croatia are excluded from these protections. Recognised mainly by religious affiliation, these groups have limited access to formal minority rights. Their fight for recognition is fragmented, lacking unified political representation, and the 1992 “erasure”—the removal of thousands from the permanent resident registry after independence—still undermines their sense of belonging. Drawing on theories of racialized citizenship, belonging, multiculturalism, and social mobility, the article examines how exclusionary legal frameworks create hierarchies of belonging that hinder mobility for these unrecognised minorities. The qualitative interviews with descendants of Bosnian migrants reveal intergenerational struggles with recognition, ambivalent experiences of citizenship, and discrimination. Set in the post-communist Eastern European context, the study argues that even under the pressures of EU integration, citizenship regimes remain divided along ethnic lines. This division maintains structural inequalities and marginalizes certain groups despite their long-term residence and formal citizenship. The study contributes to debates on ethnicised citizenship and diversity management by showing how legal exclusion, historical legacies, and fragmented minority politics limit belonging and mobility in post-communist societies. Full article

The COVID-19 pandemic significantly disrupted higher education worldwide, imposing strict isolation measures, transitioning learning online, and exacerbating existing social and economic inequalities. This literature review examines the pandemic’s impact on the mental health of college students, with a focus on those belonging to minority groups, including racial, ethnic, migrant, gender, sexuality-based, and low-income populations. While elevated levels of anxiety, depression, and loneliness were observed across all students, findings indicate that LGBTQ+ and low-income students faced the highest levels of psychological distress, due to compounded stressors such as family rejection, unsafe home environments, and financial insecurity. Racial and ethnic minority students reported increased experiences of discrimination and reduced access to culturally competent mental healthcare. International and migrant students were disproportionately affected by travel restrictions, legal uncertainties, and social disconnection. These disparities underscore the need for higher education institutions to implement targeted, inclusive mental health policies that account for the unique needs of at-risk student populations during health crises. Full article

Accurate population counts and the identification of granularity within aggregated groups are essential for informing funding formulas and health policies, an issue of global significance. Relying solely on aggregated ethnicity-based population counts has limited utility for ethnic minority groups. Accurate and relevant population counts are critical for monitoring and improving outcomes related to health, social welfare, and education. This paper examines additional dimensions of identity to provide a revised estimate of the total population count for Peoples of Fiji (PF) living in Aotearoa. Customised data tables from the Census of Population and Dwellings, provided by Statistics New Zealand, were analysed using ethnicity and additional recorded characteristics, such as country of birth, and parents’ ethnicity, to obtain more accurate counts for the major ethnic groups from Fiji living in Aotearoa. Our analysis revealed that almost 50,000 Fijian Indians were misclassified. Utilizing additional variables, we estimate the revised count for the Fijian Indian ethnic group alone exceeds 70,000 and the PF total count exceeds 2% of Aotearoa’s current population. We highlight significant variations in ethnicity coding for PF and their implications for health monitoring and risk assessment, data quality, and interpretation. We make key recommendations to improve granular reporting for minority migrant groups in Aotearoa. Full article

Business groups comprise independently owned firms based on different types of owner solidarity, such as kinship, ethnicity, religion, or political identity. However, research has been slow to account for how the adverse effects of ethnic solidarity influence BG-affiliate firm performance. We investigate the interplay of owner ethnicity and their firms’ innovation and export performance. We find variations in affiliates’ performance based on their self-identified ethnicities by analyzing data from the World Bank’s Enterprise Surveys (WBES) across 20 sub-Saharan African countries. Notably, long-established migrant communities, including Indian, Middle Eastern, and European entrepreneurs, experienced waning performance within the BG structure. In contrast, group-affiliated firms led by Chinese entrepreneurs show significant outperformance compared to their African counterparts and minority group affiliates. This study contributes to a novel understanding of the heterogeneous relationship between ethnic solidarity and BG-affiliated firms’ performance across sub-Saharan Africa. Full article

