Cultural Framework Research Articles

Exploring Religious Harmony Through Dalihan Na Tolu: Local Wisdom in Peacebuilding in Indonesia

This study aimed to investigate the dynamics of religious harmony and the strategies employed by Muslims and Christians in Mandailing Natal to build cohesive relationships through the indigenous cultural framework known as Dalihan Na Tolu. This study employed a qualitative descriptive method. Data collection was carried out through in-depth interviews, participant observation, and a literature review. Data analysis followed the Miles and Huberman model, which includes data presentation, data reduction, and conclusion drawing. The findings showed that the Muslim and Christian communities worked together to build peace and nurture religious harmony in Mandailing Natal. The cultural practice of Dalihan Na Tolu has long served as a foundation for accommodating the multicultural Mandailing society in fostering religious harmony and peace. The role of Dalihan Na Tolu could be seen in three aspects: socio-religious, economic, and customary practices. In these aspects, Muslims and Christians respected each other, fostered cooperation (gotong royong), and adopted a moderate and inclusive attitude towards diversity in their daily lives. Maintaining interfaith harmony through the cultural practice of Dalihan Na Tolu in Mandailing Natal is a crucial social modality that can contribute to peacebuilding and serve as a relevant strategy for preserving religious harmony in multicultural societies.

Integration of Dalihan Natolu's Local Wisdom in the Sets Learning Model to Improve Student's Problem Solving Ability

This study integrates the Science, Environment, Technology, and Society (SETS) learning model with the cultural framework of Dalihan Natolu (DNT), aimed at fostering active, effective, and creative learning. The objective was to examine the impact of this integrated DNT-SETS approach on students’ problem-solving skills, particularly in the context of environmental pollution. A quasi-experimental design was employed, involving 60 students from SMA GKPS Pematang Raya, divided into an experimental group (30 students) and a control group (30 students). The learning materials included lesson plans, student worksheets, learning model guides, and six essay questions related to environmental pollution, designed to assess problem-solving skills. Data were analyzed using the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test for normality and Levene's test for variance homogeneity, both at a 5% significance level. A t-test was conducted to determine the effectiveness of the DNT-SETS model. The t-test results showed a significance value of 0.000, indicating a statistically significant difference between the experimental and control groups. The experimental group, which used the DNT-SETS model, demonstrated a 59% improvement in problem-solving skills, compared to a 38% gain in the control group. This suggests the DNT-SETS model effectively enhanced students' abilities to address environmental issues. The integration of the DNT-SETS model enabled students to approach environmental problems holistically, linking scientific concepts with real-world challenges. This model encourages students to gather evidence and develop effective solutions based on their understanding. The DNT-SETS model significantly improves problem-solving skills in environmental education, offering a practical and culturally relevant teaching strategy.

Wordplay on Malangan T-shirt: A Linguistic Resource for Language Education

This study investigates the linguistic features of wordplay found on Malangan T-shirts within the framework of language, culture, and pedagogy. By analyzing a corpus of Malangan T-shirt designs, the research identifies a variety of wordplay types, including malapropism, ambiguity, and jargon, offering rich opportunities for language exploration. The study contributes to the understanding of the relationship between language, culture, and visual communication, while also highlighting the potential of Malangan T-shirt wordplay as a valuable resource for enhancing language education and fostering cultural awareness.

The Impact of Religious Belief Culture on Legislation: In Regions of EU and Fujian

The interplay between cultural beliefs and legislation is a critical area of study, particularly in regions where religion significantly influences societal norms and values. This paper explores the influence of religious beliefs on legislation by examining key theoretical perspectives and empirical case studies. It begins with an analysis of the ideas of prominent philosophers--Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Karl Marx, and Max Weber--who provide distinct viewpoints on the role of religion in shaping law. This paper then delves into two different empirical studies: the influence of Christian animal welfare on European Union (EU) legislation and the Mazu Mediation Room in Fujian, China. Understanding how deeply the cultural religious principles shape legal frameworks provides foundations considering human rights and social justice, and how religious culture cooperates with the enforcement of law. By studying and comparing these contexts, this paper focuses on analyzing these religious influences on legislation, investigating their impacts, and suggesting the future development of laws in religious regions. Ultimately, the paper wants to contribute to a broader sense of the relationship between religion and legislation, discovering the need for a legislative approach that respects local religious culture while upholding universal human rights and social justice.

Blame: What is it good for?

