The arts in England: Developing a survey of attendance,participation and attitudes

Reliable data on attendance, participation and attitudes to the arts are needed by planners, policy makers, arts organisations, those concerned with marketing the arts and researchers.

This chapter describes the development and piloting of a national survey of people's engagement with the arts by the Arts Council of England and the Office for National Statistics. It outlines the main reasons for the development of the survey, presents results from the pilot and compares them with other national and international sources of data.

From the outset, procedures for obtaining feedback on the pilot questionnaire were built into the planning process. The paper discusses respondents’ reactions to the questionnaire, their views on how meaningful the questions were and how well the interview worked. It also explores respondents’ understanding of such terms as ‘the arts’ and ‘public funding’, and how they responded to questions.

The chapter concludes with a summary of the changes made in the light of the pilot and outlines future plans for the survey.     

Cross-national encounters: Turkish students in the United States

This research studied the effects of sojourn experience on the attitudes of young Turkish students spending a year in the U.S. The study, using a pretest-posttest control group design, was repeated for two years and was completed by a follow-up. Certain attitude changes were obtained which were attributed to the favorable nature of sojourn experience. These changes were mainly decreases in authoritarianism and religiosity and increases in world-mindedness and to a lesser degree in belief in internal control and perceived family control. Most of these changes were found to be of duration longer than one year. Patriotism and achievement values decreased independently of sojourn experience, indicating an age trend. After returning home subjects were found to undergo a readjustment process arriving at an optimum level in about a year.     

Cultural consultation: Implications for hispanic mental health services in the United States

The need to maximize the influence of the limited number of Hispanic mental health professionals in the United States requires the development of new roles. One possible role is that of cultural consultant to non-Hispanic providers. Cultural consultation can serve to help mental health providers differentiate between cultural differences and cognitive, affective and social deficits. This article will operationalize the concept and goats of cultural consultation, issues related to non- Hispanic staff providing services to Hispanics will be outlined, and a series of recommendations will be presented to assist individuals and organizations in developing cultural consultation programs.     

Facework in Syria and the United States: A cross-cultural comparison

“The first rule when communicating with people from the Arab world is not to let them lose face” said J. Al-Omari. Face or one's social identity is cultural. A face threat is a situation which threatens to create a loss of face. When experiencing face-threats people guard their face with facework – behavioral actions enacted to protect one's face. Since facework varies across cultures, this study analyzed how cultural collectivism, power distance, masculinity, and uncertainty avoidance influence direct, indirect, competitive, cooperative, hostile, and ritualistic facework in Syria and the United States, employing a MANCOVA design with gender as the covariate. Significant findings (n = 336) showed that: (a) US Americans reported using more direct, competitive, and hostile facework strategies than Syrians while (b) Syrians reported using more indirect, cooperative and ritualistic facework strategies than US Americans (c) US American facework strategies corresponded to individualistic, weak power distance, masculine, and low uncertainty avoidance cultural dimensions while Syrian facework corresponded to collectivistic, high-power distance, moderately masculine, and high uncertainty avoidance and (d) VSM 94 results showed Syria to be more individualistic than Hofstede's original rankings.     

Independence and obedience in the United States and Japan

Are some Americans and Japanese beginning to think more similarly about independence and obedience? Middle-class adult respondents from the suburbs of Chicago and Tokyo (U.S.: 43 males and 54 females: Japan: 71 males and 80 females) were surveyed about their sex-role values. This report focuses on two values which have been recognised as constituting fundamental differences between Japanese and Americans: personal independence and obedience. The survey used a metric multidimensional scaling technique called Galileo^®. Analyses of the data and results of other comparative studies suggest that any convergence taking place between the two societies is occurring primarily within American society. There is growing evidence, including the findings of this study, that Americans are moving away from their traditional stress on the importance of the individual in society. The Japanese respondents did show a more liberal conceptualization of the ideal woman with respect to obedience, however, there was no indication that this less traditional image of women extended to their other traditional roles in society.     

