Cultural engagement across the life course: Examining age–period–cohort effects

Longitudinal studies of cultural engagement are uncommon. This paper explores whether there are stable latent clusters of cultural engagement over time and whether age–period–cohort (APC) effects explain within-person changes between these clusters across the life course. Using data from the British Household Panel Survey (N?=?25,149), I conduct longitudinal latent class analysis to uncover the latent patterns of cultural consumption across nine activities: cinema, watching live sport, attending the theatre, eating at a restaurant, doing DIY, attending an evening class, meeting with local groups, volunteering, and going to a club/pub. Then, I explore whether APC effects are observable in the data using scatterplot smoothing, lowess regression. Six latent clusters are consistently observed in each wave: None, DIY, Restaurant/Pub, Cinema/Theatre, Volunteer, and All (almost all activities). A large number of respondents have highly stable patterns of cultural engagement but there is also a substantial degree of variation. Transitions between latent clusters over time occur between those that are compositionally similar (in terms of activities). These changes in patterns of cultural engagement are partially explained by age effects, such as time constraints and health. Additionally, there is some evidence of cohort effects among the youngest cohorts moving into the “All” latent cluster, the cluster with the most cultural breadth.     

The role of student–university value alignment in international student acculturation in Australia

This study integrates acculturation and person–environment fit theories to investigate the role of student–university value alignment in international student cross-cultural adjustment to host universities in Victoria, Australia. The study used a mixed methods design with the quantitative data collected from a student survey and the qualitative data generated from interviews with university staff. Structural equation modelling and thematic analysis were employed to analyse the quantitative and qualitative data respectively. The results of the study indicated that international students who possess similar values to their host university, adjust better, both psychologically and socially into the university environment as well as feel satisfaction with their host university. The study also confirmed the mediating role of international student social adjustment in the relationship between student–university value fit and student overall satisfaction with their host university. The findings highlight the key role of international student–university value alignment in contributing to the success of students’ cross-cultural adjustment to the new cultural environment they experience. Therefore, universities should constantly communicate and deliver on their values during both the promotional stage of international student recruitment and the student journey with the university.     

No longer a waltz between red wine and mint tea: The portrayal of the children of immigrants in French newspapers (2003–2013)

Despite the egalitarianism that informs French civic culture, the socio-economic marginalization of citizens of non-European origin, mostly from North African countries, provide empirical evidence that challenges the French Republican ideal of integration. Such marginalization needs to be reconciled especially within the cultural realm. In this article, we look at French newspapers’ coverage of the children of immigrants during a ten-year period (2003–2013). We analyse coverage in three major newspapers since French news coverage can be considered to follow a specific political/literary model, which has a profound influence on how news in France is both coded and decoded. The article examines the ways political allegiances affect the portrayals of the children of immigrants. Using the constant comparative method, an analysis of the discourse over time shows that the narratives of integration of the decedents of North African immigrants have been complicated by the 2005 riots, both as a romantic illusion, a reflection of reality, or a possible outcome of events. The three newspapers grapple with the ambiguous position of the children of immigrants in French society in different ways. Coverage of children of immigrants continues to be divided along partisan lines which are bounded by the political/literary model of journalism. What is also clear is that the changing portrayal of children of immigrants is intrinsically attached to evolving social, political, and economic dynamics both nationally and beyond state borders.     

Culture change in organizational public discourse 1998–2008: Examining annual reports of Japanese and US corporations

This study examines changes in organizational cultures of Japanese and US corporations between 1998 and 2008 through the lens of communication. Specifically, it analyzes organizational values that are manifest in the use of specific terms in the texts of corporate annual reports (N = 255). By doing so, this study empirically determines the patterns that describe over-time changes in organizational cultures of Japanese and US corporations. Theoretically, this study investigates whether the basic premise of the theory of convergence is applicable to the study of organizational culture change. To that end, three dimensions of organizational values—performance, continuity, and growth—have been derived. To test the hypotheses and the research question offered, this study examines the effects of time in years, national culture, and the interaction between the two on the three value dimensions. Using linear growth model analysis, this study found that time and national culture had significant effects on the use of the terms related to the performance and continuity dimensions. The effects were not significant for the growth dimension. In none of the cases, the interaction effects between time and national culture were significant. The results provided evidence to support the parallel change pattern for the performance and continuity dimensions and the unitary stability pattern for the growth dimension. The findings partially support the premise of the theory of convergence.     

