Academic literature on the topic 'Bicultural mind'

The present study examines the extent to which models of honesty predict the magnitude of current or future self-serving assessment of performance in Middle Eastern students, a population often neglected in the extant literature. Specifically, the study asks whether Middle Eastern students’ predictions regarding future performance rectify prior self-serving inflated assessment, thereby restoring honesty, or glorify it through enhanced optimism, thereby discounting prior dishonesty. In this study, students believed that their self-assessment of performance would be either anonymous, allowing them to cheat, or identifiable. Before self-assessment, participants were exposed to reminders of honesty or dishonesty (i.e., priming conditions) or neutral reminders (i.e., the control condition). In agreement with the self-concept maintenance model and evidence of earlier studies conducted in the Western world, students inflated their self-assessments very little, and even less when presented with either secular or religious reminders of honesty. However, reminders were ineffective on participants’ predictions of future performance, which were biased in favor of optimism. The study offers concrete evidence on the presumed generality of a theoretical model of ethical conduct while it also adds evidence on its limitations.

Objectives The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of parent education programs for bilingual education of children on the bilingual teaching efficacy and bicultural competence of parents in Chinese multicultural family. Methods For the foregoing, this study selected 13 mothers in Chinese multicultural families living in Seoul⋅Gyeonggi as a single research group, and conducted a program composed of mind opening-understanding of subject-case exploration-discussion(practice)-finish for 10 times. To examine the effect of parent education programs for bilingual education of children, this study conducted a survey on the bilingual teaching efficacy and bicultural competence before, immediately after and 6 weeks after the program, and measured difference between scores of pre-post and post-follow-up test through the Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test. Results First, parents in Chinese multicultural families who participated in parent education programs for bilingual education of children showed a significant difference in pre-post test (Z=-3.30, p<.01), whereas no significant difference was shown in the post-follow-up test (Z=-1.922, p>.05). Second, participants showed a significant difference in the pre-post test of bicultural competence (Z=-2.92, p<.01), but no significant difference was shown in the post-follow-up test (Z=-.045, p>.05). Conclusions Parents in Chinese multicultural families who participated in this study experienced significant improvement in bilingual teaching efficacy and bicultural competence after participating in parent education programs for bilingual education of children, and this study confirmed that improved bilingual teaching efficacy and bicultural competence was maintained continuously for a certain period of time 6 weeks after the program was finished.

The present article deals with a number of themes that pertain to culture and language relation in bilingual reality, most notably how bilingualism is defined and classified in the literature, and how bicultural bilinguals’ languages and cultures are interconnected. In the subsequent research part, the reported data formed the basis for conclusions supported by two-year observation and interviews of 4 Spanish-English bilinguals. The case studies allowed to gather information regarding their linguistic and cultural behaviour and how they identify themselves both linguistically and culturally. Each case study is discussed and conclusions on parallel points along with dissimilarities between accounts of the linguistic and cultural reality experienced in both languages are outlined.

Abstract Objective Explore the impact of culture, developmental stage, and cognitive functioning in a possible diagnosis of SCD. Case Description A 12-year-old South Asian, bilingual/bicultural adolescent male (X) presented with concerns regarding his executive and social functioning skills. His medical history was notable for craniosynostosis - successfully treated with craniofacial surgery at age 1 - and a diagnosis of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), combined presentation. Diagnostic Impressions and Outcomes X demonstrated superior intellectual performance with some inefficiencies in cognitive processing. Challenges with social interaction were not observed over the course of testing but his mother reported difficulties understanding pragmatic aspects of communication (sexual innuendos in double entendres) and recognizing when conversation had moved to a different topic. He kept a small social circle and preferred the company of older children. Discussion In conceptualizing X’s difficulties with social pragmatics, we must keep in mind the socio-cultural context in which he is growing up. He is the son of immigrant parents with South Asian roots. He is at an adolescent developmental stage where he is beginning to explore his individual identity while navigating the differing mores between his South Asian home culture and his American host culture. Therefore, responding to sexual innuendos may be a decision that is fraught with cultural angst over what is appropriate in one context but not the other. His gifted abilities and ADHD may make it difficult for him to remain engaged in the classroom or with similar-aged peers who don’t challenge his intellectual proclivities. His ADHD may also explain his difficulty in recognizing when the topic of conversation has changed. In deciding whether to assign a diagnosis of SCD, it is important to remember these cultural and developmental factors which could explain his difficulties in a normalizing way. These factors should also inform potential therapeutic recommendations.

