Probing identity,integration and adaptation: Big questions,little answers

In 0035 and 0040 acculturation typology integration is defined by two core components – maintenance of traditional heritage culture and participation in the wider society. These components, underpinned by attitudes, behaviors and identities, are believed to contribute in an additive fashion to the psychological and sociocultural adaptation of immigrants and ethnic minorities, and international research has shown that integration generally leads to more positive outcomes than separation, assimilation or marginalization. This paper draws on an international program of research and describes four multi-method studies that raise and explore key questions about the process, assessment and context of integration and its relationship to adaptation. Three questions are posed for consideration: (1) How is the dynamic process of integration experienced and articulated by immigrants? (2) How do our conceptualization and measurement of identity as an aspect of heritage culture maintenance impact the additive model of integration and adaptation? and (3) Under what conditions does integration fail to be adaptive? Tentative answers are offered, and recommendations are made for future studies to guide the development of acculturation theory and research.     

Culture and conflict: Understanding, negotiating, and reconciling conflicting constructions of reality

The paper explores the relations between culture and conflict that emerge when parties with differing constructions of reality come into contention regarding the distribution of power, control, and influence. While differences in the construction of reality do not necessarily mean conflict, and while conflict does not necessarily lead to violence, differences in the construction of reality that are codified and embedded in “unassailable” belief systems, such as those associated with fundamentalist political, economic, and religious systems, can elicit and sustain serious forms of violence, including ethnic and religious cleansing, genocide, and torture. This paper argues that we must recognize the power of culture in constructing our realities, and the reluctance we have as human beings to tolerate challenges to these realities because they introduce unacceptable levels of uncertainty and doubt. The consideration of culture in the mediation of conflict broadens options for resolution by introducing possibilities outside the limits of one's own cultural spectrum, including an improved understanding of the role of history and life contexts in generating shared meanings and behavior patterns. Following a discussion of various examples of cultures in conflict associated with political and religious fundamentalism, the paper advances a series of recommendations for understanding, negotiating, and mediating conflict via the use of cultural understanding, learning, and the development of cultures of peace.     

Adolescent outgroup helping,collective action,and political activism in a setting of protracted conflict

This article examines the role of empathy for outgroup helping, collective action and political activism among youth in Northern Ireland, a setting of protracted conflict. Integrating the Empathy-Attitudes-Action model with the Developmental Peacebuilding Model, a two-wave study was conducted to assess youth’s behavioural intentions and actual behaviours toward refugees. Across two waves (N = 383, 52 % male, 48 % female; 14−16 years old), empathy at Time 1 predicted more positive attitudes toward ethnic minorities at Time 2, which in turn was positively related to four outcomes aiming to foster prosocial change for refugees: helping behaviour and realistic helping at the interpersonal level, collective action intentions at the structural level, and signing a petition aiming for cultural change. That is, outgroup attitudes mediated the link from empathy to three types of prosocial action toward refugees. The findings suggest that youth not only volunteer to help an individual outgroup member, but also support broader structural and cultural change that will benefit those they may never meet. Implications for recognising and supporting the constructive agency of youth toward disadvantaged groups in conflict settings are discussed.     

Historicizing Singapore cinema: questions of colonial influence and spatiality

Films produced since the 1990s revival of Singapore cinema have been interpreted through a historical backdrop consisting of the nation's rapid development, participation in the global economy and authoritarian one-party governance. Film historians have described these texts by relying on discourses associated with globalization and postmodernism. This paper finds the perspective of Singaporean films to have overlooked colonialism as a significant part of Singapore's cultural identity and argues that greater consideration of that history can not only illuminate contemporary films, but also expand film scholarship to include understudied films from Singapore's ‘golden age’ of filmmaking from the 1950s to early 1970s. The history of Singapore cinema should thus be re-periodized. By analyzing the heuristic function of colonial urbanity in films from both eras, this paper explores how spatiality provides a common thread that runs through local experience, identity, culture and cinema.     

Team processes, team conflict, team outcomes, and gender: An examination of U.S. and Mexican learning teams

Team learning is growing rapidly in popularity in United States (U.S.) and Mexican universities. This instructional approach consists of using learning teams in which participants are required to work together regularly for a semester period of time and produce evaluated team outcomes. These team outcomes, along with their individual performance, have a significant impact on each individual's final assessment. We compare team processes, team conflict, team outcomes, and gender interaction in Mexican and U.S. student teams. U.S. teams report more team-oriented behavior and more cohesiveness, and Mexican teams report more self-oriented behavior and more conflict. Nationality (United States or Mexico) has a moderating effect on the relationship between gender heterogeneity and cohesiveness and conflict. Suggestions are given for applications and future research.     

