Western Cultural Values Research Articles

Genital Culture: Exploring the Cultural Importance of Genital Surgery in the West

In “Feminism Versus Multiculturalism”, Leti Volpp argues that Western conceptions of third-world culture as uniquely oppressive to women work to conceal the ways that Western culture itself also promotes patriarchal and normative practices that can be dangerous and degrading to women. In this paper, I will take up this argument by demonstrating how Western discourse vilifies cultures that engage in female genital mutilation (FGM) without realizing how the Western practices of intersex surgery and cosmetic vaginal surgery are also culturally imbued practices that can be seen as forms of genital mutilation. The assumed importance of genital surgery for intersex infants as well as the rising popularity of cosmetic surgery for women’s genitals exemplify the importance placed on gender distinction though genital appearance in our culture. Genital surgeries such as these are tied to the idealized conception of the gender binary that exists in Western culture. Despite the reality that genitals, especially the vagina, vary widely in appearance (size, shape, colour), the belief that there are norms of genital appearance that need to be adhered to for females and males continues to be propagated within Western culture. Suzanne Kessler’s work on intersex surgeries and Virginia Braun’s work on the growing popularity of cosmetic genital surgeries both illustrate how these norms are acted upon through genital surgery. This paper will perform an in-depth examination of these trends to reveal the similarities between Western genital surgeries and FGM by exposing how Western cultural values also regulate the female body.

Music as a Headword in Dictionaries

Explanations about the word ‘music’ as an entry vary from dictionary to dictionary while it is used as an effective means of communication in daily life without confusing its meaning. This paper proposes a comprehensive overview that analyzes and compares descriptive styles and contents of explications of music in some representative dictionaries. Accordingly, this article discusses differences between verbal definitions which the dictionaries provide under the entry of music. Authoritative music encyclopedias avoid any explicit definition of music in principle. On the contrary, language dictionaries give a clear perspective that music is a kind of art based on the values of Western culture even though there is a delicate shade of difference between verbal definitions in terms of what is the purpose of music and what are constitutive elements of music. Ultimately, an adequate explanation about music in a Korean dictionary should give consideration to the own historical context of Korean culture.

La simultaneidad en la historia global

El trabajo cuestiona que el llamado Mapa de Cuauhtinchan num. 2, pueda ser analizado, desde el presente y con la carga de valores culturales occidentales, como un mapa en estricto sentido. El proposito de este ensayo es discutir aquellas visiones, como las de Carl Schmitt, que plantean una universalidad de la “apropiacion, distribucion, y produccion” del nomos, apuntando hacia una actitud que apueste por la pluralidad de las formas de representar los distintos espacios-tiempos. En este sentido el autor avanza en la manera de proponer distintas categorias que permitan una mejor comprension de los documentos pictograficos que se produjeron antes y durante la conquista de Mesoamerica y las demas latitudes que fueron colonizadas por los espanoles

Critiquing Economic Values in English Language Teaching: Materials Problems and Critical Solutions Facing Teachers

This paper contends that the English language teaching industry is implicitly imbued with Western cultural values which, whilst emanating from the ideological discourse of colonialism, have now evolved into an aggressive corporate colonialism. An examination of various materials employed in ELT finds that they are saturated with market driven Western values and product placements, which, if not explicated properly, can confuse students who may come from very different schematic backgrounds (Widdowson, 1990). A more critical classroom approach is therefore advocated, where foreign English language students are encouraged to use vocabulary to critique cultural contents encountered in ELT materials, affording them the chance to engage with English more dynamically. A 2012 teaching approach is described, which sought to achieve this aim within the context of a Japanese university English conversation class. The effectiveness of this approach is then assessed and discussed through the examination of quantitative and qualitative student response data. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/nelta.v18i1-2.10327 Journal of NELTA, Vol 18 No. 1-2, December 2013; 18-30

Relation between emotion regulation and mental health: a meta-analysis review.

