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Visitor In A Foreign Land: Reflections On Intercultural Adjustment In The Republic Of Armenia, Jerry L. Johnson

Dissertations

This first person, autobiographical account of one American citizen’s nine-week experience covering two years in the Republic of Armenia answers the question, aIs it possible to become resocialized in a foreign culture?’ Employing the experimental writing method called personal experience narrative, the author uses personal journal accounts and autobiographical stories as primary data to demonstrate his movement from ’modem tourist’ (MacCannell, 1976; 1992) to resocialized individual and provide a rich and detailed description of the Armenian homeland undergoing significant social changes after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

This study offers a model of socialization called ’life-learning’ to …

Culture Mediator Model As A Predictor For Somatic Complaints Among Japanese And Japanese Americans, Yoko Tanaka

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

[Abstract Not Included]

En-Gendering Anti-Racism: Towards A Politics Of Social Transformation, Julia Sudbury

Sociology

As we approach the new millennium, African, Asian and Caribbean activists in Britain appear to be poised at the proverbial fork in the road. Do we march into a future marked by a pluralism of ethnicities, identities and interests? Or do we continue to hark bak to the golden days of black struggle -- when the movement was united in deed, action and purpose -- in the frail hope that outdated or failed notions of black unity will be revitalized?

The need for a new strategy for anti-racist struggle is evident. Increasing social stratification in black communities and the emergence …

Institutional Language Of Control: Race, Class, And Gender Issues, Harry Morgan

Trotter Review

Controlling discourse is a common practice among colleges and universities, public and private schools, political parties, libraries, departments of government, and funding institutions, just to name a few. The control of discourse is essential for maintaining their power, status, and influence. The goals and missions of these institutions are shaped through conversations between individuals at various levels of power, status, and influence. The ongoing behavior of these institutions — as dictated primarily by those in positions of power, status, and influence — is reflected in discourse among and between themselves, and their counterparts in other institutions.

[Review Of] Patricia Hill Collins. Fighting Words: Black Women & The Search For Justice, Venetria K. Patton

Ethnic Studies Review

Collins' Fighting Words builds on her previous work, Black Feminist Thought, as she explores standpoint theory and "the outsider within" position and their usefulness for Black feminist thought. She structures her analysis by critiquing its effectiveness as critical social theory. For Collins, "Critical social theory constitutes theorizing about the social in defense of economic and social justice." Because African American women and other oppressed groups seek economic and social justice, she posits that their social theories may generate new perspectives on injustice.

[Review Of] James P. Danky And Wayne A. Wiegand, Eds. Print Culture In A Diverse America. The History Of Communication Series, Ellen M. Gil-Gomez

Ethnic Studies Review

This volume functions both in illuminating minority perspectives in print culture and describing and furthering the field of "print culture studies." The introduction then both discusses the structure and purpose of the field and argues that the book's contents challenge it in a variety of ways. Three thematic sections follow which cover, respectively, "lost" serials, the publishing industry, and written reconstructions of historical events.

[Review Of] Toyotomi Morimoto. Japanese Americans And Cultural Continuity: Maintaining Language And Heritage, Kumiko Takahara

Ethnic Studies Review

Japanese language schools in California are chronicled from the early twentieth century until the eve of World War II based mainly on the UCLA Japanese American Research Project Collections, Japanese language newspapers, and literatures by Issei (first generation Japanese immigrant) educators. Chapters two through five which follow a brief overview of the ethnic language schools of various immigrant groups illustrate Japanese immigrants' effort in transmitting their linguistic and cultural heritage to Nisei (American-born) children by supplementing their public school education with a Japanese language school curriculum in a hostile socio-political climate. The thematic coherence of the book is disrupted unfortunately …

Migration, Sexual Behavior And Hiv Diffusion In Kenya, Martin Brockerhoff, Ann E. Biddlecom

