Challenges and dilemmas working with high‐conflict families in child protection casework

Social workers within child protection services report that families marked by high levels of conflict between separated parents are among the most challenging cases to handle. Few studies however have focussed on how social workers themselves experience and meet with parents involved in hostile martial interactions. This article reports on a qualitative study involving 31 social workers and provides an analysis of their experiences and dilemmas in working with such families. Findings demonstrate that social workers struggle to find ways to help high‐conflict families and often find themselves at an impasse. Parents involved in such conflict are highly resistant to change, and social workers struggle to engage with them over concerns about their children. Furthermore, findings suggest that social workers lack organizationally allotted time to assist the parents. I conclude by discussing ways in which emotional support, empowering interventions, and strength‐based approaches enable social workers to manage relationships with high‐conflict families. More research on this topic is needed to support and promote better practices for social workers to be more effective in assisting high‐conflict families.     

Digital learning across cultures: an account of activity theory

ABSTRACT

This paper explores a teaching and learning process as it unfolds in an online offshore classroom. The paper reports on teaching and learning narratives distilled from different cultures, namely the cultures of educators and students in the context of digital learning environments. Drawing on activity theory as a conceptual framework to analyse the narrative, we employ self-study as a methodological tool for capturing the dynamism and complexities that unravel in intercultural and technology-enabled teaching activities. The framework explores the relationships, tensions and opportunities of diverse activity elements that constitute the design and delivery of digital pedagogies. In the networked intercultural system, sustaining the position of activity elements and the specific relational circuit that they institutionalise is a key task for understanding digital technologies as an influential tool for effective learning and teaching practices. We argue that seeing the digital platform from the perspective of its role in creating dynamic interrelationships in a complex activity system is one way to move beyond the cultural confines of any particular element in the system.     

Aging in e-place: reflections on online communities for the aged in India

ABSTRACT

In this short piece, I offer a reconfiguration of the term “aging in place” by analyzing media content of web-based senior-focused portals while demonstrating how these online consumer-driven spaces unwittingly re-create new social relations and imagined communities. Building on the sparse body of scholarship on extra-familial, kin-like networks, I reflect on the cultural possibility of internet spaces as surrogate “places” for later life non-kin sociality. In this exploration, I privilege the possibility of enriched selfhood of older Indians by moving away from the conventional gerontological trope of the (Indian) elderly as indivisible familial subjects, as a deliberate process of decolonizing the field of gerontology.     

How do researchers perceive research misbehaviors? A transcultural case study of Chinese and Flemish researchers

China has achieved a dramatic development in scientific research over the last few decades. However, just like many other countries, it has also seen a surge of scientific misconducts. With its expansion of international publications, retractions due to suspected research misconduct are also on the rise. A transcultural case study was conducted by investigating the perception of research misbehaviors by Chinese researchers compared to their Belgian Flemish colleagues. The study was designed to find out variation in research practices in different countries and to see how research was shaped and influenced by cultural contexts. An online questionnaire was sent to 3,236 researchers by e-mails and it received a response rate of 13.09%. They were asked to score 32 research misbehaviors on a 5-point scale. The findings suggested that compared to Flemish respondents, the Chinese had a significantly higher acceptance toward most research misbehaviors. To be more specific, the Chinese respondents felt less unacceptable toward behaviors violating such values as honesty, fairness, and verifiability than the Flemish, while their perceptions of behaviors that violated such values as responsibility, objectivity, and truth were not different compared to the Flemish. This case study implies that the Chinese research community is in an urgent need of training in responsible conduct of research and strong as well as sound guidelines for responsible research practices in place.     

