Multicultural Backgrounds Research Articles

Movie Exploratory Study for Appropriate Cultural Contents for Enhancing Thai EFL Students’ English-Speaking Skills and Intercultural Communicative Competence

Currently, English is regarded as the global language used in communication by people in multicultural backgrounds, and language and culture are inseparable. Therefore, teaching and learning English need to address the cultural knowledge and develops the learners’ skills of intercultural communicative competence through authentic texts. Movies provide rich cultural content with real language used for communication contexts. This paper intends to investigate problems and needs of Thai EFL students in developing English speaking skills and intercultural communicative competence (ICC), and to explore appropriate English movies with cultural contents for enhancing students’ English speaking and intercultural communicative competence. The participants, 65 in total are divided into three group involving experts in movie fields, English teachers, and students in undergraduate level who enrolled for English for Communication. The research instruments employed in this research consists of the Needs Analysis Survey Questionnaire for Teaching and Learning English and Intercultural and Movie Exploratory Survey Questionnaire. The results revealed that the students realized the importance of learning English and culture and they indicate that they would feel more confident in communicating in English in reality. However, they lacked opportunity to expose to using English in the real context. The study also found top ten English movies which provide fruitful English language communication and cultural contents in the movie scenes for developing Thai EFL students to learn English speaking and intercultural communicative competence. EFL teachers, course designers, or language educators can make use of these findings for developing the curricula or revise existing English curricula to suit needs and problems of students and integrating the list of movies with cultural contents for enhancing Thai EFL learners’ communicative competence.

Examining College Students’ Multicultural Education Perspectives

This survey study examines the multicultural educational perspectives of 729 college students. Results indicated that the differences on multicultural attitude/beliefs and knowledge between female and male students, younger and older students, ethnic groups (White and Black students), and religions and non-religious. Students who had previously taken a course that addressed multicultural issues had higher mean scores on the multicultural knowledge scale than those who did not take a class. Results also indicated that White and Black students were statistically different on multicultural attitude and belief as well as on multicultural background and awareness.

The M-CHooSe pilot: the acceptability and utilisation of the nurse-led, general practice clinic co-located 'Mater CALD Healthcare Coordinator Service' for patients from multicultural backgrounds.

Patients from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds often have unmet healthcare coordination needs. We aimed to evaluate the acceptability, utilisation and perceived benefits of the Mater CALD Health Coordinator Service (M-CHooSe), a pilot, nurse-led, general practice co-located, healthcare coordination service for patients from CALD backgrounds. M-CHooSe began in March 2020 at five Brisbane (Queensland) sites. Process and service user data were collected over 12months at one site. A survey evaluated primary healthcare professionals' perceived benefits of the service. Another survey of M-CHooSe nurses examined indicators of service complexity. In total, 206 individuals accessed M-CHooSe over the 12-month period. Commonly delivered services included health service advocacy, chart reviews and health system navigation, including addressing social determinants. M-CHooSe nurses reported frequently performing tasks such as following up with external health services and performing health and social care system coordination. M-CHooSe benefits reported by primary healthcare professionals included better patient access to external health services and improved patient understanding of their conditions and treatments. Patients were accepting of referrals to M-CHooSE. Primary healthcare professionals also reported a variety of benefits to themselves and their patients because of M-CHooSe. M-ChooSe highlights the potential of a healthcare coordination service for multicultural patients to improve healthcare equity, accessibility, and system efficiency. This project demonstrates the potential value of coordination services to increase patient access and uptake of existing health and social care services for modern Australian communities, thus improving the efficiency and effectiveness of our health system. Further investigations, including user experience, opinions and cost analyses, will be required to confirm the promising benefits of embedding M-CHooSe into usual care.