This meta-analysis examined the relationship between emotion regulation strategies (cognitive reappraisal, expressive suppression) and mental health (measured by life-satisfaction, positive affect, depression, anxiety, and negative affect). 48 studies, which included 51 independent samples, 157 effect sizes, and 21,150 participants, met the inclusion criteria. The results showed that cognitive reappraisal was correlated significantly and positively with positive indicators of mental health (r = .26) and negatively with negative indicators of mental health (r = -.20). Expressive suppression was correlated negatively with positive indicators of mental health (r = -.12), and positively with negative indicators of mental health (r =.15). Expressive suppression was correlated positively with positive indicators of mental health within the category of samples with Western cultural values (r = -.11) but not the category with Eastern cultural values. Moreover, the correlation of expressive suppression and negative indicators of mental health was stronger in the Western cultural values category (r = .19) than in the Eastern cultural values category (r = .06). Therefore, it is necessary for follow-up studies about emotion regulation and mental health to consider some moderator variable like the culture.

Discussing dying in the diaspora: Attitudes towards advance care planning among first generation Dutch and Italian migrants in rural Australia

Western cultural practices and values have largely shaped advance care planning (ACP) policies across the world. Low uptake of ACP among ethnic minority groups in Western countries has been interpreted with reference to cultural differences. This paper adopts a life-history approach to explore attitudes towards ACP among older, first-generation Dutch-Australian and Italian-Australian migrants. Thirty people participated in extended ethnographic interviews (N = 17) and group discussions (N = 13) during 2012. Transcripts were thematically analyzed and interpreted using a Foucauldian perspective on knowledge and power. Migration experiences, ongoing contact with the native country and participation in migrant community support networks influenced attitudes towards ACP. Dutch participants framed ACP discussions with reference to euthanasia, and adopted a more individualist approach to medical decision-making. Italian participants often spoke of familial roles and emphasized a family-based decision making style. The importance of migrant identity has been neglected in previous discussions of cultural factors influencing ACP uptake among ethnic minority groups. The unique migration experience should be considered alongside culturally appropriate approaches to decision-making, in order to ensure equitable access to ACP among migrant groups.

Cultura y barbarie estética. El juego del engaño o el esquematismo ilustrado

In this text, the author offers a intellectual proposal conceiving, in Adorno’s words, art as the main torch of remaining resistance, and the last notion for the truth, in a time of incomprehensible suffering and terror. Thus, reflection focuses on discerning the philosophical referents and the constitutive values of Western culture, and how those have been a benchmark study on the future of humanity, especially considering that there are guidelines that make us think in a crisis or post-modern barbarism.

What causes users to switch from a local to a global social network site? The cultural, social, economic, and motivational factors of Facebook’s globalization

This study investigates what causes local users to switch or not to switch from a domestic to a global social network site (SNS), Facebook. In the prediction model using cultural, social, economic factors, and motives for using SNS, we found in S. Korean users that, along with entertainment motives, the expected benefit of a new global SNS was a positive predictor of transition to Facebook. The western cultural values of a global SNS and the sunk costs of using a local SNS were negative predictors of the intention to use Facebook as the main platform of online social networking. Given that global SNSs force anti-localization policies related to privacy protocols and relationship styles, the results highlight the fact that cultural values are a critical factor for resisting globalization of SNSs.

Psychodynamic Approaches from Transcultural Perspectives in Working with Korean American Women

This article examines the applicability of psychodynamic theories such as self-psychology and object relations theory from transcultural perspectives in working with a Korean American woman from a case analysis. This article addresses the intergenerational and intercultural conflict that this Korean American woman experienced with her children and the psychological pain that had accumulated from her relationship with her husband, influenced by Korean Confucian culture. It demonstrates the effectiveness of psychodynamic approaches for Korean immigrant families based on Korean cultural values as well as the conflict between Western and Asian cultural values that practitioners need to consider in working with diverse ethnic populations.