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

The association of migration with the spread of AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa is well documented, yet the social and behavioral mechanisms underlying this relationship remain poorly understood. Using data from the 1993 Kenya Demographic and Health Survey, this paper examines whether migrants are more likely than nonmigrants to have multiple recent sexual partners and not to use condoms with those partners. Results indicate that migation is a critical factor in high-risk sexual behavior and that its importance varies by gender and by the direction of movement. Independent of marital and cohabitation status, social milieu, awareness of AIDS, and other crucial …

Quality Of Fathering And Its Relationship With Family Background, Demographics, And Characteristics Of Present Family : A Study Of Seventh-Day Adventist Fathers And Fathers From A National Sample, Ruth Depaiva

Dissertations

Problem . Fathers have been assumed to play an important role in the socialization and education of their children. The need to understand the influence and the role of effective fathers becomes especially important in a generation which views fatherlessness as one of the most harmful demographic trends. The Seventh-day Adventist Church considers fatherhood vital for the normal functioning of the family. The present study investigated how selected variables from family background, demographics, and characteristics of present family are related to fathering as measured by self-report of fathering dimensions, practices, and satisfaction.

Method . Two groups of fathers participated in …

Extending The Boundaries : Portraits Of Activism In Perth, Western Australia, Alan Wilson

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

For some analysts, post-industrial capitalist societies have pathological deficiencies which manifest themselves locally and further afield, in marginalisation and oppression of people and despoliation of the environment. For those who are passionately driven to challenge those consequences of the dominant paradigm, activism is deemed to be a potent force for effecting social and political change. The aim of this study was to establish how activists integrate issues, context, strategies, personal factors and other influences into a strategy for action.

"Family" As Constructed By Adoptees After Making Contact With Their Birth Families, Adrianne Moloney

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Legislative changes during the 1980s and 1990s opened confidential adoption files of the past enabling many adoptees and relinquishing parents to establish contact. This study examines the way in which the meaning of family is constructed by adoptees who have made contact with their birth relatives, and how these constructions were altered after contact. The ways in which biological and social definitions of family are constructed and contested in these settings is explored. Sociological definitions of family are discussed and the gap between ideal notions of 'family' and the lived experience of 'family' is explored. The study focuses on the …

Introduction: Imaging, Representation, And Photography Of The Pacific Islands, Max Quanchi

Pacific Studies

No abstract provided.

Making Histories: The Torres Strait Expedition Of 1898, Elizabeth Edwards

Pacific Studies

The Cambridge Torres Strait Expedition used photography to address two agendas, both of which were grounded in the temporal ambiguities of photography. Photography was used first as an integrated tool of anthropological investigation, particularly in the field of salvage ethnography and through “reenactment”; and second as a site of social interaction between the expedition and the Torres Strait Islanders through the exchange and display of photographs. I argue that these two agendas and their function as “history” are grounded in the temporal ambiguities inherent in photographic inscription. The first, the scientific, depended on the construction and representation of a “static” …

Vol. 20 No. 4 (1997): Pacific Studies Full Issue, The Jonathan Nāpela Center For Hawaiian And Pacific Islands Studies

Pacific Studies

Pacific Studies is published two times a year by The Jonathan Nāpela Center for Hawaiian and Pacific Studies, Brigham Young University Hawai‘i #1979, 55–220 Kulanui Street, Lāʻie, Hawai‘i 96762, but responsibility for opinions expressed in the articles rests with the authors alone. Subscription rate is US$40.00 yearly, payable to The Jonathan Nāpela Center for Hawaiian and Pacific Studies. The Jonathan Nāpela Center for Hawaiian and Pacific Studies (formerly The Pacific Institute) is an organization funded by Brigham Young University Hawai‘i. The Center assists the University in meeting its cultural and educational goals by undertaking a program of teaching, research, and …

Not So Nice Colored Girls: A View Of Tracey Moffatt’S Nice Coloured Girls, Caroline Vercoe

