Teachers’ self-efficacy and intercultural classroom practices in diverse classroom contexts: A cross-national comparison

This cross-national study provides new insights in teacher efficacy in today’s culturally diverse classrooms using survey data of 269 early childhood and primary school teachers in England, Italy, the Netherlands and Poland. Teacher efficacy can be viewed as a two dimensional concept in which both general beliefs are measured alongside (diversity-related) domain-specific beliefs. These beliefs are related to the cultural classroom context and the use of intercultural classroom practices. Our results indicate that policies and professional development targeted at the reciprocal relation between diversity-related efficacy and practices are important when preparing teachers for working in diverse classroom contexts.     

Counterpublic but obedient: a case of Taiwan’s BL fandom

BL (Boys’ Love) fandom has been regarded as a counterpublic by some academics since 2005. In this article, I investigate the dispute over “real-person” texts (texts based not on fictional characters but on real people, both public and non-public figures) on the BL board of PTT BBS in Taiwan as a case-study. The dispute is significant in the sense that, ostensibly, there were a few young female BL fans who actively defined what the BL scene consists of, as only these young women were involved in the dispute. Nevertheless, a closer look at the dispute reveals that the mainstream values actually played a significant role in framing the fandom in question. I then argue that the objection to the real-person texts should be regarded as a refusal by the BL fandom to be part of a counterpublic. The dispute started with a clarification of the genre, equating real-person with real gay people, BL with fantasy, and gay with reality. It is on this basis that real-person texts were not regarded as part of BL practices. Moral issues, such as respect and politeness, were also raised to question real-person texts. The conflict intensified, leading finally to the total exclusion of real-person texts from the BL board. To sum up, the dispute over real-person texts demonstrates how BL fans actively (re)formed the shape of the BL board; at the same time, it represents a refusal and exclusions, which place this counterpublic into question.     

Seniors’ organizations in China’s new rural reconstruction: experiments in Hubei and Henan

This article tracks the shifting cultural meanings that the East/West distinction has produced in the history of nationalism in colonial and post-colonial India. It does so by focusing on the word “civilization” and the role it played in promoting a rich sense of inter-cultural dialogue in the writings of nationalist leaders such as Swami Vivekananda, Mahatma Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore, and Jawaharlal Nehru. The article documents how the word figures with much reduced significance in contemporary cultural debates about globalization in India and concludes by asking if the rise of China and India to global prominence holds the potential today to initiate a conversation across cultures similar to the one that accompanied the rise of the West in the age of modern imperial rule.     

Political aesthetics: activism,everyday life,and art’s object in 1960s’ Japan

Abstract

Around 1960, revolutionary forms of activism and critique emerged to challenge administrative forms of politics and daily life. In Japan, despite massive strikes and widespread protest, the ruling party used a Diet majority and riot police to renew the USA–Japan Security Treaty. After this display of force, this party’s new administration sought a new legitimacy, and a means to assuage and co‐opt the defeated opposition, through promoting a depoliticized everyday world of high growth and consumption, and a dehistoricized national image in preparation for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. Among those activists who emerged to contest this new cultural politics, a diverse group of young artists worked to repoliticize daily life through an interventionist art practice. Their practices arose out of a particular local, playful art practice, whose focus on the material debris and spaces of the economic expansion led to an engagement with the transformations of daily life. Focusing on the art practices connected with the yearly exhibition, the Yomiuri Indépendant, I examine the advent of a critical art examining the everyday world of Japan in the late 1950s and early 1960s, reflecting on its complex relation with an internationalized art world and domestic art scene, mass culture, and domestic protest movements. Examining the history of this art illuminates the state’s investments in a normative cultural order, and a particular configuration of the politics of culture in the early 1960s.     

Intercultural communication and US higher education: How US students and faculty can improve: International students’ classroom experiences

Intercultural communication research rarely addresses the perspective of international students, who face challenges as they leave family, move to a foreign place in the US, pursue a degree, and study in a foreign language. Considering these students’ perspectives, US universities, which house large numbers of international students, should consider how they can help these students better adapt to US academic life. To address these challenges, we invited international students at a 4-year tier-one state university to interview, and we qualitatively analyzed their responses to identify how universities can help international students. Our participants noted that US students can befriend them, respect them in the classroom, and learn about other cultures to be more welcoming. Faculty have the most to do to improve international students’ success in the classroom; faculty can grade consistently, communicate outside the classroom, allow time for students to ask questions, help students adapt to US classrooms, speak slowly and eliminate idioms from examples, explain course objectives per industry, share interests and personal information, effectively use class time (particularly final examination weeks), and learn about cultures to better meet students’ needs. Additional research can diversify international students’ needs per their classification (graduate versus undergraduate), home culture, and expectations.     

