ethanporcaro/eric-fulltext-meta huggingface dataset:
Business Study Abroad Tours for Non-Traditional Students: An Outcomes Assessment
Author: Peppas, Spero C.
Date: 2005-08-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: College Students,Employees,International Education,International Educational Exchange,Educational Objectives,Outcomes of Education,Cultural Awareness,Global Approach,Adult Students,Study Abroad,Role,Program Effectiveness,Skill Development,Business Education,Education Work Relationship,Foreign Countries,Graduate Students,Age,Ethnicity,Race,Gender Differences,Statistical Analysis

Globalization is here to stay and companies across the world are realizing the importance of having employees with a global mindset. As companies cut costs, many provide little or no on-the-job training to hone employees' cross-border skills. It is thus the task of colleges and universities to prepare students to function and excel in the new and challenging global business environment of the 21st century. While there are a variety of forms that study abroad programs may take, study abroad has often been associated primarily with semester- or year-long stays in foreign countries, with students enrolled in programs offered by the home university or through arrangements with host foreign universities. Unfortunately, this type of program is often not a viable option for non-traditional business students. These working adults, attending classes in the evenings or on weekends, are seldom able to take much time away from their jobs and, hence, are usually precluded from the benefits of such programs. In an effort to respond to the needs of these learners, many business schools have included short-term programs, often referred to as study abroad tours, in their curricula. These courses are usually taught by professors from the home institution and include on-site visits, over a one- to three-week period, to businesses in one or multiple destination countries. This research assesses empirically the perceived benefits of a business study tour course in terms of business educational outcomes, cultural awareness and sensitivity, and work-related gains. This study fills a gap in the business-school-related literature by focusing on outcomes of study abroad tours for non-traditional, working adult students. According to the Institute of International Education, assessments of study abroad programs by their sponsors focus, for the most part, on student satisfaction and gains in language proficiency. Interestingly, intercultural proficiency and career-related outcomes are assessed by few institutions and the results of these studies are seldom accessible to individuals outside the sponsoring institution. As no published information could be found on the assessment of business-school study abroad tours for non-traditional students, the findings of this exploratory study should prove useful to business persons and academicians alike in understanding the role and effectiveness of study abroad tours in better preparing adult students to succeed in a global environment. (Contains 9 tables.)
Assessing Intercultural Learning through Introspective Accounts
Author: Jackson, Jane
Date: 2005-08-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Student Journals,Learning Processes,Foreign Countries,Study Abroad,Multicultural Education,Surveys,Interviews,Diaries,Ethnography,Foreign Students,Cultural Awareness,Cultural Differences,Chinese,Asian Culture,English (Second Language),Second Language Instruction,English for Special Purposes

If intercultural awareness is a key area in which sojourners are expected to make progress while abroad, then appropriate methods of assessment should be used to measure the gains they have made. While much attention has focused on the preparation, format, and content of study abroad programs, relatively little has been published about modes of assessment. This is changing, however, as a growing number of sojourns are becoming credit-bearing. A variety of standardized measures and instruments are used to gauge the language learning and intercultural adjustment of student sojourners such as surveys, inventories, proficiency exams and multiple-choice tests. Whereas these traditional forms of assessment try to quantify student learning, many interculturalists recognize that &quot;the experience abroad cannot be fully quantified: the outcome has to be measured in terms of the quality of the experience and of the skills acquired, particularly of transferable skills.&quot; Consequently, more attention is now being devoted to the use of introspective, qualitive means of assessment. To gather the sojourners' point of view and encourage self-monitoring, interviews, diaries and other means of self-report are being employed much more frequently by intercultural researchers and other educators charged with the evaluation of study abroad learning. For example, large-scale &quot;year abroad&quot; programs for foreign language students, such as the Interculture Project and the LARA (Learning and Residence Abroad) project, have relied on student diaries and interviews to help determine the impact of the sojourn experience. This article illustrates the benefits of using first-person introspective accounts to investigate and assess the learning processes of short-term sojourners. In particular, it focuses on the application and analysis of the diaries of Hong Kong Chinese students who participated in a five-week sojourn in England.
The Transcultural Journey
Author: Slimbach, Richard
Date: 2005-08-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Cultural Awareness,Study Abroad,Individual Development,Foreign Countries,Cultural Differences,Self Concept,Cultural Pluralism,Ideology,Cultural Background,Social Class,Ethnicity,Religion,Attitude Change