Today's Student Is Tomorrow's Leader: Creating Student Relationships through Culturally Responsive Teaching

Families from all over the world leave their homeland, their lifestyle, their culture, and everything they've ever known to come to the United States of America, also known as the land of opportunity. America is often depicted as a "melting pot" because of the number of families of multiracial, multiethnic, and multicultural backgrounds migrating into one place. These families want to give their children an upper hand, a fighting chance, an advantage in life. Immigrant parents are faced with navigating new laws, systems, and cultural differences, but they consider those sacrifices worth it for the opportunities they bring to their children. However, the children of these immigrant families face their own obstacles as they enter a school system that is insensitive to their migration journey, where they encounter students who ostracize them, and where language barriers or their accents prevent them from being understood. Although the U.S. school system is becoming increasingly diverse and multicultural, the education curriculum has not been updated to reflect and incorporate a culturally responsive and sustaining education.

Exploring the expectations, experiences and tensions of refugee patients and general practitioners in the quality of care in general practice.

BackgroundRefugees and asylum seekers arrive in the Australian community with complex health needs and expectations of healthcare systems formed from elsewhere. Navigating the primary healthcare system can be challenging with communication and language barriers. In multicultural societies, this obstacle may be removed by accessing language‐concordant care. Emerging evidence suggests language‐concordance is associated with more positive reports of patient experience. Whether this is true for refugees and asylum seekers and their expectation of markers of quality patient‐centred care (PCC) remains to be explored. This study aimed to explore the expectations around the markers of PCC and the impacts of having language‐concordant care in Australian primary healthcare.MethodsWe conducted semi‐structured individual in‐language (Arabic, Dari, and Tamil) remote interviews with 22 refugee and asylum seekers and 9 general practitioners (GPs). Interview transcripts were coded inductively and deductively, based on the research questions, using Thematic Analysis. Extensive debriefing and discussion took place within the research team throughout data collection and analysis.ResultsCommunity member expectations of markers of PCC are constantly evolving and adapting based on invisible and visible actions during clinical encounters. Challenges can occur in the clinical encounter when expectations are ‘unsaid’ or unarticulated by both community members and GPs due to the assumption of shared understanding with language concordant care. Expectations of what constitutes satisfactory, quality PCC are dynamic outcomes, which are influenced by prior and current experiences of healthcare.ConclusionThis study highlights the importance of understanding that language concordant care does not always support aligned expectations of the markers of quality PCC between community members and their GP. We recommend that GPs encourage community members to provide explicit descriptions about how their prior experiences have framed their expectations of what characterizes quality PCC. In addition, GPs could develop a collaborative approach, in which they explain their own decision‐making processes in providing PCC to refugees and asylum seekers.Patient or Public ContributionBilingual researchers from multicultural backgrounds and experience working with people from refugee backgrounds were consulted on study design and analysis. This study included individuals with lived experiences as refugees and asylum seekers and clinicians as participants.

National Culture Inheritance in Vocal Music Teaching under Multicultural Background

National Culture Inheritance in Vocal Music Teaching under Multicultural Background

The body as cultural home: exploring, embodying, and navigating the complexities of multiple identities

ABSTRACT The increasing number of clients with multicultural backgrounds pose a challenge for a mental health field that has mostly addressed the psychological needs of culturally diverse clients in a monolithic and linear fashion. In addition, the body’s role in identity development and expression has not been fully integrated in either the theory or practice of counselling. This article addresses these gaps by advocating for a somatic psychotherapy process of identity exploration and negotiation of individuals with multiple cultural backgrounds. This process is meant to support not only more congruent hybrid identities, but also transform the vulnerabilities of this population in increased resiliency and strength. A composite case is used to illustrate this clinical approach.

The Effectiveness of Aided AAC Modeling for Belizean Children: A Case Study

Purpose Augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) interventions have been deemed efficacious. However, even with the medium to large effect sizes, there is a paucity of research investigating the effects of aided modeling on expressive outcomes for children from multicultural and multilingual backgrounds. Method This case series study examined the effectiveness of aided AAC modeling on aided and unaided expressive output (i.e., one- and two-symbol messages) in three children from different cultures in Belize (one Creole and two Mestizo) in a preschool-like group setting. Additionally, treatment intensity metrics (i.e., number of sessions, number of minutes, and number of aided/unaided models) were analyzed to determine whether this was an appropriate intensity for children in Belize. Results Results indicated that all children increased their aided and unaided symbol message production within five intervention sessions lasting 180 min per day (15 hr total). Additionally, the average number of aided/unaided models, sampled several times over the course of 5 days, was 43.75 per 15-min period. Conclusions Aided AAC modeling intervention was beneficial for these children. However, the length of each session (3 hr) may have negatively impacted expressive outcomes. The number of models per 15-min period was beneficial and in line with previous research outcomes. The multicultural clinical implications are also discussed.

