Intercultural Communication Challenge

2018 ◽  
pp. 258-273
Author(s):  
Sophia Ra
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Differences ◽  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Healthcare Professionals ◽  
Ethnically Diverse ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Multiple Perspectives ◽  
Professional Interpreting ◽  
Mainstream Culture ◽  
Diverse Cultures ◽  
Communication Challenge

A leader in community interpreting, Australia provides professional interpreting services within its public health system. Healthcare interpreters face various challenges for a variety of reasons, including cultural differences. Existing research on healthcare interpreting focuses on differences between a mainstream culture of healthcare professionals and ethnically diverse cultures of migrant patients. Interpreters are widely regarded as bicultural professionals able to provide cultural information on behalf of patients as necessary or whenever healthcare professionals ask for it. However, research on healthcare interpreting in a globalized era should consider the changing nature of culture. The question of whether the interpreter should be a cultural broker remains controversial. Based on an ethnographic study of healthcare interpreters at a public hospital in Australia, this chapter aims to survey how multiple perspectives on cultural evolution affect healthcare interpreting.

Expanding a Conversation: Is How We Live as a Culturally Diverse Society Congruent With Our Underlying Assumptions, Methodologies, and Theories Regarding Change?

2010 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Anne Easley
Keyword(s):  
Culturally Diverse ◽  
Ethnically Diverse ◽  
Intervention Strategies ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Change Processes ◽  
Diverse Populations ◽  
Contextual Framework ◽  
Diverse Society ◽  
Discourse Strategies ◽  
Diverse Cultures

Our world is very culturally and ethnically diverse. Although there is so much beauty in the diversity of our world, the multiplicity of cultures can be very challenging when working to evoke change. Therefore, in an effort to better serve the realities of our environment, this article examines the question, “Is there a need for a different awareness on the part of researchers and/or intervention strategists when working to evoke change within diverse cultures, organizations, and/or communities?” And, equally important, how do we gain this awareness as we engage in change processes? Within the contextual framework of this question, this article also discusses the consequences that can and do emerge when one uses intervention strategies that may be grounded in generalized theory and practice when working within culturally and ethnically diverse populations. It concludes with a posit that suggests the need to evoke a more culturally sensitive approach to change, which is built on the use of discourse strategies that address the individualities of the environments, giving privilege to the diversity and culture.

Measuring Trust in Healthcare Professionals—A Study of Ethnically Diverse UK Cancer Patients

2012 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Lord ◽  
K. Ibrahim ◽  
S. Kumar ◽  
N. Rudd ◽  
A.J. Mitchell ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cancer Patients ◽  
Healthcare Professionals ◽  
Ethnically Diverse

Economic versus Cultural Differences: Forms of Ethnic Diversity and Public Goods Provision

2010 ◽  
Vol 104 (4) ◽  
pp. 644-662 ◽  
Author(s):  
KATE BALDWIN ◽  
JOHN D. HUBER
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Cultural Differences ◽  
Ethnic Diversity ◽  
Negative Relationship ◽  
Ethnically Diverse ◽  
Public Goods Provision ◽  
Effective Governance ◽  
Empirical Tests ◽  
Group Inequality ◽  
Cross National

Arguments about how ethnic diversity affects governance typically posit that groups differ from each other in substantively important ways and that these differences make effective governance more difficult. But existing cross-national empirical tests typically use measures of ethnolinguistic fractionalization (ELF) that have no information about substantive differences between groups. This article examines two important ways that groups differ from each other—culturally and economically—and assesses how such differences affect public goods provision. Across 46 countries, the analysis compares existing measures of cultural differences with a new measure that captures economic differences between groups: between-group inequality (BGI). We show that ELF, cultural fractionalization (CF), and BGI measure different things, and that the choice between them has an important impact on our understanding of which countries are most ethnically diverse. Furthermore, empirical tests reveal that BGI has a large, robust, and negative relationship with public goods provision, whereas CF, ELF, and overall inequality do not.