Ready or not, a "transcultural" era is here. The dramatic expansion of airline travel and telecommunications technologies, tourism and student exchanges, immigration policies and trade agreements have served to connect vastly different peoples and places into increasingly complex relationships. Local, regional, and national economies are now largely integrated into a single interdependent economy, working in real time on a global scale. Buyers and sellers increasingly connect, not through physical proximity, but through electronic networks. At the same time, everything and everyone appears to be on the move. Capital and commodities, products and services, businesspersons and migrants, tourists and terrorists--all move across borders with relative freedom. More persons than ever before are pursuing lives that link the local and the global. They are becoming increasingly transcultural--physically or electronically connected with diverse peoples, and involved in decision-making that is influenced by, and in turn influences, the affairs of a global society. Transcultural persons may be sustained through transnational corporations, grassroots organizations, professional societies, and advocacy groups. But they are also identified at the level of simple, cross-cultural friendships made with residents of local communities. Transculturalism is rooted in the quest to define shared interests and common values across cultural and national borders. At its best, it comes to the forefront in transnational efforts to address consequential global issues such as personal prejudice, group violence, environmental protection, and human rights. Effective personal and collective responses to complex quality-of-life issues have always depended upon some level of cultural awareness. Today, however, competence of a transcultural kind must exhibit the attitudes and abilities that facilitate open and ethical interaction with people across cultures. Any worthy destination requires that a traveler have the necessary orientation. In an attempt to plot the course toward transcultural competence, this essay presents 10 organizing propositions as a cognitive "map" to guide the path of learner development. Each proposition is accompanied by its own set of learner competencies which describe concrete changes learners can expect along the way. (Contains 1 figure, 7 notes and 20 resources.)
Towards Other-Regarding Travel
Author: Byrnes, Ronald S.
Date: 2005-08-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Travel,Asian Culture,Cultural Differences,Foreign Countries,Student Adjustment,Cultural Awareness,Metacognition,Study Abroad,Program Design,Program Implementation,Teacher Attitudes,College Faculty

This essay focuses on how people respond to cultural difference, and, specifically, two tendencies. One tendency is to romanticize the cultural differences encountered. Another tendency is to rush to a negative judgment about the specific people involved, and about their culture more generally. In this essay, the author illustrates these tendencies by analyzing the difficulties he, his family and his students had adapting to Chinese culture, and by drawing on examples from his own previous experiences. He then proposes a third, contrasting mindset that involves suspending judgment in order to better understand and appreciate cultural differences. This third way fosters other-regarding travel. The author aims to help students make the most of their cross-cultural experience by suggesting ways they might learn to appreciate cultural differences, gain heightened self-understanding, and foster good will among their in-country hosts. The individual actions in the examples in this article, while based on actual incidents, represent responses to cross-cultural differences. The author offers as examples some of his own cross-cultural blunders.
India's Modern Slaves: Bonded Labor in India and Methods of Intervention
Author: Boutros, Heidi
Date: 2005-11-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Intervention,Labor,Slavery,Foreign Countries,Poverty,Salary Wage Differentials,Laws,Children,Child Labor,Crime

Slavery flourishes in the modern world. In nations plagued by debilitating poverty, individuals unable to afford food, clothing, and shelter may be compelled to make a devastating decision: to sell themselves or their children into slavery. Nowhere in the world is this more common than India. Conservative estimates suggest that there are 10 million bonded child slaves in India alone. Bonded slavery refers to the situation in which a debtor is forced to work exclusively for a creditor in order to repay an advance. There are additional characteristics that are commonly associated with bonded labor but are not essential to its definition. For example, bonded slaves are generally forced to work long hours for six or seven days per week. They frequently receive wages well below those of workers in the same industry who have not taken an advance. This paper discusses India's domestic laws criminalizing bonded labor, its entry into some numerous international agreements regarding bonded slavery, and the four elements of effective bonded labor intervention. (Contains 64 notes.)
&quot;Nipe Nikupe&quot;: Dependency, Reciprocity, and Paradoxes of Food Aid in Lugufu Refugee Camp Kigoma, Tanzania
Author: Hoyer, Brian
Date: 2005-11-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Nutrition,Foreign Countries,Refugees,Food,Rural Areas,Financial Support,Criticism,Change Agents

This paper is based on primary fieldwork conducted in Lugufu refugee camp in the rural Kigoma Region of western Tanzania. It is an anthropological inquiry into the paradox of refugee food aid based on the prevailing dynamic of domination and submission currently advanced by the international aid community. This inquiry asks fundamental questions relating to the social consequences of refugee food aid. How does the power of gift and reciprocity relate to food aid? What is the strategic value of this aid to the provider? What is expected of an individual who enters the liminal social setting of the refugee camp, as a recipient of humanitarian assistance? How does dependency develop and manifest itself in Lugufu refugee camp? From these points of analysis emerges a strong critique of the current relief regime, and constructive criticism aimed at improving food distribution in this highly dynamic social setting--a situation in which the contribution of a fresh perspective can offer a valuable tool for positive change. (Contains 3 notes.)
The Human Right to Water--Market Allocations and Subsistence in a World of Scarcity
Author: McAdam, Kevin C.
Date: 2005-11-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Water,Civil Rights,Natural Resources,Resource Allocation,Economically Disadvantaged,Poverty,Privatization,Corporations,Government (Administrative Body),Foreign Countries

