Deconversion: Qualitative and Quantitative Results from Cross-Cultural Research in Germany and the United States: A Review Essay

Since 2010, scholars have made major contributions to cross-cultural research, especially regarding similarities and differences across world regions and countries in people’s values, beliefs, and morality. This paper accumulates and analyzes extant multi-national and quantitative studies of these facets of global culture. The paper begins with a summary of the modern history of cross-cultural research, then systematically reviews major empirical studies published since 2010, and next analyzes extant approaches to interpret how the constructs of belief, morality, and values have been theorized and operationalized. The analysis reveals that the field of cross-cultural studies remains dominated by Western approaches, especially studies developed and deployed from the United States and Western Europe. While numerous surveys have been translated and employed for data collection in countries beyond the U.S. and Western Europe, several countries remain under-studied, and the field lacks approaches that were developed within the countries of interest. The paper concludes by outlining future directions for the study of cross-cultural research. To progress from the colonialist past embedded within cross-cultural research, in which scholars from the U.S. and Western Europe export research tools to other world regions, the field needs to expand to include studies locally developed and deployed within more countries and world regions.

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Translation as an Ecological Tool for Instrument Development

International Journal of Qualitative Methods ◽

10.1177/160940690700600205 ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 6 (2) ◽

pp. 40-58 ◽

Cited By ~ 11

Author(s):

Andrey Vinokurov ◽

Daniel Geller ◽

Tamara L. Martin

Keyword(s):

Instrument Development ◽

The United States ◽

Cross Cultural ◽

Short Term ◽

Translation Process ◽

Cultural Research ◽

Cross Cultural Research ◽

American Society ◽

Theoretical Issues

In this paper the authors outline the translation process involved in Macro International's evaluation of the Department of State's International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) in Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Georgia. IVLP is a long-running program in which professionals and prospective leaders from around the world participate in funded short-term visits to the United States to learn first-hand professional practices and values of American society and democracy. The authors highlight the importance of attending to the theoretical issues in, discuss contextual factors inherent in, and outline specific phases of the translation process, and present the modified decentering translation technique adapted for the project. They describe the types of translation equivalencies that were addressed and present findings that attest to the quality of the translation. They underscore the importance of the translation process as a qualitative tool for the instrument development that maps the contexts of people's lives, documents emic-etic aspects of cross-cultural research, and fosters collaborations with all stakeholders of the research project.

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