Cultural Exchange (cultural + exchange)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


On Foreign Ground: One Attempt at Attracting Non-French Majors to a French Studies Course

FOREIGN LANGUAGE ANNALS, Issue 4 2002
Article first published online: 31 DEC 200, Jean M. Fallon
ABSTRACT: This article presents a description of "Americans in Paris," a class in English that was developed to attract nonlanguage majors to French Studies classes. The class focuses on American writers who lived and worked in Paris between 1890 and 1955 as part of a literary and cultural exchange between French and American societies. Learning about French writers and the dynamic, international community of writers and artists who came to Paris in the early twentieth century, students come to understand the literary and cultural heritages that were passed between France and America. The course's content showcases input that French professors can bring to this cross-disciplinary subject by examining American works through a French cultural viewpoint and highlighting French literary and artistic traditions. [source]


Towards tourism: a Laotian perspective

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TOURISM RESEARCH, Issue 5 2010
Wantanee Suntikul
Abstract This paper reports the findings of a study of the attitudes of residents towards tourism in the District of Viengxay, Lao People's Democratic Republic, where tourism is in its infancy. Based on focus group interviews, the paper analyses the societal and individual attitudes of the residents towards tourists, tourism development and employment in the tourism field. It was found that locals have little understanding of the motivations of tourists for visiting their villages. Villagers look forward to tourism development to bring more communication and fame to their village, as well as to tourism's contribution to the local economy. Community-mindedness, control and organisation, cultural exchange, understanding and cultural awareness are prime motivators in forming local attitudes towards tourism. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


Did ciguatera prompt the late Holocene Polynesian voyages of discovery?

JOURNAL OF BIOGEOGRAPHY, Issue 8 2009
Teina Rongo
Abstract The famous Polynesian voyages characterized an intensive network of cultural exchange and colonization that was particularly active from ad 1000 to 1450. But, why would large groups of people leave their homelands to voyage into the unknown? Oceanic voyages are risky, albeit less so today than in the past. Landfalls were not guaranteed improvements over ports of departure. Taking the Cook Islands as an example, we ask whether harmful algal blooms that result in ciguatera fish poisoning in humans prompted past and present emigration pulses of peoples from within Polynesia. We take a multipronged approach to examine our hypothesis, involving: (1) archaeological evidence, (2) ciguatera fish poisoning reports since the 1940s, and (3) climate and temperature oscillations using palaeodatasets. The archaeological records of fish bones and hooks show abrupt changes in fishing practices in post- ad 1450 records. Sudden dietary shifts are not linked to overfishing, but may be a sign of ciguatera fish poisoning and adjustment of fishing preference. While fishes form the staple diet of Polynesians, such poisoning renders fishes unusable. We show that ciguatera fish poisoning events coincide with Pacific Decadal Oscillations and suggest that the celebrated Polynesian voyages across the Pacific Ocean may not have been random episodes of discovery to colonize new lands, but rather voyages of necessity. A modern analogue (in the 1990s) was the shift towards processed foods in the Cook Islands during ciguatera fish poisoning events, and mass emigration of islanders to New Zealand and Australia. [source]


Cultural Perspectives of International Breast Health and Breast Cancer Education

JOURNAL OF NURSING SCHOLARSHIP, Issue 2 2007
Karen Dow Meneses
Purpose: To (a) describe teaching,learning strategies to foster cultural exchange among participants in the Train-The-Trainer (TTT) International Breast Health Program; (b) describe participants' perceptions of cultural influences on breast health and breast cancer; and (c) explore lessons learned about cultural influences on breast health TTT educational programs. Organizing Construct: The TTT curriculum was grounded in the belief that nurses can effectively deliver breast health and breast cancer education, that educational programs must be culturally relevant and sensitive to the needs of the target population, and that an urgent need exists worldwide to reduce the burden of breast cancer. Methods: A total of 32 nurses from 20 countries participated in three TTT programs held before the biennial meetings of the International Society of Nurses in Cancer Care (ISNCC) since 2000, with follow-up by E-mail survey. Narrative descriptions of their perspectives and experiences are reported. Results: Teaching,learning strategies incorporated cultural values into a TTT program to engage participants in sharing their individual and collective experiences about women with breast cancer. Conclusions: Developing countries are increasingly multicultural. Developed countries have large immigrant populations that generally maintain the cultural values and practices about breast cancer from the country of origin. These "lessons learned" are important in planning other educational programs. [source]