Anthropology, Education, and Multicultural Absorption Migration from Ethiopia to Israel

2020 ◽  
Vol 79 (3) ◽  
pp. 226-236
Author(s):  
Ravit Talmi Cohn
Keyword(s):  
Critical Thinking ◽  
Cultural Differences ◽  
Applied Anthropology ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Destination Country ◽  
Educational Project ◽  
Complex Process ◽  
Assimilation Process

This paper presents a case study, which demonstrates the power of applied anthropology in combining theory with practice in the effort to change reality. Drawing on a multi-site ethnographic study conducted between the years 2005 and 2012, in each of the immigration journey’s stations—in Ethiopia (origin country) and Israel (destination country), this paper highlights the importance of applied anthropology insights in educational projects of immigration absorption. This paper is based on the transnational paradigm, presenting immigration as a complex process, which is created via an ongoing discourse between countries, cultures, and people. It points out the importance of the immigration journey, its length and complexity, as well as its implications on the absorption and assimilation process of immigrants in their destination country. Focusing on the education aspect of absorption, this paper argues that beyond inter-cultural differences, absorption processes must also acknowledge the significance of the movement and journey in a dynamic reality. This paper is concentrated on a specific educational project, demonstrating how anthropological perceptions like doubting the obvious, heterogeneity, critical thinking, and reflectivity can be used to change absorption policies. This paper shows how applied anthropology can translate immigration practices and insights into practical educational and absorption approaches.

scholarly journals Diversity Policing–Policing Diversity: Performing Ethnicity in Police and Private-Security Work in Sweden

2014 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 075-087 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cecilia Hansen Löfstrand ◽  
Sara Uhnoo
Keyword(s):  
Police Officers ◽  
Ethnic Diversity ◽  
Ethnically Diverse ◽  
Private Security ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Ethnic Matching ◽  
Diverse Workforce ◽  
Official Discourse ◽  
Security Officers ◽  
Police Authority

This article draws upon two separate studies on policing in Sweden, both investigating “ethnic diversity” as a discourse and a practice in the performance of policing functions: one interview study with minority police officers from a county police authority and one ethnographic study of private security officers. To examine how “diversity policing” and the “policing of diversity” are performed by policing actors, their strategic reliance on an ethnically diverse workforce is examined. The official discourse in both contexts stressed “diversity policing” as a valuable resource for the effective execution of policing tasks and the legitimation of policing functions. There was, however, also another, more unofficial discourse on ethnicity that heavily influenced the policing agents’ day-to-day work. The resulting practice of “policing diversity” involved situated activities on the ground through which “foreign elements” in the population were policed using ethnicized stereotypes. Diversity in the policing workforce promoted the practice of ethnic matching, which, ironically, in turn perpetuated stereotypical thinking about Swedish “others”. A conceptual framework is developed for understanding the policing strategies involved and the disjuncture found between the widely accepted rationalities for recruiting an ethnically diverse workforce and the realities for that workforce’s effective deployment at the street level.

Caregivers blinded by the care: A qualitative study of physical restraint in pediatric care

2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 230-246 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bénédicte Lombart ◽  
Carla De Stefano ◽  
Didier Dupont ◽  
Leila Nadji ◽  
Michel Galinski
Keyword(s):  
Healthcare Professionals ◽  
Physical Restraint ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Pediatric Care ◽  
Health Educators ◽  
Best Interest ◽  
Ethical Considerations ◽  
Technical Procedure ◽  
Purposeful Sampling ◽  
Written Informed Consent