Theaters of war: Tracing the strange careers of Shina No Yoru in the military contact zones of the Pacific, 1937–1954

This article examines the ways in which multiple traditions of camp shows and the overlapping and relational layers of Imperial Japan and U.S. presence in Korea shaped Korean entertainers’ lives after 1945, producing their idiosyncratic performances in response to rapid shifts in Korea’s relations with Japan and the United States in the 1940s–1950s. When the United States sought to reposition Japan at the top of the newly emerging American hegemonic order of Asian countries, Korean entertainers who served the Imperial Japanese Army a few months earlier found themselves performing for American soldiers. The stage of the Korean native camp shows became a “strange and exotic” yet “familiar and even comforting” place where inconsistent logics, such as Imperial Japan’s pan-Asian ideology and American Orientalist fantasy, mingled. Under the complicated legacies of overlapping militarization and colonization in Korea, militarization has constituted a structuring force that enabled Korean women camp show entertainers generating their hybrid performance styles in ironies, contradictions, and complexities. Building on postcolonial theorists’ notion of hybridity, I argue that Korean entertainers’ performances were being shaped or negotiated in contact with different audiences and expectations as well as Korean entertainers attempted to navigate the acceptable ground of performances and womanhood in the constantly changing political and ideological environment.     

Is emigration worth the trouble? Satisfaction with life,group identifications,perceived discrimination,and socio-economic status of immigrants and stayers

In the present study, we examined satisfaction with life (SWL), group identifications, perceived discrimination, and socio-economic status among immigrants and stayers. The study had two main objectives: 1) to test the morbidity and salutary hypotheses of immigration by comparing the psycho-social characteristics of immigrants and stayers; 2) to test a resource model of well-being among immigrants and stayers by investigating the effect of different resources and stressors on SWL. The study was conducted using a random representative sample of first-generation immigrants from the Former Soviet Union to Israel (n = 400) and a not-random large and geographically dispersed sample of Jews staying in Russia (n = 935). The comparison of immigrants and stayers revealed that immigration is a mixed blessing, salutary in some aspects and onerous in others. In general, immigrants were more satisfied with their life than stayers. In addition, identification with the country of residence was stronger among immigrants than stayers. However, immigrants reported a higher level of perceived discrimination, and their socio-economic status was lower than that of stayers. Socio-economic status, identification with the country of residence, and perceived discrimination were directly connected to SWL among immigrants and stayers. In addition, among stayers, identification with the ethnic minority group was connected to SWL, while among immigrants, identification with the country of origin was not connected to SWL. Socio-economic status and perceived discrimination also affected SWL indirectly, through their connections to identification with the country of residence among immigrants and stayers and through their connection to ethnic identification among stayers.     

Beyond the Rule of Thumb: The Materiality of Marital Violence in England c. 1700–1857

This article examines how marital violence was articulated in and around particular places, spaces, and objects, to reveal the tensions embedded in the physical structure of the household and its control. It also demonstrates that space and objects shaped marital violence both as an idea and an act and did ‘emotional work’ in the sense that they operated upon people’s emotions and behaviour. Finally, it argues that an imagined material culture of marital violence contributed to the construction and maintenance of class stereotypes.     

The role of cultural pressures and group favouritism in shaping Syrian refugees’ identity in the Jordanian work environment

This study seeks to understand the cultural inclusion/exclusion practices that Syrian refugees encounter in the Jordanian work environment, explore whether an ingroup (Jordanian) over outgroup (Syrian refugees) favouritism exists and how such favouritism reshapes Syrian refugees’ social identity in this new environment. Drawing on qualitative-semi structured interviews with 12 Syrian refugees in Jordan, the study highlights different multi-layered cultural exclusion/inclusion practices that Syrian refugees in Jordan face. Through a combined underpinning of social identity theory (SIT) (Tajfel & Turner, 1979) and the acculturation framework (Arends-Tóth & van de Vijver, 2006), the study reports how these practices re-shape Syrian refugees’ identity around vocational skills. We go beyond the basic types of discrimination against refugees (e.g., gender, race, religion) to highlight economic and legal restrictions as important promoters of cultural exclusion despite the strong cultural cohesion factors. This highlights the significant role of community and societal practices that can go beyond cultural differences between groups, and extend our understanding of SIT.     

