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Battle Creek, a small Midwest city in Michigan, is home to approximately 3,700 Burmese refugees, most of whom are Christians and find employment in factory jobs. In the past two years, a pressing crisis has been brewing in the Burmese community. Excessive alcohol consumption among Burmese men has led to an alarming number of DUI/DWI (driving under influence/driving while intoxicated) arrests. Burmese DWI offenders' significantly high blood alcohol levels (.32-.35) suggest potential mental health issues and their high rates of probation violation indicate the ineffective substance abuse treatment after their arrests. This paper analyzes how different perceptions and proposed solutions among three social institutions--the criminal justice system, the mental health care system, and Burmese ethnic churches--lead to the failure of correcting alcohol misuse behavior among the Burmese. The paper will discuss major challenges facing Burmese activists on this particular issue and examine the greater impact of Burmese DWI arrests on their integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For nearly the past four decades U.S. public schools have relied on zero-tolerance policies to manage disciplinary issues. These policies were initiated with the intent to they would make school environments safer, decrease in-school incidents of violence and behavioral issues and provide a fair and balanced measure for determining and disciplinary consequences. Research has shown however, that in practice, zero-tolerance policies have fallen short of their goals. Since implementation, school violence has remained stable over time, while suspension and expulsion rates have increased; particularly for students of color and students with disabilities. In light of this, disciplinary alternatives, such as restorative practices, have been introduced as a healthier way to address unwanted behavior in the school environment. This paper takes to task the question, how are restorative practices best implemented in the school environment by engaging in an empirical study on obstacles to application in Michigan schools. Ultimately, this research seeks to inquire: what forms of resistance barriers, bureaucratic and otherwise, do teachers and administrators encounter in making restorative practice part of the school culture? The author found that the most significant obstacles to changing the culture of Michigan schools were both cultural and structural in nature. The most challenging impediments to whole school change lay in the idea of restorative practices as a philosophy (I), the reality that many teachers and staff members prefer punitive measures (II), and selective implementation (III). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dimensions of "Arab-ness" have always marked Arabs in the Americas. In spite of hailing from various Arab backgrounds and affiliations, being Arab American implies the acceptance not only of a new cultural identity predicated on an ethnic heritage, but also constitutes a socio-political declaration, asserting a national and ethnic identity that exists in cultural ideology, if not in political or legal terms. Therefore, in the absence of any collective Arab State that can bring together various cultural Arabs under one law and nationality or offer a locus of affiliation, the only venue that had been available historically has been to assert this Arabity through cultural attestation of belonging to something bigger and larger than parochial subdivisions. This paper examines Arab American youth in Dearborn (Michigan), many of whom are born in the United States, and all of whom are raised there, can in fact be "Arab", highlighting the elements that define Arab ethnicity in America. The paper suggests that these youth are not Arab in the way their parents would like (or theoretically think of them) and they are not American in the way that mainstream society may perceive them, but a new hybrid culture. Although they are supposed to not to "fit" easily in both cultures, making it difficult for them to adjust to either, nonetheless, the "Arabics" of Dearborn are thriving because ultimately they do not see themselves deficient, rather they count themselves as whole individuals, intuitively accepting their hybrid natures. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

?Diversity? has become a fashionable and plastic buzzword over the past thirty years. With the recent U.S. Supreme Court cases concerning affirmative action at the University of Michigan, the concept of diversity has received even greater public scrutiny. The existing scholarly literature that examines discourses about diversity usually relies on macro-level, legal, or text analyses, overlooking people?s interpretations of diversity in their everyday practices. The proposed paper helps to fill in this gap. It draws on over a year of ethnographic evidence about how interests groups involved in the lawsuits against UM?including university administrators, pro- and anti-affirmative action activists, legal professionals, and political leaders?politically and legally mobilized around the lawsuits and then responded to the Court?s decisions. The paper builds on cultural analyses of the law and collective action by examining how various interest groups negotiate different socio-legal paradoxes around diversity. Preliminary findings show how nearly every group is in favor of ?diversity,? but they all confront challenges when defining this concept and putting it into practice. For example, outsider activists?both in favor of and opposed to affirmative action?talk about diversity by simultaneously endorsing it and questioning its relevance, meaning, or existence. The proposed paper concludes with a discussion of how ideas related to law acquire constituencies, constitute the categories through which people construct the world, and ultimately shape their efforts to address different social problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the social history of Southfield, Michigan and the events that lead to the integration of the city. Southfield with a total population of 78,322 people lies right across Eight Mile Road to the far Northwest side of Detroit. In 2000, blacks made up 54.2% of Southfield's population. Southfield's