Cultural Dissonance: Surfers' Environmental Attitudes and Actions

Surfers often see themselves as “green”. In this study we examine Norwegian surfers' attitudes and actions towards the environment. The article is based on a questionnaire (n = 251) and six qualitative interviews. The results show that most surfers see themselves as environmentally conscious. Oppositely, the data also show that they also buy a lot of surf-related apparel and equipment and travel a lot, and thereby contribute with a lot of CO2-emissions. In the article we investigate the apparent attitude-action gap amongst surfers. Does the gap give rise to emotional conflicts? And, if so, to what degree and how do they cope with it. In the article we start out by analysing such potential conflicts by using the concept cognitive dissonance. Further, we analyse the phenomena from a cultural, Bourdieusian perspective where values within the surf-field is highlighted. On the one hand, surf culture highly values connexion to nature and “green” thinking, on the other hand it also values and gives recognition to surfers that travels to and explore exotic destinations. Hence, values within surf culture leads surfers to conflicting actions. We end the article by discussing if these conflicts could be framed as cultural dissonance.

Exploring ethnic minority women’s experiences of maternity care during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic: a qualitative study

ObjectiveTo explore the experiences of pregnancy, childbirth, antenatal and postnatal care in women belonging to ethnic minorities and to identify any specific challenges that these women faced during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.DesignThis was a qualitative study using semistructured interviews of pregnant women or those who were 6 weeks postnatal from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds. The study included 16 women in a predominantly urban Scottish health board area.ResultsThe finding are presented in four themes: ‘communication’, ‘interactions with healthcare professionals’, ‘racism’ and ‘the pandemic effect’. Each theme had relevant subthemes. ‘Communication’ encompassed respect, accent bias, language barrier and cultural dissonance; ‘interactions with healthcare professionals’: continuity of care, empathy, informed decision making and dissonance with other healthcare systems; ‘racism’ was deemed to be institutional, interpersonal or internalised; and ‘the pandemic effect’ consisted of isolation, psychological impact and barriers to access of care.ConclusionsThis study provides insight into the specific challenges faced by ethnic minority women in pregnancy, which intersect with the unique problems posed by the ongoing SARS-CoV-2 pandemic to potentially widen existing ethnic disparities in maternal outcomes and experiences of maternity care.

Doppelganger-Inspired Change Effect Model of Faculty Global Cultural Competency

Our student populations' diversity now includes more than just African Americans, Native Americans, Latinos. We are now more representative of a wider range of cultural backgrounds. This shift brings fresh challenges of educator unpreparedness to identify with the unique cultures of international students. The cultural dissonance that international students face compounds this challenge. The cultural unawareness and misconceptions may be generated from both educators and students. The DICE model is inspired by an extensive review of the literature and a qualitative case study methods application. It is a process of fostering global cultural empathy and preparedness of educators by linking such preparedness to evaluating negative attitudinal influences that may block people from changing their thinking, which in turn will negatively impact global empathy preparedness. This is a valid linkage given the influence culture has on attitudes and vice versa and is true in the context of developing global empathy.

Could teacher-perceived parental interest be an important factor in understanding how education relates to later physiological health? A life course approach

Education is associated with later health, and notably with an indicator of physiological health measuring the cost of adapting to stressful conditions, named allostatic load. Education is itself the result of a number of upstream variables. We examined the origins of educational attainment through the lens of interactions between families and school i.e. parents’ interest in their child’s education as perceived by teachers. This study aims to examine whether parental interest during a child’s educational trajectory is associated with subsequent allostatic load, and whether education or other pathways mediate this relationship. We used data from 9 377 women and men born in 1958 in Great Britain and included in the National Child Development Study to conduct secondary data analyses. Parental interest was measured from questionnaire responses by teachers collected at age 7, 11 and 16. Allostatic load was defined using 14 biomarkers assayed in blood from a biosample collected at 44 years of age. Linear regression analyses were carried out on a sample of 8 113 participants with complete data for allostatic load, missing data were imputed. Participants whose parents were considered to be uninterested in their education by their teacher had a higher allostatic load on average in midlife in both men (β = 0,41 [0,29; 0,54]) and women (β = 0,69 [0,54; 0,83]). We examined the role of the educational and other pathways including psychosocial, material/financial, and behavioral variables, as potential mediators in the relationship between parental interest and allostatic load. The direct link between parental interest and allostatic load was completely mediated in men, but only partially mediated in women. This work provides evidence that parents’ interest in their child’s education as perceived by teachers is associated with subsequent physiological health in mid-life and may highlight a form of cultural dissonance between family and educational spheres.

