The Chechens and Kurds of Kazakhstan between Historical and Second Homelands

Almost all minority ethnic groups in Kazakhstan are immigrants. This means that in addition to their current place of residence, Kazakhstan (their “Second Homeland”), they also have a place of origin (their “Historical Homeland”). The leadership of the country has approached this situation, which offers opportunities as well as dangers, by explicitly exhorting the official ethnic representations of minorities to nurture contacts with their Historical Homelands. In this article the examples of the Chechens and Kurds will be used to show how the representations of both ethnicities actively and politically pursued this task. For both groups, representing a nation without an independent state, a fourth actor must be added to the “triangle nexus” familiar from diaspora studies, respectively Russia and Turkey, whose positions the Kazakhstani government cannot simply disregard. What emerges from the study is the strong emotional link of both minorities’ representatives with Kazakhstan as their Second Homeland.

(Not) being granted the right to belong—Amateur football clubs in Germany

Empirical studies show that first- and second-generation immigrants are less likely to be members of sports clubs than their non-immigrant peers. Common explanations are cultural differences and socioeconomic disadvantages. However, lower participation rates in amateur sport could be at least partly due to ethnic discrimination. Are minority ethnic groups granted the same right to belong as their non-immigrant peers? To answer this question, this paper uses publicly available data from a field experiment in which mock applications were sent out to over 1,600 football clubs in Germany. Having a foreign-sounding name significantly reduces the likelihood of being invited to participate. The paper concludes that amateur football clubs are not as permeable as they are often perceived to be. It claims that traditional explanations for lower participation rates of immigrants need to be revisited.

Tackling Workplace Bullying for Minority Ethnic Doctors

Workplace bullying, undermining and microaggressions are a reality for many, and although the prevalence may vary, there is no environment that is free of such hostile interactions. The healthcare workforce is focussed on empathy, kindness and caring, yet the daily experiences of many are in stark contrast to this. Although awareness of these issues exist, incidents of bullying are still grossly under-reported. Bullying and undermining behaviours stem from a gradient of power and lack of appreciation of the societal advantages of diversity. In keeping with this, the experience of particular sub-populations are disproportionately worse, such as for women, minority ethnic groups, those with disability, LGBTQ+ and those from deprived backgrounds. There have been campaigns and initiatives to change workplace behaviours, with mixed successes. A less explored role is that of organisations whose declared mission is to stand up for equality, represent the voice of the minorities and the under-represented, akin to self-help groups and advocacy. This article explores workplace bullying from the perspective of the minority ethnic doctors and proposes the potential benefit of their representative organisations in helping to balance the inherent workplace disadvantages.

Concurrent Newborn Hearing and Genetic Screening in a Multi-Ethnic Population in South China

Hearing loss is a common sensory deficit in humans with intricate genomic landscape and mutational signature. Approximately 1–3 out of 1,000 newborns have hearing loss and up to 60% of these cases have a genetic etiology. In this study, we conducted the concurrent newborn hearing and genetic screening in 20 mutations (18 pathogenic variants in GJB2, SLC26A4, and MT-RNR1 and 2 uncertain clinical significance variants in GJB3) for 9,506 normal newborns (4,977 [52.4%] males) from 22 ethnic population in South China. A total of 1,079 (11.4%) newborns failed to pass the initial hearing screening; 160 (1.7%) infants failed to pass the re-screening, and 135 (1.4%) infants presented the diagnostic hearing loss. For the genetic screening, 220 (2.3%) newborns who presented at least one of the screened mutations were more likely to fail the hearing screening and have diagnostic hearing loss than mutation-negative newborns. In comparison to the differences of distribution of mutations, we did not identify any significant difference in the prevalence of screened mutations between Han group (n = 5,265) and Zhuang group (n = 3,464), despite the lack of number of minority ethnic groups. Studies including larger number of minority ethnic populations are needed in the future.

BILINGUALISM AND LANGUAGE ATTITUDES OF RESIDENTS OF THE REPUBLICS OF SOUTHERN SIBERIA IN THE CONTEXT OF URBANIZATION

Statement of the problem. The article examines the problems of co-functioning of the state languages of the republics of Southern Siberia in the context of urbanization processes that affect the acceleration of ethnocultural and linguistic assimilation of minority ethnic groups. The purpose of the article is to identify the features of the development of national-Russian bilingualism in the context of the linguistic attitudes of the speakers of the second state languages – Altai, Tuvan and Khakass, in the urban communicative space of the republics of southern Siberia. Research results indicate the commonality of bilingualism development in the three republics of Southern Siberia, determined by its legislatively enshrined status. The features of the actual use of its components correlate with the historically established ethno-demographic structure of the population, the pace and monocentrism of urbanization in the capital cities. Language attitudes of urban residents of the three republics in relation to the second state languages are generally positive, however, they are differentiated in the context of the ethnicity of the respondents, correlating with the ingrained social and ethno-identification attitudes in relation to languages of different status, which determines their communicative power. The metropolitan respondents of the titular nationalities demonstrate more positive linguistic attitudes in terms of their readiness to support the second state languages in comparison with the Russian respondents. At the same time, the level of fluency in all types of speech activity in native languages among young people in the capitals of the republics of Southern Siberia is lower than in rural areas.

Level Of Political Engagement In UK

If citizens do not recognize, respect, or partake in the democratic process, they are regarded as politically disengaged. In the United Kingdom, political retrenchment takes distinct forms and is more common among some populations than among others. This paper addresses the features of various political disengagement measures: selected policy perceptions; degree of participation in political activities; registration for elections; voting; and elected leaders, candidates and Members of Parliament. Youths, in particular, are less likely to register as voters, vote and get elected, and engage in some political events, whereas elderly people have more negative perceptions toward politics. Councilors, candidates as well as Members of Parliament have an average age of over 50 years. Moreover, it was less likely to register people from minority ethnic groups to vote, have them voted into political positions, and convince them to vote.