This study attempted to enhance cultural sensitivity for graduate students at an American and a South African university, using a six-week online List Serv, email buddy exchange, and two-week face-to-face experience. After the course was over, results of the intercultural developmental inventory, using t-tests for related samples, showed that there was a significant difference (alpha equals .04…
Focus group interviews with secondary school students in Quebec reveal assimilationist discourses concerning the integration of newcomers. The first part of the study involved interviews with immigrant students. In the second part of the study, reported here, host society youth describe fears of losing their cultural identity. Interview data indicate influences of exclusionist discourses from t…
The study examined 2500 business degree students from 21 countries, enrolled at an Australian university, using a survey to assess learning style, which was integrated into a global culture taxonomy. The research hypothesis was that academic outcome could be explained through an interdisciplinary model, by integrating proven theories from educational psychology (learning style) and anthropology…
This article argues for a more systematic and integrated approach to the cultural dimension within English language education in a globalized world, with the concept of culture taking on an affectively related and process-oriented meaning. To this end, it suggests an approach for the development of the ability to decenter from cultural norms and behavior that previously have been taken for gran…
In many parts of the world, classrooms are characterised by cultural and ethnic diversity. Increasingly, researchers are interested in exploring these rich and socially complex contexts. However, research into 'the ethnic other' can present complex ethical and methodological challenges. In this paper, the authors discuss, with reference to their respective studies in Australia and Scotland, the…
With faith in government waning, cultural diversity spiraling, and fiscal stress straining the ability of policy makers to address the policy challenges accompanying these developments, the salience of (re)connecting citizens with government takes on renewed urgency today. Nowhere is this more the case than in urban America, where so-called global cities teeming with ethnic diversity and contro…
The authors use employment histories from survey data to examine personal network use and stratification in the Russian labor market from 1985 to 2001. Institutional changes associated with the Soviet collapse increased the use of networks and shaped their prevalence and benefits in theoretically coherent ways. In Russia, networks positively affect job quality, whether measured by occupation, c…
Class differences in educational decision making are important for inequality. A unique Swedish population-level database of university applications and individuals ranking of different programs is used to analyze class differences in preferences for different program characteristics. Compared to individuals from service class backgrounds, individuals from manual labor class backgrounds choose…
Ancestor worship and bloodline continuation are the core norms of lineage in China. Beginning in the late 1970s, these cultural norms came into direct confrontation with the state birth control policy. Pitched against each other are the antinatalist laws backed by the powerful and unyielding state apparatus on the one side and the ancient pronatalist norms backed by revived lineage networks on …
Drawing on archival analysis and in-depth interviews, this article examines Colombias adoption of policies for black Colombians in 1993. It argues that Afro-Colombian activists were able to seize upon changes in global policy norms around multiculturalism and state disequilibrium both by deploying traditional social movement strategies and by framing their demands in terms of ethnic difference…
Imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, who was awarded the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize, is best known for his eloquent and incisive essays. Two of them are featured here: Can It Be That the Chinese People Deserve Only Party-Led Democracy? and Changing the Regime by Changing Society.
In this paper, we define and present a comprehensive classification of user intent for Web searching. The classification consists of three hierarchical levels of informational, navigational, and transactional intent. After deriving attributes of each, we then developed a software application that automatically classified queries using a Web search engine log of over a million and a half q…
This paper describes junior researchers experience of innovative research, with the aim of encouraging fellow junior academics. Through the experience, the team recognised that context and flexibility are key factors in the research process. These factors are discussed in the light of three specific features of this project. First is the type of research the team engages in: meta-research, whi…
What did the U.S. Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations (ACIR) accomplish before it was disbanded in 1996? Were its accomplishments sufficiently valuable to justify reestablishing the organization? This article reviews the commissions origins, history, and accomplishments, and addresses future intergovernmental needs. The ACIRs accomplishments were substantial, but are largely un…
This article traces the creation and demise of the U.S. Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations (ACIR) and assesses the prospects for restoring an ACIR-like capability to the federal system. Recent initiatives by the National Academy of Public Administration, the Big 7 state and local government official associations, and Congress are summarized, and the facilitating and inhibiting f…
There is consensus on the need for a successor to the U.S. Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations in Washington, D.C., but no agreement on how this entity should be organized and funded and what it should do. There are now many players, both organizations and individuals, in the intergovernmental field, and they need to be sorted out. A key distinction is that American federalism is…
The U.S. Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations (ACIR) befitted an era marked by low party polarization, bipartisanship, and cooperative federalism. Although the ACIRs work was valuable, the growth of federal power, rise of party polarization, and the decline of bipartisanship, along with many other political, governmental, and social changes during its 37-year life (195996), marg…
During the 1970s and 1980s, a number of states created entities commonly called advisory commissions on intergovernmental relations (ACIRs). Although as many as half the states at one time or another supported an ACIR, only about 10 do so today. Relying on face-to-face and telephone interviews, e-mail correspondence, website analysis, and mailed surveys of directors and other staff members of a…
Fiscal, administrative, and political tensions among the partners in the federal system have not eased, and perhaps have grown, since the demise of the U.S. Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations in 1996. Yet no governmental organizational capacity exists to address big intergovernmental questions in an ongoing manner through nonpartisan or bipartisan research, data collection, deli…
Public sector union membership is thriving compared to the private sector. Moreover, public employee unions play a significant role in policy making at every level of government. Yet research on public sector labor relations is sporadic and uneven, perhaps negligible. Why so? This article surveys the literature on public sector unionism and seeks to answer that question. Its conclusion points t…