Background: The phenomenon of forceful physical restraint in pediatric care is an ethical issue because it confronts professionals with the dilemma of using force for the child’s best interest. This is a paradox. The perspective of healthcare professional working in pediatric wards needs further in-depth investigations. Purpose: To explore the perspectives and behaviors of healthcare professionals toward forceful physical restraint in pediatric care. Methods: This qualitative ethnographic study used focus groups with purposeful sampling. Thirty volunteer healthcare professionals (nurses, hospital aids, physiotherapists, and health educators) were recruited in five pediatric facilities in four hospitals around Paris, France, from March to June 2013. The data were processed using NVIVO software (QSR International Ltd. 1999–2013). The data analysis followed a qualitative methodological process. Ethical Considerations: The research was conducted in compliance with the Declaration of Helsinki. Written informed consent was collected systematically from participants. Findings: This study provides elements to help understand why restraint remains common despite its contradiction with the duty to protect the child and the child’s rights. All participants considered the use of forceful physical restraint to be a frequent difficulty in pediatrics. Greater interest in the child’s health was systematically used to justify the use of force, with little consideration for contradictory or ethical aspects. Raising the issue of forceful restraint always triggered discomfort, unease and an outpour of emotions among healthcare professionals. The findings have highlighted a form of hierarchy of duties that give priority to the execution of the technical procedure and legitimize the use of restraint. Professionals seemed to temporarily suspend their ability to empathize in order to apply restraint to carry out a technical procedure. This observation has allowed us to suggest the concept of “transient empathic blindness.” Conclusion: Using physical restraint during pediatric care was considered a common problem by participants. This practice must be questioned, and professionals must have access to training to find alternatives to strong restraint. Conceptualizing this phenomenon with the concept of “transient empathic blindness” could help professionals understand what happens in their minds when using forceful restraint.

Cultural Evolution: Adaptive Diversification in Language and Religion

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Doebeli
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Dominant Culture ◽  
Adaptive Diversification ◽  
Historic Record ◽  
Mainstream Culture

This chapter examines adaptive diversification in language and religion. The historic record contains many examples of the types of diversification occurring in these models. Diversification in languages has been rampant throughout history, and must have often occurred under substantial contact between hosts of diverging language memes. Similarly, it seems clear that religious diversification has often occurred, and continuous to occur, under conditions of substantial contact. The models illustrate that diversifying processes should be expected to operate whenever the likelihood of secession from a dominant culture increases with increasing dominance of the mainstream culture. Intuitively, it is not hard to imagine that the attractiveness of a culture diminishes as the culture becomes more dominant, dogmatic, and perhaps oppressive, and that the desire to stand out and be different increases in increasingly conformist cultures.

Autocratic, Transactional, and Servant Leadership in Japan, France, and Mexico

2020 ◽  
pp. 101-133
Author(s):  
Cynthia Maria Montaudon-Tomas ◽  
Ivonne M. Montaudon-Tomas ◽  
Yvonne Lomas-Montaudon
Keyword(s):  
Servant Leadership ◽  
Organizational Behavior ◽  
Leadership Styles ◽  
Cultural Differences ◽  
Leadership Style ◽  
Theoretical Study ◽  
Global Leadership ◽  
Multiple Perspectives ◽  
Cross Culture ◽  
Culture Study

A theoretical study was conducted based on three different leadership styles: autocratic, transactional, and servant. The most relevant characteristics of each leadership style were summarized. A cross-culture study was proposed considering three countries from diverse clusters according to the Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness Project (GLOBE). Each culture was analyzed separately, and relevant statistics were presented as elements for comparison. Different models and tools to evaluate cultural differences were used to create a multiple perspectives overview. Information from the three leadership styles was used to further determine whether those styles fit the cultural descriptions in order to establish the most frequent and suitable leadership styles in the selected countries and to understand how leadership styles can vary from region to region.

Digesting men? Ethnicity, gender and food: Perspectives from a ‘prison ethnography’

2012 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 141-156 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rod Earle ◽  
Coretta Phillips
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Ethnically Diverse ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Diverse Group ◽  
Gender Dynamics ◽  
Prison Life ◽  
The Way

Drawing from an ethnographic study of men’s social relations in an English prison, this article explores the potential of attending closely to men’s practice for the light it may shed on the boundaries of punishment. Interviews with prisoners and fieldwork experiences reveal something of the way prison acts on an ethnically diverse group of men. Focusing on the way men use cooking facilities on the prison’s wings, the article explores the way men make food for themselves and each other and thereby occupy prison space with unconventional (and conventional) gender practice. Using intersectional perspectives the article shows how practices of racialization, racism, conviviality and coercion are woven into the fabric of prison life. These quotidian experiences are juxtaposed against the question of how prisons and prisoner populations represent a spectrum of violence in which gender dynamics remain under-examined. By providing glimpses of men’s lives in an English prison to reveal aspects of the ways masculinities and ethnicities interact to shape a penal regime the authors offer some resources for, and perspective on, the theorization of punishment’s boundaries.

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