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Cultural Forces (cultural + force)
Selected AbstractsAnti-Colonialist Antinomies in a Biology Lesson: A Sonata-Form Case Study of Cultural Conflict in a Science ClassroomCURRICULUM INQUIRY, Issue 3 2003Paokong John Chang This case study illustrates and analyzes the tension an ESL science teacher encountered when his science curriculum came into conflict with the religious and cosmological beliefs of one of his Hmong immigrant students. A Hmong immigrant himself, the teacher believes the science he is teaching is important for all his students to learn. He also understands how his science curriculum can be one part of an array of cultural forces that are adversely affecting the Hmong community. The case study examines this tension, but does not resolve it. Instead, the study explores the knowledge the teacher draws upon to respond to the tension in a caring and constructive manner. This knowledge includes the teacher's understanding of science and pedagogy. It also includes his understanding of Hmong history, which enables him to hear what his science curriculum means to one of his students. The case study concludes that teachers need some knowledge of the history of students' specific cultural groups in order to teach science well to all students. This case study was one of seven produced by the Fresno Science Education Equity Teacher Research Project. It uses a special format, a "sonata-form case study," to highlight tensions between specific curricular imperatives and meeting broader student needs. The study is based on real experiences, and employs composite characters and fictionalized dialogue to make its conceptual point. A theoretical preface explaining the methods of research and the modes of representation used in the Fresno Project is included. [source] Psychological essentialism and cultural variation: children's beliefs about aggression in the United States and South AfricaINFANT AND CHILD DEVELOPMENT, Issue 2 2008Jessica W. Giles Abstract The present study compared indigenous South African versus African-American schoolchildren's beliefs about aggression. Eighty 7,9 year olds (40 from each country) participated in interviews in which they were asked to make inferences about the stability, malleability, and causal origins of aggressive behaviour. Although a minority of participants from both countries endorsed essentialist beliefs about aggression, South African children were more likely than American children to do so. Results also revealed some degree of coherence in children's patterns of beliefs about aggression, such that children responded across superficially different measures in ways that appear theoretically consistent. The authors consider these findings in light of debates concerning the role of cultural forces in shaping person perception. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Arab-American Muslims' Home Interiors in the US: Meanings, Uses and CommunicationJOURNAL OF INTERIOR DESIGN, Issue 1 2006Cherif M. Amor Ph.D. ABSTRACT The role of tradition and the attachment to homeland culture remain prerequisites that guide the development of the interior home environment of Arab-American Muslims in the United States. Space appropriation and the use of artifacts illustrate the rooted sensory need to reaffirm the attachment to the homeland's social and cultural values; additionally, these trends symbolize the enduring values of the group and render the home interior a place apart. This paper explores the role of tradition and its influence in shaping the home interior's physical environment, identifies the meanings associated with the resulting composition, and examines the consequences of adaptation to the host environment. This qualitative investigation used a grounded theory of two Arab-American Muslim immigrant settlements in Chicago, Illinois and Dearborn, Michigan. The sample consisted of 20 household heads living in two-parent families. The heterogeneity of the Arab-Muslim immigrants necessitated the use of purposeful sampling. Focus groups, interviews, and participant observation constituted the different forms of data collection. Data were analyzed using open coding (Strauss & Corbin, 1990). Findings indicated and confirmed that cultural forces remain a pivotal role in influencing the design of the home interior. More importantly, it was found that despite the attachment to traditional values, a growing indifference to homeland ideals can be sensed as the household undergoes generational, social, and cultural metamorphosis. [source] What Happened to Gender Relations on the Way from Chicago to Los Angeles?CITY & COMMUNITY, Issue 2 2002Daphne Spain From the Chicago human ecologists to the Los Angeles postmodernists, urban theorists have tried to understand how space is structured by technological, political, economic, and cultural forces; gender is seldom examined. Yet both women's status and urban form underwent significant changes following World War II. As the home became less predictably the center of women's lives, the monocentric city was evolving into the polycentric metropolis. This article suggests that gender relations also have spatial implications for the metropolis, and that urban theory would be more comprehensive if it incorporated historically parallel developments in the literature on gender and space. [source] A Place Where I Can Let My Hair Down: from social club to cultural center in an urban Indian communityCITY & SOCIETY, Issue 1 2001Deborah Davis Jackson The "Riverton" Indian Center was established in the 1950s as large numbers of Native Americans migrated to the city from reservations around the Great Lakes and beyond, and underwent significant changes throughout the second half of the twentieth century. These changes, and the conflicts that resulted from them, were shaped by far larger political,economic and cultural forces: on the one hand, River ton's economy, along with the economies of many midsized cities in the Great Lakes region,was undergoing rapid deindustrialization with devastating consequences to local residents, including American Indians; on the other hand, social and cultural changes in the U.S., starting in the 1960s, made Native Americans,or at least a romanticized image of Native Americans,increasingly popular with non-Natives. These forces converged to create the three distinct phases in the Riverton Indian Center's history, each associated with a particular age cohort,a trajectory that might well be typical of deindustrializing cities in the Great Lakes region. [American Indians; community and identity; deindistrialivng cities; Upper Great Lakes region] [source] | ||||||||||