Version Of Multiculturalism Research Articles

Analisi preliminare della validità della Brief Multicultural Version of the Test of Mobile Phone Dependence (TMDbrief) su un campione di adolescenti italiani

This study presents a contribution to the Italian validation of the Brief Multicultural Version of the Test of Mobile Phone Dependence (TMDbrief) on a sample of Italian adolescents. TMDbrief is a scale of 12 items measuring four dimensions: abstinence, abuse, tolerance, lack of control. A sample of 442 adolescents (Age: M = 14.37; Gender: males, 23.6%) answered a questionnaire on the usage of digital media including the TMDbrief and two items on the frequency of mobile phone and Internet use. TMDbrief showed good construct validity and its applicability in the Italian context. Additionally, this scale can be used for research projects, prevention and educational interventions on the usage of new technologies.

The Phenomenon of “Multiple Identity” in Modern Kyrgyz Society

The article considers political processes in the Kyrgyz Republic through the prism of complexly structured identity and historical memory of the Kyrgyz people. Manifestations of retraditionalization of the Kyrgyz social organization are considered as an inevitable consequence of disengagement from the Union center’s control. The author emphasizes multilayered and segmented character of the Kyrgyz political culture that integrates traditionalism and modernization. The formation of multiple identity is characterized as a consequence of objective processes of reformatting the social environment as a result of technological innovations, intensification of intercultural and intercivilizational contacts, increasing mobility of the population. The article shows the fundamental role of the folk epic Manas in formation of national identity with the dominant tendency to strengthen the position of Islam in the multi-layered and syncretic religious practice of the Kyrgyz. The influence of tribal and clan self-identification on the political processes in the country is considered. There are factors that led to differences in the self-identification of urban and rural strata, as well as the Kyrgyz "North" and "South" of the country. The processes of ethno-cultural sovereignization of the titular ethnos, as well as other national groups of Kyrgyzstan are considered. The evolution of the state policy regarding the formation of a common civil identity in Kyrgyzstan, which provided for the implementation of the local version of multiculturalism, involving the protection of the ethno-cultural identity of national minorities, is shown.

Conceptual contours of migration studies in and from Asia

Conceptual contours of migration studies in and from Asia

Populism and the double liberalism: exploring the links

The rise of populism in the West is often depicted as opposition to a “double liberalism”, which is economic and cultural in tandem. In this optic, neoliberalism and multiculturalism are allied under a common liberal regime that prescribes “openness”, while populism rallies against both under the flag of “closure”. This paper questions the central assumptions of this scenario: first, that neoliberalism and multiculturalism are allies; and, secondly, that populism is equally opposed to neoliberalism and to multiculturalism. With respect to the alliance hypothesis, it is argued that only a diluted version of multiculturalism, in terms of diversity and antidiscrimination, is compatible with neoliberalism, which also needs to be sharply distinguished from liberalism. With respect to the dual opposition hypothesis, it is argued that the economic inequalities generated by neoliberalism may objectively condition populist revolts, but that these inequalities are not centrally apprehended and addressed in their programs; furthermore, it is argued that the rejection of multiculturalism indeed is central to populist mobilization, but that the two have important things in common, not least that both are variants of identity politics, if incompatible ones.

The Workplace Comedy and Pandemic Politics in Greg Daniels’ Upload

This paper examines the critical potential and pedagogic possibilities of the workplace television comedy during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is particularly interested in Greg Daniels’ Upload, a series that debuted during the first wave of infections in North America. Although it was produced before the current health crisis, Upload offers a prescient social commentary on the depravities of late capitalism, one that speaks to present concerns over access to vital health resources and the importance of “essential” workers, specifically in the service industry. However, Upload is driven by a liberal version of multiculturalism that emphasizes racial equality and ostensibly recognizes “difference” but downplays economic disparities and racial divisions of labor even as it draws on them repeatedly in its critique of inequality. Whereas the series effectively challenges the monetization of everyday life and death, a point of praise for many critics, it fails to disrupt or even call attention to how low-wage and purportedly low-skilled work is currently and historically racialized in the US. As a result, Upload’s efficacy as a social commentary and indictment of late capitalism is more interested in the unequal distribution of essential resources and services than the political economy of their provision, that is, the social relations of their production.

