Rights-Based Education for South Asian Sponsored Wives in International Arranged Marriages

The Family Class Category of Canada’s Immigration Policy exists with the key objective of family unification. Among Canada’s second largest immigrant group, the South Asians, the cultural practice of arranged marriage is applied across international borders, leading to spousal sponsorship. Existing research on South Asian sponsored wives suggests that they tend to misunderstand their rights as sponsored persons, as well as the rights and limitations of their sponsors. Misunderstandings may lead women to passively respond to sponsor-imposed barriers to integration. This paper builds a case for educating South Asian women about their sponsorship rights to assist them in recognizing and responding to rights violations. The paper presents an educational framework that would respond to their unique needs and vulnerabilities.     

Individual Assimilation Status and Intergenerational Gaps in Hispanic Refugee Families

This study assessed relationships between Hispanic refugee parents' and adolescents' assimilation status and their perceived and actual experiences of intergenerational differences in views of acceptable and unacceptable adolescent behaviours. Fifty parent-adolescent dyads from Central and South America rated the acceptability of 24 prototypical culture shedding behaviours from their own perspective as well as from the perceived perspective of the other family member. The individual assimilation status of both parents and adolescents was related to the actual degree of intergenerational gaps in the family, but not to perceived gaps, attesting to a lack of awareness of the role of individual level cultural changes in family dynamics. This blind spot may underlie the tendency of parents to attribute assimilative adolescent behaviours to disobedience and of adolescents to attribute parental reactions to misuses of parental authority. Implications for counselling are discussed.     

Perceived versus actual parent-adolescent assimilation disparity among hispanic refugee families

This study compared the perceived and actualdegree of family assimilation disparity among50 Hispanic refugee parent-adolescent dyads. Participants completed a behaviourquestionnaire requiring them to rate theacceptability of prototypical assimilativeadolescent behaviours from both their ownperspective and that of the other familymember. Dependent sample t-tests revealed thatthe Hispanic parents and adolescentssignificantly underestimated or overestimatedthe actual degree of intergenerational gaps.These findings attest to the existence ofhealth-promoting and health-compromisingbeliefs about assimilation disparity, asincongruence between parents' and adolescents'levels of assimilation is associated with avariety of negative individual and familyoutcomes. Implications for counselling arediscussed.     

Perceived Experiences of Central American Refugees Who Favourably Judge the Family's Cultural Transition Process

This study aimed to assess the role of perception in shaping family realities. Using the multiple case study approach, six Central American refugee parent-adolescent dyads who underestimated intergenerational differences in acceptance of cultural change were interviewed about the nature of the parent-adolescent relationship after migration. Qualitative analysis of their interview responses revealed that their family experiences were characterized by positive affect, high cohesion, and collaborative problem-solving processes involving open communication and mutual respect in response to the cultural transition process. These family experiences stand in direct contrast to those reported when culture clashes are realized, suggesting that the participants' appraisals of their situation represent positive illusions. The counselling option of non-intervention is discussed.