Interkulturelle Kompetenz Beleuchtung eines Entwicklungsprozesses

Intercultural learning processes are multi-dimensional and cannot be limited to cultural Do??s and Don??ts. A core competency is the ability to manage change and to remain in control in situations with additional intercultural complexity. The methods used for developing intercultural competence are most effective in a combination of intercultural training and coaching. This learning arrangement covers different levels of learning including personal abilities, which build the foundation for intercultural success. During a coaching process existing abilities can be discovered and weak areas systematically developed. Knowledge is passed on most effectively in a training environment. Culture-general and culture-specific knowledge and the reflection upon one??s own cultural reference points build the foundation for exploring the nature of intercultural collaboration. The willingness to enhance one??s own behavior using new perspectives could be seen as the aim of the intercultural competence development. New perspectives can lead to innovative and culture sensitive strategies. Intercultural learning is more than learning rules of behavior and subsequent cultural adaptation. Intercultural competence can be defined as an extended ability for problem-solving in combination with personal abilities and cultural relevant knowledge that encourage effective intercultural team work.     

Mutual halo effects in cultural production: the case of modernist architecture

Previous research has suggested that in cultural production fields the concatenation of eminence explains success, defined as influence and innovation. We propose that individuals in fields as diverse as philosophy, literature, mathematics, painting, or architecture gain visibility by cumulating the eminence of others connected to them across and within generations. We draw on interaction ritual chain and social movement theories, and use evidence from the field of modernist architecture, to formulate a model of how networks of very strong ties generate motivations and emotional enthusiasm, change reputations, and form collective movements that over time transform the structure of cultural fields. Because major aesthetic innovations break sharply with older styles, they need very strong group solidarity over a long period of time to propagate a new standard of practice. We propose mutual halo effects, i.e., the reciprocal reinforcement of upstream and downstream prestige on a given individual node, as the key factor accounting for success in a cultural production field. We discuss the relevance of these results for building a model of influence and innovation in cultural production fields in which networks??reshaped by shifting technological, political, and economic conditions??trigger new styles.     

Der Fu?ball und seine Entproletarisierung

Since the 1950s, in Germany football has been characterized as a proletarian or working-class sport while in our days football is gaining credence and social acceptability. But how could this decrease of proletarianization??described as a shift of the social focus of football from an especially proletarian to an increased higher social classes interest??be explained? Has the transformation of football which is largely caused by television to an event and show sport made it more attractive for higher social classes (transformation hypothesis) or does the change of the interest in football only explain the similar change of the structure of Germany??s social society (similarity hypotheses)? The empirical analysis of the mostly traditional readers of the German Kicker sports magazine as an indicator of the interest in football using the data from Media-Analyse from 1954 to 2005 leads to a clear result: The decrease of proletarianization of the Kicker-readers can only be explained by the socio-structural change in the past fifty years.     

Using english as a foreign language in international and multicultural consulting: Asset or hindrance?

When it comes to an encounter of people of mixed national and ethnical backgrounds, one of the major challenges is undoubtedly the linguistic diversity. Given the widely acknowledged status of English as the world language, English has also become the most widely used language when it comes to professional counselling in intercultural contexts. Due to the growing demand of counselling processes in English, a certain command of the English language has also become indispensible for consultants. It has to be noted, however, that it??s rarely English native speakers who prompt a ??multilingual?? group to speak English. In most working contexts it is speakers, for ??none of whom is the mother tongue?? (House 1999: 74), who agree to use English as common code of understanding, i.e. English as a lingua franca (ELF). Current researches strongly question the status of native English norms as the only point of reference for ??correct?? usage of English (cf. e.g. Seidlhofer et al. 2006). Based on empirical data, this contribution chooses an interdisciplinary approach at the interface between linguistics and other social sciences to examine some implications of the use of ELF in professional counselling processes with a strong focus on supervision. It is meant to show that consulting processes in English, among non-native speakers, can be carried out successfully despite clear linguistic deviations from native speaker norms.     

Understanding the Importance of Organizational Resources to Explain Organizational Problems: Evidence from Nonprofit Sport Clubs in Germany

Nonprofit sport clubs experience organizational problems regarding the recruitment and retention of members, volunteers, and coaches, and the financial situation of the club. The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of different types of organizational resources on the severity of organizational problems. A theoretical framework based on the concept of organizational capacity is presented, which explains the influence of human, financial, infrastructure, and cultural resources on organizational problems. The empirical evaluation is undertaken using data from a nationwide online survey of nonprofit sport clubs in Germany (n = 19,345). The regression results show that human resources (women on the board, secondary volunteers, etc.), financial resources (Herfindahl index), infrastructure resources (own facilities, and public facilities), and cultural resources (e.g., strategic policy, formation policy, value of conviviality, and variety of sports) are significant determinants of organizational problems. The findings of this study have implications for the management of voluntary sport organizations.     

