Learning and adaptation with regard to complementary medicine in a foreign context: Intercultural experiences of medical students from different cultural backgrounds

Little is known about challenges and transition that medical students from different cultural backgrounds face with regard to complementary medicine (CM). This paper explores such students’ experiences and perspectives of socio-cultural and academic difference with regard to CM and experiences of intercultural relations. Using a constructivist grounded theory approach, 30 in-depth qualitative interviews were conducted with medical students across 10 Australian medical schools. The data were rigorously analysed through a systematic process of coding, categorisation and theoretical development. The findings indicate that students adapted considerably to the host culture. Students with Western backgrounds integrated better socio-culturally and academically compared to students with non-Western backgrounds. Although nationality represented cultural identity, students’ construction of cultural difference was informed by their perception of diverging value systems within the specific educational environment. These values were, in turn, reflected in students’ reported behaviours, attitudes, and levels of engagement in socio-cultural and academic aspects of university life. Adaptation employed by students was evidenced largely due to their conflicting sense of responsibility towards familial culture regarding CM and focus on fitting in. While students’ tendency to gravitate towards cultural peers was evident, most students adapted to their host environment regarding CM to fit into normal intercultural encounters during medical school. In conclusion, students’ intercultural contact with regard to CM was both complex and problematic. At a time of significant diversification within the higher education student body, this paper highlights the role medical education institutions can play in fostering intercultural and academic guidance and support.     

Help that hurts? Perceptions of intergroup assistance

The current research, guided theoretically by the Intergroup Helping as Status Relations Model, explored how high and low status groups (Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs) perceive offers of help from the high to the low status group. Ninety-three Arab and Jewish participants were asked to imagine and evaluate offers of help from Jews to Arabs in Israel. Consistent with the hypothesis that members of high and low status groups would have different perspectives and goals in their relations, Israeli Arabs viewed help by Israeli Jews more as a way to reinforce existing hierarchy and as a way of asserting the higher groups’ domination. Recognizing the different orientations of members of high and low status groups to potentially conciliatory actions, such as helping behavior, can enhance understanding of the dynamics of intergroup relations and conflict and reveal factors that might fuel intergroup misunderstandings and tensions, which can represent a critical step to improving intergroup relations.     

Threat and Prejudice against Syrian Refugees in Canada: Assessing the Moderating Effects of Multiculturalism,Interculturalism, and Assimilation

A survey experiment (N = 529) was used to test the moderating effects of intergroup ideologies (assimilation, multiculturalism, and interculturalism) on the relationship between social dominance orientation (SDO) and expressions of prejudice under conditions of intergroup threat. Moderated multiple regression analyses suggest a multicultural integration frame moderates the relationship between SDO and feelings toward Syrian refugees in Canada when the target outgroup is portrayed as a source of intergroup threat. This moderating effect was unique to the relationship between SDO and feelings toward Syrians and did not extend to other correlates of prejudice including beliefs in zero-sum group competition or a multicultural ideology, nor did it extend to more general measures of prejudice (i.e., attitudes toward immigrants or evaluations of intercultural contact). Findings suggest the prejudice-reducing effects of a multicultural integration narrative affect group evaluations and functions by targeting beliefs in social dominance, rather than zero-sum group competition or ideological support for cultural diversity. The results offer insights into the prejudice-reducing potential for two alternative integration narratives that are institutionalized in Canada.     

Shared future – shared values? Taking stock of the peace process in Northern Ireland: teenagers’ perspectives

ABSTRACT

Although preceded by years of political and policy developments, the signing of the Good Friday Agreement (or Belfast Agreement) in 1998 is generally regarded as marking the end of conflict and the beginning of the transition to peace. However, this transition has been neither linear nor straightforward. Divisions, both physical and symbolic, reflecting collective identities and ‘otherness’, remain resistant to change and continue to foster sectarianism, mistrust and outbreaks of violence. Despite some positive change, not least of which is the absence of sustained violence, the majority of neighbourhoods and schools remain either Protestant or Catholic. Drawing on data from the Young Life and Times (YLT) survey, an annual attitudinal survey of 16-year-olds in Northern Ireland that has been running since 2003, this article explores what young people's perspectives reveal about the complexities and the challenges involved in transitioning to a more shared society. Where relevant and possible, their attitudes are compared with those expressed by adults in the annual Northern Ireland Life and Times (NILT) survey. A primary focus on tracking teenagers' attitudes is important for a number of reasons. While often regarded as a ‘post-conflict’ generation, segregation and polarisation remain features of teenagers' everyday lives and the political landscape. Children and young people are one of the four key strategic priorities in the latest government strategies to build united communities and achieve change and are embedded in the Programme for Government 2016–2021. If these government commitments are to be realised, the voices of young people must become central rather than peripheral. It is important, therefore, that their opinions are not only sought, but also interrogated and fed into policy.     