流失美国的中国国宝

流失海外的中国物，原先以日本最多，其次是英、法。但是二十年代以后，美国却“后来居上”其数量之巨与品质之佳，几可和日本抗衡。     

120个:首批留学美国的中国幼童

中国幼童，留学异邦，这不是时下的新发现，早在一百多年前，就有120个中国幼童远赴美国，开创了中国幼童留学美国的先河。     

Forms of written arguments: A comparison between Japan and the United States

Studying cultural differences in argument forms helps us understand the nature of communicative problems that inevitably arise in intercultural conflict and negotiation. Although a number of studies have been conducted in the past to examine cultural differences in arguments, we still do not have sufficient evidence to support that cultural groups actually differ in the manners in which they construct arguments. Given the situation, this study empirically examines whether and how cultural groups differ in forms of written arguments. Based on the theoretical framework of verbal communication styles proposed by Gudykunst and Ting-Toomey, this study employs two dimensions along which two cultural groups, Japan and the United States, are likely to differ: direct–indirect and elaborate–succinct. Five indicators of argument forms that represent values on either of the two dimensions are used to analyze differences in argument forms between the two cultural groups. A survey was conducted in Japan and the United States. A total of 329 responses from college students, including 239 from Japan and 90 from the United States, were analyzed to test the hypotheses offered in this study. Consistent with the hypotheses, results indicate that the arguments written by the Japanese respondents are significantly more indirect and succinct those written by the U.S. counterparts. The implications of these findings for future research are discussed.     

Intercultural perceptions in United States subsidiaries of Japanese companies

Japanese and U.S. managers working together in eight Japanese-owned commercial banks in the United Stales participated in the study. Senior and upper-middle level managers of both nationalities rated employees from each national group on 13 bipolar semantic differential adjective items. In contrast to typical studies of intercultural stereotypes between groups having no actual contact with one another, the present study focuses on groups working together in international businesses. Individual responses were analyzed to compare perceived similarities and differences by the two employee groups. As anticipated, considerable differences were found. Implications for mutual understanding between these cultural groups in international business are discussed.     

Conflict style and cultural understanding among teachers in the western United States: Exploring relationships

Competent teachers are competent communicators who are able to build and sustain interpersonal relationships across culture and across conflict. The following study was designed to validate and extend prior research [Mahon, J. A. (2003). Intercultural sensitivity development of practicing teachers. Dissertation Abstracts International, 64(7), 2353A (UMI No. 3097199); Mahon, J. A. (2006). Under the invisibility cloak? Teacher understanding of cultural difference. Intercultural Education, 17(4), 391–407] that showed a majority of teachers had ethnocentric levels of intercultural sensitivity (ICS) as measured by the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) [Intercultural Communication Institute (ICI). (1999a). The intercultural development inventory. Portland, Oregon: Intercultural Communication Institute]. Qualitative data also suggested teachers with less sophisticated understandings of culture avoided intercultural conflict situations. The following research drew upon a sample of 88 teachers in the United States to examine possible relationships between ICS as measured by the IDI, and conflict style as measured by the Thomas–Kilmann Conflict Inventory (TKI) [Consulting Psychologies Press (CPP). (2002). Thomas–Kilmann Conflict Inventory. Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologies Press]. Results indicated the majority of teachers have ethnocentric understandings of culture, and preferred the Compromising conflict style, followed very closely by Avoiding and Accommodating. Further analyses revealed that degree of cooperativeness predicted levels of the dependent variable of ICS. Certain demographic variables shown to be important in prior ICS research were found to predict levels of the dependent variables.     

Emerging Interpersonal Norms of Text Messaging in India and the United States

This study examines whether there are emerging interpersonal norms of text messaging—an etiquette (“textiquette”) of texting—that guide its use in India and the United States. One hundred and thirty-seven participants recorded multiple text messages sent and received in specially designed text logs. Each log secured data on the following dimensions: (1) the context in which a text was sent and received/read; (2) who each participant was with—and the reaction of this person(s)—when the participant sent or received/read a text message; and (3) what constitutes impolite text messaging behavior. Results reveal emerging interpersonal norms of text messaging in both countries that vary significantly across cultures on all three dimensions. Implications and limitations are discussed.