A Test of the Reproducibility of the Clustering of Cultural Variables

Cultural variables from many different cross-cultural studies can be divided into two clusters of variables that are strongly correlated within each cluster. This is reflected in two factors that are found to be reproduced by independent sets of cultural variables and also reflected in several different cross-cultural studies. The first factor, called superfactor, reflects the combined effects of development and modernization, together with social-psychological effects such as collectivism, conservatism, regality, and tightness. The second factor, called East Asian factor, combines several effects related to East Asian cultures, and possibly also differences in response style. These two factors can be found in several previously published cultural maps, but rotated differently. The common practice of factor rotation has obscured similarities between many different cross-cultural studies. Many previously published cultural factors with different names are in fact differently rotated solutions reflecting the same or closely related underlying cultural differences.

The Use of Cultural Maps in Developing Intercultural Sensitivity: From Culture-Centrism to Culture-Relativism

The paper describes an experience of teaching intercultural communications to undergraduate students using a cultural mapping method. Students were asked to draw cultural-specific maps that reflected their own idea of the world and then to compare them with similar maps drawn by people from different countries. In the process of drawing, presenting, comparing and discussing the maps, students were forced to confront their own cultural preconceptions as well as to become aware of the extent to which their picture of the world is culturally determined. Keywords: intercultural communications, intercultural sensitivity, cultural maps, pedagogy, cultural relativism

Finding Sense in Organization Studies: Assumptions and Features of K. Weick’s Sensemaking Approach

This article discusses some of the theoretical foundation of the sensemaking approach introduced by Karl Weick within the fields of organizational psychology and organizational theory. Weick, Sutcliffe, and Obstfeld wrote that “Sensemaking involves the ongoing retrospective development of plausible images that rationalize what people are doing” (2005: 409), or, in more general terms, making sense out of what is happening in order to reduce uncertainty and to act upon it. For this purpose, according to Weick, an individual deals with two questions: “What is going on? and, what should I do about it?” Answers to these questions and their following implications in the individual’s actions depend on the seven characteristics of the sensemaking: the individual’s identity, retrospective, enactment, social activity, ongoing [events and flux of experience], cues, and plausibility. Weick offers a “navigation of social space [of organization] with cultural maps in hand”, and draws inspiration from the analysis of jazz improvisation. His works, still lacking attention in Russia, offer an instrument for both crisis situations with dramatic “loss of sense” and quite common everyday events. Weick’s ideas were broadly developed within research on communication, identity, language, narratives, power, and other aspects of organizational activity. At the same time, sensemaking is believed to be one of the main theoretical inspirations for the processual approach in organization studies, which is focused on organizational becoming, or organizing.

The Role of Ontology in Religious Tourism Education—Exploring the Application of the Postmodern Cultural Paradigm in European Religious Sites

The cultural and spiritual repository of religion is an indispensable resource for shaping public and cultural life in a post-secular era. Although the floods of culturally intrigued ‘pilgrims’ and spiritually ‘captivated’ tourists have marked religious sites on nationwide cultural maps, religious sites have yet to achieve a holistic interpretative experience which will reveal the deeper meanings of ecclesiastical art. The absence of ‘holistic interpretations’ from European Christian churches, addressing the tangible and intangible (faith) aspect of Christian tradition, run the risk of undermining both the cognitive and emotive aspects of visitors. Following a thematic analysis on interpretations found at Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant churches in Europe, this article investigates how religious sites adapt different interpretational strategies to communicate their stories. The findings are discussed with reference to heritage practices found at religious sites expressed through two coexisting cultural ideologies: the prominent postmodern cultural paradigm, expressed through New Museology, and the religious cultural paradigm, expressing religious tradition and vision. The research concludes that the more content a denomination appears to be over the postmodern cultural paradigm of New Museology, the more likely it is to experiment with postmodern interpretative strategies. In this context, the article raises the question of whether museum theory is applicable to religious settings. The bottom line is that stakeholders’ ontological presuppositions are the catalyst of how religious history, tradition, and faith, are negotiated and presented in religious settings.

