Biculturalism and self-construal

Evidence on the dimensionality of self-construal points to the coexistence of both an independent and an interdependent self-image. Drawing on conceptualizations of the acculturation process, this study is a preliminary examination of the distinctiveness of four hypothesized self-construal patterns: Bicultural, Western, Traditional, and Culturally-alienated. Different types of individuals, having experienced varying amounts of cultural contact and having made different choices in adjusting to cultural groups, might portray distinctive self-construal patterns. Especially intriguing was the notion that those with a well developed sense of interdependence and a well developed sense of independence could be described as bicultural. To test this, persons from four a priori identified groups were selected to represent the four patterns of self-construal. We predicted that on a measure of self-construal, the mean scores of the respondents in the four groups would differ in strength with the bicultural experience group, in particular, exhibiting both a high independent and a high interdependent score on a measure of self-construals. Our hypotheses were supported. In terms of independent self-construal, the Bicultural and Western groups scored significantly higher than the Traditional and Alienated groups. For the interdependent self-construal, the Traditional and Bicultural groups scored significantly higher than the Western and Alienated groups. The bicultural group was the only group to score significantly higher on both types of construals. The availability of both types of self-construal would likely facilitate communication and adaptive behaviors for persons interacting in multiple cultures.     

Can public arts education replace arts subsidization?

The debate about whether the arts should be supported or not is far from new, and most governments support the arts in one way or the other. The literature considers several arguments in favor of such interventions. Public education may seem to be an action which could, in the long run, lead to possible reductions of subsidies. Surveys show that those who have been exposed to the arts when young participate more when adult. However, the “non-market” transmission from parents to children generates an external effect, which has to be taken into account to reach first-best situations. We construct an overlapping generations model in which young consumers are exposed to both public education toward the arts and to non-altruistic transmission of such a taste from their parents. We show that the first-best can be reached only if there is both public cultural education and subsidization of arts consumption. Therefore, education cannot be considered as a substitute for subsidies to arts consumption. However, as is often the case in European countries, government intervention is usually below the first-best level. Using a model calibrated on French data, we show that it is then preferable to subsidize education, while consumption, especially of the older generations, should be taxed rather than subsidized.

A Geohistorical Study of ‘The Rise of Modern Science’: Mapping Scientific Practice Through Urban Networks, 1500–1900

Using data on the ‘career’ paths of one thousand ‘leading scientists’ from 1450 to 1900, what is conventionally called the ‘rise of modern science’ is mapped as a changing geography of scientific practice in urban networks. Four distinctive networks of scientific practice are identified. A primate network centred on Padua and central and northern Italy in the sixteenth century expands across the Alps to become a polycentric network in the seventeenth century, which in turn dissipates into a weak polycentric network in the eighteenth century. The nineteenth century marks a huge change of scale as a primate network centred on Berlin and dominated by German-speaking universities. These geographies are interpreted as core-producing processes in Wallerstein’s modern world-system; the rise of modern scientific practice is central to the development of structures of knowledge that relate to, but do not mirror, material changes in the system.