Peer mentoring and intercultural understanding: Support for refugee-background and immigrant students beginning university study

This study explored the effects of the Equity Buddies Program, an intercultural cross-level mentoring course designed to link more advanced university students, as mentors, with first year refugee-background or immigrant students. It was designed to address the needs of refugee-background and immigrant students as they transitioned into university culture. The data included mentors’ written reflections, log books, and a brief demographic survey. Through the processes adopted in the course, it was found that cross-cultural pairing influenced mentors’ intercultural understandings, enabled cross-cultural relationships to develop and provided opportunities for students to interact with people of other cultures and religions. Mentors changed their views of others – of immigrants, of refugees, and also of Anglo-Australians. They experienced increased personalised understanding or gained a widened perspective of their mentees who were of cultures different from their own. Mentors stated that over time their interactions evolved into either a mutually rewarding friendship or a comfortable relationship within a learning community that valued collective learning. It is proposed that increased intercultural understanding emerges from an increased emphasis on the creation of meaningful, transactional relationships among culturally diverse students within a supportive academic environment.     

Black power ideology rhetoric and reality in a student sample

In America the ethic of individual achievement has always been balanced by complementary norms of group action. Blacks, however, have been handicapped by a lack of the in-group loyalty required for a united struggle against racial oppression. Black power ideology was conceived as a sociotherapy to increase the level of black group cohesion. This study was designed to provide much needed data on the success of the “therapy.” A survey of 611 black high school students and 93 black college students yielded little evidence that verbally professed endorsement of black power ideology was translated into action. In an experiment. 323 black high school students manifested a consistent tendency to be less helpful to scientists identified as black than to unidentified scientists, regardless of the students' claimed level of black power orientation.     

Teaching French as a Second Language to Chinese students: Instructional staff adaptation and intercultural competence development

This case study is an analysis of second language instructors’ processes of adaptation to Chinese students at a small French University. More precisely, in this qualitative case study, it will be shown that the instructional staff's adaptation to an unfamiliar work environment and student population contributed to the development of their intercultural competence. Moreover, it will be argued that such competence was not developed to its full potential. Finally, we offer recommendations for teacher education programs at the end of the article.     

Culture Shock and Social Support: An Investigation of a Chinese Student Organization on a US Campus

Previous research has explored common dimensions of culture shock across groups of international students, examined factors influencing intercultural adjustment of individual sojourners, and in the meantime, suggested that communicating with same culture members is minimally helpful for intercultural adjustment. By investigating a Chinese student organization on a US campus and analyzing the qualitative data collected via multiple methods, the researcher found that (a) culture shock is contextually based; (b) a student organization can play an instrumental role in helping students to cope with culture shock and gain intercultural competence by providing social support; and (c) communicating with same culture members can help intercultural adjustment. Implications for international student orientation, study abroad programs, and community-based help programs for international students are discussed.     

Factors predictive of black students' communication with the administration and students at a predominantly white university

Black students' interaction with a predominantly white university's administration, faculty, and students appears to be a central issue in current study of black student success in college. This study examined personality and situational factors predictive of black students' communication with such a university's administration, faculty, and students. The development of an instrument describing environmental and social concerns of black students demonstrated reasonable predictive validity of communication with the administration and white students. Feelings about the social environment and tendencies of communication anxiety were among the strongest predictors of black students' communication.     

Acculturation,self-efficacy and social support among Chinese immigrants in Northern Ireland

An opportunity sample of 108 Chinese participants (n_male = 51 and n_female = 57; M_age = 29.34) was compared to a second opportunity sample of 98 Northern Irish participants (n_male = 45 and n_female = 53; M_age = 23.67) on levels of acculturation, self-efficacy and social support. The administered questionnaire contained three scales to measure the aforementioned constructs. The first was the AMAS-NIC, a version of the Abbreviated Multidimensional Acculturation Scale [Zea, M. C., Asner-Self, K. K., Birman, D., & Buki, L. P. (2003). The Abbreviated Multidimensional Acculturation Scale: Empirical validation with two Latino/Latina samples. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 9, 107–126] modified to apply to a population of Chinese immigrants in Northern Ireland. The second measure was Mary Wegner's 1992 English version of the General Self-Efficacy Scale [Wright, S., Johnston, M., & Weinman, J. (1995). Measures in health psychology portfolio. UK: Windsor]. The third was the Social Support Questionnaire (SSQ) whose items emerged through a semi-structured interview and was designed to measure levels of received and sought social support. The purpose of the study was to ascertain the extent to which previous findings concerning acculturation can be generalised to a Chinese immigrant population in Northern Ireland, a country characterised by segregation. T-tests, correlation analyses and a hierarchical regression initially provided support for the generalisability of previous studies on the health benefits of integration as a preferred acculturation strategy [Berry, J. W. (2008). Globalisation and acculturation. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 32, 328–336], but further interpretation of the results brought to light the shortcomings of this model in the context of a segregated society and the inapplicability of the GSES measure within a collectivistic immigrant population. The limitations of the study are discussed and recommendations for future research are made.     

Acculturative stress in Latino Immigrants: The impact of social, socio-psychological and migration-related factors

The purpose of this study was to investigate factors that predict acculturative stress in a nationally representative sample of Latino migrants. The participants in this study were 2059 Latinos. Among them were 868 Mexicans, 577 Cubans and 614 other Latinos. The subcategory other Latinos consisted of immigrants and refugees from Colombia, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Peru and Nicaragua. The participants took part in face-to-face interviews, which were conducted with computer-assisted interviewing software in Spanish and English. Findings revealed that acculturative stress decreases with an increase in the English proficiency index, the context of migration exit index, and the social network index. Furthermore, acculturative stress was lower for US citizens versus non-citizens; immigrants who wanted to migrate to the US versus refugees who had to leave their country of origin; and later generation immigrants. Acculturative stress increases with a higher native language proficiency index and a higher discrimination index.     

