Developing intercultural understanding and skills: models and approaches

Researchers from a range of disciplines have been theorising and empirically examining intercultural competence and intercultural education for decades. This review article synthesises the research literature about these concepts around three questions: What is intercultural competence? How can it be developed? And how can it be measured? Our aim is to provide an overview of current theories and empirical findings, as well as to show gaps in the literature.     

The contribution of neuroscience to consumer research: A conceptual framework and empirical review

Following the development of advanced neuroimaging techniques, the growing interest in studying the brain’s response to marketing stimuli resulted in the birth of consumer neuroscience within the field of neuroeconomics. However, marketing scholars have remained reluctant to adopt the techniques of neuroscience and there is still uncertainty about the capacity of neuroimaging data to provide useful findings about consumer psychology and behaviour. In order to clarify the current scope and contribution of consumer neuroscience, we first develop a semantic cluster analysis of the boundaries of the field, followed by a comprehensive empirical review from 34 selected studies. We propose a novel approach to classify findings and facilitate the assessment of evidence around the topics of decision-making, rewards, memory and emotions. Finally, we discuss the possible role of several brain mechanisms in the processing of marketing stimuli as well as obstacles to the integration of these findings with classical consumer behaviour theories. We conclude that the contribution of neuroimaging remains too limited to replace existing consumer research techniques and provide recommendations for future research.     

Imaginative Erkundung der Organisationskultur einer psychiatrischen Tagesklinik

In this contribution a representation of the organizational culture of a psychiatric day-time hospital is developed by analyzing the symbolic meanings of action taken by professionals during their daily work and their relations to other patients.After a short summary of concepts of symbolic action theory as developed by E. E. Boesch in the framework of cultural psychology, these are applied to data from two meetings of professional supervision. The data reports about imaginations and phantasms of individual team members (from individual interviews) as well as findings from a group discussion. The analysis results in hypothetic constructions of the individual phantasms and of the organizational myths, directing their actions.This finally results in ‘value orientations’ expressing the organizational culture which are especially valuable for the purpose of respectful supervision. The author regards the careful consideration of the dynamics between individual phantasms and group myths as being a central task of good practices of supervision, with the aim to develop the action potential of professionals and their patients in such a way that it is well-adapted to both autonomy and cultural frame.     

Imaging the brain: visualising “pathological entities”? Searching for reliable protocols within psychiatry and their impact on the understanding of psychiatric diseases

Given that visualisations via medical imaging have tremendously increased over the last decades, the overall presence of colour-coded brain slices generated on the basis of functional imaging, i.e. neuroimaging techniques, have led to the assumption of so-called “kinds” of brains or cognitive profiles that might be especially related to “non-healthy” humans affected by neurological, neuropsychological or psychiatric syndromes or disorders. In clinical contexts especially, one must consider that visualisations through medical imaging are suggestive in a twofold way. Imaging data not only visually render pathological entities, but also tend to represent objective and concrete evidence for these psychophysical states in question. This article aims to identify key issues in visually rendering psychiatric disorders via functional approaches of imaging within the neurosciences from an epistemological point of view.     

The Role of Ethical Theories in Decision Making by Social Workers

This study analyses the arguments provided by a convenience sample of 62 Israeli social workers for their preferred ethical principles in terms of ethical theories. Content analysis of arguments given in four different contexts shows that the large majority of social workers in the study based their arguments on either deontological or utilitarian ethical concepts, less frequently using concepts from virtue theory, rights theory and care theory of ethics. However, the analysis reveals a discrepancy: when social workers were requested to justify their rank ordering of ethical principles without reference to a specific practice situation, they most frequently preferred concepts reflecting deontological theory of ethics, such as right intention, universalism, and duty. In contrast, when confronted with a specific practice situation, the social workers' most frequently chosen concepts were relating to results, consequences, and utility, concepts identified with the utilitarian theory of ethics. In view of the findings, the need for more thorough knowledge of a variety of ethical theories and their potential role in ethical decision making in social work practice and education are discussed.     

Mapping Right-Wing Women’s Policy Priorities in Latin America

ABSTRACT

Do right-wing women hold unique policy priorities from that of left-wing women and right-wing men? And do right-wing women legislators represent the priorities of right-wing citizens? Right-wing women share unique gendered socialization experiences with left-wing women, but their ideology informs values and attitudes critical to policy preference formation. Political representation theories suggest that women legislators should hold distinct incentives to represent female constituents. However, institutional theories suggest right-wing women legislators may face different incentives that limit the extent to which they represent right-wing female constituents. To evaluate our expectations, we leverage survey data from the Latin American Public Opinion Project and the Parliamentary Elites of Latin America. We demonstrate how right-wing women citizens differ from left-wing women citizens across a range of policy priorities. Then, we evaluate elite priorities for these same policy issues. We find little evidence for policy priority congruency between women citizens and women legislators on the right.     

