Universalizing or Contextualizing? Two Strategies for Diversifying Philosophy

Self-assessed health—a case study of social differentials in Soweto, South Africa

Elderly Bedouin men in southern Israel are a unique traditional population living in remote unrecognized villages and experiencing rapid social transition, in addition to deep poverty and political tension. In this study, we aimed to explore stressful events, as self-defined by the participants, and the ways in which these men have coped with those stressful events. This study involved 12 men, aged 69–74, who participated in in-depth narrative interviews during which they were asked about transformative stressful events in their lives and how they had managed, understood, and utilized human capital, meaning-making, and other methods of coping. Analysis of the interviews revealed several themes: (a) the definition of stressful events within the cultural context, (b) the use of human capital to overcome those events, (c) the transformation of experience from hindsight into a didactic narrative that can be used to assign meaning to past events, which can then be passed on to the next generation, and (d) cultural transition as a catalyst for the creation of new understandings of events. This paper sheds new light on how elderly indigenous Bedouin men self-define stressful situations within a complex and unstable cultural context. This specific context, can help us to gain insight into how indigenous impoverished older men in similar contexts may self-define their stress and coping, based on the types of generalization accepted in qualitative research. The methodological contribution of this work lies in its use of narrative to culturally contextualize phenomenological meaning structures. Its theoretical contribution lies in its examination of the concept of stress within a specific cultural context.

This article addresses the relationship between highly skilled international mobility and knowledge by focussing on knowledge transfer work. Empirically, this study is based on interviews of professionals in the Swedish medical field who returned to Sweden after a period of work in other countries. The medical field harbours many transnationally valid competences and standardised lines of work, but even in this field, knowledge transfer is a process requiring effort, skills, negotiation, translation and adjustment to the specific organisational and cultural contexts. The studied professionals’ knowledge transfer work showed a spectrum, ranging from smooth, almost friction-free transfers to the ones where much translation and transformation was required, depending on the context and the professional’s status in the workplace. The professionals also developed and made use of knowledge transfer skills, such as the ability to observe, analyse and adjust to cultural differences between workplaces, healthcare systems or academic systems, as well as the ability to translate knowledge to make it relevant and viable in the specific context.