Occupational Therapy in Oman: The Impact of Cultural Dissonance

Occupational therapy theory and philosophy are broadly considered to be based on Western cultural values. In contrast, the application of theory and practice in the Sultanate of Oman, historically based on traditional Middle Eastern and Islamic cultural values, provides a case exemplar, which highlights both paradigmatic differences and cultural dissonance. Drawing on the experiences of occupational therapists working in Oman, this study found that the application of therapeutic goals aimed at patient independence and autonomy were difficult to achieve in an environment where family duty and responsibility for care were highly prized. Dressing and cooking assessments were challenging, and issues related to gender proved problematic. Therapists found the need to adapt practice to acknowledge these differences, and to adopt pragmatic problem-solving strategies, without resolving the underpinning philosophical contradictions. Occupational therapy in Oman is under-researched; further work is needed to confirm the cross-cultural validity of specific assessments and practice models.

Relational autonomy in assisted living: A focus on diverse care settings for older adults

Consistent with Western cultural values, the traditional liberal theory of autonomy, which places emphasis on self-determination, liberty of choice, and freedom from interference by others, has been a leading principle in health care discourse for several decades. In context to aging, chronic illness, disability, and long-term care, increasingly there has been a call for a relational conception of autonomy that acknowledges issues of dependency, interdependence, and care relationships. Although autonomy is a core philosophy of assisted living (AL) and a growing number of studies focus on this issue, theory development in this area is lagging and little research has considered race, class, or cultural differences, despite the growing diversity of AL. We present a conceptual model of autonomy in AL based on over a decade of research conducted in diverse facility settings. This relational model provides an important conceptual lens for understanding the dynamic linkages between varieties of factors at multiple levels of social structure that shape residents' ability to maintain a sense of autonomy in this often socially challenging care environment. Social and institutional change, which is ongoing, as well as the multiple and ever-changing cultural contexts within which residents are embedded, are important factors that shape residents' experiences over time and impact resident–facility fit and residents' ability to age in place.

Orthodox and Other American Jews and their Attitude to the State of Israel

Orthodox and Other American Jews and their Attitude to the State of Israel Eliezer Don-Yehiya (bio) The central argument of Professor Gabi Sheffer in his interesting essay is that since the 1973 war American Jewry has experienced “a gradual process of decreasing loyalty to Israel and increasing criticism of it.” He relates this process to two main factors. One of them is the growing integration of American Jews in their surrounding society and the other is the weakening of their Jewish identity. What he implies is that there is a negative correlation between the degree of Diaspora Jews’ integration in their host countries and their attachment to Israel, and a positive correlation between the “Jewishness” of Diaspora Jews and their loyalty and support to Israel. Although these arguments seem reasonable they require certain clarification qualifications. First, there is not necessarily an inverse correlation between integration of Diaspora Jews in their surrounding societies and their attachment to Israel. This is related to the distinction between two kinds of integration: The first one, “assimilation”, is the total adoption of the ways of life of the surrounding society, which means breaking all social and cultural barriers between the individual and this society. It is obvious that the growing tendency of American Jews to be fully integrated in all spheres of American life drastically diminishes their Jewish identity and solidarity, which leads in turn to their distancing from Israel. Steven Cohen points to this kind of integration when he asserts that the main factor behind the changes in the identities of American Jews is “the enormous change in the integration of Jews into the larger American society.” In contrast to previous generations of American Jews, “Today’s Jews have far fewer Jewish spouses, friends, neighbors, and coworkers. Not surprisingly, they feel less attached to both Jewish peoplehood and Israel.”1 [End Page 120] The second type of integration is “acculturation”, which means the adoption of cultural norms of the surrounding society, without severing all or most ties with one’s ethnic or religious group. This kind of integration should not necessarily lead to the weakening of Jewish identity, as is evident by the fact that many Jews who are deeply involved in the affairs of the American Jewish Community have been well adapted to American culture. This distinction is also relevant to the relationship between integration of Diaspora Jews in their host countries and their attitude to Israel. While assimilation often leads to decreasing loyalty and support to Israel, this might not be the case in regard to acculturation. The relationship between Jewish identity and attitude to Israel is also not straightforward. This might be inferred from Sheffer’s observation that even “hard core” Diaspora Jews are now less inclined to support Israel and to identify with it. The significant fact is that many American Jews are looking for alternative ways to express and preserve their Jewish identity. Some of them are keeping Holocaust memory, combating anti-Semitism, working for their local Jewish community, and maintaining solidarity with other Jewish communities. There are also deliberate attempts to preserve and enhance the Jewish identity of American Jews by educational experiments designed to introduce a new kind of Jewish identity, one that will be more reconcilable with universalistic and liberal values of Western culture. Ofira Seliktar notes, “Not surprisingly, the place of Israel in this new round of identity building was minimal.”2 It can be concluded then that the weakening of Jewish identity and the increasing of Jewish integration cannot in themselves account for the declining attachment of Diaspora Jews to Israel. Some observes link this process mainly to political changes that occurred in Israel since 1977, of which the most important is the ascendance to power of the Likud in that year. Seliktar argues that, “The right-wing national religious coalition that Begin had put together offended the liberal-secular sensibilities of the majority of the community.”3 Other developments that induced the distancing of American Jews from Israel are the 1982 war in Lebanon, Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, and the expansion of Jewish settlements in the occupied territories. She attaches an especially great impact to the growing...

