Ekman's Studies on Facial
Expression of Emotion
The Mouse Trap.
Dr. Helen Fisher: Science of Love
Dr. Helen Fisher: Science of Love
Tuesday, October 15, 2013
Monday, October 14, 2013
SSW105: Human Development
"Hyper Parents & Coddled Kids" Trailer
Hyper Parents & Coddled Kids - CBC - Links to full documentary.
How foetuses learn language
That's the main finding of a new study led by Ming-Te Wang, assistant professor of psychology in education in the University of Pittsburgh's School of Education and of psychology in Pitt's Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences. The results were published online today in the journal Child Development.
Neglect may be as harmful as physical and emotional abuse, according to new systematic review
The Mental Elf, (2013).
A Nation of Wimps
Marano, H.E. (2004). Psychology Today.
10 Scientific Tips For Raising Happy Kids
Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience Senior Writer (2012).
Direnfeld, G. (2013). Social Work Helper.
These four ingredients, valuing, competency, good deeds, and structure form the basic building blocks for the development of self esteem. And why develop self-esteem in children? Children with a healthy self-esteem feel good about themselves, relate well to others, behave more appropriately and are more aware of the world around them.
1. Show them you value them
2. Teach them and let them learn
3. Participate in doing good deeds
4. Make the rules of life clear
Thursday, October 10, 2013
SSW103: Immigration and Settlement in Canada
Barriers to Immigrant Success in Canada
High birthrate among immigrant women has implications for Canada
Todd, D. (2013). Vancouver Sun.
Immigrant women who have spent five years in Canada “have almost twice as many children of pre-school age (as) the average Canadian-born woman,” according to an extensive study by two noted economists.
There are major birthrate differences depending on newcomers’ country of origin: The women who have the highest birthrates tend to be from Africa, Pakistan and India. The women who have the lowest birthrates tend to be from Europe, the U.S. and East Asia.
The study by Ferrer and Adsera -- which explores how childbirth rates affect a family’s “economic assimilation” and other aspects of integration -- is important for Canada and especially Metro Vancouver, where roughly 45 per cent of residents are immigrants, mostly from South Asia and East Asia.
The study goes into detail about the child-birth patterns of the roughly 125,000 women who arrive each year in Canada, which has the highest per-capita immigration rate of any major country.
“African and South Asian women show a substantially higher fraction of children under five than similar native-born women,” write Ferrer and Adsera. They note that women from the Middle East quickly start out having babies after arriving in Canada, but eventually slow down to closer to the national norm.
In contrast, there is a relatively low fertility rate among women who arrive from Europe, the U.S. and the countries of East Asia, such as China, South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
The authors speculate that women between ages 18 and 45 from European and East Asian countries may worry more about what economists call the “opportunity costs of children,” since having children often reduces chances to increase income.
The authors surmise that women from Europe, China and other East Asian countries could place a different value on the “two-earner family model” than those from India, Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere.
The findings of Ferrer and Adsera dovetail with earlier data from Statistics Canada, which showed that, based on ethnicity, the lowest fertility rates in Canada are among white, Chinese and South Korean women, all of whom fall below the national birthrate average of 1.6 babies per woman.
In addition, a 2006 Statistics Canada database that correlated birth rates with religion supports the two economists’ observation that birth rates tend to be higher among newcomers from South Asia, which is predominantly Hindu and Muslim as well as the home to a large Sikh population.
The earlier StatsCan survey showed that Muslim women in Canada have 2.4 babies per woman on average, Hindu women deliver 2.0 babies and Sikh women have 1.8 babies.
Christian women in Canada, meanwhile, give birth to an average of 1.5 children, roughly the same rate as women who have no religion. The least fertile women in the country, by religion, are Buddhists (who are most likely to have East Asian origins).
Why does these birth data matter to Canada? Ferrer and Adsera firmly maintain women’s birthrates have powerful effects on how well immigrant families integrate, economically and otherwise, into their new chosen country.
“The ability to forecast population growth, demand for public services or even labour supply increasingly requires considering immigrant fertility.”
McMahon, T. (2013). MacLeans.
