Disorienting experiences during study abroad: Reflections of pre-service teacher candidates

This study examines the study-abroad experiences of pre-service teacher candidates at the Faculty of Education, York University, using transformative learning theory. Disorienting experiences are a crucial first step for perspective transformation; students reported facing racial dynamics, “outsider” status, risk-taking behavior and power relations. Students’ utilized a variety of reflection opportunities; however, critical self-reflection imperative for transformation requires greater awareness of one’s frame of reference. Future studies need to examine how students’ specificities shape the realization of study-abroad goals for pre-service teachers and their ability to develop global consciousness and to work towards an equitable and just society.     

泌尿生殖道感染支原体培养药敏实验结果分析

目的：了解本地区近几年支原体感染及药敏的情况,为临床提供合理用药资料。方法：采用珠海银科支原体鉴定药敏试剂盒进行检测。结果：903例标本中检出334例支原体感染患者,检出率37．6％,其中解脲脲原体（Uu）305例占91．3％,解脲脲原体合并人支原体（Uu＋Mh）28例占8．3％,人支原体1例占0．4％。用药情况为美满霉素和强力霉素敏感性最高,敏感度为95．8％,其次为交沙霉素、司帕沙星、罗红霉素、阿齐霉素、克拉霉素、环丙沙星、壮观霉素、氧氟沙星敏感性最低。结论：美满霉素和强力霉素对治疗支原体感染效果显著,建议临床医生对该病患者合理用药。     

Intercultural learning in English as foreign language instruction: The importance of teachers’ intercultural experience and the usefulness of precise instructional directives

The development of intercultural competence, especially in foreign language instruction, is considered a key goal of teaching in German schools. The present article sheds light on the teaching of intercultural topics in the context of English as a foreign language (EFL). It presents the results of an analysis of data from a larger study (DESI study – Assessment of Student Achievements in German and English as a Foreign Language) bringing the intercultural experience of teachers and observable aspects of instruction into focus. Videotapes of EFL-classroom instruction of 9th and 10th grade students are analyzed in order to assess characteristic of the implementation of intercultural topics. The study reveals the impact of teachers’ intercultural experience on the quality of their intercultural instruction. Furthermore, the results indicate that precise external directives for particular lessons can help teachers put intercultural topics into practice.     

Evaluating the effects of cultural immersion on counselor trainees' multicultural development and intercultural competence: A metasynthesis of qualitative evidence

This metasynthesis critically surveyed and evaluated the learning impacts on counselor and psychology trainees’ multicultural development and intercultural competence through participating in cultural immersion (CI), based on published qualitative research evidence. Accordingly, this metasynthesis identified and assessed the characteristics, the methodological strengths and qualities, and the thematic findings of 33 qualitative and mixed-methods CI studies resulting from exhaustive database searches. Using a directed content analysis technique, a six-domain analytical framework was applied to code and analyze the themes reported in these studies. The results point to CI intervention as a multifaceted and versatile instructional apparatus that impacted and contributed to trainees’ multicultural development and intercultural learning multidimensionally, across cognitive, perceptual-attitudinal, affective, and skills-behavioral domains. These learning outcomes include trainees’ increased cultural awareness and knowledge (cognitive), enhanced reflexivity on their worldview, positionality, and attitude (perceptual-attitudinal), heightened emotion and growth in cultural empathy (affective), adaptation and display of new behaviors and relational skills and increased multicultural competence (skills-behavioral). Therefore, CI embodies many favorable characteristics of experientially-based learning as stipulated in the existing multicultural counseling and intercultural training literature. These findings lend nuanced empirical support for the application of CI to facilitate counselor trainees’ multicultural orientation, development, and skills, and offer insights into structural facilitators for enhancing immersion training. However, a lack of structural and methodological consistency and theoretical depth among the existing CI studies were observed as major limitations. Implications and recommendations for advancing future CI and multicultural training practice and research are discussed.     

Variables Impacting Intercultural Competence: A Systematic Literature Review

ABSTRACT

The importance of intercultural competence in today’s global economy is evident. Achieving intercultural competence, however, has no single formula. This study explored the variables impacting intercultural competence development. Through a systematic literature review, it identified 48 scholarly sources, 11 unique variables and two sub-variables impacting intercultural competence development. The impact of programme characteristics was found to be significant across the board, while the impact of demographic factors was harder to predict. The findings of this research inform scholars, educators and practitioners of the most effective ways to design intercultural experiences and help participants maximize their learning at home and abroad.     

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.     

Sensation Seeking and the Integrated Model of Intercultural Communication Competence

There is a recent body of research that draws a connection between sensation seeking and intercultural communication. In the present study, the relationship between sensation seeking and variables that contribute to intercultural communication competence are explored in the context of the Integrated Model of Intercultural Communication Competence. Four hypotheses were proposed. Results from structural equation modeling supported two of the proposed hypotheses. Though there was no direct relationship between sensation seeking and ICC, the results supported previous findings that sensation seeking has a positive relationship with ICC in the presence of mediating variables. The implications of the findings are discussed.     

Negotiating Narratives of Human Trafficking: NGOs,Communication and the Power of Culture

This article draws on interviews with anti-trafficking NGO employees in Thailand to illustrate the use of narratives as a tool for communicating cultural values. Drawing on theories of modernization, culture, and liberation psychology, I assess the way anti-trafficking NGO employees construct narratives, or “stories,” about human trafficking. These narratives rely on Western values associated with modernization, the role of NGOs in development, gendered constructions of victimhood, “Othering,” and Orientalism. Analyzing these narratives, I build a theory of “culture as a space of safety:” a self-reinforcing mechanism whereby employees ritualistically retreat from the overwhelming circumstances they confront in their work.     

Measuring Patterns of Self-Disclosure in Intercultural Friendship: Adjusting Differential Item Functioning Using Multiple-Indicators,Multiple-Causes Models

This study examined how friendship types, levels of friendship, and cultural backgrounds affected breadth of self-disclosure (BSD). BSD was measured with six self-disclosure topic items—in which higher scores indicated greater willingness to engage in conversations about various topics—from three groups with varying experiences with intercultural friendships. Confirmatory factor analysis was used with Multiple-Indicators, Multiple-Causes models to control for the influence of differential item functioning (DIF, groups responding differently to particular items). Findings in this study found significant evidence of DIF. These findings highlight the complex role of cultural backgrounds in the social penetration processes in intercultural friendships.     

Toward Developing a Cross-Cultural Metacognition Instrument for Listening in First Language (L1) Contexts: The (Janusik-Keaton) Metacognitive Listening Instrument

This study has three main goals: (1) to test an instrument designed to measure first language metacognitive listening strategies in other cultural contexts, (2) to refine and revise the scale if necessary, and (3) to discern whether the notion that first language listeners use intuitive strategies to make meaning regardless of language is supported. Toward these goals, authors developed the Intercultural Metacognitive Listening Strategies Instrument, which displays evidence of validity in four populations and three distinct cultures: the United States, Germany, and Japan. Ultimately, this study supports the notion that there are intuitive strategies that listeners use to make meaning regardless of language.