Technoscientia est Potentia?

Within the realm of nano-, bio-, info- and cogno- (or NBIC) technosciences, the ??power to change the world?? is often invoked. One could dismiss such formulations as ??purely rhetorical??, interpret them as rhetorical and self-fulfilling or view them as an adequate depiction of one of the fundamental characteristics of technoscience. In the latter case, a very specific nexus between science and technology, or, the epistemic and the constructionist realm is envisioned. The following paper focuses on this nexus drawing on theoretical conceptions as well as empirical material. It presents an overview of different technoscientific ways to ??change the world????via contemplation and representation, intervention and control, engineering, construction and creation. It further argues that the hybrid character of technoscience makes it difficult (if not impossible) to separate knowledge production from real world interventions and challenges current science and technology policy approaches in fundamental ways.     

Die Low-Cost-Hypothese

The Low-Cost-Hypothesis (LCH) postulates that the effect of attitudes on behavior varies with the costs at stake in the situation. The effect is deemed to be higher in low-cost-situations, compared to high-cost-situations. We argue that a closer look at the literature reveals two distinct versions of the LCH, which have not been disentangled so far. We reconstruct both versions ?C the ??simple?? and the ??specific?? version of the LCH ?C and discuss their theoretical foundations and empirical implications. The ??simple?? version can be derived from a simple expected utility model. In this model, attitudes and (tangible) behavioral costs exert independent effects on the net utility of the action alternatives. A conditional effect of the attitudes that depends on the behavioral costs only exists with respect to the probability of choosing an action alternative. However, this dependence of marginal effects on the actor??s initial level of utility or probability holds for any independent variable or utility argument. A second, ??specific?? version of the LCH postulates a variable-specific interaction effect between attitudes and costs. We point to the problems of previous approaches to deriving such a specific hypothesis and identify dual-process-theories as an alternative theoretical foundation that allows understanding the limited scope conditions of the specific LCH. The article carries important conclusions for empirical applications and tests of the LCH in diverse fields of sociological research and, more generally, for the decision-theoretic analysis of social action.     

Normative beliefs as risk factors for involvement in unhealthy weight control behavior

OBJECTIVE: The authors' aim in this study was to determine, after adjustment for the effects of body mass index and sociodemographic measures, whether sex-specific weight control norms would have significant independent relationships with the weight control behavior of college women and men. PARTICIPANTS: The authors used an anonymous questionnaire to assess a sample of 470 college students, aged 18 to 26 years, attending either a 2- year community college or a 4-year public university. METHODS: To calculate body mass index, the authors objectively measured the height and weight of each participant. They conducted separate discriminant function analyses for women and men. RESULTS: The discriminant function analyses clearly indicated that weight control norms of same-sex, close friends were the best discriminators of involvement in weight control. CONCLUSIONS: The findings indicate that perceived peer norms may be important but overlooked risk factors for engaging in unhealthy weight control practices. The authors discuss the implications of these findings in the context of student health promotion.     

‘Mutts like Me’: Multiracial Students’ Perceptions of Barack Obama

Existent sociological studies of multiracialism in the United States focus on identity construction, the cultural and legislative battle over multiracial categorization, and the implications of demographic shifts towards an increasingly ??mixed race?? population. This article engages literature from each of these areas, and uses data from in-depth interviews with self-identified multiracial students to document their perceptions of President Barack Obama and trace the symbolic boundaries of multiracial identity. Interviews are specifically directed towards the influence of race on Obama??s identity management and political career, the relationship between Obama and respondents?? multiracial identity, and Obama??s impact on America??s racial history. Respondents hold favorable opinions of the President despite his inconsistent affirmation of multiracial identity. They believe that emphasis on Obama??s blackness rather than multiracialism is the unfortunate result of both personal choices and political pressures. In addition, the cohort insists that racism remains is a major factor in Obama??s career and in America at large.     

F��hrung durch Selbstf��hrung �C Konzept, Messung und Korrelate

In this article, an empirical study on super-leadership is documented. Based on the self-leadership approach a questionnaire was developed to evaluate super-leadership. 175 employees from various branches have participated to this study. Explorative factor analysis revealed two dimensions of super-leadership which could be interpreted as ??coaching and communicative support?? and ??promoting autonomy and self-responsibility??. Further data analysis showed positive correlations between super-leadership and perceived leadership effectiveness. Partly depending on the degree of organizational decentralization, positive correlations were also found between super-leadership and overall job satisfaction. Implications for research and potential applications will be discussed.     