ABSTRACT An emerging strand of research claims that blame is justified on the basis of its instrumental role in serving to ‘cultivate’ or ‘scaffold’ moral agency in those to whom it is directed. On these instrumentalist accounts, our actual collective responsiveness to moral considerations is largely explained by the scaffolding or cultivating force of blame as directed at us. We believe that there is some reason to be sceptical of the instrumental role assigned to blame on these accounts. This is because there is evidence from the psychology literature on prosocial behaviour and moral development that blame may be directly ineffective; it may be ineffective in inculcating moral norms in the children and young adults to whom it is directed. We concede that blame may have this proximate instrumental role in scaffolding moral behaviour in adults, however we believe that such accounts overlook what we think is likely the more central instrumental role of blame. This is the role blame plays in the moral ecology: the models, narratives, scripts, and cultural frameworks that we internalize. The most central instrumental role of blame, we claim, is to indirectly foster moral considerations responsive agency in third parties through modelling behaviour observed in the moral ecology.

Loss and autonomy: Making sense of rural life at the inner periphery

AbstractWe have studied how people make sense of their lives in peripheral rural regions. While there are disadvantages in terms of infrastructure, transportation and so forth, we have focused on the ways that people understand their specific position and how they feel about it. Using the tools of the Strong Programme in cultural sociology, we have identified two key discourses: the discourse of loss and the discourse of autonomy. Through the former, residents describe the decline of traditions, of rural community and, in particular, the vanishing ideal of rural childhood. Through the latter, they re‐frame these societal developments as problems of individuals. The dichotomy between individual autonomy and individual dependence is employed as a key cultural framework for explaining and understanding life in a peripheral rural region. The research is based on interviews with residents of small rural municipalities located at the inner periphery of the Czech Republic.

Rethinking the low profile: The evolving stance of China’s strategic culture

In recent decades, the concept of strategic culture has emerged as the core focus of cultural approach theories to explain a state’s strategic behavior, given that existing theories have failed to convey deviations from the universal principles of rational state behavior. Relying on the conceptual framework of strategic culture, complemented by Barry Buzan’s “revisionist” approach, this article strives to fill the existing gap in the literature by presenting motives and evidence of revisionism in China’s culture-based conduct. By investigating China’s revisionist behavior vis-à-vis its strategic culture, we conclude that both are correlated. China’s territorial claims, its rapid military modernization, the launch of the Belt and Road Initiative, and its ambiguous alignment with Russia, emphasize the evolution of China’s strategic culture from a defensive to a more resolute stance.

Cultural Memory in Contemporary Fiction: F. R. Leavis’s and Matthew Arnold’s Intellectual Presence in A. S. Byatt’s Work

The concept of “cultural memory” serves as the foundation for this article, which explains the complex relationships between two prominent figures in the history of English letters, Matthew Arnold and F. R. Leavis, as well as how A. S. Byatt’s own work was influenced by their combined, though occasionally diametrically opposed, approaches to literature, culture, and criticism. As a result, this article begins with a discussion of the conflictual continuity and/or sustained ambivalence in Byatt’s critique of Leavisite criticism. It does this by first looking into Leavis’s position within the larger literary criticism context and then focusing on how Leavisite criticism fits into Byatt’s critical thought. Thus, Byatt’s assertion that Leavis made English literature the focal point of university education is examined by first looking into Leavis’s Cambridge. Lastly, Byatt’s criticism of Leavis’s idea of English studies is looked into in the context of critical evaluations of English literature’s place in higher education, at the same time that Byatt’s work is used as a prism to analyse the Arnoldian matrix of the Leavisite concept of “moral seriousness”. Afterward, Byatt’s critical work is critically examined in the framework of culture, society, and literature, continuing Arnold’s legacy.

A Critical Systematic Review of Cultural and Community Practices in Integrated Reading and Writing Courses in Two-Year Colleges

ABSTRACT This study aimed to synthesize and critically analyze 24 empirical studies that focused on Students of Color (SOC) in Integrated Reading and Writing (IRW) classrooms in U.S. community colleges. Our review, through the cultural and community practices framing, examined IRW studies and how SOC, curriculum/institutional reform, and wise pedagogical practices for culturally diverse learning communities were portrayed. Our cultural and community practices framework was informed by culturally sustaining pedagogy and community cultural wealth framework in literacy. Through narratively reviewing studies, we generated the following six themes using our framework of cultural and community practices in classroom settings: ways to culturally diversify reading and writing text, strengthening students’ identity through curriculum, fostering community in the postsecondary classroom, supporting students’ mother tongue in the classroom, the need for diverse faculty representation, and the need for asset-based narratives in developmental education. Implications for asset-focused research and practice are discussed in postsecondary literacy spaces.