Marital conflict and finances among Filipinas in Australia

Differences in finance practices emerged as a major theme in interviews conducted by The Australian Longitudinal Study on Women's Health among the Filipina community in Queensland. Women's decisions to migrate and marry Australian men are influenced by their perceptions of relative wealth of their future husband, and their presumed enhanced ability to provide support for Filipino kin. However, because of unrealised financial expectations, issues related to the remittance of money to family in The Philippines, the husband's disapproval of his wife's participation in the paid workforce, and financial practices such as the management of the household finances and roles with money, finance is a constant point of tension in many Filipina–Australian marriages. It seems that in migrating to Australia, many Filipinas exchange one type of money problem for another — one that they rarely foresee.     

Acculturation, stress and coping : Some implications for research and education

Acculturation processes are conceptualized as requiring a multivariate model with variables operating at four psychosocial levels: cultural, ethnic, interpersonal and intrapersonal. Examples of changes in mental health status, social networks, cognitive style, social orientation and child rearing values consequent to immigration are considered. The primary focus is on the delineation of several approaches to the study of acculturative stress and coping. These include stressful life events, chronic role strains, and Lazarus's cognitive appraisal model.The implications of the model for research emphasize the importance of multivariate, multi-method, multi-level approaches involving both cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses of situational and process variables. Since the school is a critical acculturation context, an intensified analysis of the strains, stresses and coping responses in that context is required. Promising approaches to such an analysis include parent and teacher cultural sensitivity training, classroom restructuring in order to reduce devaluation of immigrant children by the dominant ethnic group, and stress-innoculation training specifically designed to help children to learn to cope more effectively with the stresses of the school environment.     

Verified: Self-presentation,identity management,and selfhood in the age of big data

ABSTRACT

What new styles of selfhood and self-presentation, forms of social status, and arbiters of “authenticity” are being authorized and propagated in the wake of big data and affective capitalism? How are they functioning, for whom, and to what end? This article takes up these questions via an examination of a sought-after user identity badge, the Twitter verification checkmark, figuring it as both an affective lure that incentivizes specific styles of self-presentation and a disciplinary means through which capitalist logics work to condition and subsume the significance of the millions of forms of self-presentation generated daily. Beneath the promise of democratized access to social status and fame, the business practices of the social platforms in and through which we self-present draw us into privatized strategies of social sorting, identity management, and control. To conclude, the article will posit a new “ideal type” of selfhood for the big data age.     

Microbial technology: Some social and intercultural implications in development

This contribution deals with the interrelationships of microbial technology, culture, and society especially since such technology is expected to contribute to national and global development in the coming decades. In harnessing the beneficial activities of microbes for national development, a number of factors, some social, others cultural, are encountered in either the acceptance or rejection of such technology by different peoples. Specific examples are cited, particularly with the development of technologies for the developing world in the food and energy sectors. Attention is also given to the role of women and to the use of resources that are acceptable to some communities and unacceptable to others due to prevailing sociocultural traits. Recognition of the different aids and barriers in development involves an understanding of the existing social and intercultural factors and their implications.     

The effects of economic development and modernization in resolving traditional-modern attitudinal conflict

Experts point out that development changes societies in ways so profound that they cannot be anticipated by the participants in the experience. This article analyses the effects of rapid economic development on traditional life styles and the resolution of ensuing attitudinal conflict. Previous studies of traditional-modern (T-M) problems encountered in the process of modernization are reviewed and modernization theories and methodological problems are discussed. Evidence is presented for a T-M model based on studies in West Africa, Australian aborigines, Hong Kong Chinese, Japanese, and Alaskan Eskimo, identifying certain independent variables which are held to influence modernization: the nature of traditional ecologies, e.g., agricultural, pastoral, or hunting/fishing societies, the severity of socialization and the nature of traditional authority systems. The analysis confirmed that development does change societies in profound ways, uprooting cultures, altering environments and modifying individuals physically and psychologically. However, it was also postulated, based on T-M research, that hunting, fishing and the main pastoral societies are generally more highly resistant to change, do not want change and may be better off without it. In contrast, most agricultural and mixed agricultural-pastoral societies are not only more susceptible to modern change, they can usually derive the most benefit from it and also in most cases want change.     

The role of communication,technology, and cultural identity in repatriation adjustment

The current study examines the influence of demographic factors, communication behavior, and cultural identity on the repatriation adjustment of 101 American sojourners returning from work assignments in 44 different countries. The results indicated that the demographic factors of age, marital status, length of sojourn, and attendance at debriefing had a significant relationship with repatriation adjustment. Levels of closeness in relationships and satisfaction with use of information and communication technology were also related to repatriation adjustment. In fact, several mediated forms of communication, such as email and the Internet, received as high or higher ratings than some types of face-to-face communication. Intercultural identity patterns (home favored, host favored, integrated, and disintegrated) were defined, and results on them demonstrated that integrated and home-favored patterns had the smoother repatriation adjustment, while disintegrated and host-favored patterns had more difficult repatriation experiences.