For a time, Sanjay Mavinkurve and wife Samvita Padukone were held up as poster children for Canada’s open and flexible immigration system, long touted for the benefits it brings to both the country and its newcomers. When the couple married in 2008, Mavinkurve—born in India, raised in Saudi Arabia and trained at Harvard University—was living in Silicon Valley, where he led a team of engineers designing Google maps for mobile phones. Padukone was working in finance at Singapore’s largest investment bank. Mavinkurve’s temporary U.S. work visa didn’t allow his wife to work in the States. So Google arranged to transfer Mavinkurve to the company’s office in Toronto, where Padukone, with degrees in engineering and finance and experience in international banking, hoped to land a job.
In the end, their story turned out to be less a picture of the Canadian dream than an image of the ugly reality facing so many Canadian immigrants. Padukone struggled to find a job. Calls to employers went unreturned or recruiters told her she would need Canadian work experience to qualify. With extended family already living in Canada, the couple expected a slow start, but was shocked by how difficult life here turned out to be. “I was trying to deny these thoughts in my head that my wife wasn’t facing these issues,” says Mavinkurve. “But then I’d see the taxi drivers with the Ph.D.s and the ads on TV saying, ‘hire a skilled immigrant.’ ”
In late 2009, the couple packed up and moved to Seattle, where Padukone, finally armed with a U.S. work permit, landed the first job she applied for: at Amazon’s head office. Their short time living in Canada taught the couple a lot about what it’s like to immigrate to Canada and, says Mavinkurve, it’s “not what any Canadian wants to hear.” “Canada is, by and large, not friendly to immigrants,” he says.
Canada’s “points system,” the first such system in the world, was designed to build a multicultural society based on selecting those with the kinds of broad, transferable skills that would ensure them long-term economic success. But in recent decades it has had the opposite effect. Even as Canada has worked diligently to attract the world’s most educated workers, the country has witnessed a dramatic decline in the economic welfare of its most skilled immigrants. It’s a decline other countries—nations far less welcoming to highly skilled imimigrants than Canada—have managed to avoid.
In 1970, men who immigrated to Canada earned about 85 per cent of the wages of Canadian-born workers, rising to 92 per cent after a decade in the country. By the late 1990s, they earned just 60 per cent, rising to 78 per cent after 15 years, according to Statistics Canada studies. These days, university-educated newcomers earn an average of 67 per cent of their Canadian-born, university-educated counterparts.
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Todd, D. (2013). Vancouver Sun.
More than 36 per cent of immigrants who have been in the country for less than five years live in poverty, according to the latest Canadian Labour Market Report. That compares to 25 per cent in the 1980s.“Increasing (immigrant) poverty is a tinderbox that can ultimately (descend) into social discontent,” write Peter Dungan of the University of Toronto, Tony Fang of York University and Morley Gunderson of the University of Toronto.
Poor immigrants could grow increasingly disenchanted because many were attracted to Canada by policies that give points “for skills and education, but such credentials are often not recognized,” says the report for the federally-funded Canadian Labour Market and Skills Researcher Network.
Two Canadian Labour Market Reports that show rising poverty among new immigrants, especially older ones, are being released the same month that a Bank of Montreal survey revealed 48 per cent of the country’s millionaires were either born outside Canada or had at least one parent who was.
The BMO survey found the proportion of first- and second-generation immigrants among “high-net-worth British Columbians” — defined as those with investable assets of $1 million or more — was 68 per cent, the highest in the country.
Another Labour Market study released this week found that immigrants who arrive after age 50 “often struggle in the Canadian labour market compared to both their native-born peers and their younger counterparts.”
Older immigrants have a great deal of difficulty getting their credentials accepted and building up either private or public pension plans in Canada, write economists Ted McDonald of the University of New Brunswick and Christopher Worswick of Ottawa’s Carleton University.
Older immigrants have a great deal of difficulty getting their credentials accepted and building up either private or public pension plans in Canada, write economists Ted McDonald of the University of New Brunswick and Christopher Worswick of Ottawa’s Carleton University.
“Income differentials are especially pronounced for older immigrants from non-traditional source countries (Africa, Asia and the Caribbean, according to Statistics Canada).”
Many older immigrants end up working well past normal retirement age.
While the earnings gap between the rich and the poor has been widening in general in Canada, that income gap is growing “even worse for immigrants, especially male immigrants,” Lemieux said.
Lemieux supports the Canadian government’s efforts to increasingly favour prospective immigrants who speak English or French well.
But better access to all kinds of less-expensive higher education, Lemieux emphasizes, is the main way to decreasing earning gaps among new immigrants and all Canadians.
Many older immigrants end up working well past normal retirement age.
While the earnings gap between the rich and the poor has been widening in general in Canada, that income gap is growing “even worse for immigrants, especially male immigrants,” Lemieux said.