Analysing the Intersection between Law and Creative Writing: An Analysis of Petina Gappah’s Literary Writing Prose

This study is an analytical transposition of law and creative writing. The article starts by exposing how the intersection is experienced and positioned. The two fields are based on rhetoric. Rhetoric serves as the foundation for both forensic argument and creative writing, and the dynamic relationships between the two fields also leave many other traces, as we can see in the dramatic performances that connect judges and attorneys to actors, the performative effects of literary language, jurists’ and literary critics’ shared concerns with interpretation, demonstration, and proof, and the function of narrative schemas as templates. There are more similarities between legal scripts and creative writing than there are conflicts. Petina Gappah is someone who has managed well in the two fields, making her writings a marvel to both lay readers and those with a law background. The short stories and novels discussed in the article are embedded in the African culture and legal frameworks of reality. The short story “In the Matter between Goto and Goto” is a thought-provoking depiction of divorce in the Zimbabwean context. The story illustrates the conflicts between the customary and the legal face of marriage. The article picks and analyses three major themes emerging from this story, which are, culture and the law, the issue of gender and justice, and lastly, the limits of law in a legal system.

Strategies of Media Communication in the Digital Cultural Sphere

The significance of media communication approaches in creating cultural connections and experiences has become increasingly important in the quickly changing world of digital culture. This essay examines effective media communication techniques within the framework of digital culture. The study includes a critical examination of the dynamic interplay between culture and media, emphasizing how digital technologies have revolutionized communication methods. This research study points to the fundamental importance of strategizing/politicized media communication in a highly polycentric, digital cultural field. It combines theory with practice, brings perspectives of working cases and provides example data to demonstrate the importance of communication strategies fit for different cultural audiences going online. The study attests to the urgent imperative of developing flexible and imaginative media communication strategies for generating significant, transcultural meeting in our digitally-connected globe.

“Fue el Amor que nos Sostuvo”: The Relational Strengths of Latine Immigrant Couples

Family is an important protective factor for Latine immigrants. However, with most of the existing research focusing on overall family relationships, there is a knowledge gap about Latine couples and how their dyadic strengths may also be helpful in the face of immigration-related stressors. Using a Relational Cultural Theory framework, we conducted 16 semistructured interviews to qualitatively examine how eight Latine immigrant couples perceived their relationships positively impacted their immigration experiences. After analyzing over 20 hours of data, five themes emerged: (1) mutual support to overcome challenges and reach goals, (2) open communication based on respect, (3) working together as a team, (4) acceptance and admiration for each other, and (5) loving and being loved as a resource. Findings confirm the presence of significant relational strengths that can be leveraged in the management of immigration-related stressors. Implications for clinical practice and future research are discussed.

Global perspectives on redefining workplace presence: the impact of remote work on organizational culture

Purpose This paper aims to explore the impact of remote work on organizational culture, focusing on redefining workplace presence during the COVID-19 pandemic. It examines changes in communication patterns, employee engagement and leadership practices, offering insights into how organizations can adapt their cultural frameworks for a remote or hybrid workforce. Design/methodology/approach Using a conceptual approach, this paper draws on existing literature, theories and case studies to analyze the implications of remote work for organizational culture. It examines the practical applications of theoretical frameworks such as Kotter's 8-Step Change Model, the Competing Values Framework, Social Exchange Theory, Role Theory, Self-Determination Theory and Equity Theory. Findings The findings indicate that the transition to remote work necessitates changes in communication patterns, collaboration, employee engagement and the sense of belonging. It also highlights the critical role of leadership in fostering a positive remote work culture, requiring organizations to adapt to a paradigm where presence is measured by engagement and productivity rather than physical visibility. Originality/value This paper contributes to understanding the impact of remote work on organizational culture by integrating various theoretical frameworks and providing practical implications for managing remote work environments. It comprehensively analyzes the challenges and opportunities the shift to remote work presents and provides recommendations for organizations to navigate this transition successfully.

The Roles of Riddles, Puzzles, and Narratives as Pedagogy in Video Games: A Case of African-Themed Video Games

Critical thinking can be promoted through narratives, puzzles, and riddles. Literature has indicated a need to reactivate African narratives to preserve African legacies for future generations. This study argues that African riddles, puzzles, and narratives should be used in African-themed video games to promote critical thinking and awareness of African culture. It emphasizes the importance of African-centered puzzles as a culturally relevant pedagogy that fosters students’ understanding of African cultural values. The study used a participatory culture framework to bring students together to develop an African-themed video game. The game, called Nolwazi, was investigated ethnographically to highlight critical aspects. The study presents the findings of the investigation and analysis. It concludes with a discussion of the importance of using African riddles, puzzles, and narratives in video games.

Creating effective research partnerships with rural communities: a community culture framework

ABSTRACT Researching alongside rural communities often garners vastly different outcomes between communities despite applying the same research methodology and considering the contextualized and nuanced nature of such projects. In this paper, we explore what might account for these differences through the lens of an education and career pathways project conducted in three Australian rural communities. The project drew on community-based participatory, collaborative research which supports the development of responsive community–researcher partnerships that can be adapted to community context. While the outcomes of any research project often appear to be an accident of timing and circumstance, in this paper we argue that community–researcher partnerships can be more deliberately targeted to take account of community context. We present a conceptual framework that considers particular characteristics of communities and the people within them, suggesting how community–researcher partnerships might be developed to help deliver more consistently effective outcomes that address ‘real-life’ issues in critical and transformative ways.

