Cultural Social Change Research Articles

A Comparative Study of Social Address Terms in Chinese and English

The system of address terms is an indispensible part of human communication. Social address terms are subordinates of all the address terms humans have. They are used to denote people other than family members. Compared with kinship terms, the usage of social address terms is much more complex and flexible. First, the actual choices of social address terms are determined by the complex social relationship and social roles rather than blood relationship. Besides, the social address terms are unstable and subject to change. As the social structure and cultural values change, social address terms that denote interpersonal relationship will change accordingly. As a result of these features, social address terms are more likely to cause problems in communication because a person has no definite address terms in a society. Chinese and English social address terms bear great differences due to the huge cultural differences. In this paper, a comparison of Chinese and English social address terms is made and the cultural differences behind them discussed. It is hoped that the paper is of some help to cross-cultural communication and those who concern with the investigation of address terms.

Pre-menarche Pubertal Development Following Unique Form of Immigration: The Case of Girls Adopted from China

Our study tested the hypothesis that drastic social-cultural change has an impact on girls' pre-menarche pubertal development. We focused on a unique group of Chinese immigrants who migrated out of China in infancy through international adoption. Our sample included 298 Chinese girls who were 7.3-11.1 years in 2011 (Mean = 8.8, SD = 0.9) and were adopted at 7-24 months (Mean = 12.6, SD = 3.4). We found that 34% showed at least one of four signs of pubertal development: Growth spurt, body fat increase, breast development, and body hair. Logistic regression analyses showed that the odds of growth spurt was raised by the girls' age in 2011, behavior problems in 2005, but lowered by the adoptive families' household income; the odds of body fat increase in 2011 was raised by the adopted Chinese girls' weight in 2007 and behavior problems in 2005, but was lowered by the adoptive mother's education level; the odds for breast development in 2011 was raised by the girls' age in 2011, weight in 2007, and behavior problems in 2009. For body hair, none of the factors predicted the odds. Prevalence of precocious puberty, based on the criterion of breast development before 8 years, was 3.5%. Overall, our study suggests that the pre-menarche pubertal development of adopted Chinese girls may be slightly advanced but also is affected by factors that affect non-adopted girls' pubertal development.

Diet, social differentiation and cultural change in Roman Britain: new isotopic evidence from Gloucestershire

This study uses stable isotope analyses (δ13C and δ15N) of human bone collagen to reconstruct the diet of three Romano-British (first to early fifth century AD) populations from Gloucestershire in South West England. Gloucestershire was an important part of Roman Britain with two major administrative centres at Gloucester (Glevum) and Cirencester (Corinium) and numerous smaller settlements and farmsteads. To investigate potential dietary differences between the rural and urban populations of Roman Gloucestershire, we compared human bone collagen stable isotope values from 32 individuals from urban Gloucester with those of 46 individuals from two rural cemeteries at Horcott Quarry and Cotswold Community, respectively. Seven individuals from urban Gloucester were buried in a mass grave; all others were buried in single inhumations. Results show small but significant differences in stable isotope ratios between the urban and rural populations which indicate that the urban population might have consumed slightly more marine and/or freshwater resources than the people living in the rural communities. We interpret this difference as a direct reflection of Rome’s influence on Gloucester’s population and the town’s economic status. Subtle differences in stable isotope ratios were also observed at the site level, as burial practice does correlate with diet in some cases. Overall, the results from this study demonstrate that diet, as reconstructed through stable isotope analysis, is a very sensitive, if settlement-specific, indicator of social differentiation and culture change.

Media communication strategies for climate-friendly lifestyles – Addressing middle and lower class consumers for social-cultural change via Entertainment-Education

This paper argues that Entertainment-Education (E-E) is a striking communication strategy for reaching middle and lower socio-economic classes with climate-friendly lifestyle messages. On the international level (e.g. in the US and the Netherlands) E-E approaches are being theoretically grounded, whereas in Germany they are not yet. Therefore further theoretical discussion and mapping of E-E approaches is central for future research. As a first step towards providing further theoretical foundations for E-E in the field of sustainability, the authors suggest a threefold mapping of E-E approaches. The threefold mapping of E-E approaches for communicating climate-friendly lifestyles to middle and lower class consumers is based on recent results from academic research and practical developments on the media market. The commonalities among the three is that they all promote pro-sustainability messages in an affective-orientated rather than cognitive-orientated, factual manner. Differences can be found in: the sender of the sustainability message, the targeted consumer groups and the media approach in use. Based on this, the paper draws the conclusion that two new paths for further research activities in the field of Entertainment-Education can be proposed: (1) Improving the existing approaches in practice by using theoretical foundation from the E-E field. This comprises at its core (A) to do formative, process and summative effect research on the messages and (B) to use E-E theory from the field of social psychology, sociology and communication science for further improvement and (2) Generating new E-E theories by analyzing the existing practical approaches in the media to communicate climate change.