Between “us” and “others”: From identity traps to mobilization

Many scholars and analysts stated that multiculturalism failed and blamed it for fostering radicalization in pluralist societies. Such analyses seem however to be simplistic. Other dynamics, such as social acceleration and the erosion of social securities are in fact at work. The article discusses the meaning of radicalization and the process of the “ideologization of cultures”, highlighting that an “identity trap” can be found in both simplified versions of multiculturalism and even interculturalism and in new nationalist ideologies. It then discusses the idea of localizing and proceduralizing conflicts, matching such a legal approach to pluralism with a necessary political one. The value of pluralism can in fact only be affirmed by mediating and ‘taking seriously’ the demands of social actors. To articulate such claims in terms of “politics of difference” is a losing move. At the same time, this approach has succeeded in revealing the limits of modern universalism. On the theoretical level, our efforts should build on the longstanding work carried out by critical theories in general and feminist theory in particular to seek to render universalism more inclusive. Indeed, such a conception of universalism, which takes shape and content from the multiplicity of struggles and is conceived as constantly forming can inspire not only the struggle for rights but also political action which, instead of breaking apart into multiple identity-based demands, identifies the common objectives to be pursued.

Using theory and user-centered design in digital health: The development of the mychoice communication tool to prepare patients and improve informed decision making regarding clinical trial participation.

Designing salient digital health interventions requires theoretically-based formative research and user-center design with stakeholder input throughout impacting content and technology design. mychoice is a theory-based, stakeholder-guided digital health tool to improve clinical trial informed decision making, particularly among African American patients. mychoice was developed by (1) mixed-methods formative research, including in-depth interviews (n=16) and surveys (N=41) with African American cancer patients who had and had not participated in a clinical trial; (2) e-tool design process including perceptual mapping analysis to prioritize messages, multi-disciplinary team and stakeholder input; and (3) iterative production and user testing. Interview findings showed that clinical trial participants expressed more positive attributes about and an openness to consider clinical trials, even though they expressed common concerns such as "fear of being a guinea pig". Survey results indicated that clinical trial participants expressed they had been given information to make the decision (P = .001), while those who had not more frequently reported (P > .001) that no one had talked to them about trials. Perceptual mapping indicated that values such as "helping find a cure" or "value to society" had little resonance to those who had not participated, providing message strategy for prototype development. User testing of the tool resulted in modifications; the most significant was the adaptation to a multi-cultural version. With the promise of digital health interventions, theory-guided, user-centered and best practice development is critical and mychoice serves as an example of the application of these principles.

Must Interculturalists misrepresent multiculturalism?

Statements of and advocacy for interculturalism always seems to begin with a critique of multiculturalism and aspire to offer a new and alternative paradigm of diversity and citizenship. With particular reference to a recent publication, which marks the current state of the art debate between the two ‘isms’, I suggest that the critique is often not based on an engagement with multiculturalist authors but targets popular (mis)perceptions of multiculturalism. A consequence of this is that interculturalists fail to appreciate the limitations of their critique and of their claim to novelty. The newness of interculturalism may relate to the normative significance of the majority but less to intercultural dialogue or to an anti-essentialism. While interculturalism has a contribution to offer, eg, by a focus on micro-level interactions, on superdiversity and by challenging multiculturalists to think about the majority, it is best understood as a version of multiculturalism rather than as an alternative paradigm. Multiculturalism can benefit from the contribution of interculturalism but this may involve moderating interculturalist ideas so, for example, not abandoning an anti-essentialism that is consistent with the sociological reality of groups, or by taking on board the normative significance of the majority but without accepting the idea of a majority precedence. In this way what is of value in interculturalism can be taken on board within existing multiculturalist theoretical frameworks.