The topic of the mosaic patterns of the settlement of ethnic minorities in US cities has been studied in depth. Many works proceed from the optics of studying inequality, which, in the American context, is often explained by overlapping patterns of ethnoracial discrimination. In this regard, groups at the intersection of inequality patterns are of great interest—for example, non-white immigrants and their descendants. This article analyzes the settlement of two such groups—Haitians and Jamaicans—at the state, county, and census tract levels in the two main population centers for the following two groups: New York and Miami metropolitan areas. The authors pose the question of whether Haitians and Jamaicans fundamentally differ from African Americans in terms of settlement patterns and socio-economic status. It is established that these two population groups are highly concentrated on a nationwide scale (in the states of Florida and New York) and in some counties (comprising metropolitan areas of New York and Miami). The authors carried out a spatial correlation (LISA) analysis to identify areas of concentration of Haitians and Jamaicans in the two above-mentioned metropolitan areas. Three distinct Haitian areas, three mixed Haitian/Jamaican, and one distinct Jamaican area are found in New York. In the Miami metropolitan area, three mixed Haitian/Jamaican areas are identified, as well as one Haitian area. Calculation of the Darden–Kamel Composite Socio-Economic Index was used to assess the socio-economic status of these areas and to compare it with that in the areas of concentration of African Americans. The analysis revealed that the areas of concentration of Haitians and Jamaicans are relatively disadvantaged in their socio-economic status, but to a lesser extent than those of African Americans. The study also established the following pattern: in the New York metropolitan area, the higher socio-economic status is a feature of the mixed Haitian/Jamaican areas of concentration in the central city, while in Miami, the higher socio-economic status is observed in the Jamaican areas in the suburbs. Beyond these empirical findings, this article offers a contextual perspective on inequality among non-white migrant groups as they settle near established African American communities. The novelty of our approach to the research problem relates to the idea that communities of African Americans, Haitians, and Jamaicans are quite variable in time and space—in particular, due to the non-simultaneous settlement of these groups in the metropolitan areas under consideration. Our most important conclusion is the discovery of the relationship between the stage of the beginning of the integration of the groups considered into urban communities and their socio-economic status at that moment. The later the group began integration, the fewer discriminatory practices it had to face, which led to a higher socio-economic status. Full article

Northwest Yunnan is nested in the border areas of Tibet, Myanmar, and Southwest China. The religiously and ethnically diverse region has astonishingly seen a lack of “conflict”, as is often assumed in regions of ethnic and religious differences. This paper argues that there is an organic form of pluralism through frequent inter-ethnic and inter-religious marriages, multi-lingual daily interactions, and strategic ethnicity registrations. Ethnic and religious boundaries are made permanently or temporarily permeable through the celebration of boundary-crossing rituals such as weddings and funerals and other shared experiences such as collective labor and migrant work. Despite an increasingly strong push to be integrated into the state power through various top-down developmental projects, minority peoples here still use kinship, collective rituals, and other shared experiences to foster group formation that is fluid, porous, and malleable, instilling empathy and obligation as the basis of this pluralistic borderland society. This organic form of pluralism presents an alternative to the nation as the standard modern form of community. This paper ultimately argues that this specific type of plurality requires us to think beyond the normative liberal notions of religious tolerance and diversity that are still promoted within the frame of the exclusivist nation-state. Full article

Underserved and hard-to-reach population groups are under-represented in vaccine trials. Thus, we aimed to identify the challenges of vaccine trial participation of these groups in member countries of the VACCELERATE network. Seventeen National Coordinators (NC), each representing their respective country (15 European countries, Israel, and Turkey), completed an online survey. From 15 eligible groups, those that were more frequently declared underserved/hard-to-reach in vaccine research were ethnic minorities (76.5%), persons experiencing homelessness (70.6%), illegal workers and refugees (64.7%, each). When prioritization for education on vaccine trials was considered, ethnic groups, migrants, and immigrants (5/17, 29.4%) were the groups most frequently identified by the NC as top targets. The most prominent barriers in vaccine trial participation affecting all groups were low levels of health literacy, reluctance to participate in trials due to engagement level, and low levels of trust in vaccines/vaccinations. This study highlighted population groups considered underserved/hard-to-reach in countries contained within the European region, and the respective barriers these groups face when participating in clinical studies. Our findings aid with the design of tailored interventions (within—and across—countries of the European region) and with the development of strategies to overcome major barriers in phase 2 and phase 3 vaccine trial participation. Full article