Present times are filled with a great number of incidents of a different nature because the 21st century is a time of significant transformation and progress in various areas of human life. In connection with the growing number of social and public threats, the importance of education for security is increasing, which is of particular significance when developing proper attitudes and values and for gaining knowledge and skills in the field of counteracting different threats. It is one of the fundamental methods of providing security and managing difficult or conflict situations. Education in security is of special importance in the work of law enforcement officers. Its content may considerably help when counteracting threats, and on the other hand, it may make law enforcers realise their potential as well as features of their personality. This education does not only mean transferring knowledge or developing skills, but also stimulating creativity in the work of law enforcers who are responsible for public safety. In the author’s opinion, thanks to education in security it is possible to create numerous personality attributes for officers, especially those of the human psyche (thinking) and mind (the state of self-consciousness, rationalism, empiricism, values, norms, moral and ethical problems). The author thinks that all the education and upbringing processes are possible when predispositions develop, which in turn are originally of an inborn and genetic structures status. A personality model of a law enforcer derived from the bicultural theory of a human being ought to be the basis of education for security which calls for an original paradigm for educating and upbringing. In the new paradigm, the role of public safety officers increases significantly because of high intellectual, moral and ethical expectations.

Audiovisual productions are increasingly featuring multi-ethnic communities which also reflect today’s globalised world. Characters in both films and TV series are often depicted as having a bilingual background and heavily relying on code-switching to express their bicultural identity (Monti 2016: 69). As such, this phenomenon poses important challenges for its translation, especially when dubbing is involved. Using this audiovisual translation (AVT) mode involves a necessary technical manipulation(Díaz-Cintas 2012: 284-285). As for Italian dubbing, multilingualism has often undergone a process of neutralization (Pavesi 2005: 56) or local standardization (Ulrych 2000: 410), although recent dubbed films have proved to be geared towards a more faithful rendering of this important feature of the source text (Monti 2016: 90).It should be borne in mind that contextual factors, such as genres, may play a fundamental role in deciding whether to retain or neutralise multilingualism in AVT, especially when it is used for humorous purposes. In those cases, the perlocutionary function of the ST should be considered (Hickey 1998; cf. also Zabalbeascoa 2012: 322). Comedy can make use of multilingualism to entertain and the American mockumentary (or docucomedy) Modern Family(Christopher Lloyd and Steven Levitan, 2009-2019), is a striking example in this sense. It follows the lives of Jay Pritchett and his family in suburban Los Angeles. Linguistically speaking, the most interesting character is Jay’s second wife Gloria Delgado, a young and beautiful Colombian woman who often code-switches or code-mixes English and Spanish (with a marked Colombian accent), thus creating moments of pure comedy. Hence, this study investigates how Gloria’s humorous and multilingual persona has been transferred into Italian. The analysis confirms the current tendency of Italian dubbing to render otherness in the TT (Monti 2016: 89). This may be justified by the genre and scope of the programme, that allow for a more innovative transfer of vernacular matching via what I propose to call functional manipulation.