Hybridisation of business norms as intercultural dialogue: The case of two post-Soviet countries

This article provides an in-depth exploration of the nature of the cultural shift in business norms in two former Soviet Union republics: Estonia and Belarus. While questioning the linearity of existing models describing social–cultural change and, drawing on Lotman's model (1990), the paper points to a complex interplay of past and present, Western and local traditions in the transformational context of the post-Soviet countries. The analysis is based on a set of semi-structured in-depth interviews with Belarusian and Estonian entrepreneurs, who conveyed their attitudes towards transition and current management practices in the region. Exploring the issue on both a temporal (pre-Soviet and post-Soviet) and a spatial (Western/non-Western) axis the paper discusses the relationship between the ‘importing’ and ‘exporting’ of values, which take place across each of them, and concludes with what the analysis can tell us about cultural transformation more generally.

Tveskov's Straw Man: A Response to “Social Identity and Culture Change on the Southern Northwest Coast”

Some anthropologists, however, suggest that indigenous people are often inventing tradition and identity in a politically expedient and historically spurious way, sometimes even by reading or misreading anthropological texts. Brian Haley and Larry Wilcoxon, for example, suggest that the identities and traditions of the contemporary Chumash of southern California are best described as a “tale” of “ethnogenesis.” [p. 431]

The future of services in rural England: The drivers of change and a scenario for 2015

Fostering better and more equitable access to services in rural England needs to be more firmly grounded in an appreciation of a rapidly changing context. Accordingly, the research presented in this paper, undertaken for the most part in 2005, has sought to establish the changing nature and intensity of the demand by rural households for services over the next few years, likely changes in the factors shaping the supply of such services, and the expression of those likely changes in demand and supply in a scenario of rural service delivery in the year 2015. The focus is upon: services for rural residents rather than for rural businesses or rural service outlets as such; services provided for those residents by any sector, whether statutory, commercial, voluntary or community; and services delivered by any means, including fixed-location outlets, mobile units, home delivery and information and communication technology (ICT). Thus, the work has involved an exploration of the likely drivers of change affecting either demand or supply rather than a reliance on a mechanistic forward projection of existing or putative trends. On the demand side, attention has been paid to various drivers which are likely to change the size and content of the ‘basket of services’ that England's rural residents will demand by 2015. These drivers are demographic and social change, cultural change, disposable income and government policies. Research on the supply side has focused on how services are likely to be delivered to rural residents in 2015—a dimension that will have its own drivers of change. The concept of ‘manner of supply’ is explored with reference to delivery outlets (fixed, mobile, home delivery, e-delivery), settlement hierarchy (village, small town, larger town) the timing of delivery (e.g. flexible hours and 24/7 availability) and what is termed the ‘governance of supply’, to include the role of the public, private, voluntary/community sectors, partnerships, etc. With that in mind, the list of principal supply drivers again includes demographic, social and cultural change, especially in relation to the endowment of social capital in rural areas; the diffusion of new technology, notably ICT and especially as it may affect intra-business, business-to-business, and business-to-household communication; government policies at the national, regional and local levels; and competition and the changing corporate policies of the various service suppliers. Reflecting on all those drivers with the help of a wide range of interviews and focus groups has produced a scenario of 18 mutually consistent statements all relating to the year 2015. This scenario indicates a need to anticipate, monitor and respond to the likelihood that, left unchecked, many of the anticipated developments will be socially regressive. It highlights a need to put more emphasis on increasing the human and social capital of rural areas; on facilitating locally tailored responses to the various challenges; and on the need to foster a more co-ordinated planning of service delivery across both the spatial and social dimensions. With hindsight it can be seen that one remarkable omission from the scenario is any mention of the potential impact of climate change on the delivery of rural services. This was not raised by any participant in the research process, an object lesson on how an issue can rise from virtually nowhere to the top of the political agenda in a very short time. A note on this phenomenon is set out as a postscript at the end of the paper.