More than one billion people do not have access to an adequate water supply. In Gambia and Haiti, people live on less than 4 liters of water per day. By contrast, most toilets in the West use several times that amount of water for a single flush. The global distribution of water is making it increasingly difficult for poor people to access it, and movements to commodify water and privatize the industries that provide it exacerbate this situation, trapping the poorest in a cycle of water poverty. Much research has been done on the problem of water scarcity. However, the link between scarcity and water as a human right is rarely articulated, even the current index of the website of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has no entry for water. This paper proposes a human right to water. It then considers the consequent obligations the right to water imposes on those who control water resources, such as governments, water corporations, and international lending institutions. (Contains 75 notes.)
Sedimentation History and Provenance Analysis of a Late Mesozoic Rifting Event at Tavan Har, East Gobi, Mongolia
Author: Davidson, Sarah Cain
Date: 2005-11-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Geology,Foreign Countries,Statistical Analysis,Geography,History,Study Abroad,Undergraduate Students,Student Research,Field Studies,Consortia,Learning Experience,Plate Tectonics,Scientific Research,Paleontology

The East Gobi Basin (EGB), which covers over 1.5 million square kilometers in southeastern Mongolia, is one of several basins in eastern China and Mongolia that was formed by extension and intracontinental rifting during the late Mesozoic. For reasons that are poorly understood, the continental lithosphere covering areas that are now known as eastern China and Mongolia underwent extension and thinning, which led to normal faulting and the creation of areas of subsidence--basis--within the continent. This study contributes to the amount of primary field data and quantitative analyses available on the Mesozoic sedimentary deposits within the EGB, focusing on the syn-rift rock units that were extensive in our particular field area. This is the first study to focus on the source rock of sandstones in the EGB. In addition, the data provide a basis for reconstructing the paleogeography and paleoenvironment of late Mesozoic rifting event. The conclusions of this study, when placed within the context of the geology of Asia, help readers to better understand rift processes and basin evolution in different parts of the world. (Contains 2 footnotes and 7 figures.)
Student Science Research in Education Abroad
Author: Mankiewicz, Carol
Date: 2005-11-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Educational Opportunities,Communication Skills,Study Abroad,Student Research,Scientific Research,College Students,Cultural Awareness,Science Education

Study abroad provides many opportunities for students. My own college's goals for international programs state that "students are expected to gain new perspectives on their fields of study, develop intercultural competencies and communication skills, learn others' perspectives, and reflect on their own assumptions and values while abroad" (Beloit College Office of International Education, 2005). Research abroad by students ideally provides these same benefits, better preparing them to function in their chosen fields. The views expressed in this essay come from my perspective as a biology and geology professor who has had the opportunity to travel and do research in a number of different and diverse countries. In addition, they stem from conversations with liberal-arts-college students, and with Sarah Davidson. Three aspects of research abroad are pertinent to this discussion: different approaches to science research, the need to have global coverage in our studies, and the site-specific nature of many scientific studies.
The Mass Media and Political Socialization: Chile, 1970-2000
Author: Walter, Amy R.
Date: 2005-11-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Authoritarianism,Political Socialization,Political Attitudes,Democracy,Foreign Countries,Mass Media,Case Studies,Social Systems,Social Change,Political Influences,Change Agents,Surveys,Study Abroad,Student Projects