Para além do multiculturalismo: a educação intercultural na Europa

Apresenta e comenta, em linhas gerais, alguns aspectos presentes na construção da proposta educativa européia que pretende superar a perspectiva do multiculturalismo americano e implementar a educação intercultural. Objetiva-se fornecer subsídios para a apreensão da singularidade do caso brasileiro, numa perspectiva comparada, bem como elementos para o debate e a problematização dos «novos mapas culturais» que vêm sendo estabelecidos, objetos da recente preocupação com a questão das diferenças culturais em estudos acadêmicos e das propostas de sua incorporação aos currículos escolares. Entretanto, as discussões não se esgotam nos estudos sobre o currículo, mas avançam para a compreensão das perspectivas metodológicas que norteiam as propostas de intervenção, uma vez que são expressões diversificadas da tentativa de dominar, na teoria e na prática, os mecanismos explícitos e implícitos que conformam a tendência à globalização inerente ao capitalismo, nesse momento de crise desencadeando manifestações reativas heterogêneas no campo político-cultural. Palavras-Chave: educação intercultural, educação européia, multiculturalismo americano. Abstract In general terms, this text presents and comments on some aspects present in the construction of the European Educational Proposal which aims at surpassing the American multicultural perspective through the implementation of intercultural education. The text aims at furnishing subsidiary material in order to apprehend the singular character of the brazilian case, within a comparative perspective, as well as elements for the debate and problematization of the “new cultural maps” currently being established, objects of recent interest in the question of cultural differences in academic studies and proposals for its incorporation in scholl curriculum. However, discussions do not end with studies on school curriculum; they go further on to an understanding of the methodological perspectives directing the proposals being made, given the fact that these are diversified expressions of the attempt, in theory and practice, to dominate the explicit and implicit mechanisms configuring the tendency towards globalisation inherent in capitalism, in this current moment of crisis that releases heterogeneous reactive manifestations in the politico-cultural area. Keywords: intercultural education, european education, american multiculturalism.

Ethical-cultural Maps of Classical Greek Philosophy: the Contradiction between Nature and Civilization in Ancient Cynicism

This article restores the peculiar ethical-cultural cartography from the philosophical fragments of Ancient Greek Cynicism. Namely, the fragments of Anthistenes, Diogenes of Sinope, Crates, Dio Chrysostom as well as of the ancient historians of philosophy (Diogenes Laertius and Joanes Stobaeus) are mainly analyzed and interpreted. The methods of comparative analysis as well of rational restoration are applied in this article.The authors of the article concentrate on the main characteristics of the above mentioned cartography, that is, the contradiction between maps of nature and civilization. The article comes to the conclusion that the basis of this contradiction is the concept of the main value as well as virtue in the above mentioned cynicism, namely, natural radical temperance. According to ancient cynics, this virtue is absolutely incompatible with pleasure-driven civilization, as the latter annihilates the former. Therefore, cynics interpreted the whole territory of the world known at that time as divided between maps of nature and civilization that never overlap or even intersect. Moreover, according to ancient cynics, the territory covered by maps of civilization is considerably smaller than that enframed by the maps of nature. Moreover, the areas of nature are continuously being diminished, as civilization resolutely goes ahead. In such a situation that threatens survival of human nature the only possible way out is a return to the natural value of radical temperance. After cynics, the only effective strategy of achieving that challenging goal is askesis as excercises of temperance dedicated both to body and spirit.The authors of the article also give a certain SWOT analysis of the above mentioned cartography in the context of contemporary society. According to them, such a cartography possesses both strong and weak points. The main weak point is the contradiction itself between maps of culture and civilization. As a matter of fact, civilization does not annihilate the possibility of natural temperance, whereas a human being, according to his/her nature, is a creator of culture and civilization. On the other hand, the main positive aspect is an emphasis on virtue of temperance, which is actual, significant and relevant in any epoch, culture and civilization, and which is pretty much forgotten nowadays.