Does service learning affect the development of intercultural sensitivity? A study comparing students’ progress in two different methodologies

Numerous studies have highlighted Intercultural Sensitivity (IS) as a key competence in an increasingly multicultural society. This study examined the extent to which a cohort of first year undergraduate students enrolled on the same Didactics course, and in two different training modalities – Service Learning (SL) and non-Service Learning (non-SL) – developed IS. It was based on a quasi-experimental design of repeated pre-test and post-test measures, comparing the two groups. The sample consisted of 233 Spanish students at higher education institutions, and data was collected using the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI). The SL group displayed significantly higher levels of IS in all factors except in the denial/defence and minimization stages. Results indicated the effectiveness of SL regarding specific subscales within the IDI instrument. The findings add new depth to our understanding regarding which teaching methodologies contribute to the development of IS and to the training of active citizens in Spanish university students. The discussion focuses on the need for intercultural service experiences to promote IS. The results have broad implications for policymakers and educators who are interested in enhancing transformative educational experiences and effective teaching methodologies for developing students’ IS in higher education.     

Asian international students’ help-seeking intentions and behavior in American Postsecondary Institutions

While the number of Asian international students has increased in postsecondary institutions in the United States over the last two decades, unlike their American peers, these students were reported to have more severe mental health issues with less help-seeking intentions and behavior. This study drew the national data collected by American College Health Association-National College Health Assessment (ACHA-NCHA) from 2011 to 2014 to examine how various factors were associated with help-seeking intentions and behavior among Asian International Students (AIS) in the U.S. After case-wise deletion of missing data, the dataset used in regression analyses included 97,259 college students, including 2999 AISs, who were randomly drawn within the 62 participated postsecondary institutions. The study performed a series of logistic regression with complex survey design that controlled for institutional clustering effects to analyze the relationship between various factors and AISs’ help-seeking intentions and behavior. The results showed that AIS utilized significantly less services and were less willing to seek mental health services than not only American domestic students but also other international students. Variables related to institutional characteristics, demographic information, academic status, and health conditions were found to significantly influence AISs’ help-seeking intentions and behavior. College mental health professionals and university stakeholders need to pay more attention to the mental health needs of AIS. Implications for college mental health professionals and university stakeholders are discussed.     

The Left and Indonesia’s 1960s: the politics of remembering and forgetting

Abstract

This article examines a pivotal decade in the recent history of Indonesian society: the 1960s. It examines the context within which the Left came to be decisively, and violently, defeated as a social and political force. It then studies the consequences of this defeat for Indonesia’s subsequent historical trajectory. The article also suggests that history‐writing anywhere is nothing less than the politics of remembering (and forgetting). What is at stake in these exercises is ultimately tied up with the legitimacy of entire social orders and systems of power. Thus, in Indonesia, the trauma of 1965 and its aftermath banished, from the collective memory of Indonesians, the political role of the Left – except in the form that runs through New Order‐era discourse on Indonesian communism. For Indonesians born or raised after 1965, the ‘communist treason’ became, arguably, the most critical element of the grand narrative of post‐colonial Indonesian history, which was so important in legitimising New Order authoritarianism. The current inability of Indonesian society and its elites to acknowledge and confront the reality of the horrors of the 1960s might prove to be a major impediment to a more genuine and substantive democratisation process.     

The road to an international career: The “Erasmus effect” on resilience,intercultural interactions and cultural intelligence

This study is part of a framework that views study abroad programs as an opportunity for experiential and transformative learning. Using a mixed-methods approach with a quantitative multi-wave study, this research examined the relationship between cultural intelligence and the internationalism career anchor – the individual predisposition and desire for international mobility for work. This study considers the role of resilience and intercultural interactions as predictors of cultural intelligence. In addition, we examined the transformative learning process by relating the development of cultural intelligence to specific critical incidents or critical experiences in intercultural interactions that can be considered triggers of the learning process. A sample of 170 outgoing Italian Erasmus students completed a self-report questionnaire prior to departure and another upon return home. The study also included a control group (n = 52) consisting of students from the same university who had not participated in the Erasmus program. The results revealed the positive value of the Erasmus experience, particularly in terms of strengthening the internationalism career anchor, cognitive cultural intelligence and resilience. The results also showed that students’ pre-departure resilience and intercultural interactions with other international students from different countries can explain higher levels of cultural intelligence and the desire to work abroad or take on global work assignments. No significant change across time was found for the same variables in the control group. In addition, the critical experiences reported by students highlighted a strong cognitive and motivational component associated with the Erasmus program. Some practical implications for higher education are discussed.     