This paper aims to study ethnic micro-segregation in Rome, namely, high residential concentrations of ethnic groups at the micro-area level within neighbourhoods with low concentrations of these groups, with a focus on specific situations of spatial inequality often overlooked in the debate. The Italian capital is one of the five most populous cities in the European Union and a multi-ethnic metropolis with relatively low levels of segregation. It is an urban context that has been little studied, partly due to the lack of reliable and granular data. This work is based on unpublished individual data from the 2020 population register, disaggregated into 155 neighbourhoods and 13,656 census tracts with average populations of about 18,000 and 200 residents, respectively. The five minority groups considered, Bangladeshis, Chinese, Filipinos, Romanians, and migrants from developed economy countries (DECs), add up to 55% of the total foreign residents and show different settlement patterns. The concept of micro-segregated area (MSA) is central to the scope of the analysis. An MSA is a census tract that shows a strong over-representation of a specific ethnic group despite being located within a neighbourhood where that group is under-represented. MSAs can be considered ‘interstitial’ micro-areas embedded in ethnically diverse neighbourhoods. Descriptive analysis based on location quotient (LQ) mapping and bivariate logistic models is developed to highlight (a) differences in the settlement patterns of minority ethnic groups; (b) differences in the micro-segregation of minority ethnic groups in terms of socio-demographic characteristics, settlement location, and socioeconomic status; and (c) the particular characteristics of minority ethnic groups underlying these differences. The findings indicate that differences in settlement patterns can be related to the interplay between real estate constraints and labour market specialisation. National specificities in micro-segregation are mainly linked to length of stay, but the models of the Asian groups do not offer any empirical support for the spatial assimilation hypothesis, unlike those of Romanians and DECs citizens. Further development of this research will aim to explore segregation patterns and motivations to move to MSAs using a mixed method approach. Full article

Confusion over what constitutes appropriate childrearing practices in culturally diverse settings may result in the stigmatization of ethnic minority families and over-reporting to child welfare services. This study explored stakeholders’ views on (in)adequate supervision across cultural and socioeconomic groups and how they assess the risk of harm in cases of lack of supervision. Focus group discussions were held with (a) adult caregivers (n = 39) and adolescents (n = 63) in family-based care from French-speaking Quebecers and migrants from Latin America, the Caribbean, and South Asia; and (b) professionals (n = 67) in the education, health, child welfare, and security sectors in Quebec. The main criteria used to assess the appropriateness of supervision were the maturity, level of ability, age, and sex of the child, as well as contextual factors, such as proximity of other people, location, and type and duration of the activity. Mobility and immobility notions are used to explore the developmental considerations of competence and readiness within the home and in other social environments where adults’ and children’s perceptions of safety and maturity may differ, as well as the need to move away from rigid policy implementation. This paper advocates for careful consideration of the capacity and agency of children affected by migration in the provision of childcare support and their meaningful participation in research and decision making in matters that affect them. Full article

This descriptive, observational paper utilizes the comparative case study approach to analyze the application of the HIPE™ Framework to two health campaigns addressing vaccine hesitancy in underserved communities. Exposure to inaccurate/misleading health information impacts vaccination adoption, especially for individuals with low health/digital literacy. Underserved groups—like minority, racial/ethnic, or rural populations—typically have lower literacy and higher rates of vaccine hesitancy. Grounded in persuasion and behavioral change theory, the Health Information Persuasion Exploration (HIPE™) Framework was applied to the Black/Haitian community in Miami-Dade, Florida and the Migrant Agricultural Worker Community in Central Valley, California. The campaigns addressed each community’s unique characteristics via Detect, Analyze, Design, and Evaluate phases of the HIPE framework. Both campaigns achieved their respective vaccine uptake goals. For Miami-Dade, over 850 vaccinations were administered (the goal was 800 vaccinations), and vaccination rates increased by 25.22%. In Central Valley, vaccination rates for 5–11-year-old children in Merced and Stanislaus counties increased about 20% and 14%, respectively, and overall vaccination rates increased compared to surrounding counties. Discussion of the results and recommendations for future research highlight the potential efficacy of applying the HIPE™ Framework for developing health campaigns and response strategies to improve health outcomes. Full article

This paper investigates whether and how International Law on Indigenous Peoples (ILIP) can complement protections granted under International Refugee Law (IRL) and International Human Rights Law (IHRL) to refugees in camps in Thailand. Presently, there are over 90,000 refugees from Myanmar in Thailand, confined to nine camps along the Thailand–Myanmar border. These refugees belong to different ethnic minority groups, but the vast majority are Karen—Indigenous Peoples from the Thailand–Myanmar border regions. They have fled to Thailand due to persecution by Myanmar authorities and segments of the Myanmar population. To date, Thailand has refused to become a party to the 1951 Refugee Convention or its 1967 Protocol. The country has failed to develop an asylum system and its laws continue to regard refugees as ‘illegal migrants’. These refugees have been surviving in conditions of profound rightlessness. I posit that ILIP has a critical role to play in addressing the protection gaps and limitations in IRL and IHRL. In particular, the ILIP system of collective rights is vital in recognising the specific needs of refugees who are indigenous peoples. ILIP therefore provides a potent tool to make IRL and IHRL more responsive to the protection needs of indigenous refugees. Full article

