Article Database

The influence of intersectional identities on the employment integration of Sub-Saharan African women immigrants in the U.S.

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Using a triangulation theoretical framework, this study investigated the influence of self-reported social identities on employability and the impact of employment on the well-being of sub-Saharan African women immigrants (SSAWI). Regression analyses revealed that parenting role influenced the work status of SSAWI. At first, unemployment was found to predict a greater sense of well-being in SSAWI mothers and employment increased the well-being of child-free SSAWI with less than a postsecondary education. Years later, SSAWI who served in a parenting role were more likely to be employed, and employment status significantly predicted greater well-being in SSAWI. Culture-centered implications and limitations of the study are provided.

Psychotherapists’ Empathy for Childfree Women of Intersecting Age and Socioeconomic Status

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School Counselors in International School: Critical Issues and Challenges

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This study sought to examine the views of school counselors in international school settings; international schools being those that enroll students from varying nationalities (both English speaking and non-English speaking countries) and follow an American/International college preparatory education curriculum. Results were pursued in regard to three important areas: (1) mental health needs of students (e.g., coping with cultural transitions, aggression, self-esteem), (2) their own professional development needs (e.g., multicultural development, networking), and (3) their interactions with teachers, administrators, and parents (e.g., lack of knowledge of the counselor’s role, lack of trust in the counselor, lack of teamwork). Implications for supporting international school counselors are provided.

Mid-Brays Bayou Resiliency & Revitalization Housing & Community Development Strategies

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Houston is a city of neighborhoods and communities, and the Mid-Brays communities are a prime example of how communities can enrich the cultural diversity and economic viability of our city when they are allowed to set roots in an area over time. The Mid-Brays area is home to many diverse faiths, cultures, institutions, and outstanding public schools such as Kolter Elementary & Bellaire High School, these make it an ideal area for young families. Long before Hurricane Harvey, the Mid-Brays communities have known the physical danger, psychological trauma, and financial devastation of catastrophic weather, but in recent years the impact of those storms has worsened considerably. The cumulative effect of successive floods, in a very short period of time, has challenged the perseverance and patience of those who flooded, and the trust they have in agencies tasked with preventing future floods. Based on the shared sub-regional impacts from repetitive flooding events, residents within the Mid-Brays communities have recognized the need to develop a single sub-regional approach to identify solutions to the flooding. The Mid-Brays Communities are Braeburn, Westbury, Greater Meyerland, Brays Oaks, and the Willow Meadows/ Willow Bend (Near Southwest) Super neighborhoods.

Data-Driven Decision Making and Community Indicators: Towards an Integration of DDDM in Community Development

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The Development and Testing of an Integrated Model for Sustainable Development and Urban Planning

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The local application was a decision management analysis stemming from identification of goals for development in Houston, Texas. Utilizing a panel of experts for a judgmental approach to analysis, a Delphi study was used to develop a primary set of indicators before the UrbanSD procedure was applied. Idiographic explanatory analysis was then used to compare superneighborhoods within the city. The following research questions were addressed: How do neighborhoods in Houston compare according to sustainable indicators? What factors contribute the most to a heuristic understanding of sprawl in the urban area based on the indicator set, and how can neighborhoods be ranked according to these factors? Are Superneighborhood councils a significant proxy to predict the performance of neighborhoods in any of the factors?

Community Resources in a Diverse City: Supermarket Location and Emerging Racial Hierarchies

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Disparities are pronounced along racial/ethnic lines in the USA. Convention draws our attention to blacks and whites, but increased racial/ethnic diversity in the USA requires shifts in that focus. We contribute to studies of racial/ethnic stratification by interrogating the association between racial/ethnic composition and supermarket location in Houston, Texas. First, we assess the benefits of a new approach to defining the racial/ethnic composition of local areas, an approach that acknowledges an increasingly complex racial/ethnic demography. Second, we contribute to our understanding of emerging racial/ethnic stratification hierarchies by examining the position of the racial/ethnic composition categories relative to one another. Our results suggest a persistent link between racial/ethnic composition and supermarket location, which highlights entrenched black disadvantage coupled with malleable middle positions for Hispanic areas. The associated stratification hierarchy is gradual in nature, yet there is evidence supporting arguments that the USA is moving toward a tri-racial system.

Comprehensive Sustainability Indicators: The Houston Sustainability Indicators Program

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The goal of the Houston Sustainability Indicators (HSI) program is to develop a system of indicators best suited to monitor development in the City of Houston. Considered as a process model, HSI was developed to cover the following four objectives: (1) Prioritizing issues (2) Examining interrelatedness in urban development (3) Conducting spatial analysis through the use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and (4) Public education, stakeholder participation and public policy development.

What Should Young Black Children Know About Race? Parents of preschoolers, preparation for bias, and promoting egalitarianism

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This qualitative study of 26 African American parents and caregivers of preschool children sought to address gaps in the current literature by exploring how the intersection of parents’ racism experiences and social class may play a role in race-related socialization during the early years. Analysis of narrative interviews revealed that egalitarianism surfaced as the most common content of racial socialization (ethnic-racial socialization) messages. We also found that preparation for bias emerged as qualitatively different for the working- and middle-class African Americans, however, and thus, we argue that the ways in which working- and middle-class African American parents of preschoolers made sense of their experiences with racism and discrimination were different and that this shaped their preparation for bias messages differently. To provide a contrast for illustrating this argument, we detail working- and middle-class participants’ use of egalitarianism messages in relationship to their stories about racism, proposing here that parents may have been attuning to their young children’s developmental stage when deciding which messages to promote.

Steps Along the Journey: Documenting Undergraduate White Women’s Transformative Processes in a Diversity Course.

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This article documents the transformation of cognitive and relational dispositions within a group of 14 White female undergraduate students ranging in age from 18 to 21 years and enrolled in a semester-long diversity course. Using Mezirow’s transformative learning theory as an interpretive frame to guide our phenomenological analysis of written assignments, data revealed that students experienced multiple cognitive and relational transformative processes. Findings suggest that transformative learning theory’s (Kitchenham, 2008; Mezirow & Associates, 2000) framework around processes of transformation is a useful analytical framework for capturing students’ unique transformative learning processes or journeys. Findings further suggest that, students’ relationships with members of cultural communities previously unfamiliar to them were an important part of students’ transformative journeys. These relationships provided students with tangible experiences that assisted them in shifting their worldviews and arriving at greater understanding of how inequality, oppression, and prejudice impact the daily lives of others. Finally, the findings indicate that instructors’ perspectives on what accounts for a transformative process is often not aligned with students’ opinions of their own growth and development. The study concludes that transformation is a process, and that all steps are a necessary part of a transformative experience. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)