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During occupational therapy training in South Africa, students are expected to consider cultural differences when working with patients. This study considered the training offered to students in terms of cultural diversity and the perceptions of 47 novice community service occupational therapists about their cultural competence as well as how these perceptions had changed after three years of clinical practice. Results indicate that all six participating universities offer training in cultural diversity although university respondents feel this is affected by time, students’ attitudes and their inability to reflect. Most newly qualified occupational therapists felt the training was adequate, although they reported difficulty in working with patients from other cultures in clinical practice. The perceived cultural competency level of the newly qualified respondents varied with some respondents still needing to develop awareness and knowledge and others already extending themselves in terms of cultural skill, encounters and cultural desire. Some used rules and knowledge to guide their intervention and language was seen as a major barrier to practicing culturally appropriate occupational therapy, Three years later three respondents, who could be considered competent occupational therapists, reported using reflection in practice enabled them to consider culture from their clients’ unique perspective. They felt personal experience, opportunities from classroom experiences, fieldwork exposure and professional development activities should be used to strive toward becoming culturally competent. The importance of having relevant resources available was highlighted. Recommendations for occupational therapy curriculum development in terms of cultural competence in South Africa are therefore suggested.

Today’s business world is facing a continual increase of globalization that opened the borders of nations. Organizations see in multicultural teams and cultural diversity a way to respond to this phenomenon. Cultural diversity in multicultural teams is a new challenge for leaders. Indeed, they need to develop new strategies and skills to include individuals coming from different cultures in order to ensure the proper functioning of the team and achieve effectiveness. The purpose of our thesis – labeled “Leading Cultural Diversity: Strategies and Skills” – is to find out, through interviews and conversations with actual leaders, which strategies and skills are necessary in global organizations. The findings might be applied in other fields where cultural diversity plays an important role.

Cultural diversity is a subject that has been getting growing attention not just internationally but also in Sweden in the 21st century. The globalization of economies and the migration has dramatically increased opportunities while also affecting organizations in a manner that it requires it to be more open and accommodative towards a heterogeneous working environment. Unfortunately many companies do not see the advantages that cultural diversity could bring and how a well managed cultural diversity could essentially achieve competitive edge in the market. Therefore there is little to be found regarding how organizations today view and manage a culturally diverse workforce, especially in a Swedish working environment. The lack of this typeof research in a Swedish context creates a possible research gap and leads to this study ininvestigating the organizations in Västerbotten and their view and management of cultural diversity. Thus the research question: How do Swedish organizations view and manage cultural diversity? In order to gain insights to this question, previous research has been investigated and some main theories have been selected. Through this it has been found that cultural diversity is a complex subject that can bring both positive and negative effects to an organization. These are in turn affecting how cultural diversity is viewed by that organization. Furthermore, this view affects how cultural diversity is managed, and the management in turn affects the result this concept brings to the company. This in turn has been represented in a theoretical model representing the relationship between these concepts. The main theory that is used throughout thenstudy and in analyzing the empirical data is Adler’s approaches to answer the research question. This study takes view of interpretivism and constructionism as its philosophical stance. This has led to the choice of conducting a qualitative research approach with mixed method that is a combination of both the deductive and inductive way of collecting data. The research is conducted through multiple case study design with semi structured interviews as the way of gaining empirical data. These interviews have been conducted on seven organizations within Västerbotten that represents different types of industries within this region. As it is shown in this study the cultural diversity is viewed in a positive way and managed to achieve synergy within the organizations in Västerbotten. The firms believe that in order to develop and gain competitive advantage, they need to accommodate cultural diversity and create an atmosphere that is open and flexible. Still most of the firms lack the holistic view as they fail to articulate diversity at the strategic level and consequently in all dimensions of the organization.In addition the study has also identified different influential factors of cultural diversity, such as the geographical location, organizational culture, cultural diversity leading to cultural diversity, customers’ diversity and managers’ perspectives affects the existence of cultural diversity within an organization. These findings have been presented in the developed analytical model in the conclusion.

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Every theory of liberal multiculturalism is premised on some account of the nature of culture, cultural difference and social reality, or what I call “the conditions of multiculturality”. In this dissertation, I offer a revised account of the conditions and challenge of multiculturality. Beginning with the widely accepted idea that individuals depend on both culture and community as social preconditions for choice, freedom and autonomy, and informing this idea with collectivist and individualist lessons from Tyler Burge’s famous externalist thought-experiment, my analysis shows that social contexts are multicultural when they are characterized by a plurality of social communities offering distinct sets of cultural norms, and individuals are multicultural to the extent that they are capable of using cultural norms from various social communities. The depth, pervasiveness, and complexity of multiculturality raises important normative questions about fair and just terms for protecting and promoting social communities under conditions of internal and external cultural contestation, and these questions are not only restricted to cases involving internal minorities. As a theory of cultural justice, liberal multiculturalism must respond to the challenge of multiculturality generated by cultural difference per se, but it cannot do so adequately in all cases armed with only the traditional tools of toleration, freedom of association and exit, fundamental rights and freedoms, and internal political autonomy. My analysis demonstrates that, upon the revised conception of multiculturality, liberal theories of tolerationism, egalitarianism and nationalism leave significant cultural remainders, or unaccounted for cultural interests. What is needed is a different liberal multiculturalism, which respects the individual’s fundamental rights and freedoms, is committed to the equal and just treatment of individuals, tolerates voluntary cultural groups and practices in the social sphere, recognizes an individual right to culture, and provides some measure of state assistance to individuals seeking to protect and promote their cultural communities in the private sphere. This is a recipe for liberal cultural justice, and for a defensible liberal multiculturalism without nationalism. / Thesis (Ph.D, Philosophy) -- Queen's University, 2012-12-14 19:00:46.433