Lemieux supports the Canadian government’s efforts to increasingly favour prospective immigrants who speak English or French well.
But better access to all kinds of less-expensive higher education, Lemieux emphasizes, is the main way to decreasing earning gaps among new immigrants and all Canadians.
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
SSW103: South Asian People in Canada
Express Media and South Asian Canadian History
Naveen Girn (2013). HuffPost B.C.
On a cold Friday morning 99 years ago today, the Komagata Maru navigated its way into Burrard Inlet. May 23, 1914 was an important day for the press as the ship's arrival made front-page news. The media had been reporting the boat's imminent arrival for several days and this drove a large crowd of spectators down to the docks to gaze at the 376 passengers onboard. These 376 Hindu, Muslim, and Sikh passengers where more than just immigrants coming to Canada, they had become symbols of a catastrophic "Hindu Invasion" that would rob British Columbians of their jobs, spread sexual deviancy throughout Canada and (if letters to the editor were to be believed) bring an end to Western civilization itself. The Province asked its readers, wouldn't the presence of the Japanese on board inspire the Hindus with the idea of Asiatic conquest?
Which brings me to why for years I wrestled with this 99-year-old story. For me, there always seemed to be two Komagata Marus. One was trotted out every year as a story about Canadian racism that quickly veered into the realm of apologies, financial compensation, and online comment boards filled with subtle (and overtly) racial slurs. The other Maru is a vivid story of resistance, cross cultural community ties, and a living story relevant to today's Canada. I received one Maru for the better part of my life. I wanted to learn more about the other.
The first Komagata Maru was introduced to me sandwiched between narratives of the Chinese Head Tax and Japanese Internment. It had no scope to breathe. No room for discussion and further explanation. And it was the only time I remember seeing people that looked like me in my school textbooks. The second Komagata Maru is more elusive. It took me years to unlearn the biases I had built up around the story, hear the voices of the pioneers and understand the history on its own terms. This Maru can be found in the books and films of Ali Kazimi and the articles by Hugh Johnston. This Maru lives on in buildings that still exist from that time, like the present day Vancouver Art Gallery and the Anglo-Indian ghost that haunts it today. It lives on in the governmental life of hockey legends and attempts at memorialization and commemoration that link unjust legal practices to present day injustices in Canada and around the world.
The real story of the Komagata Maru resonates beyond 1914, linking to freedom movements in India and the right to vote for South Asians in Canada. It addresses how we build communities, understand official multiculturalism, and how we remember our past. There is a reason why May 23, 1914 is still remembered today and how we remember it should be just as important as why we do.
Tuesday, October 8, 2013
SSW103: Middle Eastern Canadians
The Arab Community in Canada
Statistics Canada.
PBS.
Geddes, J. (2013). MacLeans.
In the early evening of Sept. 17, before dark, a 17-year-old girl strolled from the Al-Noor Mosque in St. Catharines, Ont., to the plaza across the street. She was planning to buy a drink and snack. Then three other girls, teenagers the girl from the mosque didn’t recognize, walked up behind her. According to Sallah Hamdani, a spokesman for the local Islamic community, the trio of girls began by making bigoted remarks. Isn’t it against your religion, one asked, to be out walking alone? Ugly words escalated into pushing, then punching. “There was blood. She went to the hospital to make sure her nose wasn’t broken,” Hamdani said. “Her hijab was pulled. You can’t keep it on during a fight.”
The altercation outside a convenience store was rough enough to be noticed from a nearby optometrist’s office, where witnesses called the police. Before they arrived, a woman walking a dog also stepped in. Two 16-year-old girls were charged with assault. They can’t be named under the Youth Criminal Justice Act. The girl from the mosque wasn’t badly hurt, at least not physically. Hamdani worries, though, that the girl’s immigrant parents might feel differently about the place they’ve chosen to live. Then there’s the matter of how the girl’s head scarf—the sort that covers a woman’s hair, not her face—might have factored into the incident. “Those girls who wear the hijab, or were thinking of it, will wonder, ‘Will people pick on me?’” Hamdani says.
Across Canada, Muslims have reason to feel concerned about how they are perceived when other Canadians identify them by their religion. A poll conducted by Angus Reid Public Opinion early last month, the results of which were made available exclusively to Maclean’s, found that attitudes toward Islam have deteriorated markedly across the country over the past four years. “It’s disturbing to see this growing level of mistrust,” said Andrew Grenville, Angus Reid’s chief research officer. The way Canadians see the other major religions—Christianity, Judaism, Sikhism, Hinduism and Buddhism—didn’t change much in the same four-year period.