Reshaping state/local communities relations in Tunisia: The socio-cultural and institutional challenges of the decentralization project

International development agencies believe that by adopting institutional reforms based on the best practices that have proved effective elsewhere, so-called « developing countries » could take their places in the globalised economy. Based on a case study carried out on the implementation challenges of a decentralization project in Tunisia, I will argue by using an interpretive approach that this thesis is not sustained. This article shows that institutions cannot be reduced to their technical functions but that they are based on particular collective imaginaries that ground what is legitimate or not and structure the relationship of individuals to power and the meaning given to their actions. It encourages the consideration of cultural framework of meaning; these local cultural references structure the governance modalities of a society, understood in terms of the modalities of exercise of power in a given group (state, company, local authority, etc.). It advocates the necessity to move from a technic-prone approach in the implementation of institutional changes towards a socio-cultural approach that integrates the local expectations of what “good governance” should be and on which depends the legitimacy of institutions and their appropriation by local populations.     

论民族文化的发展规律——兼说"民族文化保护"的认识论问题

马克思主义的唯物辩证法思想是我们研究民族文化发展规律的指导原则。同世界上的其他客观事物一样,任何一种民族文化事项都有自身发生、发展和消亡的历史。一种民族文化事项产生之后到底能够存在多长时间,取决于它能够在多大程度上满足民族文化事项传承者的物质需要和精神需要。任何一种民族文化保护活动,如果不符合文化发展规律,不符合民族文化传承者自身的愿望,就不能达到预期目的。     

跨文化情景下的文化认同与和谐相处——以在美国阿肯色大学的学习生活经历为例

以美国阿肯色大学跨文化交流的经历为背景,以具体文化情景下的不同感受和体验为基础,揭示了在跨文化交流的情景下文化认同的两种表现:既表现为因语言相同或相近、宗教信仰相同、地域相近或相邻而产生的亲近感和归属感;也表现为因文化差异而产生的吸引或冲突。而在这种跨文化交流的情景下要实现和谐相处,就要做到"我"与"他者"之间文化上的"欣赏"与"分享",即"文化的互为主体性",而这种和谐的实现源于人类本性的相通,即"人类心灵的共同点"。     

基于传播诱因的社会化营销传播研究

近年来,各类形式多样的社交网站激增,社交媒体用户也达到了前所未用的规模,新兴的社交媒体正以风驰电掣的速度给互联网用户带来了一场社交变革.本文正是以互联网用户的传播诱因作为出发点深度解析用户的社交媒体使用行为,进而对企业的社交营销给予建议.通过研究表明,用户的社交传播动机可分为:自我表达,身份认同;信息易感,资源分享;利益驱动,行使传播权三种类型.以用户的心理动机为理论基础,结合微博、微信等给媒介平台的属性为企业的社会化营销提出了三大策略建议.     

Cultural Correlates of Gender Integration in Science

Gender integration within science has been uneven: some fields have integrated women to almost equitable levels, while others remain male‐dominated. Explanations for this variation abound, but few are able to assess empirically the relevance of disciplinary cultures in a systematic way. We take up this challenge by analysing accounts of scientific success in fields that integrated women to a large degree (Psychology and the Life Sciences) and fields that did not (Engineering and Physics). We qualitatively assess how the salience of relationships changed over time in these fields. We find that scientists from disciplines that have crossed the threshold whereby women are no longer tokens culturally value informal relationships more than those in which women remain a small numerical minority.     

中美大学生权力距离对比研究

在跨文化研究理论中，Hofstede提出的民族文化五维度是被广为接受的研究成果。根据权力距离维度理论，权力距离可以用权力距离指数来显示，他认为中国的权力距离指数高于美国。随着中国经济环境的变化和对外开放进程的加快，文化也会不断发展和变化。因此，在新的环境下研究中美权力距离差异具有现实意义。为了对比当下中美大学生的权力距离感知，在中美两所大学发放调查问卷，分别考察了两组学生对于教师、长者和家长所拥有权力的态度，并用SPSS对调查数据进行分析。结果发现，对于教师和长者，中国学生的权力距离显著高于美国学生，但是对于家长，两国学生并未表现出明显差异，这与Hofstede的研究结果不符。