Pacific Studies

Nice Coloured Girls is Tracey Moffatt’s first film. Produced in 1987, this seventeen-minute film describes a tradition that has been passed down from her grandmother’s and great-grandmother’s generation—that of “picking up Captain.” Moffatt explains “since colonisation ‘picking up Captain’ has been a way for Aboriginal women to survive off white men.” Rather than creating new and empowered Aboriginal heroines for the 1990s, Moffatt chooses to site her characters within a colonial continuum. Her tradition begins with postcolonial contact and it is clearly formed by cross-cultural experiences. This essay focuses on the narrative structure of Nice Coloured Girls and discusses the …

A Study Of Ideological Change In Reggae Music From 1971 To 1993, William H. Stanley

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study was to see if the reggae music that became popular in the United States was ideologically different from the reggae that originated in Jamaica. The hypothesized change was derived from a model developed by Humphrey Regis (1994, 1988) labeled “cultural domination by re-exportation”. It was determined that early reggae music and the Rastafarian religion had very similar ideologies. The change within reggae music was measured against the Rastafarian belief system.

A content analysis of twenty-five songs was undertaken. The method of doing ideological analysis of the reggae lyrics was derived from Cormack (1992). The sample …

A 'New' Cultural Geography? Debates About Invention And Reinvention, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The Remaking Human Geography series critically reviews key journal articles, published in the last ten years, which have become 'citation classics'. Contributors to the series report on the academic debate which followed publication of the original article and assess why the article proved so influential. In this case Kong reviews an article on cultural geography by Cosgrove and Jackson (first published in Area in 1987). Peter Jackson also offers his thoughts on the 'cultural turn' and on future directions in this research field.

Lisette Josephides's Review Of Maria Lepowsky's Fruit Of The Motherland: Gender In An Egalitarian Society And Raymond C. Kelly's Constructing Inequality: The Fabrication Of A Hierarchy Of Virtue Among The Etoro, Lisette Josephides

Pacific Studies

No abstract provided.

Response: Maria Lepowsky Gender, Egalitarian Societies, And The Writing Of Pacific Anthropology, Maria Lepowsky

Pacific Studies

No abstract provided.

Multi-Visual Qualitative Method: Observing Social Groups In Mass Media, George Tsourvakas

The Qualitative Report

In reviewing the bibliography upon which qualitative method is based, the author refers to ethnography, ethnomethdology, symbolic interactionism and cultural studies, and argues that a combination of the qualitative methods is actually possible. To enforce his point, he gives the example of research that was recently conducted about the National Television Channel of Greece. Moreover, through the theoretical review, he asserts that the application of all qualitative methods is a way to transfer ourselves from observation to focusing and depth interviews. He believes that such an application can be really effective while collecting data as well as while analyzing and …

Grandmothers Laughing: Intergenerational Transmission Of Cultural Beliefs About Pregnancy And Childbirth Among Native American Women, Claudia Robin Long

Dissertations and Theses

This dissertation reports findings from a qualitative study of intergenerational transmission of pregnancy and childbirth information among Native American women. Proposed is a theory of intergenerational transmission that explains four pathways used by Indian women to gain information about pregnancy and childbirth. Antecedent, consequent, and core elements are associated with the transmission process.

Discriminant sampling was used to identify the middle generation of Indian mothers and grandmothers, between 36 and 65 years of age, residing on or near the reservation, with experience of assimilation policies that had moved off-reservation temporarily. The researcher used the grounded theory method to analyze responses …

Popular Music In A Transnational World: The Construction Of Local Identities In Singapore, Lily Kong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

As an area of geographical inquiry, popular music has not been explored to any large extent. Where writings exist, they have been somewhat divorced from recent theoretical and methodological questions that have rejuvenated social and cultural geography. In this paper, I focus on one arena which geographers can develop in their analysis of popular music, namely, the exploration of local influences and global forces in the production of music. In so doing, I wish to explore how local resources intersect with global ones in a process of transculturation. Using the example of English songs by one particular songwriter and artiste …

