American Cultural Models Research Articles

Flower boys and muscled men: comparing South Korean and American male body ideals using cultural domain analysis

Body image disturbance and eating disorders are rising all over the world. However, little is known about experiences of body image in men across cultural groups, and measurement tools often fail to account for the profound ways in which culture and gender can affect these data. An American cultural model of the ideal male body was compared with that of South Koreans using cultural domain analysis and residual agreement analysis. Cultural domain analysis gives researchers the ability to systematically study cultural models based on informants’ emic understanding of phenomena; residual agreement analysis evaluates the patterns of agreement in disagreement with a larger cultural model. This study shows that Americans and South Koreans often overlap in their assessments of the desirability of male bodily features; however, they also strongly endorse many differing features, as well as similar features for different cultural reasons. For example, Americans endorse muscularity because it indexes physical prowess and health; South Koreans only sometimes endorse muscularity, mainly as an aesthetic choice. As a result, psychometric tools for measuring body dissatisfaction that are uncritically adopted for use in cross-cultural research may miss important information affecting the validity of findings and the efficacy of prevention campaigns and treatment plans.

SUSRET POEZIJE I JAPANSKOG AVANGARDNOG FILMA

Since poetry held a central position in the cultural life of the Japanese nation since the earliest times, the elements of poetic expression naturally grew into the spiritual space of the early Japanese films. This contribution seeks to analyse the insufficiently examined phenomenon of convergence of avant-garde poetry and "unconventional" or experimental cinema in the post-war period. Owing to, inter alia, the interdisciplinary work of the Experimental Workshop, an artistic collective inspired by European culture - active during the fifties of the past century - the poetic impulse continued to permeate the artistic climate in the next decade. Although the cinematic language of the next generation of artists owes more to the influence of American cultural models, the intertextual experiments by such avant-garde luminaries as the poet Terayama Shūji successfully transcended the limitations of particular artistic disciplines, creating an authentic expression on the intersection of literature, theater and film.

Implementing a Cultural Model to Increase English-Language Proficiency at an International College

Research Question: The purpose of this study was to determine whether the addition of an American Cultural Model to an existing English as a Second Language (ESL) program improved the performance of international students. Idea: The English language proficiency is essential for students in global emerging economies in order to be competitive, and our study can be generalized to learning other languages within the respective cultural model. Motivation: The results of our study can be applied to higher education worldwide since currently the international business language is English. Data: The data collected were analyzed and interpreted to determine whether cultural training improved scores on the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL). Tools: Two groups of incoming students were compared as the treatment and control groups, using the t-test with appropriate statistical package. Findings: Data analysis showed a statistically significant difference in TOEFL scores between the control group and the experimental group benefiting from the implementation of the Introduction of the American Cultural Model. Contribution: The English language proficiency is essential for students in global emerging economies in order for them to be competitive, and our study can be generalized to learning other languages within a respective cultural model.

Internalized Cultural Models, Congruity With Cultural Standards, and Mental Health

Using the cultural consonance theory and the assumptions embedded in the culture consensus model, the present article addresses the associations between consensually understood and collectively shared cultural models and individual mental health. The study specifically explored the role of internalization. A structured survey was developed to extract the local variant of the American cultural model of a “good, worthy life.” The data collected in New England in fall 2012 ( N = 306) contained measures of the individual familiarity with the cultural model, the degree of internalization of its elements, the extent to which each informant’s lifestyle matched the model in their daily life, and measures of positive and negative mental health. The results confirm that the degree of cultural competence and internalization of cultural ideas affect inter-informant variation in both negative and positive mental health, but the relationship is a complex one.

Phenomenon of Mass Culture: Problems and Controversies

The authors’ subject of investigation is mass culture as a phenomenon. Material achievement is one of the reasons for the dominance of popular culture, because the quality of its products is measured by commercial interest. That’s why the philosophy of mass culture is a philosophy of material success. The authors determine other characteristic features of mass culture and differentiate mass culture of industrial society and mass culture of postindustrial society. They highlight all dangers that exist in the development of mass culture and underline the importance of ethnic cultures’ keeping. Modern popular culture in its global modern form is a system of values, lifestyle, style and way of thinking of the American cultural model. Each ethno-national identity has its own mentality, values, traditions, customs, in contrast to mass culture, elusive, and based on technological progress, and on the desire to please an audience. We should keep ethnic cultures. The authors note that the solution of this problem depends on the content of future generations, generations of civilization of the third wave. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n4s2p296

