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Cultural Assumptions (cultural + assumption)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Humanities and Social Sciences	37%
Business, Economics, Finance and Accounting	37%

Selected Abstracts

This Bed of Roses Has Thorns: Cultural Assumptions and Community in an Elementary School

ANTHROPOLOGY & EDUCATION QUARTERLY, Issue 2 2001
Mary Bushnell
Educational reformers and social observers call for increasing community in our schools and neighborhoods. In that discourse, community appears as a catch phrase that has become meaningless in its ubiquity. Through an ethnographic study of a small elementary school in which community is regularly invoked, the author identifies community's negative as well as beneficial aspects and discusses the implications for schools. [source]

Culture Matters: How Our Culture Affects the Audit,

ACCOUNTING PERSPECTIVES, Issue 3 2010
PHILIP COWPERTHWAITE
audit; culture; normes internationales Abstract If the influence of national cultures on the implementation of global standards is not taken into account, the result will be inconsistent implementation at best and outright failure at worst. The experiences in fields such as medicine, peacekeeping, aviation, and environmental protection offer insight into possible difficulties with the implementation, beginning in 2010, of International Standards on Auditing (ISAs) by members of the International Federation of Accountants. Some countries may have difficulty with implementation because of the differences between their cultural assumptions and those embodied in the standards to be adopted. It is too soon to know if and where that will happen, especially because the data on first experiences will not begin to be available until 2013. However, cultural-comparison data can be used to foresee which countries may have difficulty with implementation. But if unintended consequences do become evident, it will be important not to assume that the standards and the standard-setting process are defective; it is more likely that practitioners will need help in interpreting the ISAs in light of their local culture. A useful first step would be for standard-setting bodies to identify explicitly the cultural assumptions inherent in the standards they produce. The standard setters can then give that information to those responsible for standards implementation at the practitioner level to help promote consistent application of the standards globally. Question de culture : en quoi la culture influe sur l'audit Résumé Si l'on ne tient pas compte de l'influence des cultures nationales sur la mise en ,uvre de normes internationales, les résultatsde l'exercice seront incohérents, au mieux, ouse solderont par un échec pur et simple, au pire. Les expériences dans des domaines comme la médecine, le maintien de la paix, l'aviation et la protection de l'environnement nous livrent des indications quant aux problèmes que pourrait présenter la conversion, à compter de 2010, aux normes internationales d'audit et de certification établies par les membres de l'International Federation of Accountants (IFAC). Certains pays pourraient éprouver de la difficultéà instaurer ces normes en raison des différences entre leurs a priori culturels et ceux que véhiculent les normes devant être adoptées. Il est trop tôt pour dire si ces difficultés se manifesteront et à quel moment, notamment du fait que les données relatives aux premières expériences ne seront accessibles qu'à compter de 2013. Toutefois, des donnéesculturelles comparatives peuvent être utilisées pour prévoir quels pays risquent defaire face à des embûches dans la mise en ,uvre de ces normes. Toutefois, s'il émergedu processus des conséquences non souhaitées évidentes, il importera de ne pas en conclure que les normes et les processus de normalisation sont défectueux, mais plutôt que les professionnels en exerciceont besoin d'assistance pour interpréter les normes internationales à la lumière de leur culture nationale. Les organismes de normalisation pourraient faire un premier pas dans ce sens en définissant explicitement les a priori culturels inhérents aux normes qu'ils produisent. Les normalisateurs pourraient ensuite communiquer cette information aux responsables de la mise en ,uvre des normes chez lesprofessionnels en exercice et contribuer ainsi à promouvoir la cohérence dans l'application des normes à l'échelle mondiale. [source]

Cultural myths in stories about human resource development: analysing the cross-cultural transfer of American models to Germany and the Côte d'Ivoire

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT, Issue 1 2003
Carol D. Hansen
This exploratory study examined the cross-cultural transferability of occupational assumptions, in the form of work myths, to a foreign setting. The research followed the premise that occupations are culturally framed by certain myths which are shaped by national socio-cultural referents. The reaction of the German and Ivorian business communities to the myths that shape American human resource models of employee and organisational development formed a descriptive basis for practice and theoretical implications. The data were derived from the myths contained in informant stories about the need for human resource development (HRD) interventions. Societal differences in individualistic and collective orientations as well as historical variance in business development and approaches to management were reviewed in an attempt to explain disagreements in cultural assumptions. Highlighted was the need for all occupations to be cognisant of the ethnocentrism of their work myths. [source]

Emulation vs. indigenization in the reception of western psychology in Republican China: An analysis of the content of Chinese psychology journals (1922,1937)

JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF THE BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES, Issue 1 2009
Geoffrey Blowers
The present study examines the practice of empirical psychology in China during the Republican period using a content analysis of its journals. By seeking answers to questions of what kinds of psychology from the West first attracted the Chinese; whether they found a way of developing a psychology more in tune to their own cultural assumptions of selfhood; and to what uses they felt the new discipline could be put, it shows the extent to which its journal content adopted a Western or an indigenous orientation. It thus contributes to the recent debate about indigenization of psychology globally and situates the origins of these issues in China much earlier than has been envisaged by contemporary Chinese indigenous psychologists. Throughout this period, indigenous concerns informed the research agenda, the dominant practice being psychometrics. But because of a lack of social support, they remained largely confined to the pages of psychology journals. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [source]