This project seeks to determine the effect of the mass media on political attitudes and behaviors in Chile between the years 1970 and 2000. The relationship between the media and &quot;political socialization&quot; is just now gaining recognition in scholarly research, and Chile offers an excellent case study. This paper traces these two variables during Salvador Allende's Socialist government, 1970-73; throughout Augusto Pinochet's right-wing dictatorship, 1973-1990; and in the return to democracy since 1990. Under Allende's Unidad Popular government the mass media were deeply polarized and antagonistic between the political right and left. Beginning on 11 September 1973, the day that Augusto Pinochet seized power through a violent coup, only extreme-rightist media were allowed to inform the Chilean public. The Pinochet regime heavily censored these media and used them as tools of political propaganda. In the mid-1980s, prompted by the country's new neoliberal economic experiment, the mass media began to undergo an &quot;apertura&quot;, during which time opposition media provided a forum for political resistance. The opposition media were a major player in the 1988 plebiscite in which Pinochet was voted out of power. Since 1990, however, the mass media have seemingly lost their &quot;raison d'etre&quot;: rather than the investigative reports seen at the dictatorship's demise, they now provide little more than entertainment. This paper sets forth hypotheses as to why the mass media underwent such dramatic changes in political character and role. It also analyzes the Chilean public's media consumption as an indicator of political behavior, employing numerous surveys and studies conducted between 1970 and 2000 as its basis. Due to space constraints, raw data is not included in this article. (Contains 120 footnotes.)
Documenting Development and Pedagogy in the Swedish Preschool: The Portfolio as a Vehicle for Reflection, Learning, and Democracy
Author: McKenna, Devon E.
Date: 2005-11-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Portfolio Assessment,Early Childhood Education,Democracy,Young Children,Foreign Countries,Democratic Values,Educational Experience,Teaching Methods,Decision Making,Citizenship,Child Care,Preschool Education,Child Care Centers,Child Development,Reflection,Reggio Emilia Approach,Constructivism (Learning),Standardized Tests

In Sweden, governmental decision-making is based on a social-democratic ideology and a system of representative democracy. In citizens' meetings, the democratic values and norms, that are both a requirement and goal, at are formed. This concept of democracy, and the value system behind it, permeates Swedish culture, and its institutions and policies. It plays an especially significant role in Swedish early childhood education and care (ECEC), a system that is part of a comprehensive network of family policies and services. It is considered paramount that democracy is upheld in the child-care setting, so that children acquire these values on which the Swedish society is so fundamentally based. Documentation brings democracy into the pedagogical activities and decision making of the preschool by offering a means for those within, along with those outside the preschool, to observe and reflect on its activities and development. In Swedish ECEC, the individualized portfolio method has become an increasingly popular way to record learning. A portfolio is a profile of a child's work and interests which is built up gradually with representative components of a child's educational experience. This article discusses how portfolios illustrate the pedagogical activities in the classroom, and allow the student, teacher, and parent, and the community at large, to reflect on the practice and progress of the preschool. It discusses how this concrete display of work gives outside stakeholders and community members a clearer understanding of the everyday methods and pedagogy in the early childhood facilities.
&quot;Holding Culture in Her Hand:&quot; Immersion and Understanding
Author: Ross-Bernstein, Judith
Date: 2005-11-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Early Childhood Education,Well Being,Young Children,Foreign Countries,Study Abroad,Teaching Methods,Undergraduate Students,Cultural Influences,Values,Child Development

Coming upon Devon McKenna's entry one might ask two questions. First, why send undergraduates, specifically potential early childhood professionals, abroad? Second, why send them to Sweden? To both, the answer drawn from a comprehensive worldwide review of early childhood program provision provides an elegant recognition: &quot;It is said that the merit of any nation may be judged by how it treats its children, particularly the poor and needy. If that adage is true, then Sweden surely sits at an international pinnacle. Nothing honors Sweden more than the way it honors and respects its young.&quot; The culminating event of Devon's policy to practice experience was her final thesis entitled, presented in this volume. This she presented in Swedish fashion to a group of her study abroad peers, mentors, and professors. In this thesis, Devon demonstrates her ability to identify and weave threads of cultural values and beliefs, related to national policy mandates, teaching practices, parental expectations, and their implication for children's well being and development. From the author's perspective as an educator, Devon McKenna's undergraduate trajectory exemplifies an innovative and desirable path in higher education. She believes that Devon had the unique opportunity to &quot;hold culture&quot; in her hand and closely examine what it might mean in terms of her own personal and professional life and in this case, the lives of young children.
Epidemic and Identity: A Cross-Cultural Comparison of AIDS Prevention Approaches in France and the United States
Author: Stambolis-Ruhstorfer, Michael
Date: 2005-11-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Cross Cultural Studies,Participant Observation,Prevention,Foreign Countries,Homosexuality,Historians,Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS),Cultural Differences,Social Differences,Ideology

The last twenty years have witnessed the explosion of a worldwide epidemic. AIDS is a syndrome that crosses national borders and renders obsolete the distinctions between the public and private spheres. Researchers and historians who try to understand the social nuances of AIDS often classify it as a cultural illness that underlines national differences. In this way, &quot;the AIDS epidemic is cultural and linguistic as well as biological and biomedical.&quot; This paper explores the cultural differences observed between France and the United States on the issue of AIDS prevention in the gay community. The study is based on participant observation conducted during two internships with AIDS prevention organizations targeting gay men: at AIDES in Toulouse, France and at the AIDS Community Alliance (ACA) in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. AIDS, when examined in the context of homosexuality, highlights the social, cultural, and ideological differences between France and the US. Most striking is the disparate articulation of the gay community in these two countries.