The implication of multicultural education on students' learning approaches in biosciences and pharmacy courses

PurposeThe globalisation of higher education has created new challenges for educators to remain dynamic in teaching science undergraduates with diverse cultural backgrounds. The current study explores this challenge by evaluating the different personal factors among biosciences and pharmacy undergraduates that affect their learning approaches as well as to identify course-specific teaching approaches in order to determine their impacts on students' learning.Design/methodology/approachA cross-sectional survey design based on study process questionnaire (SPQ), and approaches and study skills inventory for students (ASSIST) was utilised to collect quantitative data from 129 biosciences and pharmacy undergraduates.FindingsBiosciences undergraduates adopted deep and achieving learning approaches as they progressed through the curriculum, whilst surface learners dominated the pharmacy course. Ethnicity was shown to affect the learning approaches among the undergraduates. Although male undergraduates from both courses were more competitive than the female, elder female undergraduates tend to adopt deep learning approach. Pre-university qualifications did not significantly influence the undergraduate's learning approach. The contrasting finding on the preferred teaching approaches between biosciences and pharmacy undergraduates has highlighted the importance of providing tailored teaching and learning strategies to cater different students' learning needs.Originality/valueThis study has demonstrated the combinational use of SPQ and ASSIST instruments to compare undergraduate's learning approaches with preferred teaching approaches. The current finding could support the development of teaching and learning practice among the biosciences and pharmacy undergraduates with multicultural background.

Multicultural Experience and Social Dynamics

The rise of globalization and the international labor movement has sparked the growth of opportunities for individuals to accumulate multicultural experiences and develop multicultural backgrounds. Multicultural experiences have been linked to a number of individual, interpersonal and organizational outcomes such as creativity, intergroup relations, and firm performance. As individuals gain more diverse perspectives through multicultural experiences and as the society become more multicultural, what are the potential positive and negative effects on the social processes? In this symposium, we focus on the effects of multicultural experiences on social dynamics and discuss their implications for individuals and organizations. The purpose of this symposium is to feature new research that “zooms in” on how multicultural experiences shape social behaviors at an interpersonal level and “zooms out” to explore how multicultural experiences shape social networks more broadly. Inspired by the Academy of Management 2021 theme, “Bringing the Manager Back in Management,” these projects extend research and theory on how multicultural backgrounds help managers harvest greater social tolerance and overcome intergroup biases, as well as develop social capital that leads to personal and managerial outcomes. Eat, Pray…Hate? Negative Multicultural Experiences Can Increase Intergroup Bias Presenter: Salvatore J. Affinito; Harvard Business School Presenter: William Maddux; U. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Presenter: Giselle Elaine Antoine; U. of Washington, Seattle Presenter: Kurt Gray; U. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill The effects of multicultural experience on social tolerance during times of crisis Presenter: Carmit T. Tadmor; Tel Aviv U. Presenter: Manchi Chao; Hong Kong U. of Science and Technology Presenter: Ying-yi Hong; Nanyang Technological U. Multicultural Experience and Social Network Brokerage Presenter: Eva Hsin-Lian Lin; London Business School Presenter: Raina A. Brands; U. College London School of Management Cultural Diversity Broadens Social Networks Presenter: Adrienne Wood; U. of Virginia Presenter: Adam M. Kleinbaum; Dartmouth College Presenter: Thalia Wheatley; Dartmouth College

A study on applying the living lab method to Korean language educations

The goal of this study is to understand the needs of international undergraduate learners and students from multicultural background, and to develop and evaluate a learner-centered Korean language education program based on the method of the living lab. The living lab activity implemented with members of a university Korean language and literature club, who were required to conduct a need analysis of international learners and, divided into four teams, create a living lab program. The goal of the four teams was 1) to develop Korean language material which included characteristics of the regional area, 2) foster cultural understanding through the development of a multicultural narrative collection, 3) create videos dealing with idiomatic expressions for advanced Korean language learners, and 4) run a counseling community for peers. Analysis and evaluation was conducted on two groups, and demonstrated that participants engaged in active and spontaneous learning. This study contributes to the literature in Korean language education by demonstrating a learner-centered approach based on the living lab method. Considerations on the program expansion and sustainability remain as future task.