A Virtual Software Development Team (VSDT) is a group team of Information Technology (IT) professionals working together to produce a software product and collaborating remotely with the use of information communication technology. In a VSDT, face-to-face contact is seldom required in order for these teams to fulfil their tasks. VSDTs in the software development business offer advantages compared to co-located teams which include the availability of a global talent pool, lower costs and a global presence. However, many aspects of managing these teams are still undiscovered and under-researched. Among them is the influence of cultural diversity on the work, productivity and sustainability of a VSDT. The purpose of this research was to define the main factors of the influence of cultural diversity on the effectiveness of a VSDT. The research was undertaken from an interpretive perspective. In agreement with this paradigm, the effectiveness factors were limited to the internal effectiveness of a team as perceived by its members. In order to define the factors of cultural diversity, existing theories of cultural diversity in a co-located workplace were used. I have conducted interviews with software developers, support professionals and their managers to probe the relevance of the existing theories in a virtual software development environment and to find other possible factors. In this research, a specific ’internet nerd’ culture was discovered which exists among the members of the virtual (internet) community. The members of this culture comfortably accept virtual work and share a lot of common context. The findings show the importance of frequent communication, emotional sharing and occasional face-to-face contact in bonding the team, building trust and understanding. From the team management perspective, there is evidence that agile methodologies can be used successfully in the virtual environment. The results of this research are beneficial for businesses looking to implement VSDTs, and can be used as a basis for the development of a theory of cultural diversity in a virtual environment.

Heeding Hillard’s call for teachers to crack the walls of the matrix (inequitable schooling), this qualitative case study used Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory as a theoretical lens and methodological tool to investigate the reflections of three elementary pre-service teachers. The first research question examined participants’ reflections as they were learning about teaching culturally and linguistically diverse students. The second question explored how these reflections connected to their developing culturally relevant beliefs and practices. To investigate these research questions the data sources collected for each participant included a pre/post Love & Kruger questionnaire, three individual semi-structured interview transcripts, eight written course documents, and two individual member written records. Cross case and within case analyses were conducted using a priori and open coding for all data and utilized the analytic strategy of relying on theoretical propositions. The theoretical proposition for this study was that teachers who reflected across systems of influences had more culturally relevant beliefs and practices. Findings from the cross case analysis suggested that (a) participants’ had shared patterns of reflectivity (b) drew upon multiple tools of references when confronted with less culturally relevant teaching in the field and program and (c) some course assignments facilitated participants’ reflection across systems more than others. The results from the within case analysis suggested that (a) participants’ racial identity experiences were the lenses they used to reflect on what being a culturally relevant teacher meant (b) some participants experienced cultural dissonance in the teacher development program as they considered culturally relevant pedagogy and (c) critical reflections across systems of influence revealed more developed understandings of culturally relevant pedagogy. This study offers insights about using critical reflectivity in developing pre-service teachers’ understandings of culturally relevant pedagogy.

A thesis submitted in fulfilment for the requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Psychology at the University of Zululand, 2006. / This study was conducted to ascertain whether uMkhanyakude District Municipality complies with the provisions of the Employment Equity Act No55 of 1998 and to examine whether the Municipality has devised recruitment methods that provide access to a wider pool of job applicants. Some of the outcomes derived from diversity initiatives are not easily quantifiable or measured but they clearly demonstrate the benefits that can be realized by an organization. Benefits such as: Improved organizational image stemming from more diverse positive reputation and the presence of diverse employees in key positions. Improved co-operation and communication within diverse work-teams, few as they are. Findings_ of this study indicated that cultural diversity is the least understood phenomenon and that the municipality has not made an effort to diversify. This is indicated by the fact that there are no African or White females in the strategic or decision making positions. This under-representation of women constitutes gender discrimination. Also the municipality has not made an effort to develop a strategy on diversifying despite submitting the workforce profile to the Department: of labour; no help has been forthcoming in order to develop equity policies to address high levels of under-representation.

This paper aims to measure the kinds of challenges faced by multicultural studentgroups and the influence of culture (individualism and collectivism) on student'sperception of importance on each of the challenges discovered. A 19-item questionnairewas completed by students (N = 234) from different faculties including natural andsocial sciences at Linnaeus University, students were from 47 countries. Challenges inmulticultural groups were measured using a Likert scale (from 1 to 5) that assessedmember participation, communication, group processes and group member compositionand analysed by exploratory factor analysis. To examine the differences in perception ofimportance of the challenges discovered between individualists and collectivists basedon Hofstede's culture framework, t-tests and Mann-Whitney test were conducted. Theresults suggested three main kinds of challenges: culture related challenges, genericgroup work challenges and membership resemblance. Membership resemblance was theonly kind of challenge that significantly differed between individualists and collectivists.Further discussions explaining the results and implementation of this study werepresented.