Recent research has discovered a robust bias towards the processing of self-relevant information in perceptual matching. Self-associated stimuli are processed faster and more accurately than other-associated stimuli. Priming of independent or interdependent self-construal can dynamically modulate self-biases in high-level cognitive tasks. This study explored whether priming of independent/interdependent mindsets can modulate the self-bias effect in perceptual matching. In two experiments, British participants performed a priming task (Experiment 1 using a word-search task—an implicit priming approach, Experiment 2 with a reflective thinking task—an explicit priming method) immediately followed by a perceptual matching task, where they first learned to associate geometric shapes with labels (e.g., circle is you, square is friend, triangle is stranger) and then made judgments on whether shape-label pairs displayed on-screen were the correct associations or not. The analysis in Experiment 1 revealed that priming the interdependent self-construal led to a reduced self-bias effect in perceptual matching in participants who had low bias compared to those with high bias in the neutral/non-priming condition. In contrast, priming the independent self-construal did not modulate the self-bias in perceptual matching. The effects were replicated in Experiment 2. The results indicate that the self is a dynamic concept that can modulate perceptual processing by accessing different cultural contexts.

The research question in the present study concerns how culture shapes the way in which simultaneous facial and vocalization cues are combined in emotion perception. The matter is not whether culture influences such process: cultures supply systems of meaning that make salient different core emotional themes, different sets of emotions, their ostensible expression, and action tendencies. Therefore, research doesn’t regard whether, but how and at what level of analysis culture shapes these processes (Matsumoto, 2001). Cultural variability was tested within the methodological framework of cultural priming studies (Matsumoto & Yoo, 2006). In such a methodological option culture is not viewed as consensual, enduring, and context-general, but as fragmented, fluctuating, and context-specific (situated cognition model; Oyserman & Sorensen, 2009). Bicultural individuals that, through enduring exposure to at least two cultures, possess systems of meaning and practices of both cultures, can therefore switch between such cultural orientations alternating them depending on the cultural cues (cultural primers) available in the immediate context (cultural frame switching; Hong et al. 2000). The present research investigated cultural differences in the way visual and auditory cues of fear and disgust are combined in emotion perception by Italian-Japanese biculturals primed with Japanese and Italian cultural cues. Bicultural participants were randomly assigned to Italian or Japanese priming conditions and were shown dynamic faces and vocalizations expressing either congruent (i.e., fear-fear) or incongruent (i.e. fear-disgust) emotion and were asked to identify the emotion expressed ignoring the one or the other modality (cross-modal bias paradigm; Bertelson & de Gelder, 2004). The effect of to-be-ignored vocalization cues was larger for participants in the Japanese priming condition, while the effect of to-be-ignored dynamic face cues was larger for participants in the Italian priming condition. This pattern of results was investigated also within current perspectives on embodied cognition, that, regarding emotion perception, assume that perceivers subtly mimic a target’s facial expression, so that contractions in the perceiver’s face generate an afferent muscolar feedback from the face to the brain, leading the perceiver to use this feedback to reproduce and thus understand the perceived expressions (Barsalou, 2009; Niedenthal, 2007). In other words, mimicry reflects internal simulation of perceived emotion in order to facilitate its understanding. A mimicry-interfering (with the facial expressions of fear and disgust; Oberman, Winkielman & Ramachandran, 2007) manipulation with bicultural participants performing the same task above described generated no cultural differences in the effect of to-be-ignored vocalizations, showing that the interference effect of vocalizations on faces turns out to be larger for participants in the Italian priming condition. Altogether, these results can be interpreted within the cultural syndromes highlighting the independent vs. interdependent and socially embedded nature of self, providing meaning systems that encourage and make available a different weighting of nonverbal cues in emotion perception depending on their relying, respectively, on more (or less) face exposure (meant as individual exposure) in modulating social relationships and less (or more) vocal exposure (more subtle and time-dependent than the face) in order to enhance individual standing and autonomy (vs. establish and maintain social harmony and interpersonal respect). Current perspectives sketching how human cognitive functioning works through a situated (Mesquita, Barrett, & Smith, 2010) and embodied (simulative) mind (Barsalou, 2009), and their implications in emotion perception are briefly described as the theoretical framework guiding the research question addressed in the empirical contribution.