The Terrible Beauty of Transcendence: A Reflection on Easter 1916

The Terrible Beauty of Transcendence: A Reflection on Easter 19161 David Walsh The challenge of understanding the 1916 Easter Rising emerges from our own existence in a post-nationalist era. We subscribe to a multicultural version of society in which the state maintains the neutral role of securing the liberty of all who come under its authority. The age of nationalist passions has receded, even if there are still notable flare-ups. We have difficulty understanding the motivations of those who marched out on that Easter Monday morning to launch their assault on the temporarily unguarded bastions of empire. The theatrical and doomed character of the affair, lasting all of six days, only underlines its incomprehensibility. Despite the obligatory commemorations, we are almost as far from understanding it as the denizens of Dublin who awoke to discover that rebels had seized the most prominent buildings of their city. The bemused onlookers hardly considered they were in need of liberation, when they already enjoyed one of the freest regimes in the world. With personal liberties secured and political representation in parliament, there was little to demand politically, even if living conditions could always be improved. The gulf between the liberal and nationalist outlooks could scarcely be greater, and it must be conceded that we too find ourselves unprepared to bridge it. Perhaps the best homage we can render to the men and women of that astonishing outburst is to contemplate the chasm they opened in Irish – and, by extension, modern – political thinking. Our excursion will not follow the familiar narrative of the Rising but will instead undertake the more philosophic search for its meaning. Categories of historiography must be enlarged if we are to reach what eluded both participants and successors in their self-understanding of events. A first step is the admission of the incompatibility of the dominant modes of discourse. The ethos of national self-determination is perennially in tension with the elevation of individual liberty. The second stage is to apply this realisation to the concrete historical circumstances of Irish and British political life. It is only in this way that the anomalies come clearly into view, rather than Studies • volume 106 • number 422 159 The Terrible Beauty of Transcendence: A Reflection on Easter 1916 slide unremarked away. Once we have conceded the deeper tensions it will be possible, third, to suggest a way in which the character of the 1916 Rising provides a way of resolving them. A fourth and final section will then consider the Catholic inspiration as both a means of moderating revolutionary demands and promoting the path of constitutional liberty. The contradiction inherent in the nation state contains the possibility of its self-overcoming. Conflict between liberal and national The first thing that strikes us about the impassioned band of rebels in 1916 is their extensive rejection of the liberal outlook that defined late Edwardian society. These were men and women for whom the private liberty of being left alone was not enough. They sought a greater public purpose and they found it in the cause of national independence. Political liberty had definitively trumped individual liberty in their estimation. Turning their backs on the pursuit of material gain that the modern progressive economy had ushered in, they sought to return to a more primordial community of those who were united by the deeper bonds of language, culture and tradition. The soil and not the market was to be their lodestar. In this way they would find the enlargement of the heart that the cramped horizon of self-satisfaction could never provide. Rejecting the promise of security and comfort, they had turned to the irrevocability of self-sacrifice. From the distance of our own cocoon of comfort this may seem almost mad, but it is not so remote that we cannot sense the nobility that drew them. Action on the public stage supersedes the narrower fulfilments of private life. It is a theme with which we are familiar in contrasting the ancient and modern forms of liberty, the one public and the other private, without fully admitting their irreconcilability. For now, all that needs to be conceded is that in a regime of private liberty...

Development of a Brief Multicultural Version of the Test of Mobile Phone Dependence (TMDbrief) Questionnaire

The Test of Mobile Phone Dependence (TMD) questionnaire (Chóliz, 2012) evaluates the main features of mobile phone dependence: tolerance, abstinence syndrome, impaired impulse control, associated problems, excessive use, etc.Objective: The objective of this study was to develop a multicultural version of the TMD (TMDbrief) adapted to suit the novel communication tools of smartphones.Procedure: In this study, the TMD was completed by 2,028 young respondents in six distinct world regions: Southern Europe, Northwest Europe, South-America, Mesoamerica, Pakistan, and India.Results: Psychometric analysis of the reliability of the instrument and factor analysis were performed to adapt the TMDbrief for use in these regions. Differences among regions with respect to TMD Mobile Phone Dependence scores were obtained.Conclusion: A brief questionnaire for the evaluation of mobile phone addiction in cross-cultural studies was successfully developed.

(Inter)National Reconstruction: Revising Poststructuralist Encounters with the War in Bosnia and Herzegovina

The most serious problems in Bosnia and Herzegovina today are linked to the political practices of conflicting visions of nationhood and statehood. The international intervention in the country was expected to create self-sustaining political institutions and then withdraw. However, the fact that the intervention is ongoing shows its failure to do so. Many scholars have engaged this issue, but this article shows that some of the analyses that have been most critical of the international intervention also bring problems of their own. The article focuses on the encounters between collective Subjects and the ways they have been constituted in relation to one another. It warns that without carefully identifying these Subjects we risk serious misinterpretations, such as equating Bosnian Muslims, Bosniaks, and Bosnians. This misinterpretation occurs in two major critical works in IR's ‘poststructuralist canon’ that purport to critically engage the situation and, particularly, the international intervention in Bosnia and Herzegovina – David Campbell's National Deconstruction and Lene Hansen's Security as Practice. Campbell and Hansen rightly criticize the International Community's ethno-cultural essentialism, but in their critique they apply Campbell's radical-idealist version of multiculturalism. Based upon the ideal of a community without essence and the principle of affirming cultural diversity without situating it, this approach is not able to identify the Subjects involved or the unwelcome radicalization of the excluded Subjects, which leads to flawed conclusions as to how to sustainably resolve their conflict. In providing an academic corrective to such a hyper-liberal bias, this article seeks to increase the room-for-manoeuvre of those who seek to create self-sustaining political institutions in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Multiculturalism, Gender and Bend it Like Beckham

