Building Multicultural Competencies in School Counselor Trainees: An International Immersion Experience

The authors describe an international cultural immersion field experience, make recommendations for counselor educators who want to establish a similar program, and present an example of a student's reflection on the experience as recorded in the personal multicultural competency portfolio.     

Creating Pathways to College for Migrant Students: Assessing a Migrant Outreach Program

Migrant students are among the most disadvantaged of any groups in the United States, yet little is understood about factors that facilitate their college access. College access outreach programs rarely collect data on whether and where their students go to college. This longitudinal study tracked the college-going behaviors of migrant students who participated in the Migrant Student Leadership Institute (MSLI), a program whose goals include increasing migrant students' 4-year college access. The program emphasizes developing students' capacity for critical thinking about sociopolitical conditions, as well as their academic preparation for, and knowledge about, college. Results from analyses using an equivalent comparison group suggest that the program positively affected participants' application rates to, and enrollment rates in, more selective California public higher education institutions, including campuses of the University of California (UC) system. This article addresses factors that potentially accounted for these outcomes.     

加强跨文化交际技能的学习

中国的改革开放使国人与外国人打交道的机会越来越多,在接触异文化环境时就会遇到困难,产生误解和摩擦.为了缓解异文化冲击,在学好外语的基础上,有必要学习跨文化交际技能.     

Critical Factors in Cultural Immersion: A Synthesis of Relevant Literature

This synthesis of the literature on cross-cultural immersion experiences gives emphasis to the need for effective pedagogy for enhancing multicultural counseling competency, with cultural immersion being a potentially valuable training tool. The authors examine the empirical literature towards identifying both helpful and hindering structural and process factors in immersion experiences. Consideration is given to enhancing training experiences and suggestions for future research are provided.     

Cultural and Linguistic Investment: Adolescents in a Secondary Two-Way Immersion Program

This qualitative study inquired into secondary students' perceptions of their participation in a secondary Spanish-English two-way immersion (TWI) program, triangulating data from 166 surveys and 24 focus interviews across grades 6–12. After reviewing current research on secondary two-way immersion programs, the article describes the study and its findings. The first finding stresses the continuous link between language and identity and how this link differs within the Latino group. A second theme centered on how students viewed the linguistic and cultural capital the TWI program aims to develop, with the Anglo students identifying bilingualism for better job opportunities as the most important capital. Latino students also envisioned better job opportunities; however, Spanish was valued foremost for its connection to their families and roots. Finally, the third theme discusses linguistic and cultural equity. Though all students evaluated their experiences in the TWI program positively, they acknowledged that as they moved through the secondary years, their exposure to Spanish declined and English dominated their school day. The authors urge educators to consider how the academic, linguistic, and cultural benefits of TWI programs are distributed for various groups enrolled in the program.     

Self-esteem and Cultural Identity in Aboriginal Language Immersion Kindergarteners

In gauging the success of Aboriginal language immersion education, the focus is often placed on measuring language acquisition and academic achievement. Although useful, these metrics only tell part of the story; to achieve real school success, it is also vital to develop high personal self-esteem that results in a positive concept of oneself as a learner, and high collective self-esteem, or attitude toward one’s heritage, family, community, and school. This article describes the impact of Anishinaabemowin (Ojibwe) immersion education on the personal and collective self-esteem of kindergarteners, and discusses their concept of ethno-cultural identity, as compared to previously studied cohorts of Inuit learners in immersion and mainstream language schools. The results give important insights into not only the self-esteem of children in this immersion school as part of a measure of its overall success, but also the school experiences of Aboriginal children in different cultural, geographic, and educational contexts.     