The recent attacks on ethnic studies programs both in Arizona with house bill 2281 and locally at the University of Central Texas serve as an urgent call to address how ethnic studies programs impact the educational trajectories of students. Additionally, research done on ethnic studies programs has largely focused on high school programs, overlooking programs in higher education. Therefore, this study addresses the following question: In what ways does being a Mexican American Studies major influence the experiences of Latinas at a predominately White institution (PWI)? Using Chicana feminist thought and Yosso’s (2005) community cultural wealth model as theoretical perspectives this study seeks to; 1) understand an educational approach (ethnic studies) that has shown success with students of color, 2) fill in the gap in the literature of ethnic studies programs in higher education, and 3) look at the gendered experience of Latinas at PWIs. Through a thematic analysis of six in depth interviews and a focus group conducted with six Latina undergraduates the author finds that Mexican American Studies represents a site or process of reclaiming and redefining. Four major themes are identified and discussed; reclaiming knowledge, the self, and space(s) and redefining la mujer. The findings suggest that there is a relationship between student retention and ethnic studies programs, adding epistemic and mestiza capital to Yosso’s community cultural wealth model, and using ethnic studies programs as models of how to best support students of color at PWIs. The author concludes with the suggestion that more research is needed on the experiences of other undergraduate students (White, African American, men, etc.) that are ethnic studies majors in order to further understand the impact, importance, and wealth of potential in these programs.
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This chapter discusses a phenomenon referred to as cultural frame switching; a psychological process experienced by bicultural individuals whereby exposure to a culturally significant cue or stimulus causes the individual to instinctively process the information through one of two cultural mind frames – one more closely aligned to the individual's cultural identity as a member of the dominant culture, the other more closely aligned to the individual's identity as a member of an ethnic or immigrant and usually subordinate culture. As a result of this differential activation, the individual then processes the information and responds within the cultural mind frame activated by the cue. This chapter will look at: the antecedents of this phenomenon; the many cues which can activate either cultural identity; existing research on the subject matter; and the many ways corporate America and Madison Avenue may be overlooking this research thereby missing a valuable opportunity.

Mike Allen’s Path to global dealmaker was a strange one. He graduated from Oblate College in San Antonio and was ordained a Catholic priest in 1964. As an oblate in the church, Allen committed his early adult years to the lives of migrant workers and others on the margins, and he considered himself a socialist. He lived in a grungy trailer near the impoverished members of his McAllen parish, where he was known as “Padre Mike.” Not unlike Ed Krueger, Allen worked with the United Farm Workers, taught his parishio­ners how to work the welfare system, and railed against the injustices of capitalism. He had a friendly relationship with Krueger during those years. When Krueger needed something mimeographed, for example, he would go to the office where Allen worked to use his machine. In 1974 Mike Allen left the priesthood and became that most diehard of capitalists: the convert. As he tells it, he evolved, realizing that handouts cannot offer the dignity of work. He took a job working with the Texas Office of Economic Opportunity, where he lobbied in D.C. to get money for Texas and handled economic development grants for Texas businesses. In the mid-1980s he started a company that sold corrugated cardboard to Mexico, invested in a shoe-making maquiladora, and did various consultancies. Then in 1987 Allen moved back to the Magic Valley to lead the McAllen Economic Development Corporation (MEDC) at Mayor Brand's invitation. He was the perfect choice; he felt as comfortable with a Mexican developer or impoverished colonia (neighborhood) dweller as he did with corporate executives or Austin politicos. He wasn’t only bilingual, he was bicultural—and persuasive to boot. In 1988, a year into his tenure at MEDC, Allen met with the mayor of Reynosa, Tamaulipas. A gritty border city of a few hundred thousand, Reynosa lagged behind Tijuana, Ciudad Juárez, and Matamoros, but had been relatively self-sufficient—supported for several decades by its petroleum and natural gas reserves.