Description: Research clearly indicates that ethnic groups differ significantly on levels of mental and physical health, antisocial behavior, and educational attainment. This book explains these variations with respect to their psychological and social functioning and tests competing hypotheses about the mechanisms that might cause the functioning to differ in pattern from other groups. Attention is paid to educational attainments, antisocial behavior, schizophrenia and suicide, and to the complex and changing patterns of ethnic identity. The book concludes with a discussion of the multiple meanings of ethnicity, the major variations among ethnic groups, and policy implications.
Brief description: Michael Rutter is Professor of Developmental Psychopathology at the Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London. His research has included the genetics of autism, the effect of early severe deprivation on Romanian orphans adopted into Britain, and the study of both school and environmental influences on children's behavior. He has published nearly 40 books.
Review Quotes: "This is an important book, in no small part because it is clear about what the concepts "ethnicity," "race," and "culture" mean and their relationships to adolescent lives in the United Kingdom and the United States."
-Joan Koss-Chioino, PsycCRITIQUES