At present we are living in a global market economy. As a result, international business and cooperation between two or more counties is a growing phenomenon. Global business managers and leaders are challenged to broaden their minds to create new methods of leading and managing what has become an increasingly diverse and cross-cultural workforce. This workforce will bring with it both advantages and disadvantages to global organisations. In general, the global leaders and managers will face the challenge of how to cope with workers from diverse cultures, whilst at the same time respecting the needs of workers from their own culture. There is also the problem of dealing not only with the workforce, but also with partners, competitors and customers from diverse cultural backgrounds. In global organisations the biggest challenge is how to effectively organize, lead, manage and monitor diversity in a cross-cultural workforce. More and more leaders and top managers are becoming aware of the importance of learning about various cultures, different languages, cross-cultural communication and negotiation skills in a global context. The global business environment influences the development of Chinese businesses; more and more Chinese companies are exploring foreign markets, and in recent years many Chinese investment organisations have invested in and are thriving in the South African market. Most of these are operating in the clothing or textile companies. Starting up a business in a foreign country is a difficult task for any manager or leader. They face many barriers including having to cope with different languages and with differences in culture, politics and social environments. This is especially true of the situation in South Africa, as South Africa is a richly multi-cultural country with many cultures and subcultures that observe different religions, that use different languages and that display different habits. This study will investigate how Chinese managers and leaders can be led to a better understanding of these differences so that they can formulate new organisational cultures that maximize their companies’ success in a global environment. In these case studies the sample selected will be the Chinese clothing and textile industries in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN). Although the leaders and managers of Chinese investment organisations in KZN have attempted to increase their awareness of the local management culture and have tried to learn more about local political, social and economic structures, they still have not placed sufficient emphasis on language training and cross-cultural knowledge acquisition. Despite the fact that they already have basic language, communication and negotiation skills with which to deal in some measure with a cross-cultural workforce, this study shows that Chinese managers and leaders have to further improve their understanding and their communication skills. / Thesis (M.Com.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Westville, 2011.

Thesis (M.A.)--Miami University, Dept. of Geography, 2008. / Title from first page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 79-85).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2004. / Supervisors: Lily Litvak and Virginia Higginbotham. Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Also available from UMI.

Thesis (MPhil (General Linguistics))--University of Stellenbosch, 2009.

Contemporary Canadian literature and drama that features racial hybridity represents the racially hybrid soma text as a unique form of embodiment and pays particular attention to the power of the racialized gaze. The soma text is the central concept I have developed in order to identify, address, and interrogate the signifying qualities of the racially hybrid body. Throughout my dissertation, I use the concept of the body as a text in order to draw attention to the different visual "readings" that are stimulated by this form of embodiment. In each chapter, I identify the centrality of racially hybrid embodiment and investigate the power of the racialized gaze involved in the interpellation of these racially hybrid bodies. I have chosen to divide my study into discrete chapters and to use specific texts to illuminate my central concepts and to identify the strategies that can be used to express agency over the process of interpellation. In Chapter One I explain my methodology, define the terminology and outline the theories that are central to my analysis. In Chapter Two, I consider the experiences of mixed race people expressing agency by self-defining in the genre of autobiography. In Chapter Three, I explore the notion of racial drag as represented in fiction. In Chapter Four, I consider the ways in which the performative aspects of racial hybridity are represented by theatrical means and through performance. My analysis of the soma text and racialized gaze in these three genres offers critical terms that can be used to analyze representations of racial hybridity. By framing my analysis by way of the construction of the autobiographical voice I suggest that insight into the narrative uses of racial hybridity can be deepened and informed by a thorough analysis of the representation of the lived experience of racial hybridity in a given context. My crossgeneric and crossracial methodology implicitly asserts the importance of the inclusion of different types of racial hybridity in order to understand the power of the racially hybrid body as a signifier in contemporary Canadian literature and drama. / Arts, Faculty of / English, Department of / Graduate

This study traced the evolution of experiential education in American history museums from 1787 to 2007. Because of a decline in attendance, museum educators need to identify best practices to draw and retain audiences. I used 16 museology and history journals, books, and archives of museums prominent for using the method. I also interviewed 15 museum educators who employ experiential learning, one master interpreter of the National Park Service, and an independent museum exhibit developer. Experiential education involves doing with hands touching physical materials. Four minor questions concerned antecedents of experiential learning, reasons to invest in the method, the influence of social context, and cultural pluralism. Next is a review of the theorists whose works support experiential learning: Dewey, Piaget, Vygotsky, Lewin, Bruner, Eisner, Hein, and David Kolb plus master parks interpreter Freeman Tilden. The 8 characteristics they support include prior experiences, physical action, interaction with the environment, use of the senses, emotion, social relationships, and personal meaning. Other sections are manifestation of experiential learning, transformation of history museums, and cultural pluralism in history museums. The research design is descriptive, and the procedure, document analysis and structured interview. Findings are divided by decades after the first 120 years. Social context, examples of experiential learning, and multicultural activities are detailed. Then findings are discussed by patterns of delivery: sensory experiences, actions as diversion and performance, outreach of traveling trunks and of organized activity, crafts as handwork and as skills, role-playing, simulation, hands-on museum work, and minor patterns. The decline of involvement of citizens in the civic and cultural life of the community has adversely affected history museums. Experiential learning can stop this trend and transform museum work, as open-air museums and the National Park Service have demonstrated. In the future history museums may include technology, a more diverse audience, and adults in its experiential educational plans to thrive. Further research is needed on evaluation, finances, and small museums.