Understanding 'Depolicing': Symbiosis Theory and Critical Cultural Theory

Reviewed by: Teorizando las literaturas indígenas contemporáneas ed. by Emilio del Valle Escalante Rita M. Palacios (bio) Teorizando las literaturas indígenas contemporáneas By Emilio del Valle Escalante, Ed. Raleigh, NC: Editorial A Contracorriente, 2015. 278 pp. isbn 978-09909191000 Teorizando las literaturas indígenas contemporáneas is a collection of critical essays edited by Emilio del Valle Escalante, one of the leading academics working on Maya literature today. It comprises eight pieces focused on contemporary Indigenous literatures in Latin America (Mapuche, Wayuu, Kichwa, Nahua, Maya Yukatec, Guaraní-Kaiowá, Ixil, and K’iche’), each emerging from a specific regional context (Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Brazil, Mexico, and Guatemala). With chapters in both English and Spanish, the book represents the culmination of a special dossier on Indigenous literatures published in 2013 through North Carolina State University’s journal A Contracorriente. The collection is a welcome addition to the study of Indigenous literatures in the Americas, as it brings them under a lens that is broad enough to allow for regional difference and specific enough to permit arriving at an understanding of Indigenous literature in its context. Specifically, the 1990s serve as a point of departure, observing the rise of Indigenous social movements, which have made their mark and demand that issues of citizenship, inclusion, and autonomy be reconsidered. This sets the stage for a better understanding of the emergence and visibilization of this literature in or against Latin America. The introduction by del Valle Escalante frames the dossier’s goals and objectives, its critical considerations, and outlines each of the chapters. He also provides a concise but comprehensive overview of Indigenous literatures in Latin America that emphasizes the importance of political, social and cultural contexts, as well as major historical shifts in the development of these literatures. His introduction deftly lays out some of the major challenges that writers of Indigenous literatures face, and identifies some of the tasks ahead for readers and critics of this cultural production. These tasks range from understanding Indigenous cultural production through its own particular context(s) and as part of a long-standing tradition, to developing ways of thinking about it that resist deterritorialization and emphasize the importance of knowledge produced within. Of two sections, the first details the historical development of a particular contemporary Indigenous literature in its specific context, and the second presents in depth-analyses of particular works. The first section is an excellent starting point for those new to the field of Indigenous literatures, as it outlines the emergence of contemporary literary traditions in Chile, Peru and Colombia. Contributors include Mapuche poet Maribel Curriao, and literary critics Ulises Juan Zevallos Aguilar and Miguel Rocha Vivas. While the 1990s figure prominently as a key decade in the development of these literary productions, reflecting the increased mobilization of Indigenous groups and recognition of cultural and political rights of Indigenous people on the world stage, the authors trace these literatures further back, understanding Indigenous literature not as a new phenomenon but an updated tradition. Moreover, the authors discuss the development of these literatures alongside significant political, social, and cultural events, showing that they are part of a broader movement toward self-representation and renewed ways of participating in the nation-state. The second group of essays offers solid analyses that reflect current debates and approaches on the subject. To me, this section is where the book really delivers, and, incidentally, has some of the collection’s stand-out pieces: Arturo Arias’ “Indigenous Women at War: Discourses on Revolutionary Combat,” Paul Worley’s “U páajtalil maaya ko’olel: Briceida Cuevas Cob’s Je’bix k’in and the Rights of Maya Women,” and Adam W. Coon’s “El rescoldo del tlicuil: Visceral Resistance and Generational Tension Among Contemporary Nahua Authors.” These papers are of note because their particular approaches are representative of the most up-to-date critical inquiries into the subject, favoring Indigenous voices or perspectives, and a decolonial shift that comes from within. Arias identifies the emergence of an “indigenous discursivity of the war” (121) in the testimonials of Ixil and K’ich’e women ex-combatants, published in a book...

Background: The Coparenting Relationship Scale is a robust tool for assessing the quality of coparenting, with evidence of validity and reliability tested in diverse cultural and population contexts. Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Coparenting Relationship Scale in Ecuadorian fathers and mothers in order to determine its validity and reliability in the specific cultural context of Ecuador. Method: An instrumental study was carried out by analyzing psychometric properties. The sample consisted of 867 participants from the province of Azuay, most of whom were women (66.8%), with a mean age of 35.4 years. Participants completed the Coparenting Relationship Scale. Results: The findings revealed adequate reliability of the scale in the Ecuadorian sample. In addition, factor analysis showed that the scale structure remained consistent in this sample, suggesting that the items grouped in the dimensions established by the original scale retain their validity in this specific context. Significant factor loadings consistent with the theoretical dimensions of the scale were observed, reinforcing its construct validity. The sixth model (M6), with three factors and 22 items, showed a good fit (χ2= 399.43, df = 206, χ2/df = 1.94, p = 0.136), with adequate fit indices (CFI = 0.990, GFI = 0.996), a low approximation error (RMSEA = 0.033, 95% CI = [0.028-0.038]), and good residual fit (SRMR = 0.047). Additionally, the ECVI was 0.623. Conclusions: The Coparenting Relationship Scale is a valid and reliable instrument for assessing coparenting dynamics in Ecuadorian parents, providing a solid basis for interventions and policies aimed at strengthening family well-being in Ecuador.

Discussions on AI ethics and policies often focus on metaphysical questions and normalizing insights, such as the difference between humans and machines and the changing meanings of human intelligence. Since AI is always situated in specific cultural and social contexts, however, such approaches fail to capture key dimensions of the relationships and patterns of interactions that people and institutions around the world have with emerging technologies such as generative AI. This Crosscurrents themed section hosts interventions that tackle this problem. Mobilizing the tradition in media and cultural studies that stresses the importance of situating communication in specific context and cultures, contributors envision potential pathways that bring the question of culture and the dimension of everyday experiences to the center stage, thereby contextualizing AI more rigorously within the dialectic of the global and local cultures. Through this lens, we aim to foster critical dialogue and advance understandings of AI within the contemporary geopolitics of global cultures.