Cultural Constructions of Childhood and Early Literacy

LITERACY, Issue 2 2001
Tricia David
This paper is based on the findings of two research teams, working collaboratively, between 1998 and 2000 in four countries: Australia, Singapore, France and England (see David et al 2000). Taking an ecological stance (Bronfenbrenner 1979), both teams adopted a cross-cultural approach in order to gain a better understanding of the contexts in which young children become familiar with literacy. The team led by Bridie Raban worked in Singapore and Australia, that led by Tricia David in France and England. Early years practitioners in all four countries responded to questionnaires, were observed in action and interviewed. (Information about their training and about entry to primary school in each of the countries is given in the endnote.) In addition, the research teams carried out document analyses on Governmental, research and training literature and teachers' plans, and discussed their findings with others in positions to be able to ,authenticate', or refute , findings. Further data were obtained through group interviews with parents of children attending selected settings involved in the research. Here we provide some of the evidence about the different views expressed by practitioners, our observational findings and analysis of the different pressures relating to literacy experienced in early childhood education and care settings. In each case the learning experiences practitioners provided for children were influenced by a range of factors, such as the contested role of preschools as preparation for schooling. In some settings this preparation was not explicit and practitioners often emphasised the importance of the ,here and now' nature of young children's experiences. Rosenthal's (2000) framework for exploring ,collectivist' and ,individualist' cultures in relation to their valued educational practices was applied to our findings, in order to identify how the cultural assumptions about literacy, learning and young children influenced the teaching approaches selected. [source]

Shakespearean Editing and Why It Matters

LITERATURE COMPASS (ELECTRONIC), Issue 1 2005
Leah Marcus
A generation ago, many Shakespearean scholars simply accepted the versions of the play that they were provided with by editors. So long as the label was right , Arden, Oxford, Cambridge, Penguin, Riverside, Pelican , the content was assumed to be reliable. But editing can never be transparent , it is always influenced by the cultural assumptions of the editor and his or her era, however submerged those assumptions may be in terms of the editor's stated textual practices. In the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries, as a result of feminist and postcolonial critical approaches to Shakespearean texts, we have begun to realize the degree to which our inherited editions are shaped in accordance with assumptions about colonialism, race, and the status of women that are no longer acceptable to us, and that in fact distort elements of Shakespeare's plays as they exist in early printed quarto and folio versions. As earlier disciplinary boundaries between editing and criticism have broken down, Shakespearean critics have increasingly turned to editing in order to undo some of the racist and sexist assumptions behind our received texts of the plays. [source]

Starting Out on the Right Foot: Negotiation Schemas When Cultures Collide

NEGOTIATION AND CONFLICT MANAGEMENT RESEARCH, Issue 2 2009
Wendi L. Adair
Abstract We investigate the intercultural negotiation schemas of 100 experienced Japanese and U.S. negotiators. Specifically, we examine the assumptions negotiators make about appropriate behavior when primed to negotiate with an intercultural (vs. intracultural) counterpart. We find that intercultural negotiation schemas clash on six of nine elements, meaning U.S. and Japanese negotiators have significantly different expectations about what it is like to negotiate with the other. This clash occurs not because negotiators stay anchored on their own cultural assumptions about negotiating, but rather because they try to adjust to their counterpart's cultural assumptions about negotiating. But negotiators adjust their schemas by thinking about how their counterpart negotiates in an intracultural rather than intercultural setting. That is, they fail to account for the fact that their counterpart would also adjust expectations for the intercultural context. The phenomenon we uncover is one of schematic overcompensation, whereby negotiators' intercultural schemas do not match because each negotiator expects the encounter to be just like the counterpart's within-culture negotiations. Our theory of schematic overcompensation receives some support, and negotiators' perceived knowledge and experience with the other culture somewhat attenuates the phenomenon. Implications for negotiator cognition, intercultural negotiation, and global management are discussed. [source]

,The Cow is Still the Most Important Figure in Indian Politics!': Religion, Imperial Culture and the Shaping of Indian Political Reform in the 1930s

PARLIAMENTARY HISTORY, Issue 1 2008
ANDREW MULDOON
This essay assesses the impact of imperial culture, particularly constructions of India and hinduism, on British responses to the Indian nationalist movement in the 1930s. The essay draws on personal and governmental papers, paying special attention to the language and vocabulary employed by British policy makers concerned with Indian affairs. The major issue addressed here is the British presumption that the 1935 Government of India Act, a plan for a federated India with British central control, would defuse nationalist agitation. Such a sanguine view of this proposal seemed misplaced, given the popular success of the nationalists, especially Gandhi, and given the explicit demands of Indians for full self-government. However, such an optimistic assessment drew on presumptions about Indian political and social behaviour, and especially on conceptions of hinduism. Policy makers in Britain and India argued along well-established lines, that hinduism inculcated moral and physical weakness, among other deficiencies, and that a British offer of compromise would attract many Indians who feared continuing confrontation with the Raj. Moreover, colonial advisors relied on a belief that social and caste divisions within hinduism would recur within the nationalist ranks as well. This sense that Indians would respond to half-measures of reform persisted until the 1937 provincial elections. Though British administrators predicted only a moderate showing by the Indian National Congress, the polling proved otherwise, as Congress took power in the majority of the provinces. The Raj lasted another decade, but the confident cultural assumptions sustaining it took a fatal blow. [source]