Browsing by Subject "immigrant"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    Association Between Somali Mothers' Oral Health Literacy and Their Children's Caries Experience in Minnesota
    (2019-07) Zeyer, Kylee
    ABSTRACT Objectives: Dental caries is a major oral health problem among U.S. immigrant children, and Minnesota is home to one of the largest Somali-American communities, but little is known about this population’s oral health and oral health literacy. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to investigate the association between Somali mothers’ oral health literacy and their children’s caries experience in the Minneapolis and St. Paul areas in Minnesota. Methods: A retrospective cross-sectional study was performed. Data were extracted from a larger cross-sectional study consisting of 99 Somali mothers and 292 children from twelve Somali-owned daycare centers in 3 Minnesota cities. Participating mothers completed an oral health literacy survey (HeLD-14), and mothers and their children received oral screenings where caries experience was recorded using the dfs/DMFS caries indices. Results: Mean age in years was 34.3 for mothers and 6.4 for children. Mothers had moderate oral health literacy with a mean HeLD-14 score of 8.4. The children’s mean dfs score was 3.3, and their mean DMFS score was 0.8. The children’s caries was not associated with the mothers’ total oral health literacy score, although, statistically significant associations were found between 3 of 7 HeLD-14 subcategories: access to care, receptivity, and economic barriers. Conclusions: Somali children’s caries experience was similar to U.S.-born comparatives, but lower than African-American children of similar age. Given, the children’s below average caries experience and the mothers’ moderate level of oral health literacy, may be an indicator that this population does not suffer from oral health disparities related to the oral health literacy and caries experience of mother-child pairs. Key Words: Oral health literacy; Somali; Immigrant; Oral health; Oral health status; Caries experience; Children’s oral health.
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    Parenting After Divorce with an Immigrant Community: An Exploration of Hmong Parents’ Parenting Experiences
    (2023-06) Her, Malina
    Parents with shared children are faced with many challenges after a divorce or separation. One such challenge is to negotiate shared parenting responsibilities with their former spouses. This can be further exacerbated for immigrant parents as they may lack the know how or resources to traverse the legal system, in addition to seeking out a cultural divorce. Moreover, divorce may still be highly stigmatized which can serve as a barrier for communication between parents and between families. Yet little is known of how immigrant parents come to share their parenting responsibilities after divorce and the role of family in this process. This paper is comprised of two qualitative studies with immigrant community in the US: a study with Hmong key community informants to explore their perceptions of barriers to shared parenting and the role of family in the decision-making process; and a second study with divorced Hmong parents centered on their parenting experiences after divorce. The initial qualitative study broadly follows a community engaged approach with 17 key community informants selected to share their knowledge on the topic. A semi-structured interview guided by previous literature on divorce and parenting was designed. A thematic analysis of the transcripts found 6 themes. Themes revolved around perceived barriers to communication between former spouses and the role of specific family members in facilitating or impeding the shared parenting process. The second qualitative study was guided by an interpretative phenomenological approach with 10 divorced Hmong parents. Five Hmong fathers, and 5 Hmong mothers were part of this study. Through analysis, themes centered on how parents came to their current childcare arrangement, what were their experiences in sharing parenting responsibilities with their former spouses, and the role of family in the shared parenting process. Implications for findings across the two studies are also shared. Most importantly, findings seem to support a need for a cultural lens to better understand the experiences of divorcing parents. Many in this community do not come into contact with the legal system after a divorce and instead implement informal shared parenting arrangements. Findings raise concerns of how applicable the clan mediation system of divorce remains applicable for Hmong parents in the US today. As Hmong families acculturate and adopt more Western ideologies of parenting, this may clash with the culture and presents ambiguity for parents in how to share parenting after divorce. Moreover, it is unclear how clan leaders sanction childrearing arrangements if at all. For parents that use the legal system, they may be required to participate in mandated parenting education programs. Yet the applicability and effectiveness of such programs for Hmong parents needs further exploration as findings across the two studies here illustrate both structural and cultural barriers to maintaining contact between former spouses. Most importantly, family members seem to play an instrumental role during the decision-making process of shared parenting arrangements and after divorce as a caregiver role. Thus, further examination of how intervention programs and resources are adapted to include the extended family after divorce could be helpful for closing some of the gaps in this community. Moving forward, suggestions for future directions include continued exploration of how immigrant parents come to share parenting, the role of family during this process, and the impact of the various arrangements on child adjustment and well-being.
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    Producing educated selves: Gender, migration and subjectivity on the edge of transnational high-tech labor arbitrage
    (2017-05) Timiri, Himabindu
    This study examines the transnational movement of high-tech labor from the perspective of techmigrant families. It highlights the issue of dependent immigrant women, spouses of guestworkers who perform high-skilled jobs in the United States. As dependents, these immigrant women are subject to a restrictive immigration status that mandates years of unemployment, while permitting limited pathways to pursue higher education. The study poses the issue of dependent migration as a feminized construct at the intersection of the fields of gender, migration and educational studies. Data were collected through an ethnographic study of the Indian techmigrant community in and around Atlanta over a period of eighteen months. In-depth interviews with techmigrant spouses generated narratives on migration and education. The study framework accounted for the simultaneous subjection and self-making of gendered and dependent immigrant subjectivities. Using a blend of discourse and narrative analyses, a contextual reading of subject-making processes saw immigrant women as located on the edge of transnational labor arbitrage and within overlapping state, market and familial discourses. While the narratives of dependent immigrant women showed evidence of interwoven subjection discourses, they also exemplified moments of awareness of subjection processes and the appropriation of these same discourses into self-making processes. Ultimately, in the navigation of macro institutional forces, educated subjectivities, also referred to as “educated selves” in this study, played a significant role in offering these immigrant women room to leverage these subject-making processes.
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    “Somali-Americans’ Media Use and Trust in News Sources”
    (2019-06) Kelley, Debra
    This dissertation is the culmination of a 10-year ethnographic study of immigrant news consumption, providing an in-depth view of Somali-American’s criticisms of mainstream news representation of their community, and examining the role of trust in media consumption. The results from this study inform traditional news media about different worldviews and what is needed to engage immigrant audiences. Data from this dissertation also sheds light on what the immigrants who participated in this study do to create their own media forums and build community. This document includes analyses from interviews, social media posts, public events, a pilot survey and newspaper coverage of Somalis.