Zur Bedeutung von mikropolitischer Kompetenz für den Aufstieg von Frauen in Führungspositionen – am Beispiel der Handlungsfelder Unternehmenskultur und Selbstdarstellung

The appropriation of micro-political competence affects the promotion of women into executive positions in a positive way. Evidence for this conclusion was found in the intervention study ??Micro-politics??. The study involved a research approach of Micro-politics-Coaching that was carried out on 30 female junior managers. As an introduction to the topic this contribution presents the Micro-political Competence Model (MCM) that was developed during the research project. The importance of micro-political competence for a successful carrier development is explained, based on the relevant action fields ??corporate culture?? and ??impression management??.The results of the research are made explicit by presenting two example cases of the coaching intervention study and by structuring the empirical evidence along the MCM. The conclusion clarifies why micro-political competence can be viewed as a partial area of carrier development competence and moreover provides implications for consultancy practice, for enterprises and for science.     

Understanding the Influence of Traditional Cultural Values on Indonesian Parenting

The aim of this conceptual article is to consider the available literature regarding associations between cultural values and parenting in Indonesian society. Research focusing on parenting in the Indonesian context is limited, although there are extensive studies regarding parenting and its implications for child development in Western cultures. Indonesia is one of the most heavily populated and culturally diverse countries in the world, with more than 200 ethnicities represented. Because cultural values are likely to influence Indonesian parenting and, therefore, child development, there is a need to understand the ways in which Indonesian traditional cultural values influence parenting style. In this article the small amount of literature regarding parenting specifically in Indonesian culture is overviewed. The key outcome of this article is to highlight the need to better understand how cultural values influence parenting in Indonesia and, in turn, how these influence child outcomes, particularly under conditions of some cultural change. Recommendations for future research regarding associations between Indonesian cultural values and parenting are provided to stimulate more empirical attention to this area to support Indonesia’s adaptation to the modern global environment.     

Cultural Globalization and the Global Spread of English: From ‘Separate Fields,Similar Paradigms’ to a Transdisciplinary Approach

The global spread of English is an inextricable part of the globalization of culture and media. Despite this close entanglement, theories on the global spread of English have largely been developed within separate fields, such as applied linguistics and sociolinguistics, with relatively limited reference to theories of cultural or media globalization. Conversely, scholars of cultural and media globalization who focus on the role of language rarely refer to work on the global spread of English. Despite this mutual independence, paradigms of cultural and media globalization on the one hand, and of the globalization of English on the other, have developed along remarkably similar lines. The aim of this paper is to identify and explain these similarities. After discussing five major paradigms in cultural and media globalization and their equivalents in theory on the global spread of English, we will argue for a transdisciplinary approach to the study of the globalization of culture, media, and language.

La propagación global del inglés es una parte inextricable de la globalización de la cultura y los medios. A pesar de este enredo, las teorías sobre la propagación global del inglés se han desarrollado ampliamente dentro de campos separados, tales como la lingüística y la sociolingüística, con una referencia relativamente limitada a teorías de la globalización cultural o de medios. Por el contrario, académicos de la globalización cultural y de los medios que se enfocan en el rol del lenguaje, raramente se refieren al trabajo en la propagación global del inglés. A pesar de esta mutua independencia, por un lado los paradigmas de la globalización cultural y de los medios, y por el otro, aquellos de la globalización del inglés, han desarrollado notablemente líneas similares. El objetivo de este artículo es el de identificar y explicar estas afinidades. Luego de discutir cinco paradigmas mayores en la globalización cultural y de medios, y sus equivalentes en teoría sobre la propagación global del inglés, debatiremos por un enfoque transdisciplinario al estudio de la globalización de la cultura, los medios y el lenguaje.

