How do people respond to the news that they are HIV positive? To date, there have been few published qualitative studies of HIV diagnosis experiences, and none focusing on Caribbean people. Twenty-five HIV-positive Caribbean people in London, UK, related their diagnosis experience and its immediate aftermath in semi-structured interviews. Diagnosis with HIV caused profound shock and distress to participants, as they associated the disease with immediate death and stigmatisation. The respondents struggled with "biographical disruption", the radical disjuncture between life before and after diagnosis, which led them into a state of liminality, as they found themselves "betwixt and between" established structural and social identities. Respondents were faced with multifaceted loss: of their known self, their present life, their envisioned future and the partner they had expected to play a role in each of these. A minority of accounts suggest that the way in which healthcare practitioners delivered the diagnosis intensified the participants' distress. This research suggests that healthcare practitioners should educate patients in specific aspects of HIV transmission and treatment, and engage closely with them in order to understand their needs and potential reactions to a positive diagnosis. Adapted from the source document.
A study based on a small survey of food and nutrient intakes and traditional dietary habits of African-Caribbean adults living in Staffordshire. Methods: A questionnaire, designed to collect demographic data and information on medical status, physical activities, dietary, cooking and food shopping habits was administered to a convenience sample of 39 adults.
Analyzes the educational progress of 530,000 pupils in England between age 7 in 2000 and age 11 in 2004. The results show that Black Caribbean boys not entitled to free school meals, and particularly the more able pupils, made significantly less progress than their White British peers. There is no evidence that the gap results from Black Caribbean pupils attending less effective schools. The results suggest the poor progress of Black Caribbean pupils reflects a systemic issue rather than the influence of a small number of "low quality" schools.
The purpose of this paper is to explore how ethnicity remains relevant to the workplace experience of minority ethnic graduate employees in contemporary British organizations. Qualitative interviews were conducted with 30 British Black Caribbean graduate employees drawn from a range of public and private-sector organizations to examine the ways in which they felt their ethnicity impacted on how they experienced their places of work.
A brief overview of London's carnival and its beginnings in the late 1950s. Claudia Jones committed herself to both the culture and political underpinning of Caribbean carnival when she founded the event. London's West Indian community embraced carnival as an important source of celebration and cultural identity in the face of racist intimidation in Britain. The essay explores various difficulties that black British artists face gaining recognition, particularly those who work in carnival.
How do people respond to the news that they are HIV positive? To date, there have been few published qualitative studies of HIV diagnosis experiences, and none focusing on Caribbean people. Twenty-five HIV-positive Caribbean people in London, UK, related their diagnosis experience and its immediate aftermath in semi-structured interviews. Diagnosis with HIV caused profound shock and distress to participants, as they associated the disease with immediate death and stigmatisation. The respondents struggled with biographical disruption, the radical disjuncture between life before and after diagnosis, which led them into a state of liminality, as they found themselves betwixt and between established structural and social identities. Respondents were faced with multifaceted loss: of their known self, their present life, their envisioned future and the partner they had expected to play a role in each of these. A minority of accounts suggest that the way in which healthcare practitioners delivered the diagnosis intensified the participants' distress
Examines trends in entrepreneurship among minority ethnic groups in Britain. It begins with an analysis of how self-employment rates for different ethnic groups have evolved since the early 1990s. We find that rates of self-employment have fallen for Indians and the Chinese and argue that this is due to increased opportunities in paid employment, partly brought about by demographic change. However, entrepreneurs from these groups still work the longest hours. In contrast, self-employment rates have risen for Black Caribbean males in recent years and remain high for Pakistani males.
Reviews the book, Race, gender and educational desire: Why black women succeed and fail by Heidi Safia Mirza (2009). The author looks to understand and unpack the complex intersectionalities that mark contemporary black British feminism, teasing out their particular implications for education and educational debates today.
This paper presents estimates of the level and trend of the fertility of different ethnic minorities in the UK from the 1960s up to 2006. The fertility estimates are derived primarily from the Labour Force Survey using the Own-Child method, with additional information from the General Household Survey and vital registration data. Comparisons are made between the level of fertility of UK-born and immigrant mothers from minority groups, and the fertility of the populations in the country of origin. Total fertility in all groups has fallen from levels that were initially relatively high. That of some UK ethnic groups has already fallen to about the level of the UK national average (e.g., black Caribbean) or below it (e.g., Indian and Chinese). Only among Pakistani and Bangladeshi women does total fertility remain substantially above the national average despite a continuous decrease over the last 20 years.
Despite the difficulty differentiating between the symptomology of dissociative disorders and schizophrenia, Black people of African and Caribbean descent in the UK continue to be diagnosed with schizophrenia and over-represented within the mental health care system. The reasons why remain illusive; however, some researchers have begun asking whether racism plays an integral part. Given that Black people often given racism as a contributing factor to their mental state, and the difficulty differentiating between the symptomology of dissociative disorders and schizophrenia, this study examined the relation between mental representations that might be indicative of the subjective experience of racism and dissociative experiences as evidence of a trauma-related response.
