Institute for the Study of Societal Issues

Indigenous students from Latin America are a growing but often overlooked population in U.S. public schools. In this research brief we review current research on Indigenous Maya students whose families originate from Yucatan in Mexico and we draw on findings from a research project led by the first author. We identify the most salient challenges that Indigenous students encounter in school and we provide recommendations to develop and strengthen academic supports. 

The article[1] addresses the obstacles to the study of the relationships between Medical Pluralism and human mobility. We critically review the existing literature on Medical Pluralism and Mobility, showing how the classic studies of medical pluralism neglected three fundamental aspects that make up what we call non-situated Medical Pluralism: mobility, space, corporality. A critical review of these aspects in contemporary studies of medical pluralism led us to formulate a framework that seeks to integrate the main contributions of the studies of medical pluralism from Critical Medical Anthropology (Menéndez) with the Mobility Paradigm (Tarrius). This framework is presented, and the paper concludes by underlining its main contributions to the contemporary discussion in the field of Medical Pluralism and mobility.

[1] This is the translation of a paper to be published in Si Somos Americanos, Revista de Estudios Transfronterizos.

This article analyses the migration motives of highly-educated young adults in Berlin and London who left Spain in the wake of the economic crisis of 2008. We base our analysis on in-depth interviews and the Schützean concept of motive, which allows us to differentiate between the motives behind leaving Spain and the motives behind coming to the city of destination. Our results highlight that the young adults’ decisions to leave Spain were not only motivated by the grave labour market situation itself, but also by its consequences, such as being forced to live with their parents. Regarding the motives for coming, we present a typology of four migration projects in which we argue that even those motives that were previously considered non-economic, such as partnership, are also profoundly related to the economic crisis.

Historically, the U.S. Department of Defense has attempted to advance military goals within the academy by guiding, gathering, shaping and suppressing knowledge production. However, with the ascendance of the Homeland Security state, relationships between the Armed Forces and higher education have become both less obvious and more familiar features of the academic landscape, as increasing research dollars go to develop weapons and cyber-security programs. This paper documents a less-known strategy designed to pave military inroads into contemporary college campuses: a military training program at Fort Knox, Kentucky, created to enlist civilian academic faculty and staff to become supporters of the Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) program. The training, “Operation Bold Leader,” embeds academics in pseudo-warfare situations that serve as military training exercises. Pedagogies include inviting academic faculty and staff to rappel down 50-foot towers to a soundtrack of recorded gunshots while hearing about the benefits of collegiate ROTC programs. This paper, based on ethnographic research, shows that “Operation Bold Leader” portrays an educative Army that is separate and distinguishable from acts of war-making and from war itself. In doing so, this training fosters participants’ identification with the U.S. Army by normalizing a vision of the military mission as a vehicle for social and educational improvement and global humanitarian development. This research finds that performing military training exercises facilitated a positive disposition toward the military, laying the groundwork for civilian academics to become “force multipliers” for the U.S. Army.

This paper will focus on the meta-theories and historical explanations for the rise in importance of food and associated experiences as symbols and media of community and identity in post-modern societies, including the surge in interest in agriculture and/or place and their interconnectedness and holistic use. Three main themes/concepts will be addressed and interwoven, so as to provide a fuller picture of the context of this research and the concept of perceptions more generally. These are: 1) Food and its increasing (symbolic) importance – why now?; 2) Agriculture, place and the authenticity conundrum; 3) The rise of experiences and events as mediators of food and agriculture. The three themes will each contain a brief and, admittedly, non-exhaustive literature review with supplementary historical descriptions, focusing, especially on the importance of perceptions in the themes explored. The three thematic areas will then be summarized and discussed.

Since 2014, there has been a large increase in the numbers of unaccompanied migrant children from Central America entering the U.S. across the U.S. Mexico border. While these children have been at the center of a media firestorm, little is known about their health, mental health, and educational needs, and how U.S. communities are responding to those needs. This fact sheet describes the national, state, and Bay Area contexts to identify how many children are in detention, how many children have been released to family members and other sponsors, and the general patterns of their needs, as well as Bay Area community responses.

Since 2014, there has been a large increase in the numbers of unaccompanied migrant children from Central America entering the U.S. across the U.S. Mexico border. While these children have been at the center of a media firestorm, little is known about their health, mental health, and educational needs, and how U.S. communities are responding to those needs. This fact sheet describes the national, state, and Bay Area contexts to identify how many children are in detention, how many children have been released to family members and other sponsors, and the general patterns of their needs, as well as Bay Area community responses.

Social policy in China and the United States has been undergoing great transformation in recent decades, especially in the interaction between the central government and its subnational units. This article offers an account of the changing dynamics of social policy in both countries in light of the relationship between federalism and the welfare state. Given their federal political institutions, social policy in PRC and USA essentially concerns which government tiers are responsible for social provision. I argue that the fragmented nature of Chinese and American political institutions has led to two distinct social policy developments with their recent decentralization (or devolution) endeavors, with local governments in China gaining more autonomy while the federal government in America retains its prominent role in social provision. Different degrees of local government involvement also create various momentums in social policy that have profound implications for central coordination and local capacity in policy implementation.

Social management has arisen as an essential political agenda during the Hu-Wen era, and received particular attention in the 12^th Five-Year Plan launched in 2011. At its core lies the idea of public administration by involving a variety of societal sectors and organizations in various policy realms while maintaining the legitimate rule of the Communist Party. In the realm of social protection this managerialist approach is particularly pronounced. The state-led pluralization of welfare provision during the 2000s envisions a new governance mode toward a public-private mix, with the state establishing a regulatory framework that allows economic and social actors to provide social service. This new policy approach differs significantly from the ‘socialization’ approach taken during the 1990s that merely shifted social welfare responsibilities from the state to markets and families. Based on an analysis of recent developments in social security and social service for migrant workers, this article discusses the characteristics of the new welfare mix promoted by the idea of social management, and analyzes the strengths and weaknesses inherent in the new policy framework. While the state recognizes the importance of societal sectors in welfare provision, its (still) predominant role as a provider and a regulator has inevitably crowded out the space it initially intended to leave for non-state agencies. Moreover, the strong technocratic nature of social management focuses primarily on the political goal of crafting social order and maintaining social stability, and thereby is prone to neglect the real need of participating social actors and welfare beneficiaries. The collaboration of public-private welfare provision by social management may end up merely co-opting social actors into taking responsibility for meeting welfare targets over which they have scant influence, while providing little support for them to thrive and prosper that could really foster public-private collaboration in social security.

This paper explores social variations in food acculturation in the context of migration. While the literature on this issue has documented changes in eating practices among adults, this study focuses on the children of migrants. The research is based on data collected among elementary and middle school students, and relies on an approach combining focus group discussions with a survey questionnaire. Results reveal that food preferences among children of migrants are more strongly influenced by their family social background than by their ethnic characteristics. Main findings confirm Pierre Bourdieu’s theory about social distinction as more involved in social reproduction than in ethno-cultural reproduction. However this social reproduction doesn’t follow a singular common pattern. The coexistence of competing food patterns among migrants highlights the plurality of minority cultures resisting the dominant norm, as Claude Grignon has already shown about the French working class.