The purpose of this study is to compare native-born and immigrant Jewish people from North African roots who reside in greater Paris regarding their multiple identities: ethnic-religious, as Jewish people; national, as French citizens; and transnational, as migrants and ‘citizens of the world’. This study employed the correlative quantitative method using survey questionnaires (N = 145) combined with qualitative semi-structured interviews. The main results indicate that both groups have strong Jewish and religious identities. However, while immigrants had fewer opportunities for upward mobility and were more committed to national integration, the younger second-generation have higher socio-economic status and more choices regarding their identities in contemporary France. In conclusion, even among people of the same North African origin, there are inter-generational differences in several dimensions of identity and identification which stem from being native-born or from their experience as immigrants. Different social and political circumstances offer different integration opportunities and thus, over the years, dynamically construct identities among North African Jewish people as minorities. Nonetheless, the Jewish community in Paris is not passive; it has its own strength, cohesiveness, vitality and resilience which are expressed not only in economic but also in social and religious prosperity of Jewish organizations shared by both the native-born and immigrants, who can be considered a ‘privileged’ minority. Full article

Ethnolects have been defined as varieties linked to particular ethnic minorities by the minorities themselves or by other ethnic communities. The present paper investigates this association between ethnic groups and language varieties in the Greek context. I seek to answer whether there is an association made (by Albanians or Greeks) between Albanian migrants in Greece and a particular variety that is not their L1, i.e., Albanian, and if so, whether this is an Albanian ethnolect of Greek. I show experimentally that, in fact, there is a variety of Greek that is linked with listeners’ perceptions of Albanian migrants. However, that criterion is not enough in itself to designate the variety as an ethnolect as the acquisition of this variety by the second or subsequent generations of migrants is not evidenced. Rather, those generations are undergoing language shift from Albanian to Greek. Therefore, the classification of Albanian Greek as an Albanian ethnolect of Greek is not possible despite the association between the variety and the particular minority in Greece. Classification as an L2 Greek variety or a Mock Albanian Greek (MAG) variety is instead argued. Full article

The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately impacted multiple racial and ethnic minority groups, including Latinos residing in rural communities. Low rates of vaccination and testing combined with social determinants of health have contributed significantly to this disparate impact. Given the needs and constraints unique to rural Latino migrant and immigrant communities, this qualitative study examined multilevel barriers and strategies that affect COVID-19 vaccination and testing uptake among these communities in southwest Florida. Four focus groups (n = 25) were conducted between March and April 2021 with various key stakeholders, including rural Latino community members, local leaders, and community health workers (‘Promotoras de Salud’). Themes that aligned with barriers to COVID-19 vaccination and testing included fear, lack of control, misinformation, lack of accessibility, and institutional/policy issues; themes that aligned with strategies to improve COVID-19 vaccination and testing uptake included faith, taking care of self, and community and family resilience. Recommendations for improving future pandemic responses for rural Latino communities include incorporating multiple levels of intervention, such as consideration of the role of the family, involving trusted community members, and ensuring the development and implementation of fair and consistent policies. Full article

Body-size perception is an important factor in motivating people to lose weight. Study aim was to explore the perception of body image among first-generation Chinese migrants living in Italy. A sample of 1258 Chinese first-generation immigrants and of 285 native Italians living in Prato, Italy, underwent blood pressure measurements, blood tests (with measurement of glucose, cholesterol, and triglycerides), and anthropometric measurements. Body-size perception was investigated with Pulvers’ figure rating scale using logistic or linear multivariable regression adjusted for age, gender, BMI, education and years spent in Italy. Chinese migrants had lower BMI and discrepancy score (preferred minus current body size) than Italians (p < 0.05 for both). After a logistic regression analysis, the discrepancy score remained lower in the Chinese than in the Italian cohort independently from BMI and other confounders (OR 0.68; 95%CI 0.50 to 0.92). In the Chinese cohort, female gender, BMI and years spent in Italy were positive determinants of discrepancy score (desire to be thinner), while age showed negative impact (p < 0.05 for all). Overweight is an important risk factor for diabetes, a very prevalent condition among first-generation Chinese migrants. The present study offers useful information and suggests the need for prevention programs specifically addressed to men. Full article