On Becoming an Educated Person: Salvadoran Adult Learners’ Cultural Model of Educación/Education

Background/ContextIn contrast to cultural constructs that equate education with cognitive development and formal schooling, the Latin American cultural model of educación encompasses academic knowledge and social competence. Prior scholarship has mainly investigated parental notions of educación vis-à-vis childrearing and schooling, primarily among Mexican Americans and Puerto Ricans. Analysis of educación should include other nationalities and elucidate how adults believe educación is acquired and linked both to schooling and nonformal adult education and literacy.Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of StudyThe purpose of this article is to explicate how former adult literacy participants in rural El Salvador perceived the meanings of educación, how one becomes an educated person, and how educación relates to schooling and literacy.SettingThe study took place in a Salvadoran village where, in 2001, a nongovernmental organization sponsored an adult literacy program. Like other poor, rural Salvadorans, participants had limited access to schooling and literacy.Research DesignEmploying ethnographic, participatory methods, the original study (2001-02) examined how adult literacy education fostered or hindered women and men's empowerment. The 2007 follow-up study utilized eight interviews and one focus group with 12 of 17 learners (8 women, 4 men) who had attended literacy classes in one of the villages.Findings/ResultsParticipants identified four facets of educación. First, speech included knowing how to express oneself; converse in a friendly, respectful manner; and use socially appropriate language. Second, educated persons were perceived to display respeto (respect) in language and conduct, especially toward elders and parents. Third, manners and comportment encompassed such practices as attending to guests and demonstrating good behavior (e.g., child obedience). Finally, participants believed that educated persons treat and interact with others in a kind, pleasant, friendly manner. Participants posited multiple pathways to becoming educado (educated, well-mannered), namely, parental instruction and modeling, teacher instruction and schooling, instruction by their former adult literacy teacher or researcher, social interaction, and individual effort. Paradoxically, participants viewed educación as simultaneously learned and innate. Lastly, learners believed that educación did not depend on schooling and literacy, yet these could cultivate educación by increasing one's exposure to, and understanding of, written messages and teachers’ oral instruction concerning respectful, appropriate conduct.Conclusions/RecommendationsWith its emphasis on communicative competence, respect, and proper relatedness, Salvadoran participants’ cultural model of education closely resembles that of other Latino groups. By foregrounding the relational and moral dimensions of education and human development, this model shapes the perceived purposes and desired outcomes of schooling and adult education, the symbolic meanings attached to education, expectations of educators, and the insights learners derive from educational activities.

Sociocultural Influences on the Development of Self-Recognition and Self-Regulation in Costa Rican and Mexican Toddlers

The aim of this study was to examine sociocultural influences on the development of specific sociocognitive developmental milestones. The self-recognition and self-regulation skills of 2-year-old children were assessed in two autonomous-relational cultural contexts: educated, urban, middle-class families from Costa Rica (N= 19) and Mexico (N= 15). These two cultural groups are representative of a consistent pattern of an autonomous-relational Latin American cultural model; there were no differences between the two groups in mothers’ socialization goals, maternal behavior during mother–child play, and toddlers’ self-recognition and self-regulation. As predicted by ecocultural models of development, consistent cultural models emerged: Sociodemographic factors were associated with mothers’ relative emphasis on autonomous socialization goals and lower levels of directive and didactic play. There were also significant correlations between facets of mothers’ cultural models and toddlers’ development of self-regulation, but not self-recognition. This study provides further evidence that the sociocognitive development of children’s self-regulation during the second year is dependent on the “ecological imprint” that is provided by their mothers’ cultural model. Furthermore, the same mechanisms that account for cross-cultural differences also seem to account for intracultural variation in maternal behavior and toddlers’ development.