Towards African-centred theories of masculinity

ABSTRACT

Research on men and masculinities in South Africa, and the related intervention programmes, depends largely on theories of gender developed in the Global North. Such theories define masculinity as socially constructed and accomplished relationally in social action. Masculinity does not have an “inner essence.” This article argues that Northern gender theories offer inadequate accounts of African masculinities because of their being embedded in western epistemologies. In order to account fully for the complex lives of African men, scholars need to develop theories of masculinity based on African conceptions of reality. Such theories should treat masculinity as both socially constructed and as being influenced by unseen elements of personhood, as encapsulated in traditional African thoughts. To illustrate these ideas, the author uses anthropological and philosophical literature on African concepts of personhood, together with examples taken from personal experiences and observations.     

Children's Perceptions of Mental Illness: A Partial Test of Scheff's Hypothesis*

Scheff's proposition that “stereotyped images of mental disorder are learned in early childhood” was tested in a study of seventy-five (75) elementary school children. Interviews indicate that children were familiar with simple concepts associated with mental illness, i.e., crazy, nuts, and cuckoo, but that few children knew more sophisticated terms or psychiatric labels. The children tended to see the concepts they were familiar with in terms of residual norm violations, which partially supports Scheff's hypothesis. Contrary to Scheff's expectations, however, adults were most frequently cited as primary agents of socialization and other children were rarely cited as sources of information. The children viewed media as less important than suggested by Scheff in providing images of mental illness and violence. The data suggest, contrary to the proposition tested, that elementary school-age children have amorphous conceptions of psychiatric deviance and findings in this study raise questions regarding the widespread applicability of the labeling perspective to pre-adolescent children.     

“That proves you mad,because you know it not”: impaired insight and the dilemma of governing psychiatric patients as legal subjects

This article investigates “impaired insight,” a controversial psychiatric category describing a mad person unable to know his or her madness. Like “moral insanity” and other concepts before it, impaired insight offers a way to link the disparate logics of human responsibility in psychiatry and the law. I attribute its development to changes wrought by deinstitutionalization, the rise of antipsychotic medication, and patient incarceration in penal settings. In a system that aims to govern psychiatric patients through their freedom, the logic of impaired insight introduces a wrinkle: can a person make an informed choice to refuse treatment if madness itself impairs awareness of illness? Drawing on tools from the sociology of science, I trace the process by which researchers recast psychodynamic “denial” as a neurological and therefore non-volitional “impairment” in the 1990s. I then show how social movement actors mobilized the materialized form in the legal and policy fields in the 2000s, bringing insight science to bear upon the very questions of custodial management and patient rights that gave birth to it. At stake is this dilemma: how can societies that simultaneously privilege individual responsibility and somatic accounts of behavior govern those at the border of legal capacity, and with what justification?     

Youth studies in transition: theoretical explorations

In youth studies, a clear distinction is made between theories on youth in transition and theories of youth culture. Whereas theories and research on youth transitions often use quantitative data – (and therefore need to operationalize their ‘variables’) – cultural studies uses various qualitative methods, alongside a more elastic definition of, and conceptual approach to, young people’s socio-material living conditions. The argument made in the present article is that we need a theoretical renewal in youth studies that will enable us to thoroughly explore class, gender and ethnicity in light of the intersections between social and cultural positions. At the same time, we also need to elaborate our conceptual tools to capture contemporary transformations of social identity among youth and in society and culture. The aim is to reintroduce three central concepts in the renewal of youth studies, that of identity, subculture and resistance. Furthermore, it is imperative that connect and create links between these concepts and theories of youth in transition.     

The Schoolkid Self

The article considers the critical nature of elementary school experiences for children's emotional development. To do this, aspects of two theories are compared. One of the theories is from a recent doctoral dissertation on the subjective experiences of childhood. The other is developmental theory inherent in self psychology. There are concepts in both theories related to children's experiences in elementary school and implications for ways elementary schools can provide empathic environments supportive of healthy emotional development. The concepts are illustrated with children's narratives related to their school experiences, narratives which were part of the research data.     