Eco-linguistics is a thriving research field which integrates the language-environment nexus in an interdisciplinary array of dimensions. Nevertheless, the linguistic analysis of ecopoetics in Pakistani context is an underexplored domain of inquiry. The present research scrutinises the linguistic pattern of literary environmental text, which employs the poetic register to deal with the subject of the human-nature interface, and the construction of ecocritical framing within its specific context. The poem, The Arrival of Monsoon (1985) by Taufiq Rafat, is selected as it fulfills Buell (1995)’s criteria of ‘Environmental Text’. The poem is analysed first in terms of processes and circumstances using Halliday’s model of transitivity analysis and then employing Arran Stibbe’s concept of ecological framing to unveil its system of meanings. The results demonstrate the foregrounding of material actions and events in the text. The selected poem’s text has an explicit emphasis on the existence and characteristics of Nature in comparison to human beings and this is achieved categorically with circumstances of location. These circumstances of location hold significant cultural images and thus help in assigning the text its ecosensitive stance while locating it within a specific cultural context i.e., Pakistan. The dualistic frame of Nature being both invigorating and dominating is manifested in the poem. The study will be significant to emerging writers, teachers and students who want to explore the themes of human-nature interaction in their writings. Keywords: Ecolinguistics; transitivity analysis; environmental texts; circumstances of location; ecological framing

BackgroundAlcohol media literacy programs seek to mitigate the potentially harmful effects of alcohol advertising on children’s drinking intentions and behaviours through equipping them with skills to challenge media messages. In order for such programs to be effective, the teaching and learning experiences must be tailored to their specific cultural context. Media in the Spotlight is an alcohol media literacy program aimed at 9 to 12 year old Australian children. This study evaluates the process and implementation of the program, outlining the factors that facilitated and inhibited implementation. From this evaluation, a pedagogical framework has been developed for health professionals implementing culturally responsive programs in school settings.MethodsProcess measures included: semi-structured interviews with teachers before and after the program was implemented (n = 11 interviews), program evaluation questionnaires completed by children (n = 166), lesson observations completed by teachers (n = 35 observations), and reflective journal entries completed by the researcher (n = 44 entries). A thematic analysis approach was used to analyse all of the data sets using NVivo. Inductive coding was used, whereby the findings were derived from the research objectives and multiple readings and interpretations of the data.ResultsFive key pedagogical considerations were identified that facilitated implementation. These were: connecting to the students’ life worlds to achieve cultural significance; empowering students with real-world skills to ensure relevance; ensuring programs are well structured with strong connections to the school curriculum; creating developmentally appropriate activities while providing a range of assessment opportunities; and including hands-on and interactive activities to promote student engagement. Three potential inhibitors to implementing the alcohol media literacy program in upper-elementary school classrooms were identified. These included topic sensitivities, classroom management challenges, and fitting new programs into already busy school schedules.ConclusionOverall, the program content and individual lessons were well received by the teachers and students. The lessons learned from the development, implementation and evaluation of this program can provide health professionals with key pedagogical strategies for designing culturally responsive educational programs. Culturally responsive programs are critical for ensuring interventions are effective for their specific context.

