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Research & Action Report Spring/Summer 2009
Rangita de Silva-de Alwis, LL.M., S.J.D., director of International Human Rights Policy Programs at the Wellesley Centers for Women, reflects on ways the Universal Declaration of Human Rights informs the Centers’ newest international work.

The notion of the intergenerational transmission of abuse has been accepted for some time. Both research and our own observations lead us to expect that having been abused or neglected or having witnessed violence between parents as a child will contribute to an individual’s increased risk to abuse or neglect one’s own child or to be involved in an abusive relationship as an adult.

Two years ago, scholars at the Wellesley Centers for Women (WCW) launched a study of racial and ethnic identification among adolescents of mixed ancestry. The reasons for pursuing the research were several. Most literature about ethnic/racial self-identification patterns derived from adult respondents. For example, the series of studies that led to the change in wording of racial self-identification in the 2000 Census was carried out with adults.