Summary
Contents
Subject index
This affordable paperback course textbook has been adapted from the landmark four-volume Handbook of Applied Developmental Science (SAGE 2003). In 20 chapters, Applied Developmental Science: An Advanced Textbook brings together the latest in theory and application from applied developmental science and the positive psychology movement. This advanced text summarizes and synthesizes the best scientific knowledge from ADS to help readers understand the efforts being made around the world to ensure that all children and adolescents develop into healthy adults who contribute positively to society.
Families and Ethnicity
Families and Ethnicity
It is every American's wish to have a “better future.” Every ethnic family dreams of having a brighter future and a more positive environment in which to raise their children to preserve their distinctive ethnic heritage. As those of the dominant culture wish to preserve their heritage and positively develop their families, ethnic families wish for the same. The presumptive notion of “Come learn family development from us” or more subliminally, “Assimilate into our culture” will do nothing positive, except to further the debate on self-imposed superiority.
It is the purpose of this chapter to fully inform the readers of crucial concerns, programs, and principles that must undergird future policy innovations with respect to ethnic families. It is hoped that present programs and policies toward ethnic families will be given another look, especially in light of their changing demographics and increasingly urgent needs. Key considerations must be given to matters in the realm of education, socialization, health practices, and just policies. Failing in these respects will simply accrue much greater future headaches for the various systems in which each individual, and hence each ethnic family, is nested.
The ethnic family forms a crucial part of this society's social system and is thus expected to positively contribute to the societal system in which it is embedded (Hildebrand, Phenice, Gray, & Hines, 2000). The general system's theoretical tenet that the “whole is greater than the sum of its parts” will lead us to the high ground of accepting and understanding the important contribution of each ethnic person, and thus each ethnic family, in the greater scheme of development. No ethnic group, culture, or individual must be viewed as unimportant or merely incidental, for such a notion will sorely detract from the healthy and positive development of the “whole.” The contributions of each ethnic group must be valued, respected, considered, and used to enhance and develop the entire system: that is, American society.
Defining Ethnic Families
It is believed that we all came from one “mother” in the Nile Valley, eons ago. Our families moved out from that center to all parts of the globe. We have migrated over the centuries and responded over the course of time to the geographical conditions of our diverse environments. Our families developed different cultures, different races, different ways of viewing the world, and different rituals as they faced the mysteries and uncertainties of life. We have diversified; each group, in its own place, has developed a culture appropriate to its time and environment.
As we have come together over time in this land of the United States, we have not done so equally in power and resources. Families and individuals from diverse groups came to America to escape tyranny or poverty or to seek a better way of life for their families, or were brought against their wills to work. Of the families who came to this land from European countries, some were poverty stricken and oppressed and some were wealthy (Zinn & Eitzen, 1990). Many came with an assurance of their culture, their God, and their “manifest destiny” that has continued into the present. Native Americans, who were already here, were subjugated and decimated. Enslaved Africans were brought to shore up the economy and were denied the right to be human. Asians were brought in to labor in the western part of the country and were never looked on as equals; but many Asians are now becoming part of powerful economic forces in America. Families from Spanish-speaking lands have been in North America for centuries; some were indigenous, some were immigrants, and those who arrived later gained in importance. As we look at the various families in our country today, we may well be amazed at the variety we find. Each group brought with it its members' uniqueness; each brought parts of another culture as well as other elements of ethnicity that continue to flourish today.
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