The inadvertent creation of a neocolonial culture: A study of western sojourners in India

Field work and structured interviews with 139 foreign sojourners in India were analyzed to describe the socialization of aliens into their role. Attitude scales measuring favorability toward the host country and people were also examined in relation to the respondent's occupational status and elapsed time in India. The results from the field work and interviews suggest that the privileges and high status accorded many Western visitors may contribute to the visitors' derogation of their hosts, a process which is often subtle but unmistakable. The visitors appear to become socialized into the world of aliens rather than the world of their hosts. The higher the visitor's status and the longer the elapsed time in India, the more pronounced these patterns appear. While the correlational nature of the study makes it impossible to determine whether persons with initially unfavorable attitudes are selected into the high status positions or whether the positions themselves create such attitudes, it appears reasonable to conclude that there would be less derogation and alienation if the lures of status and money were removed; persons would be neither selected nor influenced by such factors.     

The effects of a systematic training program on the attitudes and behaviors of white people

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the impact of a systematic step-by-step curricular-affective program of race relations training on the attitudes and behaviors of white people. Two attitude scales, the Attitude Exploration Survey and the Steckler Attitude Inventory, are used to assess changes in attitudes. A Behavioral Rating Scale is used by participants and their significant others to assess change in behavior in relations to their behavioral objective. The results indicate that both attitudes and behavior are changed as a result of the training program and that the change is retained eight weeks after completion of the program.     

Academic achievement following childhood brain disease: implications for the concept of learning disabilities.

The present study examined three hypotheses regarding the consequences of early brain damage for academic achievement: First, early brain insults will have a negative impact on achievement, even in children with normal intelligence. Second, underachievement in these children will be at least partially independent of IQ (i.e., not fully accounted for by a lowering of IQ within the average range). Third, normally intelligent children with histories of brain insult will also manifest selective cognitive dysfunctions. To test these hypotheses, we compared two groups of children who had recovered from Haemophilus influenzae type b meningitis. The "complicated" group consisted of children who, as a consequence of having sustained neurologic complications during their illness, were more likely to have had brain insults. Children in the "uncomplicated" group did not have complications with their illness and were regarded as having escaped significant central nervous system (CNS) pathology. Only children with normal hearing and a prorated Full Scale IQ of at least 80 (WISC-R) were considered. Group differences on the Wide Range Achievement Test-Revised were consistent with the first two hypotheses. Although the two groups had similar Verbal IQs, the complicated group also had a lower mean Performance IQ and performed less well on perceptually demanding neuropsychological tasks. Findings suggest that learning disabilities may have selective, brain-related cognitive antecedents; but they challenge the practice of using IQ criteria for clinical diagnosis.     

Who's next? Research predicts museum leadership gap

A brief commentary from the Museum Association of New York (MANY) on the unprecedented gap posed by baby-boomer retirement. Based, in part, on MANY's white paper, “Who's Next? Questioning the Future of Museum Leadership in New York State,” this essay deals with questions of succession, leadership and general differences in New York's museum community.     

Essentialism, adaptation and justice: Towards a new epistemology of museums

This article treats the prevalent confused mixture of utilitarian, art-and-knowledge-for-their-own-sake and ideological interpretations of the purpose of museums as a problem of epistemology, arguing that that key dimensions of museum knowledge (of objects, visitors, museums themselves, and of society) need to be integrated to achieve coherence. A new object-based, visitor-centred, storytelling epistemology is proposed. This would take an interdisciplinary approach and aim to unleash, rather than mute the real power of objects. It would address human destructiveness, as well as celebrating human creativity and the wonders of nature. It would respect the meaning-making practices of real, as opposed to idealized, imaginary visitors, and promote staff self-awareness in managing bureaucratic drift into introversion and avoidance of difficult issues. Incorporating a theory of justice, it would erode boundaries created by presentation traditions which, though marginal to object experiences, discriminate in favour of specific social groups—often groups with whom staff identify. Providing a museum service on a visibly fair basis is essential for museums to achieve intellectual coherence as well as societal support.