Medical humanities as expressive of Western culture

In this paper we articulate a growing awareness within the field of the ways in which medical humanities could be deemed expressive of Western cultural values. The authors suggest that...

Bioethics as a Western Culture-Bound Syndrome

In this article I argue that the four guiding principles of medical ethics—autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice—reflect the values of western culture, but do not necessarily apply outside of it. Western medical practitioners faced with the care of nonwestern patients need to examine their own prejudices in order to accept, not merely tolerate, other values. Acceptance of the other requires that the doctor welcome the patient as one welcomes a guest, openly and equally, with a willingness to listen and to be changed by the encounter. It is through the nurture of trusting relationships that ethical dilemmas in clinical medicine may be resolved, without recourse to the colonial moral hegemony of the principlist approach.

Research Lessons Learned: Occupational Therapy with Culturally Diverse Mothers of Premature Infants

Evaluation studies of the effectiveness of home-based occupational therapy are scarce but are needed to justify the impact of occupational therapy intervention. When the intervention is for persons from diverse cultural backgrounds, additional research challenges arise. To share lessons learned in conducting home-based occupational therapy research with Canadian, and immigrant South Asian and Chinese mothers of premature infants in a large Canadian city. Lessons learned were to implement a culturally sensitive recruitment process, change the research design to include more interviews and focus groups, and be aware of the need for culturally appropriate instruments. Researchers need to be sensitized to the Western cultural values upon which most research designs and instrumentation are constructed. Involvement of a culturally diverse research team, openness to feedback, adaptability, and critical reflection on what is important to the cultural groups are among the suggestions for researchers planning home-based occupational therapy research with culturally diverse populations.

Iranian Parents’ Resistance to Incompatible Aspects of Western Culture: Implications for ELT Material Development

The British and US varieties of English have now come under suspicion of promoting American and British ways of life and marginalizing the local identities of their learners. Prompted by these suspicions, many scholars and policy makers have voiced doubts about the cultural adequacy of the native speaker-controlled ELT programs. In a recent survey conducted by the present authors (forthcoming), the attitude of the Iranian education officials towards the teaching of English in its western cultural context was surveyed. The findings indicated that they strongly disapproved of the teaching of English along with its western cultural values. To find out whether the above official resistance in Iran has the backing of the general public, a cultural resistance survey was conducted. 393 male and female Iranian parents from different walks of life participated in this survey. The results showed that the high school students’ possible adoption of the western lifestyle and their exposure to the manifestations of incompatible western culture were resisted by their parents. Based on the findings of this research, the researchers made a number of recommendations for international, regional and local ELT material development.

