Students who attend Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, have elected to spend their university years in one of America's most distinguished small cosmopolitan cities. Over the last two decades as the world has become rapidly urbanized, Hartford has become a critically contested site where economic poverty, environmental degradation,…

Studied parent's choice of preschool facility in a Swedish city to illustrate social and cultural changes in Swedish society. Findings from a survey completed by 1,584 mothers show that parents' use of the right to choose a preschool facility is economically, socially, and culturally segregated, although patterns of choice are not a simple effect…

A longing for an idyllic folk culture past has had a notable impact on the American landscape as communities reinvent themselves to cater to these desires. Lindsborg, Kansas, is one such struggling rural community that has projected its ethnic past to the outside world in hopes of drawing tourist dollars.

The author relates the story of her parents' outmigration in 1955 from West Virginia to Chicago and their consequent assimilation experiences. The family's problems with self-identity, group identity, discrimination, hostility, cultural differences, and language differences are described and evaluated against the literature, economic factors, and…

Comprising 15.6% of the city population and 8.7% of the metropolitan area population in 1979, Hispanics are becoming a major segment of the labor force in Chicago. Based on ethnic composition data for 163 area elementary schools in 1970 and 1979, numbers of Mexicans and South and Central Americans are rising while the population of Puerto Ricans…

Examines the reasons that particular locations, housing forms, and neighborhood characteristics are preferred by particular groups. Addresses the issue of whether urban or suburban settings are more suitable for family life. Discusses contrasts between housing and social interaction in Israel and the United States. (Author/GC)

Comparative analysis of urban history illuminates similar general patterns of occcupation and residence for Blacks and Chicanos from the late nineteenth century to World War II. Distinct Black and Chicano neighborhoods in American cities were the products of "ghettoization" and "barrioization." Ghetto expansion during the early…

The city of Montreal provides an example of how residential patterns are related to linguistic background and how linguistic pluralism is maintained under conditions of constant contact and extensive bilingualism. Residential segregation between linguistic and ethnic groups is determined by the index of dissimilarity; this index has been applied…

Describes a writing assignment designed to educate students about an ethnic group different than their own. Students first wrote a factual account of how their family arrived at the local region. They then wrote an account from the perspective of a fictional student from a different ethnic group. (MJP)

Specific demographic changes that occurred in the New York City metropolitan area during the 1980s are described, and the challenges and opportunities facing the city in the 1990s are explored. The 1980s saw the greatest increase in the diversity of the city in its history, but sharp inequality, running along racial and ethnic lines, persists in…

In European cities, ethnic minorities concentrate in physically and socially dilapidated areas, according to two different patterns. In the traditional pattern, ethnic minorities (who are among the lowest socioeconomic status groups) concentrate in the old and dilapidated buildings in inner city areas. Because inner city areas are becoming…

This report presents data on Asian and Pacific Islander Americans (APIAs), focusing on California. It discusses: who APIAs are; nativity and citizenship; residence (nearly all APIAs reside in metropolitan areas, particularly California); educational attainment (because of the model minority myth about Asians, APIA children are deprived of…

This report describes and analyzes the current employment and educational pursuits of Southeast Asian (SEA) youth in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, community. The report provides information on the following: (1) demography, residential patterns, and composition of the Philadelphia SEA Refugee Community; (2) role of ethnic identity among the SEA…