The Varieties of University Entrepreneurialism: Thematic Patterns and Ambiguities in Swedish University Strategies

The idea of the ‘entrepreneurial university’ has captured the imagination of academics and policy makers for some time now. However, most of the recent writings on the subject have tended to emphasize technology transfer in terms of spin-off creation and licensing. This article takes its point of departure in the strategy formulations of Swedish public universities to inquire into the varieties of university entrepreneurialism, that is the breadth of the spectrum from short- to medium-term capitalization from innovation, to social outreach and organizational cultural change. The study builds on a qualitative content analysis of strategy documents which explicates and discusses ongoing and planned third mission activities – including commercialization and outreach – at Swedish universities. The strategy categories derived from this study include (1) support infrastructures for commercialization, (2) internal knowledge building and cultural change, and (3) outreach and sectoral cooperative activities, as well as eight subcategories. The article contributes an explication and a discussion of these categories, and concludes with a number of issues relating to the way universities may develop these strategic dimensions given the conflicting or ambiguous goals present in the notion of the entrepreneurial university.

Social Identity and Culture Change on the Southern Northwest Coast

Driven by the participation of Native American people in the contemporary political, cultural, and academic landscape of North America, public and academic discussions have considered the nature of contemporary American Indian identity and the persistence, survival, and (to some) reinvention of Native American cultures and traditions. I use a case study—the historical anthropology of the Native American people of the Oregon coast—to examine the persistence of many American Indian people through the colonial period and the subsequent revitalization of “traditional” cultural practices. Drawing on archaeological data, ethnohistorical accounts, and oral traditions, I offer a reading of how, set against and through an ancestral landscape, traditional social identities and relationships of gender and authority were constructed and contested. I then consider how American Indian people negotiated the new sets of social relationships dictated by the dominant society.

Network Theory and Religious Innovation

Network theory recognizes that ideas and technology are transmitted along social interconnections, and cultural and religious change can be understood as emergent phenomena through analysis of the variability and dynamics of these interconnections. ‘Information cascade’ describes the diffusion of information across a network, providing, when combined with sociological theory of religious conversion, a way of re-approaching the success of the monotheistic ‘innovation’. Instead of viewing success as a measure of inherent merit, using networks means the observed outcomes need not be ‘superior’. This is in conflict with evolutionary theory, and this paper attempts to begin to reconcile these differing approaches.

Between Two Languages: Student-Teachers Teach Jewish Content

This study focuses on the utilization of different Jewish languages by student-teachers in a two year teacher education program. The study examined the Jewish language used by these students while teaching Jewish content, making the distinction between their personal Jewish language and the cultural Jewish language of the program, which they were expected to use. We found a definite change in the languages used by them: although they seemed, at first, to adopt the cultural Jewish language of the curriculum, they quickly reverted to their personal Jewish language, which, in most cases, was the traditional one. By so doing they actually created a new version of the original program. We conclude that the idea of educating teachers to lead a significant social cultural change involves an inner struggle between the teachers' personal language and that of the program, that may be more difficult to win than was initially expected. This study examines the role of student-teachers' personal Jewish language in their teaching of Jewish content and the relationship that develops between their personal Jewish language and that of the Jewish content they teach.

MEANS OF DESIRE'S PRODUCTION: MALE SEX LABOR IN CUBA1

Tourism has provided myriad spaces in which black Cuban subjects participate in self-making, yet within a field still constrained by historical structures of sexual and racial interpellation. This essay focuses on the local social cultural context of male sex labor in Havana, Cuba, from 1998 to 2003. It explores the subjective intentions of young Cuban men during the Special Period in Times of Peace and current Transition on the island, relative to the gaze of tourists and social cultural and economic change in Cuba.