This snapshot of public opinion comes as the Quebec government’s proposed “charter of values,” which would forbid provincial employees from wearing obvious religious garb and jewellery on the job, sparks heated debate about religious expression. In fact, the poll shows that opinion in Quebec, while markedly less tolerant of religious minorities overall than in other provinces, hasn’t grown less favourable toward Muslims in recent years. In 2009, Angus Reid found that 68 per cent of Quebecers held an unfavourable opinion of Islam. Asked the same question this fall, the Quebec result was pretty much level, at 69 per cent.
But in the rest of Canada, where 46 per cent held an unfavourable view of Islam in 2009, that figure has risen sharply to 54 per cent this year. By comparison, 39 per cent outside Quebec held an unfavourable opinion of Sikhism, the faith with the biggest public-opinion problem after Islam. All the other religions were regarded unfavourably by less than 30 per cent of Canadians, and those who see Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism and Buddhism in a good light far outnumbered those harbouring suspicions. In Quebec, 48 per cent said they would find it unacceptable for one of their children to marry a Muslim, up slightly from 45 per cent in 2009. In the rest of Canada, those who found the thought of a son or daughter marrying a Muslim unacceptable shot up to 32 per cent from 24 per cent. Rejection of the idea of a child marrying into any of the other religions was considerably lower.
The finding that only Islam is viewed unfavourably by a majority of Canadians has to be deeply discouraging, of course, to those who work to improve the standing of Muslims in Canada. But, given a string of unsettling news stories in recent years—from what police called an “al-Qaeda-supported” plan to derail a passenger train in Toronto, to a prominent court case about whether a Muslim woman should be allowed to testify while wearing the niqab religious veil—the opinion shift is not entirely unexpected. “It’s surprising and it isn’t,” said Ihsaan Gardee, executive director at the National Council of Canadian Muslims. “This is something that we’re constantly working on, the misperceptions that people have about Islam and Muslims. It certainly doesn’t help that in our political discourse, issues come up that are sensationalized in the media.”
Angus Reid’s poll, an online survey of 2,025 adults conducted early last month, discovered that many Canadians who don’t mind other religious clothing do object to Muslim women covering their faces. Asked about the burka, a loose garment that leaves only an opening for the eyes, 90 per cent of Quebecers and 62 per cent in the rest of the country said they shouldn’t be allowed in public sector workplaces. But on the hijab, a much simpler headscarf without a veil, the portion of Quebecers opposed to allowing them dropped to 63 per cent, while fully 65 per cent of Canadians elsewhere supported letting public servants wear them at work. Opinion on the hijab appears to be divided along similar lines to other religious headgear. Gardee acknowledges that some opposition to veiling can’t be put down to outright bigotry against Muslims. Many see the issue as a matter of women’s rights. “There’s concern about whether this is something being imported and pushed on people,” he says. “We understand that concern.”
Still, burkas and niqabs remain relatively rare in Canada. The hijab is a much more common sight. Shahina Siddiqui, president and executive director of Winnipeg’s Islamic Social Services Association, says she often counsels Muslim parents and their daughters about the choice to wear one or not. In some cases, Siddiqui says, the tension is over a daughter’s wish to follow the tradition and the parents’ reluctance. “People have this impression it’s the parents pushing it,” she says. “Some parents do not want their daughters wearing the hijab.” (Siddiqui herself wears it, but only started after she immigrated to Canada from Pakistan.) “My advice is, if it works for you, do it,” she says. “If you feel it isn’t comfortable to you, it doesn’t bring you close to the creator, then forget it.”
SSW103: Asian Canadians in Canada
Chinese Canadian Stories
(produced by CCS)
CBC Radio Canada International.
In the 1880s, thousands of Chinese immigrants worked to help build Canada’s railway. But as soon as their work was over in 1885, the message was clear: Chinese people weren’t welcome in Canada anymore. The Canadian government went to great lengths to keep Chinese immigrants out of the country, including an extremely expensive head tax on all Chinese immigrants. This 1997 CBC Television clip examines those difficult early days of Chinese immigration.
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Japanese Internment In
Canada - Part 1
Force of Nature: The David Suzuki movie (Clip 1)
What kind of Asian are you?
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