英语的全球传播是文化与媒体的全球化不可分开的组成部分。尽管如此密切相关,有关英语全球传播的各种理论却主要在孤立的学科领域诸如应用语言学和社会语言学得以探讨,相对来说,这些探讨只是有限地涉及文化或者媒体的全球化理论。与此相反,聚焦于语言作用的文化和媒体全球化学者,很少涉及有关英语全球传播的著述。尽管这种不相往来,一方面是文化和媒体全球化的典范,另一方面是英语全球化的典范,却沿着很是相似的路线演化。本文的目的在于确认和解释这些相似性。在讨论了文化与媒体全球化的五大典范,以及与文化、媒体全球化相对应的英语全球传播典范后,我们提出了一种把文化、媒体和语言的全球化研究结合在一起的跨学科方法。

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??? ????? ???? ?? ??? ???? ????? ??? ? ?? ? ????. ??? ???? ????, ??? ??? ??? ?? ???? ??? ???? ???? ? ???? ?? ?? ????? ???????? ??? ???? ?????. ??? ??? ??? ???? ???? ???? ??? ??? ??? ??? ?? ???? ???. ??? ?? ????? ???? ???? ??? ??? ??? ????? ?? ???? ??? ??? ????? ??? ???? ????. ??? ??? ???? ?? 5?? ?? ????? ?? ???? ??? ??? ???? ?? ??, ??, ???? ??? ???? ???? ??? ???? ??(transdisciplinary approach)? ????.

Глобальное распространение английского языка является неотъемлемой частью процесса глобализации культуры и средств массовой информации. Несмотря на то, что это привело к некоторой запутанности, теории глобального распространения английского языка были, в основном, развиты в отдельных областях, таких как прикладная лингвистика и социолингвистика с относительно ограниченной ссылаемостью на теории глобализации культуры или СМИ. И наоборот, ученые сфер культуры и СМИ, которые сосредотачиваются на роли английского языка, редко обращаются к работе над темой его глобального распространения. Несмотря на эту взаимную независимость парадигмы культуры и СМИ, с одной стороны, и глобализации английского языка с другой,они развились по удивительно похожим линиям. Цель этой статьи состоит в том, чтобы идентифицировать и объяснить эти общие черты. После обсуждения пяти главных парадигм в культурной и СМИ глобализации и их эквивалентов в теории глобального распространения английского языка, мы приведем доводы в пользу междисциплинарного подхода в исследовании глобализации культуры, СМИ и языка.     

Discourse or Dialogue? Habermas, the Bakhtin Circle, and the question of concrete utterances

This article argues that the Bakhtin Circle presents a more realistic theory of concrete dialogue than the theory of discourse elaborated by Habermas. The Bakhtin Circle places speech within the ??concrete whole utterance?? and by this phrase they mean that the study of everyday language should be analyzed through the mediations of historical social systems such as capitalism. These mediations are also characterized by a determinate set of contradictions??the capital-labor contradiction in capitalism, for example??that are reproduced in unique ways in more concrete forms of life (the state, education, religion, culture, and so on). Utterances always dialectically refract these processes and as such are internal concrete moments, or concrete social forms, of them. Moreover, new and unrepeatable dialogic events arise in these concrete social forms in order to overcome and understand the constant dialectical flux of social life. But this theory of dialogue is different from that expounded by Habermas, who tends to explore speech acts by reproducing a dualism between repeatable and universal ??abstract?? discursive processes (commonly known as the ideal speech situation) and empirical uses of discourse. These critical points against Habermas are developed by focusing on six main areas: sentences and utterances; the lifeworld and background language; active versus passive understandings of language; validity claims; obligation and relevance in language; and dialectical universalism.     

The origins of the Gini index: extracts from Variabilità e Mutabilità (1912) by Corrado Gini

The scope of this paper is to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Gini index by providing the original formulae. Corrado Gini introduced his index for the first time in a 1912 book published in Italian under the name of ??Variabilità e Mutabilità?? (Variability and Mutability). This article provides selected extracts of Part I of the book dedicated to measures of variability. We find that Gini proposed no less than 13 formulations of his index, none of which is known today to the large public. We also find that Gini anticipated some of the developments that derived from the study of his index.     

Peddlers of Information: Unintended Consequences of Information-Centred Development for North Indian Non-Government Organizations

Information and knowledge have re-emerged as essential resources in the fight against poverty, with new opportunities for their dissemination seen to empower the poor and the agencies that work with them. While optimism is high, little empirical evidence exists as to the actual effect of these changes within localized development contexts. This article contributes to overcoming this lacuna by exploring the role of local non-government organizations (NGOs) in Uttarakhand, North India. It examines how the promotion of information and knowledge as development goods have changed the way NGOs understand poverty and their own roles within the sector. I propose the metaphor of NGOs as ??peddlers of information?? to draw attention to the current emphasis on awareness, sensitisation and assemblage of information about the grassroots as the primary??and in many cases only??development work NGOs undertake. This metaphor provides an analytical device through which to assess the roles of NGOs in immanent and intentional development.     