In this article, we explore the efficacy of sport as an instrument for social inclusion through an analysis of the film <em>Bend it Like Beckham</em>. The film argues for the potential of sport to foster a more inclusive society in terms of multiculturalism and gender equity by showing how a hybrid culture can be forged through the microcosm of an English young women’s football club, while simultaneously challenging assumptions about traditional masculinities and femininities. Yet, despite appearances, <em>Bend it Like Beckham</em> does little to challenge the structure of English society. Ultimately, the version of multiculturalism offered by the film is one of assimilation to a utopian English norm. This conception appears progressive in its availability to all Britons regardless of ethnicity, but falls short of conceptions of hybrid identity that do not privilege one hegemonic culture over others. Likewise, although the film presents a feminist veneer, underneath lurks a troubling reassertion of the value of chastity, masculinity, and patriarchy. <em>Bend it Like Beckham</em> thus provides an instructive case study for the potential of sport as a site of social inclusion because it reveals how seductive it is to imagine that structural inequalities can be overcome through involvement in teams.

Silent but imperial: ethno-racial transgressions and interracial brotherhood in the French–Hong Kongese fiction film Vengeance (2009)

This article centers on an analysis of the French–Hong Kongese- neo-noir crime film Vengeance from 2009. It demonstrates how the representations of inter-ethno-racial kinship in the film can be seen as a transgression and challenge of an existing mono-racial ideology. Thus, I argue that the film thematizes a subtle yet dichotomously structured friction between two imperial ethno-racial ideologies, namely between an emerging Christian version of multiculturalism embodied by the protagonist Francis Costello and his family and the existing Han Chinese mono-racial ideological order represented by Fung, the antagonist of the film. Further, the article contemplates how ethno-racial ideologies in Vengeance comment on other similar thematizations in contemporary East Asian cinema and on postcolonial and imperial histories in Asia at large. As a critical multiculturalist, the author stands in opposition to mono-ethno-racial ideologies while also being suspicious of uncritical or misconceived celebrations of multiculturalism.

Young children's responses to media representations of intergroup threat and ethnicity

Two studies are reported in which ethnic majority children's reactions to media representations of ethnic minorities are examined. In Study 1, 20 white Scottish 6-year-olds viewed short television stories in which white or ethnic minority children were depicted as hostile to the participants' in-group (threat present) or not (threat absent). A strong effect of threat on liking was obtained but no effect of ethnicity of target and no interaction. In Study 2, 4- and 6-year-old white Scottish children viewed PowerPoint displays in which Scottish people were shown only as white (traditional version) or as ethnically diverse (multicultural version). Intergroup threat was manipulated. Again, a strong effect of threat was obtained. However, when threat was absent, participants exposed to the traditional condition liked the white out-group more than the multi-ethnic out-group, while participants exposed to the multicultural condition liked the multi-ethnic out-group more than the white out-group. The results are interpreted as consistent with the predictions of Social Identity Development Theory.

The Bouchard-Taylor Report on Cultural and Religious Accommodation: Multiculturalism by Any Other Name?

In 2008, Gerard Bouchard and Charles Taylor released an important report as Co-Chairs of the Consultation Commission on Accommodation Practices Related to Cultural Differences. The Commission was set up by the Quebec government in response to public discontent concerning reasonable accommodation of religious and cultural practices. In the report, four delicate issues, among others, are examined: cultural integration, collective identity, church-state relations and the most appropriate procedures for handling cultural and religious harmonization requests. Altogether, the Co-Chairs’ positions propound a normative conception of sociocultural integration in a pluralist society. This conception, that may be called is conceived by the commissioners as an alternative to The text examines whether interculturalism, as conceived in the report, is anything but a version of multiculturalism. The contention is that it is a rose by any other name.

Culturalism: From idea to unconscious presupposition

The authors argue that the ideas found in the harder versions of multiculturalism have already been supported by the mid-20th century social-cultural anthropology - both in the scholarly works and in the political activism of its proponents. This form of cultural relativism, making the leap from anthropological method to ontological claims about the organic essence of cultures, is hereby named ?culturalism?. By this notion the authors understand a theory of culture that includes central anthropological ideas: a culture precedes and determines individuals belonging to it; cultures have unlimited freedom to generate differences, uninhibited by any human nature; cultures form closed, organic units where all their different articulations, from gastronomy to theology, form an unbreakable whole which implies that these value systems are unique and in no way may be compared with, or judged against, other value systems. Cultural relativism formulated in the American anthropology of the 1940?s and onwards is far from being a simple doctrine. It consists of a whole cluster of loosely connected facts, axioms, propositions, ranging from the completely unproblematic, to strongly problematic and even hardly understandable ideas. All those statements have been critically scrutinized in this paper.