A Rich Mosaic of Art： Taiwan＇s Water and Ink Paintings Displayed in Mainland

An exhibition on Taiwan＇s water and ink painting masterpieces were displayed in National Art Museum of China last November. The exhibition featured nearly 120 artworks by twelve artists from Taiwan showcasing update painting accomplishments of Taiwan today The exhibition was also hailed as a big art event In Mainland Talwan culfural interaction, following the exhibition of the same subjects by young Mainland artists held In Taiwan in 2004.     

Immigrant women’s acculturation stress and coping strategies in Korea: A qualitative analysis

The aim of this study was to explore the coping strategies used by migrant women experiencing acculturation stress in Korea. A qualitative content analysis of 20 transcribed individual interviews was used to describe and explore women’s experiences of acculturation into a Korean family and Korean culture. The findings could be summarized by the theme “A life with a family rooted in the 2nd homeland,” consisting of the following coping strategies: agreeing on cultural differences, accepting one’s limitations, respecting one’s own decision, sharing problems, learning about the Korean culture, enjoying one’s homeland culture, caring about identity diffusion, and helping survival. The results showed that the women experienced considerable acculturation stress, and they made tremendous efforts to align themselves with the Korean culture and with women’s lives in a Korean family. The processes and strategies that these women used to manage acculturation stress can be used by professionals to develop empirical guidelines to help other women experiencing acculturation stress. More research on various acculturation conditions and populations is required to generalize the results of this study.     

The Breasts of Virgins: Sexual Reputation and Young Women’s Bodies in Medieval Culture and Society

Many medical texts of the European Middle Ages included advice to young women on breast reduction. These recipes and techniques have not often been discussed by medieval historians, whose interest in meanings of women’s breasts has concentrated mostly on religious or nutritive associations. Highlighting late medieval English texts and culture, this article summarises medical advice on repressing breast growth, notes some ancient and earlier medieval precedents and argues the recipes responded not only to aesthetic preferences but also to beliefs that bust size and texture signified sexual experience. Arguing that breasts were legible flesh, in which an observer could read a young woman’s honour, it contends that breast suppression not only met idealised beauty standards but also protected sexual reputations.     

Chinese and Japanese Cultures Displayed in Wuyutai’s Flagship Store

An outstanding enterprise must be an enterprise with cultural pursuit.Wuyutai has developed a unique corporate culture through its chain store operation.Wuyutai treats each of its franchised stores as its partner and friend,with an aim to continue and promote the time-honored brand.     

State power,prostitution and sexual order in Taiwan: towards a genealogical critique of ‘virtuous custom’1

This paper considers, by way of conjunctural analysis and genealogical investigation, the policed culture of sex under the regulatory regime of ‘virtuous custom’ as sustained by the now defunct Police Offence Law (abrogated and replaced by the Social Order Maintenance Law in 1991) between the 1950s and 1990s. It attempts to trace the historical process whereby the social/sexual order came to be established in postwar Taiwan, thus articulating the cultural specificity of gendered/sexual subjectivities as formed within that particular geo‐political terrain. Examining the police technology as well as the official/journalistic discourse of sex, this paper demonstrates that ‘virtuous custom’, a nationalist ideological construct predicated upon the Confucian sage‐king paradigm, operated as a norm of sex whose boundary was secured through the policing of non‐familial/non‐marital sexualities, arguing further that both female sexuality and male homosexuality have been historically regulated by the state through its banning of prostitution. As the normative regime of ‘virtuous custom’ has become even more hegemonic due to the rise in recent years of anti‐prostitution state feminism, contesting the new social/sexual order on the grounds of its ideological operations and practices represents the most challenging task for progressive sexual and gender politics in Taiwan today.     

Hubei Provincial Song and Dance Troupe’s Success in Malaysia

IN August this year,the HubeiProvincial Song and Dance Troupeput on 21 performances for 30,000people In 10 states during its one-month tour of Malaysia,entertain-ing audiences all across the coun-try.Many senior Malaysian gov-ernment leaders and importantpublic figures were among the au-diences,and the local newspapersreported it as the most spectacular     

Nationalism and internationalism: thoughts on Zhang Chengzhi’s work and Afro-Asian Writers’ Conference

Nationalism in the Third World is shaped through the processes of anti-imperial and anti-feudal modernization, and is closely connected with communist internationalism. It differentiates from the nationalism formed in the context of the European modernization. Nevertheless, with the establishment of the nation-state, in the context of international politics and geopolitics and during the construction of modernization in the realms of politics, economy and culture, progressive nationalism can be reactionary. Via analysing the emotions and thinkings of Zhang Chengzhi’s writing on Japan and reviewing the history of Afro-Asian Writers’ Conference in 1950s and 1960s, this essay argues that internationalism is the effective thinking resource to overcome reactionary nationalism.