Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Culture As Concept And Influence In Environmental Research And Management, Lesley M. Head, D. Trigger, J. Mulcock

Faculty of Science - Papers (Archive)

Given that human activities have been implicated in the vast majority of contemporary environmental problems, it might be expected that research effort into those activities and the attitudes from which they stem would be both strongly supported by funding agencies, and of central interest to environmental scientists and land managers. In this paper we focus on an undervalued area of environmental humanities research—cultural analysis of the beliefs, practices and often unarticulated assumptions which underlie human–environmental relations. In discussing how cultural processes are central to environmental attitudes and behaviours, and how qualitative research methods can be used to understand them in …

The Social And Cultural Construction Of Singlehood Among Young, Single Mormons, Jana Darrington, Kathleen W. Piercy, Sylvia Niehuis

The Qualitative Report

Religious young adults interpret their single experiences based on an intricate system of influences that include personal beliefs, family, religious teachings, and friendships. This qualitative study of 24 never-married, young Mormon men and women examined the social and cultural construction of singlehood based on: (1) definitions of singlehood, (2) influences on the construction of singlehood, and (3) feelings about being single. A major theme of this research emerged in the way participants defined singlehood: by what they lacked and by seeking to end their temporary single state through marriage. Families and religious teachings interacted to form the strongest influences on …

Prosocial Behaviors In Context: A Study Of The Gikuyu Children Of Ngecha, Kenya, Maria Rosario De Guzman, Carolyn P. Edwards, Gustavo Carlo

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

This study examines children’s prosocial behaviors in everyday contexts that represent varying degrees of strength of situational demands. Behavioral observations of children (N = 89) ages 2 to 10 years (M = 5.25, SD = 2.23)., collected in Ngecha, Kenya were coded for 3 types of prosocial behaviors (nurturant, responsible and prosocial dominant) and the contexts in which these behaviors emerged (childcare, self care, labor/chores, play, idle/ social). Mixed factorial ANOVAs showed age differences in prosocial behaviors favoring older children as well as context effects. Prosocial behaviors occurred more frequently than in labor/chores than in play, idle/social or self-care contexts; …

Culture As Deficit: A Critical Discourse Analysis Of The Concept Of Culture In Contemporary Social Work Discourse, Yoosun Park

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

This paper is a critical discourse analysis of the usage of the concept of "culture" in social work discourse. The paper argues that "culture" is inscribed as a marker for difference which has largely replaced the categories of race and ethnicity as the preferred trope of minority status. "Culture" is conceived as an objectifiable body of knowledge constituting the legitimate foundationfor the building of interventions. But such interventions cannot be considered other than an instrument which reinforces the subjugating paradigm from which it is fashioned. The concept of culture, constructed from within an orthodoxic, hegemonic discursive paradigm, is deployed as …

Amish Teacher Dialogues With Teacher Educators: Research, Culture, And Voices Of Critique, Henry Zehr, Glenda Moss, Joe Nichols

The Qualitative Report

This dialogical project is framed with in critical inquiry methods to bring an Amish teacher’s voice to the fore front. Henry, an Amish middle school teacher, and two university teacher educators in northeastern Indiana collaboratively critiqued educational literature written about the Amish culture from the past 15 years. Building on critical ethnography and narrative methods, the authors used dialogue as a medium for inquiry. The intersubjective, collaborative project democratized the university researchers’ research role and allowed an Amish voice to gain a place in the academic field of research.

Overexposed: Issues Of Public Gender Imaging, Pamela K. Morris

College of Journalism and Mass Communications: Faculty Publications

Make no mistake—it is popularity that makes pop culture important. And it is the powerful visual imagery of advertisements that helps define the largely artificial construction we call gender. Sex-role stereotyping and gender representations are typically studied in content analyses of television and magazine advertisements. Less common are investigations into outdoor advertising, a medium that is ubiquitous and the most democratic—everyone has equal access to visuals. This essay calls attention to and offers insights on advertisements in our outdoor visual space, focusing on gender representations. Capturing and analyzing these ephemeral images can show how they influence how we feel, think, …

Implications Of Media Scrutiny For A Child Protection Agency, Lindsay D. Cooper

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

This study examines media impact on job efficacy in a child protection agency. The research uses inductive, holistic research methods to examine the effect of media scrutiny on changes in management dictates, worker duties and responsibilities, and agency services. Data were collected from media sources, interviews, archival materials, and participant observation, then analyzed via qualitative content analysis, providing a basis for rich ethnographic description of perceptions and behavior of diverse groups of people involved in child protection. The study reveals how contradictions in American national culture generate a need for increased communication, understanding, agreement, and support, between various groups of …