Differentiating Livelihood Strategies among the Luo and Kipsigis People in Western Kenya

Rural communities of sub-Saharan Africa are under increasing adaptive pressure resulting from decline in the quality of land resources. To increase food, generate income, and safeguard against risks and shocks, families are engaging in multiple livelihood strategies. This study was conducted to: 1) evaluate livelihood strategies; 2) examine the dynamic diversification process in the agrarian and non-agrarian continuum; and 3) investigate how type and availability of assets influences choice of a livelihood strategy. Results from our investigation in western Kenya suggest that as land is subjected to degradation, there is a shift in the type of assets that families can draw upon. Among the Luo, collision between deeply embedded cultural beliefs and access to land, is leading to a shift from farming to non-farming activities. They are heavily reliant on human labor to make a living hence becoming less resilient, and more vulnerable to existing and emerging risks and shocks. The overriding scenario is escalated land degradation, increased poverty levels, and a failed social support system. Asset diversification and intensification processes among the Kipsigis are closely intertwined with rapid social-cultural change and strong bonding and bridging ties. They are involved in an asset-led intensification and diversification strategies. Overall, our findings suggest that the ability to make a meaningful livelihood is dependent not only on the quality and quantity of assets that an individual household possesses, but also having capabilities to use and transform the assets as well.

An Empirical Assessment of Social Structural and Cultural Change in Clinical Directorates

The results of two observational studies of clinical directorates (CDs) are presented. The paper exposes fresh perspectives about the management of hospitals and CDs, and suggests that the most important axis on which hospital decision-making rests continues to be profession rather than the CD, even though CDs are designed at least in part to mitigate professional tribalism and bridge professional divides. In empiricising social structural and cultural theories it seems clear that changes to the prescribed organisational framework, which CDs represent, have had negligible effects on behaviour. This being the case, the paper questions the benefits alleged to have accrued from establishing CDs and calls for more effective, micro-behavioural change strategies than merely altering the structure.

Parental Control in Latino Families: An Integrated Review of the Literature

Using social information processing and cultural change models as explanatory frameworks, this article reviews the literature on Latino parental control and its implications for child development. It is argued that the use of parental control in Latino families may have motivational roots in cultural childrearing goals such as familismo (familism), respeto (respect), and educación (moral education). Consideration of these underpinnings, in conjunction with psychological and methodological issues, helps to explain variability in the use of Latino parental control and its effect on child development. Recommendations for future research include refinement of control and acculturation instruments, and attention to both contextual and individual variables.

Learning Conservation: the role of conservation covenants in landscape redesign at Project Hindmarsh, Victoria

Biodiversity decline continues apace across the Australian landscape with a pressing need to redesign land use to address this situation. The significance of private land increasingly is recognised for the protection and enhancement of biodiversity as landholders inevitably make decisions that affect environmental quality. Biodiversity conservation is as much a social process as a physical one. Conservation covenants are perpetual agreements under which landholders choose to conserve land voluntarily, primarily for conservation purposes. The role covenants might play in landscape-scale conservation was investigated in north-western Victoria. In-depth interviews with a range of participants were undertaken, with an emphasis on the role covenantors might play as social learning and cultural change agents. Analysis of these interviews offers useful perspectives for understanding socio-cultural dimensions of landscape change and exploring the differing values of production farmers and nature conservation landholders. Consideration is then given to approaches to engaging local production farmers in nature covenants and promoting communication between this group and the largely non-production conservationists who currently form the mainstay of conservation covenants.

Protest, public relations en politiek. Provo in de media (1965-1967)

The political style of the Dutch protest movement Provo was characterized by a considerable orientation to publicity in which television played an important role. In the Netherlands various broadcasting corporations gave this high-profile phenomenon coverage - each in their own way and within different<br /> categories of programmes (news programmes debating programmes and talk shows). Provo was therefore far more than just a 'folk devils' phenomenon; television created a multitude of stereotypes and images that were then projected onto the group identity by members of Provo. This case study is intended to be a<br /> contribution to the analysis of the dynamic relationship between television and the protest movement in the 1960s and to that of the mediatory role of television in social-cultural change processes in general.