Culture = politics: the emergence of new cultural forms of protest in the age of freeter

This paper examines new cultural and political movements that have developed outside of traditional leftist politics since the early 1990s in Japan. The new movements, including Dame‐ren, the Cardboard House Art movements in Shinjuku and recent anti‐war protests on the Iraqi war, were mainly led by young people, in particular, the freeter generation, who did not experience the leftist politics of the 1960s. These movements are different from traditional Marxist political ones and even from the new social movements in the 1960s and 1970s in the sense that they incorporate more cultural practices such as art, music, dance and performance into their political activities. The paper also explores the historical background against which the new movements were born and have developed since the end of the Bubble economy. It sees freeters, young part‐time workers, as emerging, new political actors that have appeared through the transition of a mode of production from Fordism to post‐Fordism. The transformation of society, economy and politics, known as ‘post‐modernization’ or recently as ‘globalization’, has asked us to re‐consider and re‐define the basic concepts such as class, proletariat, power, labour and work which we once shared. The paper tries to locate, through a critical examination, the new movements within a broader context of anti‐neo‐liberalism and anti‐globalization and find political potentiality within it.     

‘The Charlatanry of the Learned’: On the Moral Economy of the Republic of Letters in Eighteenth-Century Germany

The notion of charlatanism is central to the social workings of the eighteenth-century republic of letters. Starting with Johann Burkhard Mencke's famous treatise The Charlatanry of the Learned, this paper traces how accusations of academic and scientific misconduct put in terms of ‘charlatanry’ initially helped to produce the new species of the erudite ‘charlatan’. Facing a growing complexity of scientific culture, this new frame of meaning, structured by numerous examples of scientific misconduct, offered a way of mapping the world of learning. But besides its cognitive impacts, the discourse of charlatanry allowed the creation of symbolic boundaries, which determined decisions as to the affiliation or non-affiliation to this recently forming scientific community by separating honourable from dishonourable scientific personae. Speaking of charlatanry therefore always implied a social distinction as much as a scientific one. The discourses on charlatanry also mirror differentiations within the scientific field. At first dominated by a critique built on courteous or bourgeois values, the scientific field later developed its own criteria of appraisal, such as authorship, originality, transparency, etc. Attracting the attention of a growing public sphere, the explicit verbalization of claims which were not related to the value system of a republic of letters primarily concerned with the production and distribution of knowledge finally led to a more implicit moral economy of science.     

Majority–minority acculturation preferences concordance as an antecedent of attitudes towards immigrants: The mediating role of perceived symbolic threat and metastereotypes

Through an experimental design, we investigated the effects of majority–minority acculturation preferences concordance and immigrants’ generational status on Italians’ attitudes towards Albanian immigrants. The role of perceived threat and metastereotypes in mediating this relationship was examined. Participants (N = 178) were categorized into different levels of culture maintenance and intercultural contact concordance. Findings showed that discrepancies in the contact dimension affected majority members’ attitudes towards immigrants. Both perceived threat and metastereotypes were found to mediate the relationship between contact discrepancies and attitudes towards immigrants. Culture maintenance concordance interacted with immigrants’ generational status in influencing majority members’ attitudes. This research confirmed the importance of taking into account the dynamic and reciprocal relationship between majority and immigrant acculturation preferences, confirming that the most positive attitudes were produced when immigrants were perceived to adopt the same strategy as the majority, especially with respect to intergroup contact.     

Long Song: Sound of Nature in the Mongolian Grasslands

Urtiin duu is believed to date back to the era of the Hun (about 2000 years ago) and became one of the most important cultural expressions of Mongolians when this nation took shape, according to China's historical documents. The origin of this old folk art is closely connected with religious and other major rituals of Mongolians. On those rituals, singing was an integral part, and some old songs are still sung today. For example, joyous crowds shout their praises and auspicious wishes, and b…     

Made in China: the cultural logic of OEMs and the manufacture of low‐cost technology

Abstract

This paper investigates the conditions of the manufacture of low‐cost technology in China with the examples of ‘pirated’ VCD players, ‘no‐name’ DVD players, and Shenzhen’s development as a techno‐urban city. It emphasizes the significance of the cultural logic of original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and argues that the various transformations and deflections that are derived from ubiquitous OEM experiences have gone beyond the original model of an authorized OEM, experiences that are to some extent embodied in the transgression of brand name and patent hegemonies, which are mainly controlled by high technology companies. OEMs have been associated with China’s current imperative and uninhibited development of low‐cost technology capitalism. ‘Made in China’ signifies the production of any product, legal or illegal, for transnational high technology giants or domestic technology manufacturers. Learning to ‘become an OEM’ in China has partly resulted in excessive technological mimesis that may be part of an unauthorized, underground economy that is based on low‐cost technology. Based on the Shenzhen experience, part of this study will show industrial production‐oriented OEM cultures in which illegal operations and counterfeit trade are incorporated, even in city projects that are shared by municipal governments and Chinese technological companies, and undergo spatial restructuring in the development of the economy, consumerism, and urbanism.