Pragmatic communication refers to the ability to use language and other expressive means, i.e. non-verbal/extralinguistic means such as gestures and facial expressions, in order to convey and interpret meaning in a specific context. Pragmatic abilities are important in everyday life in interpersonal interactions as they affect the way people communicate and behave in social situations. Providing a comprehensive and accurate assessment of pragmatic abilities can be challenging, partially due to the scarcity of valid assessment tools in this area. Culture-related aspects of communication need to be taken into consideration, and the assessment tools need to be specific and sensitive for specific cultural contexts. In this paper, we present the results concerning the administration of the first preliminary translation and adaptation into the Finnish language of the equivalent form A of the Italian Assessment Battery for Communication (ABaCo) to a sample of neurotypical Finnish adults (n=36); we discuss the results, highlighting cultural features and the consequent adaptation requirements. Data regarding performance on each subscale and on each item of the ABaCo are provided, together with a qualitative analysis of the answers. These data indicate good performance on the majority of the subscales used, thus indicating good properties of the preliminary Finnish version of the ABaCo. Compared to the paralinguistic and context scales, where the participants exhibited good performance, slightly lower scores were obtained on the extralinguistic scale. Such results shed light on a number of differences in the way Finnish people interpret pragmatically challenging communicative situations. The present study represents an interesting starting point for further steps in the specific ABaCo adaptation process, as well as for future studies in terms of cross-cultural investigation.

1.60 School Professional and Caregiver Understanding of Causes of Mental Health Concerns in Rural Darjeeling, India

In order to better support socially just and equitable schooling for all students, there is a need to unpack some of the nuances associated with the development, implementation, and assessment of curriculum. One way in which to accomplish this goal might be to utilise a cultural diversity lens to better understand and discuss complexities of the curriculum. Making use of a cultural diversity lens for shedding light on the curriculum might be especially important for highlighting strands of equity and inequity in the curriculum. There are various directions that bear detailed examination regarding the curriculum and cultural diversity, including exploration of the curricular inheritance of issues of culture and diversity in the curriculum. Less attention is given to delving into the curriculum with a cultural diversity lens that addresses pragmatic, experiential, and narrative perspectives. Cultural diversity is understood from a Deweyan vantage as shaped within and shaped by interactions between people as situated in given contexts. This perspective on cultural diversity incorporates a focus on curriculum as experiential. It assumes a narrative unfolding of life and education, whereby the curriculum is crafted in specific contexts and between teachers, learners, and other curricular stakeholders as the culmination of stories of life and learning. Cultural diversity in curriculum is then seen here as the norms, values, and expectations that are negotiated within teaching and learning situations and interactions. Adopting a focus on the interplay of cultural diversity with teaching and learning enables exploration of how students and teachers engage in and make sense of the curriculum in explicit and implicit ways from the basis of the cultural layers that they navigate between home and school. Furthermore, Schwab (1973) identified four commonplaces that are involved in all curricular thought and actions. These curriculum commonplaces are: the teacher, the subject matter, the learner, and the milieu. The curriculum commonplaces are each critical considerations in the design and implementation of curriculum. This curriculum framework is used to structure, organise, and clarify considerations of the curriculum through the lens of cultural diversity. This structure is particularly useful for directing attention to all major threads of the curriculum. In this way, attention can also be directed to curriculum silences, struggles, and gaps, as well as the positioning of such silences, struggles, and gaps. Examination of research offers a glimpse into the complexities at the intersection of curriculum and cultural diversity. Knowledge about issues at the intersections of cultural diversity and curriculum in schools gained from existing literature in the field of Curriculum Studies informs the curriculum work of preservice and practicing teachers. Teacher educators who are preparing preservice and practicing teachers to work with students of increasingly diverse social and cultural backgrounds may also draw from this literature. Experiential research addressing complexities at the intersections of cultural diversity and curriculum further contribute to this body of knowledge.