The intercultural trust paradigm: Studying joint cultural interaction and social exchange in real time over the Internet

Distance transcending technology of the Internet generated a new experimental paradigm for the study of intercultural, or joint cultural interaction between members of different societies. University students from Japan, China, and Taiwan participated in experiments involving participants from their own society and another society in real time using an intercultural trust paradigm derived from a game theoretic and evolutionary approach to social exchange. The modified trust game improves on the Prisoner's Dilemma Game by eliminating greed as an explanation for lack of cooperation: the truster unilaterally decides whether or not to trust their exchange partner, and the allocator then decides whether or not to divide the reward fairly between the two of them. Participants earned real money by playing six rounds of one-shot trust games with three in-group members and three out-group members over the Internet. Across three experiments involving two interacting societies each, Japanese were found to be less trusting and trustworthy exchange partners compared to cultural Chinese. This suggests that Japanese collectivism is based more on long-term assurance networks, whereas Chinese collectivism provides a more expansive, guanxi-based approach to building new social networks. Japanese also showed less in-group favoritism in both trust and trustworthiness (or conditional fairness) at the national-level compared to cultural Chinese, suggesting that culture-specific content (e.g., collective guilt for WWII) may influence ethnocentrism at the national level.     

受禅台访古

双是一年春草绿，依旧十里杏花香。在一个阳光明媚、云淡风轻的日子里，我来到了位于河南省临颍县繁城镇的受禅台。极目四望，我不禁满腹狐疑：这就是延康元年（220年）汉献帝刘协让位给魏文帝曹丕的那个所在吗？这就是终结汉代历史、开启天下三分书面的那个见证物吗？     

Intergroup contact in context: The mediating role of social norms and group-based perceptions on the contact–prejudice link

The prejudice-reducing effects of intergroup contact have been well documented. However few studies have investigated the importance of the broader context within which contact occurs. The current study examined the predictors of social distance from Muslims in a large sample of Australian secondary school children (N = 980). Intergroup contact was an important predictor of reduced social distance even after demographics and perceptions of parents, school, media and broader intergroup dynamics were taken into account. However, in part the contact–social distance relationship was mediated by perceived parental support for intergroup relations and perceived fairness of media representation. Student's perceptions of broader group dynamics relating to collective threat and differentiation between groups impeded the relationship. The findings attest to the importance of the broader context within which contact occurs. Having contact with outgroup members leads to reduced social distance to the outgroup, however perceived norms and outgroup perceptions play a pivotal role in explaining this relationship.     

中国当代启蒙的任务和对象

<正>一中国当代启蒙在全球启蒙话语中的特殊性1全球启蒙话语在启蒙进化史上所处的新阶段西方当代启蒙在内容上已经超越了18世纪的任务和对象,甚至也超越了康德在其《回答这个问题:什么是启蒙?》中所拟定的启蒙目标,如言论自由之类。但启蒙精神并未死去。正如福柯在《什么是     

Towards a post-critical praxis: Intentional states and recommendations for change in acculturation psychology

I offer a way of conceptualizing and researching acculturation psychology and thereby hope to offer a tentative course to take us beyond the critiques addressed in this issue. First, I propose an alternative characterization of acculturation psychology by addressing what changes in acculturation. This proposal is anchored in [Bruner, J. (1990). Acts of Meaning. Cambridge: Harvard University Press] notion of intentional states (e.g. psychological experiences described by terms like ‘identity,’ ‘anger,’ ‘faithfulness,’ and so on) that illustrates how culture and psychology are deeply interdependent. In the dynamic cultural changes that occur in instances of acculturation, intentional states themselves change. Second, I address why such changes ‘matter’ to people by exploring the embodied experience pertaining to intentional states—thereby extending the notion beyond Bruner's use of it. This extension is made by drawing on the phenomenology of M. Bakhtin who proposes how culture shapes our own personally embodied experience of intentional states. Change in the sociocultural context thereby involves changes on a personal experiential plane and, as such, experientially ‘matters’ to people. Over the course of this proposal, I provide six recommendations for the praxis of acculturation psychology. Because the general praxis in acculturation psychology, as it currently stands, makes it difficult to implement these recommendations, I highlight an example of a research study that follows the recommendations contained herein.     

Having a Great Ideal and Becoming a World Citizen Qujiang Launches a Summer Camp for Young Overseas Chinese

On August 12, “Seeking the Root： Chinese Culture Journey”, an international summer camp for young overseas Chinese, opened in the Tang Paradise in Qujiang New Area, Xi＇an City. Dr. Hu Chunyi, Chairman of Malaysia NV Foundation, Ms. Li Peishan, representative for China-Malaysia Friendship and Culture Promotion, Ms. Wang Jing, representative from Qujiang Culture ＆Tourism Co., Ltd., Ms. Xu Chun from Chinese International Ceremonial Group, and Mr. Li Weimin and Mr. Yao Kaiwen who were responsible for the event＇s organization, attended the opening ceremony.     

Not as a Stranger: Rooting for the Home Team in Invictus and The Infidel

Two recent movies, Invictus and The Infidel, concern finding ways to negotiate coexistence between intensely opposed subcultures and are used to expand the meaning of multiculturalism. New, emergent cultures that are universalistic, practical, and accommodative are among the many cultures that are given place amid the diversity of modern complex societies. Although purity of culture is often held up as a goal, the blending of cultures in search of daily survival and convenience remains valuable to modern people looking to define their identities.