Learning the American Way: Sports International and American Soft Power

Abstract

From 1962 to 1968, the United States Government along with private entities funded the training of athletes from developing nations through a non-profit organization named Sports International. Led by former Peace Corps member David Dichter, Sports International sought to enhance America’s image in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. The initial aim of the programme was to train athletes to compete at the 1964 Olympic Games in Tokyo. The theory behind Sports International centred on the notion that helping developing nations achieves athletic success would influence them to view the United States more favourably. The idea to form Sports International came in the midst of the Cold War as the United States and the Soviet Union battled on a multitude of fronts. This article argues that American leaders worried about the presence of the Soviet Union in developing countries and sought ways to maximize American influence in those areas. The theory of soft power, a concept most prominently explicated by American international relations theorist Joseph Nye, forms the framework for this study. By analysing Sports International through this lens, this article demonstrates several problems which might ensure should one overemphasize the effect of sport on a nation’s soft power.     

析我国涉外代理法律实施困顿

《涉外民事关系法律适用法》的出台,对我国法院审理涉外代理案件在法律适用上统一了标准。然而由于我国司法实践的匮乏,加之我国实体法中又无有关代理单行法对之概念加之明确,民法与合同法对代理的界定也不一致,这必然导致我国法院对涉外代理案件适用的困顿或导致出现司法惰怠。为保证我国关于涉外代理法律制度的有效、准确实施,我国有必要借鉴海牙国际私法会议《代理法律适用公约》中有关条款的规定,或以单行法的形式,或以司法解释的方式,明确界定《涉外民事关系法律适用法》关于代理法律制度规定的适用范围,对代理采用明确定义、穷尽列举及排除性条款相结合的方法,对代理的适用范围进行规范。以突破立法界定缺陷导致的司法困境．完善我国的代理法律法规。     

论公共关系的三维特性

通过对公共关系三维特性的论述,为人们对公共关系的进一步认识提供帮助.可以说,公共关系实践水平的逐步提高,是离不开其理论性的支持和方向性的引导的.     

The 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin: The Response of America's Black Press

Abstract

Eighty-seven female masters swimmers ranging in age from 20 to 69 were selected for a detailed study of their body composition and physiological responses at rest and during exercise. These women were then placed into two subsets, a highly trained group and a not highly trained group, on the basis of the frequency, duration, and intensity of swimming workouts. Significant differences were detected when comparing the highly trained and not highly trained subjects on measures of weight, body density, percent fat and lean body weight (p<.05). Significant differences which favored the highly trained group were also seen when comparing these same two groups for [Vdot]_E max, [Vdot]O₂ max (1/min), [Vdot]O₂ max (ml·kg^–1·min^–1), [Vdot]O₂ max (ml·kg·LBW^–1·min^–1), O₂ pulse (ml·kg^–1·beat^–1), and O₂ pulse (ml·kg·LBW^–1). Both the highly trained and not highly trained swimmers were considerably lower in percent fat than previously reported data for normal untrained women of similar ages. In both groups, however, percent fat across age levels within each training group showed significant increases at approximately 40 years of age (p<.05). In the highly trained swimmers, [Vdot]O₂ max (ml·kg^–1·min^–1) decreased at a mean rate of about 7% per decade, while in the not highly trained swimmers the decline was approximately 8% per decade. It appears that the rate of decline in [Vdot]O₂ max in women with aging may be independent of training status.     

浅谈比况表达式中的语音停顿现象

中间有语音停顿，书面上用标点符号隔开的比况表达式是一种比较特殊的表达形式。本文通过对比的方式，从表达式的词语功能、表达功能、句法功能、内部关系和结构形式几个方面对其进行初步探讨。