white population dropped by 27% between 1990 and 2000. So why do whites leave when blacks move in? Surveys report that the two reasons that whites mostly give to justify their moving are increase in crime and a decrease in housing values. The purpose of this paper is to disprove stereotypes and understand the demographics of Southfield and to see if there has been a significant change since blacks first migrated to the city in 1964. The analysis consists of an analysis of statistics from 2000 Census Data, the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments, and data from the Detroit News. Between 1990 and 200, there was a slight increase in crime and now Southfield leads Oakland County in crime. However housing values increased by 28 percent. Overall, there was some truth to the fears expressed by those whites who "took flight". Southfield is an "Edge City" with a daytime population of over 200,000 commuters, which may be contributing to the crime problem. The future of racial integration in Southfield, MI will depend on trends in neighboring municipalities, including Detroit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I analyze the following question: how does the historic visibility and the establishment of gay identity and community change the rural/urban binary as a site for the production of gay identity? Data for this paper are twenty-five in-depth qualitative interviews with individuals who identify as gay, lesbian, or bisexual and who are either currently living in or grew up in and have since left rural towns in Michigan. I argue that people are being gay in rural space and outline the various ways respondents discuss being gay, out, and visible in their rural communities. Thus, I argue that the historical shift of increased visibility of gays and lesbians in the public sphere has created the possibility for the production of a gay identity in a rural space. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines contemporary literature on "successful aging," as developed primarily by Rowe and Kahn (1997). Successful aging literature suggests that older adults have agency and autonomy over disease and disability; when remaining free from disability, older adults consequently will maintain a high level of physical and cognitive functioning, continue interpersonal relationships, and contribute productively to society. Much of the research on successful aging also has been quantitative and prescriptive, defining "aging" as well as "success" in aging very narrowly; thus, this paper serves not only to examine but also to critique this literature by reporting on a 2006 survey of Michigan residents about their "success" in aging. Specifically, survey data is presented to show whether and how diverse individuals define themselves as successful agers, and how closely individuals adhere to Rowe & Kahn's perspective on this subject. In their conclusions, the authors call for a broader conceptualization of what it means to age "successfully" and additional sociological research in this area, to promote a greater understanding of how diverse populations conceptualize and engage in aging processes. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the key factors that contributed to the development and implementation of Central Michigan University?s Youth Studies Minor. I hope that this information will assist other social scientists interested in developing a similar academic major or minor for students at their university which will theoretically increase the numbers of ?sociologically grounded? college graduates working with children and youth in the ?real world? rather than allowing purely psychologically trained individuals to continue to dominate the landscape of ?services? for young people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at the Newark and Detroit Riots of 1967 as traumatic events with wide ranging effects on individuals and the community as a whole. Drawing on oral history interviews conducted over the past three years, this research attempts to uncover patterns in the statements of eyewitnesses in relation to the experiences of other disaster victims. The effects of the riots that took place in Newark and Detroit in the summer of 1967 are in many ways comparable to those experienced by the victims of fires, floods, earthquakes, and other ?natural disasters? but are compounded by the fact that the riots were the result of human intention. For individuals traumatized by these events, an effective strategy is to provide a venue for them to share their recollections with others, thereby placing them in a narrative context and allowing for the assimilation of these painful memories. On a collective level, communities gain little by attempting to bury shameful vestiges of the past. Before the riot city can move on to renaissance, it must effectively commemorate the events it has tried so hard to put to rest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Chaldeans are an immigrant group with nearly a century long presence in the Detroit metropolitan area. Because of social pressures abroad, the group has been continuously renewed by newcomers throughout the 20th century. The result is a segmented gender experience across immigrant cohort and generation that can be followed by differences in how men and women negotiate a gender system. While research is formative at this stage (but will be complete for the ASA conference), some patterns are emerging. The second generation women, whose mothers are of the older immigrant cohort, are exploiting opportunities in education and employment that defy the experiences of their mothers or immigrant women coming in the 1980s and 1990s. These young women are benefiting from the resources generated by an ethnic economy. And with increasing familiarity with US norms and expanded employment opportunities, there has developed new expectations for how men and women will live together in the second generation. In this paper, I will interrogate the change in the Chaldean gender system as a link between community social institutions and the broader social institutions of the Detroit region. The goal is to identify how gender shapes opportunities and patterns social interactions for Chaldean men and women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]