Issues Facing Cultural Minorities in the Canadian Context: Religion, Social Networks, Education
and Acculturation

This symposium highlights diverse cultural understandings of various aspects of mental health
issues. Sunohara et al. discussed distinct explanatory styles of mental illness among
Japanese lay people, including moralizing and interdependent self-construal. Sun et al. looked
at depressive symptoms among Chinese outpatients over time, and found continued somatic
symptoms and rising psychological symptoms, which are equivalent to their Euro-Canadian
counterparts. Among Muslim-Syrian refugees in Canada, Qasim & Hynie found religion to be
an effective coping strategy when dealing with settlement stress, including financial threat.
Through a mass media lense, Ahmed & Dere performed a content analysis on a Canadian
mental health anti-stigma campaign (Bell “Let’s Talk”), and found cultural representation and
perspectives to be lacking.