Primary school literacy in Southern Africa: African perspectives

This research review examines trends in recent scholarship concerning primary school literacy instruction in Southern Africa. Past scholarship, particularly that which originated from western researchers, focused on technical or structural issues facing literacy instruction in the region, such as language of instruction, school conditions, availability of books, and teacher training. Newer scholarship that has emerged primarily from African researchers focuses more on sociocultural and sociopolitical issues such as promoting a ‘reading culture’, shaping language policy, and examining literacy as a local social practice. Increasingly, researchers advocate local, rather than western/northern, solutions to African problems in literacy development and instruction. However, African perspectives are nevertheless influenced by western perspectives and agendas, as a result of colonialism, postcolonialism, and globalisation. Hybrid solutions that combine western and African perspectives therefore may be important for literacy development in the region.     

An examination of the vocational education and training reform debate in Southern Africa

This paper explores the role that vocational education and training (VET) can play in Southern African responses to major socio‐economic challenges. It argues that this role will be most pronounced if it is articulated within a broader educational and economic vision that is shared by a range of stakeholders in society and supported by an adequate funding base, effective information systems and qualified and motivated planners and implementers. However, it cautions that it is also important to remember that VET reform will not in itself transform economies or societies. The paper argues that there is considerable convergence within Southern Africa around 10 themes of VET reform. It argues that there is much that is of merit in the current broad package for VET transformation but that it is essential that it is carefully critiqued and that elements are adapted to national circumstances and visions.     

Cultural Competence and Cultural Identity: Using Telementoring to Form Relationships of Synergy

This study addresses the following research question: How does telementoring urban high school students by English teacher candidates develop candidates' cultural competence and impact mentees' cultural identity development? Mentee-mentor exchanges were analyzed to uncover how mentees used writing to develop cultural identity, how mentors' responses demonstrated cultural competence, and how cultural competence enhanced cultural identity development. Data analysis revealed two themes of synergy, where mentor-mentee exchanges enabled mutual learning. As mentors demonstrated cultural respect through cultural exploration, mentees broadened identity through cultural sharing. As mentors exhibited cultural affirmation through cultural empathy mentees shifted from silenced to spoken anger. Detailed excerpts illustrate how mentees grappled with cultural identity development and how mentors challenged personal assumptions and began to develop ideological clarity.     

Counseling Students’ Emotions During Cultural Immersion: Impact on Reactance

Counselor trainees’ multicultural development is a process that engenders strong emotions. The authors inventoried students’ emotions in cultural immersion activities and assessed their impact on course reactance. Findings indicated that reactance was shaped by both negative and positive emotions and that cultural immersion can be universally challenging for students.     

Education in Southern Africa: Current conditions and future directions

This paper provides a concise summary of selected topics of contemporary, primary and secondary education of black students in Southern Africa. The topics reviewed are: a) curricula, b) methods of instructional delivery, c) learning materials and equipment, d) examinations, e) enrollment and class sizes, f) teachers, g) teacher-student ratios, h) drop-out, failure and repeater rates, i) economic considerations, j) rural-urban discrepancies, k) racial and class issues, 1) female education, and m) language of instruction. The discussion begins with an acknowledgement of the enormous improvements that have been made in the field of education in Africa despite vast limitations of resources: economic, personnel, technological and material. In spite of these achievements, given the magnitude and complexity of educational development, a number of problems continue to exist. These problems are reviewed as are various recommendations for change.

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Zusammenfassung Dieser Artikel gibt eine knappe Zusammenfassung von ausgewählten Themen über zeitgenössische Primar- und Sekundarbildung schwarzer Studenten im südlichen Afrika. Die behandelten Themen sind: a) Curricula, b) Lehrmethoden, c) Lernmaterialien und -ausrüstung, d) Prüfungen, e) Einschreibungen und Klassenraumgröße, f) Lehrer, g) Lehrer-Schüler-Quoten, h) vorzeitige Schulabgänger-, Mißerfolgs- und Wiederholquoten, i) wirtschaftliche Erwägungen, j) Diskrepanzen zwischen Stadt und Land, k) Rassen- und Klassenfragen, l) Bildung für Mädchen, und m) Unterrichtssprache. Die Diskussion beginnt mit einer Anerkennung der bedeutenden Verbesserungen, die in Afrika trotz der enormen Begrenzungen der Ressourcen, wie z.B. im Bereich Wirtschaft, Personal, Technologie und Material, in der Bildung erzielt wurden. Trotz dieser Leistungen bestehen einige Probleme hinsichtlich der Ausdehnung und Komplexität erzieherischer Entwicklung weiter. Diese Probleme werden ebenso wie unterschiedliche Empfehlungen für Veränderungen angesprochen.