Gender, Diversity and Ethnocentrism in Europe

Gendered Islamophobia has become accentuated in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 tragedy. The way in which the question of the Islamic headscarf was handled by hegemonist feminists in Europe, especially in France, reveals similarities with the colonial narratives of the late Nineteenth century that pointed to the veil as a symbol of inferiority of Islamic culture and as a threat to Western cultural values. The ‘headscarf affair’ demonstrates that ethnocentrist prejudice continues to encumber Western feminist discourse. Ethnocentrism, which is founded on the primacy of difference and implies domination, reproduces the binary thinking that has marked Orientalism. This paper shows that the border line between ethnocentrism and Orientalism as the ideology of colonialism is porous and that the ‘othering’ process, characteristic of colonial discourse, has resurfaced in Western feminism. Racist and colonialist stereotypical images of Muslim women have thus become commonplace. Like in the colonialist era, Muslim women are depicted as oppressed, eternal victims of patriarchy, characterized by enforced confinement, ignorance, passivity and powerlessness, and in need of rescue by Western feminists. This paper refutes ethnocentric assumptions that essentilaize the differences between us/them, emancipated women/oppressed women, and that have contributed to historical invisibilization and victimization of non-Western women. It criticizes ethnocentric feminist and intellectual paradigms that mark hegemonist currents within Western feminism, and advocates a universality that is not imperialistic.

Cultural pathways and pitfalls in South Africa: a reflection on moral agency and leadership from a Christian perspective

The nature and importance of moral agency for the transformation of persons and society, particularly from a Christian perspective, are discussed in this article. The focus is on cultural pathways and pitfalls with respect to the formation and exercise of moral agency on the part of individuals, leaders and communities. The six dimensions of cultural values as developed by Hampden-Turner and Trompenaars (2000) are used as a framework to describe and evaluate mainly western and African cultural values in order to identify ways of developing moral responsibility and genuine social transformation.

Imparting Cultural Values to Chinese Children Through Literature

Based on the occurrence of modernization and globalization in Chinese society over the last few decades, the content of 145 stories, published in the most popular Chinese children’s story magazine from the 1980s to the present, were examined for the representation of cultural values. The presence of Chinese, Western and social-moral values in stories were assessed using checklists. The ANOVAs analyses compared cultural values found in the fiction and folklore stories published in each of the three decades reviewed. The presence of Western cultural values steadily increased over the past 20 years. Some Chinese traditional values (e.g., self-control) were consistently reflected in stories across all decades, while a few traditional values occurred less frequently, and Western values were introduced. Fiction stories reflected more Western cultural values, but fewer Chinese traditional values than folklore stories. The findings suggest that Western culture has an impacted on Chinese children’s stories. However, the continuity of Chinese traditional culture appears to be as strong as ever within the Chinese children’s stories reviewed.

Accounting and culture

PurposeThis paper sets out to review research on the compatibility between values underlying western accounting systems and traditional Solomon Islands cultural values. The research takes a sociological view of accounting to better understand how imported accounting values and practices fit into, and interact with, local traditions.Design/methodology/approachAn interpretive methodology uses in‐depth interviews and participant observation. Both inductive and a priori approaches identify and describe major themes.FindingsThe areas of conflict found between accounting themes and traditional Solomon Island group values relate to: the objectivity and neutrality of accounting; profit and wealth maximisation as the bottom‐line; the separateness of the economic entity; time‐based accounting controls; and the underlying basis of competition for efficiency and effectiveness in western accounting systems.Research limitations/implicationsThe challenge is to identify how to adapt accounting and management practices so they fit into existing local cultural values and practices. Solomon Islanders must also determine how some of their cultural values can be adapted to suit contemporary economic circumstances.Practical implicationsThe paper recommends that consideration be given to recasting elements of accounting and management practice so that they better reflect the nature of the society/activities being represented – namely, the discharge of accountability; valuing intangible business outcomes; owner‐entity separation; time management; and bounded competition.Originality/valueThe research is one of the few studies on the culture‐accounting relationship in a developing and economically poor part of the Asia‐Pacific region.