Why Men Commit Crimes (and Why They Desist)

Hirschi and Gottfredson (1983) claim that the relationship between age and crime is similar in all social and cultural conditions and that no current sociological or criminological theory can account for this similarity. We introduce the new field of evolutionary psychology and extend Daly and Wilson's (1988) work on homicide to construct a general theory of male criminality, which explains why men commit violent and property crimes. The theory can also explain the age-crime curve. It might also account for some empirical anomalies such as why physically smaller boys are more delinquent, and why violent criminals desist more slowly.     

A theory of income taxation where politicians focus upon core and swing voters

We construct an equilibrium model of party competition, in which parties are especially concerned with their core and swing voters, concerns which political scientists have focused upon in their attempts to understand party behavior in general elections. Parties compete on an inifinite-dimensional space of possible income-tax policies. A policy is a function that maps pre-fisc income into post-fisc income. Only a fraction of each voter type will vote for each party, perhaps because of issues not modeled here or voter misperceptions of policies. Each party??s policy makers comprise two factions, one concerned with maximizing the welfare of its constituency, or its core, and the other with winning over swing voters. An equilibrium is a pair of parties (endogenously determined), and a pair of policies, one for each party, in which no deviation to another policy will be assented to both its core and swing factions. We characterize the equilibria: they have the property that both parties propose identical treatment of a possibly large interval of middle-income voters, while the ??left?? party gives more to the poor and the ??right?? party more to the rich. An empirical section uses the data of Piketty and Saez on taxation in the US to assess the model??s predictions. We argue that the model is roughly confirmed.     

Vowel harmony redux: Correct sounds,English loan words,and the sociocultural life of a phonological structure in Korean1

This paper examines an ideology of standard pronunciation and spelling of English loan words in South Korea through the lens of Korean vowel harmony. I focus specifically on the alternation between an older Japanese‐style ‘a’[a] and a newer Korean‐style ‘?’[?] for the mapping of mid‐vowels from English to Korean. The opposition between ‘a’ and ‘?’ also figures into the dichotomy of vowel classes between ‘yang’ or ‘light’ vowels and ‘yin’ or ‘dark’ vowels in Korean vowel harmony. This opposition is pervasive in Korean's rich stock of denotationally iconic words (e.g. onomatopoeia), where ablaut between vowel classes produces semantic and pragmatic contrasts. I suggest that this latter structure of phonological opposition has an influence on speakers’ perceptions of vowel difference and associated values in English loan words, despite an overarching ideology of standard pronunciation that is based on assumptions about phonetic fidelity. ? ??? ?? ???? ?? ?? ? ??? ? ?????? ????? ?? ??? ???? ????. ??, ?? ???? ‘?’[a]? ‘?’[?]? ??(mapping)?? ?? ??? ??. ??? ?? ????? ‘?’? ?? ?? ??? ? ?????? ???? ???? ??(正音)?? ?????? ??. ?? ‘?’? ????? ???, ??? ???? ??? ????? ?(音)?? ???? ??. ???, ‘?’/‘?’? ??? ??? ???? ?? ????? ????? ??; ?, ??? ????? ????? ??? ??. ??, ????? ???? ????? ??? ??? ??? ? ? ??. ????, ????? ????? ????? ??? ?? ???? ????? ??? ??? ???. [Korean]     

Subjective well-being and exercise in the second half of life: a critical review of theoretical approaches

Research has shown repeatedly that the ??feeling better?? effect of exercise is far more moderate than generally claimed. Examinations of subgroups in secondary analyses also indicate that numerous further variables influence this relationship. One reason for inconsistencies in this research field is the lack of adequate theoretical analyses. Well-being output variables frequently possess no construct definition, and little attention is paid to moderating and mediating variables. This article integrates the main models in an overview and analyzes how secondary analyses define well-being and which areas of the construct they focus on. It then applies a moderator and/or mediator framework to examine which person and environmental variables can be found in the existing explanatory approaches in sport science and how they specify the influence of these moderating and mediating variables. Results show that the broad understanding of well-being in many secondary analyses makes findings difficult to interpret. Moreover, physiological explanatory approaches focus more on affective changes in well-being, whereas psychological approaches also include cognitive changes. The approaches focus mostly on either physical or psychological person variables and rarely combine the two, as in, for example, the dual-mode model. Whereas environmental variables specifying the treatment more closely (e.g., its intensity) are comparatively frequent, only the social support model formulates variables such as the framework in which exercise is presented. The majority of explanatory approaches use simple moderator and/or mediator models such as the basic mediated (e.g., distraction hypothesis) or multiple mediated (e.g., monoamine hypotheses) model. The discussion draws conclusions for future research.