Acculturation Differences Among International Students At Western Michigan University, Kemal Aydin

Masters Theses

The acculturation of international students at Western Michigan University was studied in this thesis. Acculturation variables of perceived prejudice, observance of cultural practices and social ties, and language usage were measured. The results of this study shows that in terms of perceived prejudice, Western Michigan University's international students (except European and Hispanics students) tend to move away from a stimulus. Acculturation and language usage, however, indicate that there is no significant acculturation differences among the respondents. International students at Western Michigan University seem to prefer integration as reflected in a commitment to pluralism. In summary, international students at Western Michigan …

Isabelle Merle's Review Of Nicholas Thomas's Colonialism’S Culture: Anthropology, Travel, And Government, Isabelle Merle

Pacific Studies

No abstract provided.

The Construction Of National Identity Through The Production Of Ritual And Spectacle: An Analysis Of National Day Parades In Singapore, Lily Kong, Brenda S. A. Yeoh

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

In this paper, we adopt the view that 'nation' and 'national identity' are social constructions, created to serve ideological ends. We discuss this in the specific empirical context of Singapore's National Day parades. By drawing on officially produced souvenir programmes and magazines, newspaper reports, and interviews with participants and spectators, we analyse the parades between 1965 and 1994, showing how, as an annual ritual and landscape spectacle, the parades succeed to a large extent in creating a sense of awe, wonderment and admiration. Discussion focuses on four aspects of the celebrations: the site of the parades, their display and theatricality, …

From The Cuban Ajiaco To The Cuban-American Hyphen : Changing Discourses Of National Identity On The Island And In The Diaspora, Jorge Duany

Cuban Studies Association Occasional Papers

No abstract provided.

Beyond Burritos And Lumpia: Ethnic Identity As A Difference In Preservice Teacher Education, Sara Soledad Garcia, E. Litton

Teacher Education

Teachers play a pivotal role in society. On a daily basis they influence the futures of the children they encounter. Not only do they teach children how to read and write butteachers are also charged with the task of creating responsible citizens who should think critically about society. Teacher educators, and specifically those individuals charged with the task of preparing preservice teachers, have responsibilities similar to teachers in the field. Education, on any level, ought to be a transformative process.

Thus, the preparation of teachers as instruments of social change ought to be a central focus in preservice teacher education …

[Review Of] Julie Brown, Ed. Ethnicity And The American Short Story, Phillipa Kafka

Ethnic Studies Review

Replete with essays, all excellent in diverse ways and covering a broad range of American ethnicities, this cutting-edge text successfully answers questions about claims of uniqueness and difference for ethnic American short stories as the grounds for inclusion in critical discussions of the genre.

[Review Of] Karen Christian. Show And Tell: Identity As Performance In U.S. Latino/A Fiction, J. Alemán

Ethnic Studies Review

Christian's crucial contribution to ethnic studies is her book's argument that ethnic identity is more performance than essence. Of course, this is an unresolved and essentialized issue, but Christian summarizes the debate well, situating her study in the performance camp as she relies on Judith Butler's theory of performativity to examine the inter-related performances of ethnicity and gender in Chicano/a, U.S. Cuban, Puerto Rican, and Dominican texts. As Christian explains, static U.S. Latino/a identity categories create "collective fictions" that "regulate performances of gender, sexuality, and cultural identity," but alternative performances of ethnicity and sexuality, Christian argues, subvert these "collective fictions" …

Educating A Committe Citizenry, Faith Gabelnick

Higher Education

If we want our students to acquire the democratic virtues of honesty, tolerance. empathy. generosity. teamwork, and social responsibility, we have to demonstrate those qualities not only in our individual professional conduct but also in our institutional policies," writes Alexander Astin in "What Higher Education Can Do in the Cause of Citizenship"' (Chronicle of Higher Education, October 6, 1995).