A Feminist Cognitive Anthropology: The Case of Women and Mathematics

This article is an exploration of the insights that a marriage between feminist and cognitive anthropology offers for understanding the scientific gender gap. Using comparative ethnographic and questionnaire data from India, I argue that Indian cultural models of family, gender, and schooling interact with macrostructural features of Indian society (educational, socioeconomic, and occupational) to frame academic decisions, producing a gender‐stratified scientific community. I then evaluate the applicability of Western theories to India. I suggest American individualistic models that emphasize internal, female mathematic deficiencies and gender‐identity conflicts embody American cultural models of gender and schooling not shared by Indian informants. Indian patrifocal family institutions also do not imply essentialist gender concepts. Finally, I argue American theories of gendered science embody long‐standing American cultural models that warrant critical scrutiny.

Parents' Cultural Belief Systems: Their Origins, Expressions, and Consequences

1. Introduction, Harkness and Super I. Theoretical Perspectives 2. Parents' Free Descriptions of Child Characteristics: A Cross-Cultural Search for the Developmental Antecendents of the Big Five, Kohnstamm, Halverson, Havill, and Mervielde 3. Processes of Generalization in Parental Reasoning, Valsiner and Litvinovic 4. The Answer Depends on the Question: A Conceptual and Methodological Analysis of a Parent Belief Behavior Interview Regarding Children's Learning, Sigel and Kim II. The Nature and Origins of Parents' Cultural Belief Systems 5. Essential Contrasts: Differences in Parental Ideas About Learners and Teaching in Tahiti and Nepal, Levy 6. How do Children Develop Knowledge?: Beliefs of Tansanian and American Mothers, McGillicuddy-De Lisi and Subramanian 7. Japanese Mothers' Ideas about Infants and Temperament, Shwalb, Shwalb, and Shoji 8. Scenes from a Marriage: Equality Ideology in Swedish Family Policy, Maternal Ethnotheories, and Practice, Welles-Nystrom III. Intracultural Variation: The Role of Education and Experts 9. Parents' and Adolescents' Ideas on Children: Origins and Transmission of Intracultural Diversity, Palacios and Moreno 10. Education and Mother Infant Interaction: A Mexican Case Study, LeVine, Miller, Richman, and LeVine 11. The Contrasting Developmental Timetables of Parents and Preschool Teachers in Two Cultural Communities, Edwards, Gandini, and Giovaninni 12. Ask the Doctor: The Negotiation of Cultural Models in American Parent Pediatrician Discourse, Harkness, Super, Keefer, Raghavan, and Kipp IV. The Instantiation of Parents' Cultural Belief Systems in Practices 13. From Household Practices to Parents' Ideas About Work and Interpersonal Relationships, Goodnow 14. How Mayan Parental Theories Come Into Play, Gaskins 15. Parental Theories in the Management of Young Children's Sleep in Japan, Italy, and the United States, Wolf, Lozoff, Latz, and Pauladetto 16. Maternal Beliefs and Infant-Care Practices in Italy and the United States, New and Richman V. The Consequences of Parents' Cultural Belief Systems for Children's Health and Development 17. My Child is My Crown: Yoruba Parental Theories and Practices in Early Childhood, Zeitlin 18. Growth Consequences of Low-Income Nicaraguan Mothers' Theories About Feeding 1-Year-Olds, Engle, Zeitlin, and Medrano 19. The Three R's of Dutch Childrearing and the Socialization of Infant Arousal, Super, Harkness, van Tijen, van der Flugt, Fintelman, and Dijkstra 20. Imagining and Engaging One's Children: Lessons From Poor, Rural New England Mothers, Bond, Belenky, Weinstock, and Cook 21. American Cultural Models of Early Influence and Parent Recognition of Developmental Delays: Is Earlier Always Better Than Later?, Weisner, Matheson, and Bernheimer

Chinese and European American Cultural Models of the Self Reflected in Mothers' Childrearing Beliefs

EthosVolume 23, Issue 3 p. 328-354 Chinese and European American Cultural Models of the Self Reflected in Mothers' Childrearing Beliefs RUTH K. CHAO, RUTH K. CHAO Assistant Professor Child and Family Studies, College of Human Development, Syracuse University, NYSearch for more papers by this author RUTH K. CHAO, RUTH K. CHAO Assistant Professor Child and Family Studies, College of Human Development, Syracuse University, NYSearch for more papers by this author First published: September 1995 https://doi.org/10.1525/eth.1995.23.3.02a00030Citations: 246AboutPDF ToolsExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume23, Issue3September 1995Pages 328-354 RelatedInformation