Population migrations in Southwest and South China have played an important role in the formation of East Asian populations and led to a high degree of cultural diversity among ethnic minorities living in these areas. To explore the genetic relationships of these ethnic minorities, we systematically surveyed the variation of 10 autosomal STR markers of 1,538 individuals from 30 populations of 2...

This study examined racial socialization processes among 94 African American parents of third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade children as they were predicted by children’s ethnic identity exploration and unfair treatment as well as by parents’ ethnic identity and discrimination experiences. Findings indicated that children’s ethnic identity exploration and parents’ perceptions that their children ha...

Two studies found that the meaning of "being American" differs for Asian Americans and European Americans. In Study 1, Hmong and European American undergraduates described what "being American" meant to them. In Study 2, Chinese American and European American undergraduates described what "American culture" meant to them. Responses were coded for references to cultural exposure, customs/traditi...

Health care services increasingly face patient populations with high levels of ethnic and cultural diversity. Cultures are associated with distinctive ways of life; concepts of personhood; value systems; and visions of the good that affect illness experience, help seeking, and clinical decision-making. Cultural differences may impede access to health care, accurate diagnosis, and effective trea...

When one examines typical survey data question-by-question, it is common to find that respondents converge fairly strongly in their answers to some questions, but show considerable diversity with respect to others. Indeed, in light of the range of responses for virtually every question, one might well ask whether there is common cultural understanding of the topic under investigation. To what e...

Despite the importance attributed to the effects of diversity on the stability and prosperity of nations, the origins of the uneven distribution of ethnic and cultural fragmentation across countries have been underexplored. Building on the role of deeply-rooted biogeographical forces in comparative development, this research empirically demonstrates that genetic diversity, predominantly determi...

The study of cultural transformations in the United States has been studied predominantly’ from an assimilation/acculturation framework. There are several drawbacks to this theoretical perspective, chief among them being the exclusion of gender in examining what happens to different ethnic/racial groups when they come into contact. Feminist writings in the last twenty years provide a rich discu...

Modern culture, based on disinhibition of cultural trends and on heterodirection, is promoting openmindedness attitudes towards ethnic diversity, but on the other hand also new forms of social representations of the foreigner. Social representation is situated between the psychic field and the social one; it is the representation of oneself and of the other one, hanging between social categorie...

Given the growing numbers of bicultural individuals in the United States and around the world, bicultural identity integration (BII) is an important construct that helps researchers to better capture the diversity within this group. In this chapter, we organize and summarize the limited literature on individual differences in bicultural identity, with a special focus on BII. First, we discuss a...

Although scattered throughout a large geographic area, the members of the Pano linguistic group present strong ethnic, linguistic, and cultural homogeneity, a feature that causes them to be considered components of a same "Pano" tribe. Nevertheless, the genetic homogeneity between Pano villages has not yet been examined. To study the genetic structure of the Pano linguistic group, four major Na...