The Process And Meaning Of Sexual Assault Disclosure, Sharon G. Smith

Psychology Dissertations

Disclosure of sexual assault is a complicated process which depends upon a host of factors, such as assault characteristics, the victim’s interpretation, and the level of distress she experiences. Comprehensive theories of adult sexual assault disclosure have not been proposed. Most studies concentrate on a particular aspect of disclosure, such as outcomes of disclosure and reasons for disclosing versus not disclosing. A number of gaps exist in the current literature on adult sexual assault disclosure. These include the conceptualization of disclosure as a discrete or continuous variable; how it may evolve during stages of recovery; the progression of disclosure (e.g., …

The Role Of Religion In The Transition To Adulthood For Young Emerging Adults, Carolyn Mcnamara Barry, Larry J. Nelson

Faculty Publications

Recent research has highlighted the role of culture in emerging adulthood (age between 18 and 25 years). However, most studies have examined majority cultures (e.g., China) as well as subcultures (e.g., American ethnic minorities). Thus, work on other aspects of culture such as religion is needed given the emerging evidence that it may have an impact on development. This study explored the role of religious culture in the emerging adulthood of college students. Participants were 445 undergraduates (ages 18–20 years) from institutions that were Catholic (31 males, 89 females), Mormon (48 males, 200 females), and public (21 males, 56 females). …

High School Principals' Values And Their Symbolic And Cultural Leadership Approaches To Character Education In China, T.C. Kao Edd

Dissertations

Relatively little is known about the symbolic and cultural leadership practices and approaches used to imbed character education in high schools in China. In addition, there is a lack of published studies and reports investigating the revival between character and moral education in the Chinese school system. Without additional information, it is impossible to understand and develop effective leadership approaches that will shape and mold school cultures to effectively support both character and moral education. The literature reviewed in this study revealed little information about if, and in what form, there is a return to moral education focusing on traditional …

Culture And Motivation In Online Learning Environments, Frances A. Clem Edd

Dissertations

In the past, instructional design of online learning has largely ignored culture in the creation of online learning environments. Because research in the interaction of culture and online learning is very sparse, an exploratory, blended study was conducted to assess whether there is evidence that one measurable aspect of learners’ culture interacts with the online learning environment in ways that can be observed and identified, and whether this interaction impacts learners’ motivation and behavior in those environments. “Culture” is a complex concept consisting of many interrelated behaviors and values. For this reason, the study focused on one single aspect of …

2005-2006, Csusb

Anthropology Department newsletter

Inside this issue

• Alumni news p.3
• Jim's remarkable qualities p.4
• Faculty news p.6
• Archaeological field school p.9

Cultural Chameleons: Biculturals, Conformity Motives, And Decision Making, Donnel A. Briley, Michael W. Morris, Itamar Simonson

Donnel A Briley

Prior research suggests that bicultural individuals (i.e., individuals with 2 distinct sets of cultural values) shift the values they espouse depending on cues such as language. The authors examined whether the effects of language extend to a potentially less malleable domain, behavioural decisions, exploring the extent to which bilingual individuals shift the underlying strategies used to resolve choice problems. Although past research has explained language-induced shifts in terms of knowledge accessibility principles, the motivation to conform to observers’ norms can also drive these shifts. This article focuses on shifts in the general strategy of avoiding losses rather than pursuing gains, …

Cultural Variation In The Theory Of The Firm, Donald W. Katzner

Economics Department Working Paper Series

This paper presents a model of the firm that includes the possibility of firm and employee-on-the-job decision making based on alternatives to profit and utility maximization. Such alternatives are relevant and significant when explaining firm activity in cultural environments in which self interest is not considered to be a primary force driving human behavior. Three types of firms are defined and their properties compared: the Western firm, the Japanese firm, and the clan. The third is a combination of the first two.

The Impact Of National Culture On The Standardization Versus Adaptation Of Knowledge Management, Zhi Ang, Peter R. Massingham

Faculty of Commerce - Papers (Archive)

This paper examines the affect of national culture on knowledge management for multinational companies (MNCs). MNCs often have to decide whether to standardise or adapt their operations. Previous research has found that national culture has an effect in a range of MNC operations, e.g. human resources, marketing. However, there has been limited research on the influence of culture on knowledge management. We combine these perspectives to develop a conceptual framework that explores the decision to standardise or adapt knowledge management practices based on differences in national culture. The study extends current theoretical perspectives on knowledge management by exploring the cultural …

The Rule Of Law: China's Skepticism And The Rule Of People, Pat K. Chew

Articles

The West believes that without formal legal rules (the rule of law), how society operates is not transparent. This opaqueness in how things get done discourages trade, including foreign investment, which in turn makes overall economic development more difficult. Instead of predictable legal rules, the fear is that the void will be filled with unpredictable and arbitrary human indiscretions. Furthermore, the West believes that the absence of the rule of law makes the basic protection of human and civil rights problematic.

However, the Western view of the rule of law is not the only model. Alternative cultural assumptions about the …