In this dissertation I address urban sustainability with a focus on loss of cultural heritage and ecological knowledge by expanding the concept “extinction of experience” (EoE). Conceptualized by conservationist Robert Michael Pyle, EoE is the loss of nature experiences leading to apathy towards biodiversity and degradation of the common habitat. I expand upon Pyle’s formulation of the concept by considering the EoE cycle as an indirect driver that amplifies biodiversity losses. Additionally, I introduce the analysis of interrelated losses of biological and cultural diversity in relation to EoE. With a biocultural approach I discuss that EoE is tied to the infrastructural inertia within the global urban economy. I propose that addressing the EoE cycle is critical in that as a complex and multi-faceted process, it cements threats to biological and cultural diversity as permanent fixtures within society by obscuring their significance in light of economic development. This cycle remains a hidden problematic in that it perpetuates the environmental crisis while making such losses invisible within day-to-day lifestyle habits, constructing an emerging urban culture within the global economy that is ignorant of ecological processes and sustainability requirements. I frame the implications of EoE with an analysis of the newly proposed revisions of the UN Sustainable Development Goals voted on in September 2015 to prioritize local ecological knowledge and biocultural heritage.

This thesis investigated the success of global awareness co,curricular programming as a tool for increasing intercultural knowledge at a liberal arts college. The study asked the following question: do internationally themed campus-wide events increase student interest in, and appreciation of, difference? Students in this study were involved in two activities: a semester-long series of South Asian themed events (the Wooster Forum and the Forum Auxiliary Events) and the First Year Seminar in Critical Inquiry (FYS). Two sections ofFYS had themes related to that of the Wooster Forum while the other two did not. Levels of student openness to difference and intercultural awareness were measured by the Intercultural Effectiveness Scale (Kozai, 2009a) both before and after exposure to the events of the Wooster Forum. An additional institutionally designed questionnaire was also administered to determine students' participation in the events and to allow them to share their perspectives of the programming offered. Results indicated that the majority of students at the start of the study demonstrated a lack of interest in and awareness of the differences that exist between cultures. At the end of study, those students in sections of FYS without strong links to the theme of the Wooster Forum showed greater movement on the elements of the Intercultural Effectiveness Scale that indicate intercultural openness than the students in sections with close links. Surprisingly, this movement was likely to be negative. Survey results revealed the importance of both friendship groups and the perception of fun as students decided which events in which to participate. Both instruments indicated the need for clear context setting for each event, and for opportunities for structured - ~ reflection and discussion in order to maximize intercultural learning. The study concluded with recommendations regarding future global awareness programming in this specific institutional context

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There is a gap in educational research regarding teachers’ narratives of teaching in diverse classrooms, especially in East Africa. It is essential to investigate teachers’ beliefs and perspectives because these are strong indicators of their planning, instructional decisions, and classroom practices and can also frame their perception of classroom transactions. In this study, I asked a group of Kenyan primary teachers at an informal settlement school about their perspectives on Kenya’s diversity; how they teach curricula reform objectives such as citizenship for all in their classrooms; and how experiences from their personal lives have shaped their stances on matters related to identity, nationhood, citizenship, and other related concepts. These teachers’ localized meaning-making revealed their citizenship consciousness and their considerations of history, power, and politics, which in turn impelled agency, action, and increased accountability in this place-specific project of citizenship education. I considered the school itself both as a liminal space, forgotten within Kenya’s urban planning and governance policies, and also as a relational, pluralistic, and intellectual space that merited scholarly research on pedagogy and practice. This study’s findings created space for new and different frameworks for conceptualizing teachers’ knowledge. Specifically, this study helped make teachers’ narratives of their experiences teaching in this context more visible and valuable, underscoring the importance of teacher education research as an area of onto-epistemological inquiry. Learning how teachers understand, think, and teach in complex urban borderlands can contribute to an emergence of shared understandings about belonging and identity in multiethnic spaces, particularly in postcolonial sites. This critical narrative case study collected responses to interviews and focus group discussions and also included classroom visits to observe how teachers made meaning of curricular objectives and understood concepts of sociocultural plurality, identities, citizenship, and belonging. The narratives that teachers held contained the potential to reimagine constructions of difference; invited a reconceptualization of ideologies related to language and inclusive spaces; and highlighted the need to consider inter-epistemic synergetic approaches within the fields of teacher education and curriculum studies in order to design pedagogies of pluralism to facilitate teaching and learning in diverse classrooms.