Purpose : Due to globalization and the global mobility of workforce, working in multicultural environments is a new challenge for employees and managers. The aim of the paper is to analyze the social interactions in multicultural environments of multinational corporations (MNCs) as well as to propose a model of intercultural social interactions in MNCs’ specific context. Design/methodology/approach : The grounded theory approach was applied to create a model of intercultural interactions in MNCs. The data was obtained during the qualitative research based on comparative case studies collected in 5 MNCs’ subsidiaries. Findings: The proposed model refers to the following concepts: 1) Lazarus’s transactional stress theory states that job demands may be assessed as hindrances or challenges. The specific job demands that affect intercultural interactions are multilingualism, cultural diversity, cross-cultural adjustment and team work. 2) Positive psychological capital and an individual’s acquired resources are in relation with intercultural interactions. 3) According to Bandura’s agentic perspective, individuals take an active role in shaping social interactions and work environment. 4) Being an agent relates to Spreitzer’s thriving concept that can serve as a mechanism of relations between the interactions undertaken due to MNCs’ specific job demands and their outcomes. Research limitations/implications: The qualitative methodology applied to the research does not allow for a broader generalization of the results. The outcomes of intercultural interactions depend mainly on how individuals assess their job demands in MNCs. Practical implications: Since the workplace in MNCs is abundant in learning opportunities, the managers of MNCs need to hire employees who exhibit needs for growth and development to boost thriving in their organizations. Additionally, these managers should search for employees with experience of multicultural settings and a signifi cant capacity of positive psychological capital, thanks to which they are likely to benefi t more from intercultural social interactions. More concern should be put on training the employees’ language skills since it may build their self-eff icacy in intercultural interactions. Originality/value: The proposed model focuses on social interactions in MNCs’ unique context. The empirical fi ndings were interpreted with regard to psychological and sociological theories and the Positive Organizational Scholarship lens.

Purpose: This research proposed to evaluate the differences between generations and gender work engagement. This evaluation is strategically needed to clarify the debate related to the issue of work engagement. The clarification based on research findings involving respondents from different context is necessary to improve ecological validity. It is also important since the evidence obtained through this research is useful for improving the effectiveness of human resources policies.Design/Methodology/Approach: The data were collected through self-administered questionnaire involving 128 respondents from a specific context of government organization. There were 17 items used to represent work engagement. The measurement was adapted from UWES-17. ANOVA and independent sample t-test were conducted to test the influence of generations and gender on the total of work engagement and its three dimensions.Findings: Results showed that generation and gender influence work engagement. Baby Boomers indicated the strongest work engagement. Generation Y showed the lowest work engagement. Men exhibited higher work engagement than women. However, further evaluation on the dimensions of work engagement showed interesting findings. Baby Boomers did not significantly differ from their counterpart of generation X on any dimensions. Generation X consistently differed from generation Y in all dimensions. Regarding gender and the dimensions of work engagement, only absorption showed insignificant different. In general, the findings of this research was align with the theory of social exchange as well as antithesis of burnout.Research Limitation/Implications: The data were collected from the government officials. It is limited that it may not capture the employees’ characteristics from business organization. Generalization may also be limited. However, this specific context may offer a valuable perspective related to the situation in which seniority is important point in considering career decision made by the organization. In addition, the measurement used in this research adapted from UWES-17. Research showed that different work engagement measurement applied in diverse culture may result in inconsistent findings. A comprehensive research was necessary to evaluate the measurement that was relatively free from cultural influences.Practical Implications: This research offered an interesting recommendation in relation with organizational policies to improve work engagement and its dimensions. Based on this research findings, organizations may consider emphasizing on human resources policies which was suitable for generation Y to improve work engagement. Moreover, work-life balance to improve the level of women work engagement was also recommended.Originality/Value: This research was contributed to evaluate the impact of generations and gender on work engagement and its dimensions. Research involving specific context as government officials was rare. The result may be crucial to avoid developing organizational policies that were based on research findings that came from irrelevant contexts.

The crane appears in one fabliau, Cele qui fu foutue et desfoutue, a stereotypical fabliau, in which a worldly valet dupes a naive young girl over the exchange of a bird: a crane. In understanding the significance of the crane, the bestiary tradition appears a logical point of departure; yet, a careful examination of these animal texts reveals otherwise, and points to the influence of other types of animal texts: encyclopaedia; natural history texts; Christian exemplar literature; and homilies. Moreover, the significance of the crane is not restricted to animal texts or to other literary contexts. Rather, the significance of the crane in Cele qui fu foutue et desfoutue further depends on the ways in which the audience understood the crane, particularly in a social and cultural context. This paper will consider three specific contexts – literary, social and cultural – in an attempt to reveal the complex, often overlapping and mutable meanings of the crane in this fabliau.