Police’s attribution of racial inequality in the criminal justice system: a case of non-binary color-blindness

ABSTRACT This study critically examines how police officers attribute racial disparities within the US criminal justice system. For this inquiry, the study used in-depth interviews with 65 police officers from 4 police departments in a midwestern county. The findings revealed that 17 of these police officers invoked structural explanations to account for racial disparities prevalent in the US. However, this apparent racial awareness prompted them to underscore the pervasiveness of racism beyond the realms of criminal justice. Consequently, they attributed racial inequities within the criminal justice system to structural racism entrenched in non-criminal justice institutions, thereby rationalizing the current policing institution. This finding highlights the efficacy of a non-binary notion of color-blind ideology to elucidate the flexible and adaptable cultural frameworks that sustain racial hierarchies. Moreover, it enriches the scholarship on racialized organizations, occupations, and work by discussing the ideological limits of change in fostering racial equity within an occupation.

Shaping User Experience in Virtual Reality: A study with special reference to Natyashastra

This article presents a study regarding how Natyashastra’s fundamental principles of storytelling, emotional resonance, and cultural context structure the creation and reception of Virtual Reality (VR) content. Through an attentive examination of a specific VR activity featured in the Prime Minister Museum in Delhi—a helicopter ride showcasing India’s modern infrastructure—the paper explains how Natyashastra’s influence infuses the narrative structure, emotional engagement strategies, and symbolic representations within the VR experience. By exploring the interaction between ancient cultural frameworks and cutting-edge technology, this research underlines the significance of integrating cultural heritage and traditional storytelling techniques into VR design to enhance user experience, emotional connection, and cultural resonance. Through this article, the importance of incorporating cultural frameworks like Natyashastra into VR design to improve user engagement and enrich the virtual experience has been highlighted.

Beyond borders: The moderating role of cultural religiosity in the relationship between moral circle and generosity.

Research has indicated a link between the moral circle and an individual's prosocial behaviour. However, it remains uncertain whether this relationship holds across a broader range of countries and is influenced by sociocultural contexts. Drawing from an international dataset encompassing 49,540 participants from 57 countries, this study examined the impact of the moral circle on an individual's generosity and the moderating role of cultural religiosity. The results revealed a significant positive association between moral circle and generosity in a cross-national context. Notably, in religious cultures, the connection between the moral circle and generosity was found to be weaker. Three robustness checks further affirmed that these findings are robust. The research confirmed a positive relationship between the moral circle and generosity in a multinational context but also highlighted the moderating role of cultural religiosity. This finding suggested that future research should further investigate how cultural and religious frameworks influence ethical behaviour.

Sumptuary Laws, Gender, and Public Dressing in Early Modern Genoa

Abstract This article explores sumptuary legislation and its enforcement in early modern Genoa. Whereas the sumptuary laws from other early modern Italian city-states partitioned society by social rank, profession, or citizenship, the laws in effect in late sixteenth-century Genoa divided the population only into men and women. Genoa therefore represents a key site for exploring gender difference through dress and adornment. Adopting a gendered, sociological, and material culture framework, this article demonstrates how sumptuary laws informed understandings of gender and gendered practices of dressing. It takes as its point of departure a ledger of sumptuary denouncements for the year 1594, and examines how Genoa’s citizens adhered to, or transgressed the gendered expectations set out by the city’s legislative structures. It argues that while prescriptions for idealized masculine and feminine comportment coloured the content and wording of the law, in daily life a spectrum of gendered identities could be enacted through clothing. This article thus advances discourse on the impact of sumptuary laws on understandings of gender in early modern Italy, and the ways in which masculine and feminine identifications were negotiated through and in dialogue with clothing.

Culturally constituted self in Taylor and Gramsci: A concern for philosophy of education

This article addresses the problem of two extreme positions in the self-understanding of human beings namely ignoring culture or its over-determination. Though Charles Taylor and Antonio Gramsci are widely known to differ from each other in many respects, we endeavor a congruent reading to evolve a comprehensive perspective. We make avail of their concepts, such as background, horizon, and common sense, to comprehend the nature of the culturally constituted self and its relevance for education. For both Taylor and Gramsci, the human self is situated in a cultural framework. Though the relation between self and culture is constitutive and inevitable, culture does not entirely determine or overshadow the self. This stance gives space for upholding freedom, dignity and liberation of the human self in both of them. While preserving the essential role of culture in the formation of the human self, education must not be reduced to identity politics. Education must incorporate culture, be critical of it and pay attention to forming a critical self.