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Résumé Cet article fournit un bref résumé de quelques sujets portant sur l'éducation primaire et secondaire contemporaine d'élèves noirs en Afrique du Sud. Les sujets étudiés sont: a) les curriculums, b) les méthodes d'enseignement, c) le matériel et l'équipement scolaire, d) les examens, e) la scolarisation et les effectifs, f) les enseignants, g) les quotas enseignants-étudiants, h) les taux d'abandons, d'échec et de redoublement, i) les considérations économiques, j) les contradictions entre milieux ruraux et urbains, k) les problèmes raciaux et de classes sociales, l) l'éducation féminine et m) la langue d'enseignement. La discussion commence par une confirmation des progrès énormes réalisés en Afrique dans le domaine de l'éducation, en dépit de ressources fortement limitées dans les domaines économique, personnel, technologique et matériel. Malgré ces succès, un grand nombre de problémes persiste vu l'étendue et la complexité de l'extension de l'éducation. Ces problèmes sont étudiés de même que différentes propositions de changement.

     

Environmental education research in Southern Africa: Dilemmas of interpretation

These multiple framings of our reflections on environmental education research in southern Africa are written as dilemmas of interpretation that aim to disrupt any temptation to generalise or essentialise its qualities and characteristics. Recognising that research is a textual practice, we use J. M. Coetzee's portrayal of the dilemmas faced by African novelists as a point of departure in reflecting on the changing landscape of environmental education research in southern Africa as we have experienced it over six years. We provide readings framed by reference to post-colonialism, changing epistemologies and methodologies, contexts of transformation and tension, the influence of international organisations such as the United Nations and its instrumentalities, and concerns about human rights and accountability. We conclude by affirming the post-colonialist trajectories of environmental education research in southern Africa and speculating on the distinctive possibilities that recovering ubuntu (an ethic of sharing and hospitality) might offer to researchers in this region.     

关于大学英语文化教学及学生交际能力的一项实证研究

随着现代科技的发展以及世界经济全球化、一体化步骤的加快,来自不同文化背景的人们之间的交流与合作日益频繁。为了加强交流和沟通,消除交往过程中可能产生的误解,减少交际障碍甚至冲突,语言教学不仅应当致力于语言本身的理解,还应该注意学生自身文化素养以及实际的跨文化交际的培养。作者采用定性和定量研究两种方法对贵州大学60名二年级两个班级的学生进行了文化教学与交际能力培训实验。定性研究结果显示实验组的水平高于控制组,定量分析结果发现在英语课堂中进行文化教学有助于提高学生的文化意识,反过来,文化意识的提高也有助于其交际能力的提高。     

文化胜任力在社会工作中的应用

随着社会工作服务对象日趋多元和差异化,以及社会工作的理论典范与执行模式的转变,社会工作者越来越被要求具备文化胜任力,能够根据服务对象不同文化背景提出适宜的服务策略,以满足服务对象文化需求。尽管我国社会工作文化胜任力的实践已经日益丰富,但对于相关概念与服务框架还缺乏系统的探讨。通过分析国内外的相关文献,系统梳理了社会工作文化胜任力的实践意义、概念内涵、发展历史以及理论框架与服务取向。在此基础上,立足中国现实问题和创新社会治理的大背景,参考国外经验,从理论建设和实务应用两个方面提出了发展中国的社会工作文化胜任力的建议。