The sustainability of multicultural music education in Guizhou Province, China

Sustainability has been incorporating multiculturalism in music education (MME) for decades, but the dialogs of MME in China has always focused on school education, neglecting community-based music education. The cultural-political context of this study is in Xijiang, southwest China, where is a Miao-dominated community integrating Miao, Han and other ethnic cultures. This study employed a mixed-method approach with a convergent parallel design that combined a survey with qualitative methods including casual conversation, semi-structured interview, and documentary analysis. Findings revealed that despite the promotion and inheritance of Miao’s music are highly valued, and the interest of minority ethnic communities in engaging in music learning and performance remains considerable, the sustainability of multicultural music education in Xijiang is in question. Problems are attributed to inadequate and unequal educational resources, devaluation of state institutes, shortage of teachers, and high illiterate rate. This article contributes to theorizing on sustainability in multicultural music education within a multicultural background in southwest China, by identifying the stakeholders in the education system and drawing on the empirical evidence on the truly needs of communities. The implications of the study include improvements in the development of multicultural music education.

Perceived ethnic discrimination and school connectedness among adolescents in Finland: Role of family background and sex

The study investigates the effect of immigrant background and sex on perceived ethnic discrimination and school connectedness in Finland. An online questionnaire was completed by 1,827 adolescents (12-19 years of age) from both Finnish and Swedish speaking schools in Western Finland. Adolescents’ family background was categorized as either native, multicultural, or immigrant. Perceived ethnic discrimination was examined according to its source, whether it acted out by peers, by teachers, or by someone else. Adolescents with an immigrant background were found to have higher scores of perceived ethnic discrimination regardless of its source, and lower school connectedness than other groups. Boys had higher scores of perceived ethnic discrimination by peers and by someone else, and they also reported higher school connectedness than girls. There was also a significant interaction effect between immigrant background and student sex, so that girls with a multicultural background experienced higher levels of discrimination by peers and discrimination by someone else than boys with a multicultural background.

Target Congruence as a Means of Understanding the Risk of Bullying Victimization among Multicultural Family Youth in South Korea

This study used data from the Multicultural Adolescents Panel Study (MAPS) to apply propositions found in target congruence theory (TCT) to self-reported bullying victimization experienced by multicultural family youth living in South Korea. Results from a sample of 1,443 multicultural family youth show that indicators of target vulnerability (e.g., depression and acculturative stress) and target antagonism (e.g., Korean ability and perceptions toward South Korea) significantly predict school bullying victimization in the theoretically expected directions. Directly, our results highlight the importance of considering variables specific to children with multicultural backgrounds when developing anti-bullying campaigns. Broadly, our results suggest that propositions outlined in TCT may be useful when implementing programs intended to prevent victimization.

Understanding of Multicultural Sustainability through Mutual Acceptance: Voices from Intercultural Teachers’ Previous Early Education

The objective of this article was to examine multicultural sustainability with reference to appropriate manners suitable for creating an atmosphere of mutual acceptability. The focus was on previous early education among the intercultural teachers. The participants included ten teachers, five Muslims and five non-Muslim, with intercultural backgrounds, who were selected to be involved in this study. A structured interview was employed, and a thematic analysis was performed on the basis of the research findings. The findings revealed that there were several themes resulting from conducted interviews that were centered around understandings of multicultural sustainability based on learning experiences in previous early education. When evaluating the intercultural awareness of mutual acceptability within the context of a multicultural background, among the themes operating as key strategic elements for achieving multicultural sustainability through mutual acceptance were situational experience, mutual understanding, mutual trust, and awareness of mutual responsibility with a view to maintaining intercultural relations. This study contributes to the expansion of strategies employed by intercultural teachers in a modern context, with respect to a meaningful concern for acceptance in ensuring the achievement of multicultural adaptability.