The determinants of purposeful voluntarism

Voluntarism is pervasive among humans, but what factors explain this particular nonmarket activity? Does it result from altruistic motives to help those less fortunate? Is it the result of rational or instinctive behavior that enhances individual and group survival? In this paper we draw upon the works of Adam Smith, Gary Becker, Herbert Simon, and evolutionary biologists Matt Ridley and Richard Dawkins to construct a formal model of interdependent utility functions. We test the implications of our model with data on volunteerism for U.S. states. Our findings support theories of volunteerism based on mutual aid among people with a common race and language and a relatively even distribution of income.     

Are cosmopolitan dispositions learned at home,at school,or through contact with others? Evidence from young people in Europe

There has been a resurgence of interest in cosmopolitan theories of citizenship over the past two decades, as academics and policy-makers have sought to understand and conceptualise citizenship affiliations that transcend the nation-state. As part of these debates, a number of theories have been developed to try to explain the emergence of cosmopolitan dispositions, and in particular, why some citizens develop these dispositions and others do not. This article seeks to refine these theories by testing their assumptions on a youth sample, by drawing on the findings of the wider youth socialisation literature, and by comparing the relative merits of different ‘sources’ of cosmopolitanism (namely cognitive engagement; contact with cultural Others; learning a foreign language; and exposure to discussions about international issues in the public and the private sphere). To do so, the analysis draws on data from the 2009 International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS) and its survey of young people aged 14. Using these data, this article will show that each of these theories are positively associated with cosmopolitan sources, but that the strength of these relationships is variable and that not all sources of cosmopolitan dispositions are equal. Based on these findings, this article will argue that schools can play an important role in cultivating cosmopolitan dispositions at this particular life stage.     

Lacan Meets Freud? Patho-Analytic Reflections on the Status of the Perversions in Lacanian Metapsychology

This article analyzes the first edition of Freud’s (1905b) “Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality” and more particularly the status of the perversions as it appears in that book, demonstrating how this seminal text contains a radical critique of a “psychiatric style of reasoning” (Davidson, 2001a) that turns the perversions into a separate identity fundamentally different from other ?identities?. Freud’s insights are then confronted with the Lacanian idea of a “perverse structure.” It is argued that Lacan’s theories on perversion remain deeply influenced by the French psychiatric tradition on the topic (Dupré, 1925) and that they imply a return to the “psychiatric style of reasoning” that Freud tried to overcome. Finally, I formulate some suggestions with regard to a re-thinking of sexuality in psychoanalytic metapsychology.     

Gender differences in the roles and functions of inpatient psychiatric nurses

This study explored the difference between male and female psychiatric nurses' job performance and job satisfaction levels on an acute care inpatient unit. The amount of time male (n = 28) and female (n = 45) nurses spent on 10 specific functions and roles during a shift were observed and recorded. The nurses also self-rated the amount of time they spent on these specific functions and roles. The observed and self-rated functions were then correlated with job satisfaction. Female nurses were observed and self-rated as spending significantly more time on patient care activities, and these activities were significantly correlated with higher job satisfaction levels. Male nurses who self-rated spending more time on patient care activities had significantly lower job satisfaction scores. Findings confirm the concepts from social role theory that gender identity and expectations influence job performance in psychiatric nursing. The results offer insight for increasing job satisfaction and recruitment/retention efforts.     

Sexual Abuse in the Preschool Years: Blending Ideas from Object Relations Theory,Ego Psychology,and Biology

This paper uses concepts from relational psychodynamic theories and findings from neurobiology to conceptualize a young child’s experience of sexual abuse. Selected developmental tasks are discussed using an integrated theoretical framework. Literature which highlights the importance of the child’s environment is reviewed. A case of a sexually abused 5-year-old girl demonstrates consequences of sexual abuse using ideas from psychodynamic theories and neurobiology. It is recommended that social work practitioners expand on the biology domain when conducting a bio-psycho-social assessment. Social work students may benefit from additional content on biology in social work curricula.     

Coming of age in Spain: the self-identification, beliefs and self-esteem of the second generation

We review the literature on determinants of ethnic/national self-identities and self-esteem as a prelude to examining these outcomes among a large, statistically representative sample of second generation adolescents in Madrid and Barcelona. While these psycho-social outcomes are malleable, they still represent important dimensions of immigrant adaptation and can have significant consequences both for individual mobility and collective mobilizations. Current theories are largely based on data from the USA and other Anglophone countries. The availability of a new large Spanish survey allows us to test those theories in an entirely different socio-cultural context. The analysis concludes with a structural equations model that summarizes key determinants of national identities and self-esteem among children of immigrants in Spain. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.