Parent Perceptions of the Advocacy Expectation in Special Education

Although the Individuals With Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA) mandates parent participation in their children’s education programs, the implementation of IDEA results in parent effort beyond participation, specifically, an expectation of advocacy. To date, research on the advocacy expectation is mixed, with some parents perceiving advocacy as an obligation to ensure appropriate services for their children, whereas others argue it is unreasonable and has cultural dissonance, disadvantaging some parents. We examined parent perspectives of the advocacy expectation in special education through 19 focus groups with 127 parents of children with disabilities across four states. Findings included a nuanced understanding of the advocacy expectation, with participants reporting the importance of advocacy and some describing that advocacy was part of their social role. However, under adversarial circumstances with school personnel, participants described feeling overwhelmed because the advocacy expectation felt more difficult than it needed to be. We discuss implications for policy and practice.

The Namesake: A Study of Cultural Dissonance

The proposed research article is an attempt to make an analysis of the causes of cultural dissonance in the Jhumpa Lahiri’s novel, The Namesake. Cultural conflict has been a constant motif of Indian diasporic writers, presented by Lahiri in the form of Immigrant’s experience, in evocative manner. It is observed that for immigrants, the challenges of exile, feeling of displacement and longing for homeland and desire for acquiring identity in a new world is more explicit and distressing than for their offspring. The Namesake is basically a narrative of Indian Bengali family who comes to America for better future prospects; it discusses dilemma of cultural clash and identity in an alien land.

Fragile alliances: culture, funding and sustainability in police–academic partnerships

Background: Police–academic partnerships have developed significantly over the past decade or so, spurred on by the expansion of the evidence-based policing movement, the increasing value attached to impactful research in the academy, the ascendance of the professionalisation agenda in the police, and the growing necessity of cross-sectoral collaborations under conditions of post-financial crisis austerity. This trend has given rise to a burgeoning literature in the discipline of criminology which is concerned with charting the progress of these partnerships and setting out the ideal conditions for their future expansion.<br />Aims and objectives: we advance a sympathetic critique of this literature, adding a note of caution to its largely optimistic outlook.<br />Methods: we do this by combining a narrative review of the literature on police–academic partnerships with insights from elsewhere in the social sciences and observations from our experience of running the International Strand of the N8 Policing Research Partnership.<br />Findings and discussion: while we recognise that police–academic partnerships have certainly come a long way, and have the capacity to make important contributions to police work, we argue that they remain ‘fragile’ alliances, beset with fractious occupational cultures, unreliable funding streams and unsustainable inter-institutional relationships. We also reason that the structures underpinning this ‘fragility’ do not represent problems to be overcome, for they help to protect the integrity of the two professions.<br />Conclusion: we conclude by offering pragmatic measures for sustaining police–academic partnerships during those difficult periods characterised by cultural dissonance, a paucity of funding and the turnover of key personnel.<br /><br />Key messages<br /><ol><li>Over the past decade, police–academic partnerships have developed considerably in scope and size.</li><br /><li>This process has been spurred on by shifting attitudes towards research in the police and academy.</li><br /><li>However, these partnerships are largely confined to a select few countries in the Global North.</li><br /><li>They are also rendered ‘fragile’ by issues relating to culture, funding and sustainability.</li></ol>

LINGUISTIC REPRESENTATION OF ETHNOCULTURAL DISSONANCE IN AMÉLIE NOTHOMB'S NOVEL "TOKYO FIANCÉE"

The life and work of the modern Belgian writer Amélie Nothomb are directly connected with Japan and Japanese culture, so her works can be considered as important sources of knowledge about the country, which remained closed to foreigners for several centuries and does not often come into the focus of attention of modern French-speaking authors. In particular, the autobiographical novel “Tokyo Fiancée” (“Ni d’Ève ni d’Adam”, 2007) is an example of a detailed description of cross-cultural Japanese-Belgian contacts, as well as the behavior of representatives of Japanese linguoculture in everyday life, which the author had the opportunity to observe during her life in Japan. The purpose of the article is to analyze the main linguistic means of representing cultural otherness and, as a consequence of that otherness, ethno-cultural dissonance in the above-mentioned novel. The paper also clarifies the key concepts of ethno-cultural dissonance and otherness. The main research methods are linguistic-stylistic and linguistic-cultural analysis of an authentic literary text. Based on the results of the research, conclusions will be formulated about the specifics in the linguistic representation of ethno-cultural dissonance and cultural otherness in the novel under analysis.