단편소설을 활용한 중학교 다문화 배경 학습자의 읽기 교육 방안

본 연구의 목적은 중학교 다문화 배경 학습자를 위한 읽기 교육 방안을 모색하는 데 있다. 이를 위하여 2017년에 개정된 한국어 교육과정(KSL)을 참고하였고 내용 중심 교수법(CBI)을 바탕으로 김유정의 단편소설 「봄봄」을 활용하여 총 4차시의 한국어 읽기 교육 방안을 마련하였다. 그 결과 1차시에는 소설의 시대적 배경과 작가를 탐구하고 소설을 바탕으로 제작된 애니메이션을 시청한 후 어휘학습을 한다. 2차시에는 소설을 읽고 주제 및 인물, 사건, 배경을 파악한다. 3차시에는 역할극을 준비하고 4차시에는 역할극을 수행하고 평가한다. 본 연구는 교육부의 지침을 바탕으로 중학교에서 한국어와 한국문화 교육을 직접 실행할 수 있는 방안을 제시하였다는 점에서 의의가 있다. 이는 장기적인 다문화 교육 지원 계획을 수립하거나 중등 한국어 교육과정에 필요한 교재를 개발할 때 참고할 수 있는 자료가 될 수 있을 것이다.

Politeness Strategies used by the Students with Regional Multicultural Background

his study aimed to describe the politeness strategy used by the students of Language and Science Faculty in Wijaya Kusuma Surabaya University with different regional multicultural backgrounds. The data in this qualitative study were taken from 20 participants, in which 10 participants were non-Javanese, and 10 participants were Javanese. The data were collected, documented, transcribed, reduced, and coded to make the analysis easier. The analysis was done by following these procedures 1) the data were classified based on the students’ place of origin, types of politeness, and the strategies they used and displayed 2) the data were analyzed using Brown’s and Levinson’s theory of politeness strategies. The finding reveals that both groups of students used negative and positive politeness strategies; however, the types of strategies are different. The non-Javanese students used strategies of apologizing and being pessimistic in negative politeness strategy while the Javanese students used strategies of apologizing, hedging, and giving deference. In positive politeness strategies, the non-Javanese students used strategies of avoiding disagreement, promising, exaggerating, and seeking agreement; meanwhile, the Javanese students used avoiding disagreement, exaggerating, and giving for reason strategies.

Multicultural Practice in Secondary Schools With Multicultural Background

Multicultural Practice in Secondary Schools With Multicultural Background

The Inheritance of National Music in College Music Education under the Multicultural Background

The Inheritance of National Music in College Music Education under the Multicultural Background

A survey of Korean elementary schoolteachers on their communication with students and parents from migrant backgrounds and the need for quality language services

This paper investigates communication problems facing teachers when they interact with students and parents from migrant backgrounds, and explores the need for quality language services in educational settings. According to a questionnaire-based survey of 142 elementary schoolteachers, about 20–25 per cent of respondents frequently experienced difficulties in communicating with students and parents who lacked Korean language proficiency. However, the teachers usually managed without outside assistance largely because of the lack of language support services. Effective communication is needed through the delivery of more language services to support children’s learning, school education and parents’ meaningful participation in both. Most teachers surveyed supported more effective language services in their schools, but were not very vocal in advocating for professional interpreting services. Instead, they tended to emphasise other forms of language and cultural training for multicultural students and their parents. This response may derive from their lack of experience with professional interpreting services, and a lack of awareness of the limited resources available for quality service provision or the influence of assimilation policies. The findings also indicate that teachers do not consider the interpreting and translation skills of language service providers as highly as cross-cultural mediation skills, understanding of the education system or interest in individual students’ needs. The results call for further research into what would constitute best practice in educational interpreting to effectively mediate cultural differences between schools and multicultural families, and address the needs and concerns of teachers, students and parents from multicultural backgrounds.