The Analysis of Culture Revisited: Pure Texts, Applied Texts, Literary Historicisms, Cultural Histories

TheoryWhat is the relationship between study of canonical texts and broader social and cultural history? This question lies behind the contemporary academic issue of historicism and the public that broke out in the late 1980s, but it was asked by Raymond Williams in the late 1950s and by German and French intellectuals of the 1930s. For the purposes of the present argument I shall distinguish between three broad phases in the responses of those who have taken the inquiry up most actively. Each phase began with what were perceived as crises or turning-points in the humanities corresponding to watersheds in wider history. The first and most profound began after the global crisis of 1929-33 and continued through the global wars that followed. A second began in the mid-1950s after McCarthyism, the consolidation of the Cold War and the Soviet invasion of Hungary. A third phase began in the mid-1970s, after the events of 1968 brought on the extended period of social unrest which found one important epicenter in the universities themselves and which broke out again in the more civilized form of the culture wars already mentioned.Most discussions of historicism do not engage directly with the practice of history. The second half of the paper will therefore ask what the theoretical account offered in the first half means for historical research that starts from past texts, and will include as one of its practical examples a case-study in the modern intellectual history offered in outline below.Literary Histories of IdeasAfter the First World War an intellectual revolt took place against the isolation of aesthetic experience in the European tradition. It was led in England and America by teachers who wanted to establish that the general critical intelligence acquired in English literary studies could be applied in extra-literary fields from anthropology to social psychology. In England, English literature as a single discipline was to be the liaison field of study; in America it fell to pre-professional literary education in general.1 The common project was to use refined literary experience of texts as the base from which to conduct valueladen, historically informed analysis of the contemporary problems of interwar European and American society, of western culture and civilization.2 As consolidated in English intellectual culture between the pre-war and immediate post-war period this has been dubbed the moment of Scrutiny, the influential literary periodical headed by F. R. Leavis. In American intellectual culture it might well be dubbed the moment of Partisan Review, an equally influential periodical whose leading literary critic was Lionel Trilling.3Leavis's at once dissident and elitist literary criticism concealed a sociology designed to salvage the humane culture of an earlier England from amidst the decay of mass civilization.4 Trilling used European culture to critique what he perceived to be the superficiality of modern American civilization and literature. His criticism became the Ellis Island of intellectual life, the product of an immigrant culture desirous of assimilation by means of high culture to an American society whose better values were formed by the European canon.5 For both, then, distinctive histories of society and social change, culture and cultural change were central to the enterprise of criticism.6 Culture in their hands was a value-laden English or European way of life that shaped and was shaped by the highest artistic consciousness. As such, it carried a new awareness of alienation and repression in the midst of modern society or civilization. The aesthetic critical sense of a Leavis or a Trilling was now a sense of past and present cultural and social life. It competed successfully with claims to the same ground made by what were seen as cruder sociological theories of history, especially those of Marxist of progressive-liberal inspiration. This was the only form of cultural criticism widely on offer in literary studies in England and America before the late 1950s. …

Out of Whiteness: Color, Politics, and Culture

Essays focus on epistemological and methodological issues in the analysis of racially marked forms of ?white? identity, subjectivity and power. A strong critique of related work in this field is developed, with reference to the USA, South Africa and the UK. Drawing on sociological, anthropological and geographical theories of social movements and cultural change and using historical and contemporary case studies, essays argue for a genealogical approach to anti-racism as a global social movement, and for the significance of slavery and colonial history in the dismantling of English nationalism, particularly with regard to landscape and place.

Vessels of Honor and Dishonor: The Symbolic Character of Irish Earthenware

The symbols of Ireland are today well known and widely recognized. The harp and the shamrock, and to a lesser extent, the wolfhound and the round tower, have symbolized Irish nationality for generations.1 Among other visual sym bols, some of the most renowned include imaginative images of Mother Ireland, Hibernia, and Erin.2 These metonymical symbols help men and women to envision the wider meanings of the images, and may evoke complex emotions, many of which may be deep-seated and even unrecognized by the individuals experiencing them. In addition to Ireland's most prominent sym bols, visual artists and, perhaps, craftspeople created and used symbols that were so subtle that they are today largely unrecognized. Recent research, con structed around archaeological findings, suggests that common course earth enware vessels may have functioned in this manner. Artists in the early nine teenth century may have used coarse earthenware vessels as a way to evoke sym bolically the image of traditional Ireland, at the precise time of social crisis and cultural change. The mundane character and functional uses of everyday ceramic containers helps to mask a deep, culturally significant meaning. Coarse earthenware is a soft-paste ceramic that is fired at a fairly low tem perature of one thousand to fifteen hundred degrees Fahrenheit. Ceramic spe cialists distinguish this type of ceramic from three other basic types: fine earthenware, which is generally harder, whiter in body color, having thin ves sel walls; porcelain, which is white in color and usually fired twice; and stoneware, which is extremely hard, thick-bodied, and often gray in color.