Application to graduate psychology programs by undergraduate students of color: The impact of a research training program.

The top 86 students were selected from a pool of approximately 400 applicants to a summer clinical psychology research training program for undergraduate students of color. Forty-three of the students were randomly assigned to 1 of 2 clinical psychology research training programs, and 43 were randomly assigned to a control condition without training. The multicultural version of the training program emphasized the cultural context of psychology in all areas of training, whereas cultural context was de-emphasized in the monocultural version of the program. Although the cultural content of the 2 training programs was effectively manipulated as indicated by a fidelity check by an outside expert, there were no significant differences between the effects of the 2 programs on the outcomes measured in this study. The primary differences in this study were between students who did versus those who did not participate in a training program. Sixty-five percent of the students who completed the multicultural training program applied to graduate schools in psychology, compared with 47% of those who completed the monocultural training program, and 31% of those in the control group. Participation in summer research training programs also increased self-perceptions of multicultural competence.

Multicultural society and everyday cultural racism: second generation of Ethiopian Jews in Israel's ‘crisis of modernization’

The core of this article sets out to examine the extent to which a multicultural society can prevent cultural racism, which, like multiculturalism, is by definition based on a culture of diversity and separation. The ‘first modernity’ was organized along national lines, with a centralist state that opted to create an essentialist and uncontested national identity. Immigrants, especially those who came from ‘third world’ countries, were expected to undergo a process of assimilation, and to integrate into the dominant culture by relinquishing their particular past and tradition. Multiculturalism, which emerged historically as a criticism of that perspective, aims at creating a kaleidoscope of associations and cultural communities, which inevitably presents a challenge to the one ‘truth’ of the nation-state with the argument that this ‘truth’ favours some groups over others. Within the multicultural model, identity politics of various groups is perceived as a means to achieve recognition, acceptance, respect and even public affirmation of differences. However, do multicultural society and identity-related differences provide a solution to cultural racism as well? Investigating the second generation of the Ethiopian Jews, who migrated to Israel during its transformation from ethno-national republicanism to a neo-liberal, multicultural society, can help answer this question. By presenting their patterns of association, character of protest activities and the newly formed hybrid identity that Ethiopian youth have developed as a means to liberate themselves from a discriminating reality, and by examining the Others’ reaction to that challenge, this article uncovers certain mechanisms and methods of action through which a multicultural society, having a thin and mild version of multiculturalism, does not diminish cultural racism, particularly its everyday non-institutional version, but in fact augments it.

Theatrum Mundi: Odin Teatret's Ur-Hamlet

In 2006 Odin Teatret performed its multicultural version of Ur-Hamlet, derived from its early thirteenth-century origins in the Gesta Danorum of Saxo Grammaticus, in the castle courtyard of Kronborg – the Elsinore setting for Shakespeare's version four centuries later. But the performance here followed years of preparation, and involved a multiplicity of theatre styles and performing traditions. The production had its beginnings at sessions of the International School of Theatre Anthropology (ISTA) in Seville in 2004 and Wroclaw in 2005, and preparations continued in Holstebro, Copenhagen, and Bali from 2004 to 2006. Erik Exe Christoffersen followed the final rehearsals in Ravenna, and here gives an account of the Kronborg performance. Erik Exe Christoffersen is Associate Professor at the Institut for Æstetiske Fag, Department for Dramaturgy, Aarhus University, Denmark. His most recent publications include The Actor's Way (Routledge, 1993) and Teaterhandlinger (Theatre Actions, 2007). He is Editor of the Danish theatre journal Peripeti:Tidskrift for Dramaturgiske Studier.

Editorial


 
 
 Building cultural citizenship: Multiculturalism and children’s literature
 In his influential book White Nation: Fantasies of White Supremacy in a Multicultural Society (1998), Ghassan Hage compares different versions of multiculturalism using an example from a children’s book, The Stew that Grew by Michael and rhonda Gray. the book presents an allegory of Australian cultural diversity: the ‘eureka stew’ which features ingredients brought by all the ethnic groups that make up the Australian nation. According to Hage, it is an allegory fraught with ideological paradox: ‘far from celebrating cultural diversity – or rather, in the process of so doing,’ the book actually embodies ‘a White nation fantasy in which White Australians...enact...their capacity to manage this diversity.’ (p.119) He explains that although the stew is presented as the palatable blend of all the cultural influences which went into its making, it is not a mix where all cultures are equal: the Anglo character Blue is in charge of the cooking throughout; the ‘ethnics’ are reduced to the function of adding flavour.