This qualitative phenomenological collective case study examined the explicit and implicit cultural messages in our current national, New York State, and New York City dance standards through the eyes of their writers and users and a content analysis of the texts, to re-evaluate racial justice and cultural equity in these policy documents. My data were drawn from 15 individual semi-structured interviews with standards writers to unearth the cultural messages they intended to convey; 6 semi-structured small group discussions with 25 PK-12 dance teachers and teaching artists to discover how they perceived these messages; and the 2nd, 5th, 8th, and 12th grade benchmarks of the texts. Participant data were analyzed using emic inductive coding, while the text was analyzed using etic theoretical coding. The spectrum of participant viewpoints revealed both alignments and gaps between writer intentions, teacher perceptions, and the texts. My findings suggested that a Euro Western framework is implicitly embedded in aspects of the standards’ creating, performing, and responding processes, which are presented and may be perceived as colorblind and universal, and that the documents promote multiculturalism but not the social activist goals of culturally relevant pedagogy. Based on this analysis, I propose that the standards reflect a dance education archival discourse that stems from a creative modern dance lineage, and that including other cultural frameworks for dance across all processes/strands will enhance their equity and multicultural applicability. Issues and implications identified by this research are offered for consideration by future standards writing committees, by dance educators who use the documents, and by the field at large in our ongoing dialogue about cultural equity in dance education theory and practice.

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An analytical tool must combine sufficient scope with cultural neutrality to be adequate for analyzing problems across technological style boundaries. The concept of a wood-supply system is proposed, defined as a mechanism generating a consistent flow of wood to a set of wood-consuming mills, beginning its work with the severing of trees and ending it by feeding a pulping digester or head saw. The contrast in wood flow between the wood-supply systems of the Southern United States and Sweden is explored. The systems accommodate surges in wood-consumption rates and changes in wood-supply difficulty differently .. The South maintains a small wood inventory by keeping considerable production capacity idle; Sweden keeps little capacity idle by maintaining a large cushion of wood inventories. The implications of differences in relative cost between wood in inventory and forcibly idle production capacity are discussed. As a result of the historically motivated emphasis on accounting for capacity in Sweden and for wood in the South, costs associated with wood inventories and idle capacity appear to have been overlooked in a mirror-image pattern. The transfer of equipment between harvesting styles whose evolution has been governed by different relative costs has a high risk of failure. Southern equipment is cheap, uncomplicated. robust, and dependable in order to survive forced idleness and to produce without buffer inventories. Swedish equipment is expensive, complex, sensitive, and less dependable, due to the freedom to produce at capacity and the occurrence of large buffer inventories. Equipment manufacturers need to estimate the relative cost of idle wood and idle capacity when analyzing equipment exports across style boundaries. Suggestions for further work include an exploration of the relative cost in each region, and the development of unbiased methods of accounting for idle resources. It is also suggested that the different interpretations of the concept of forestry in Europe and North America be explored. / Ph. D.

<u>Purpose</u>. The purpose of the proposed study is to investigate the differences and similarities in child-rearing practices among Chinese, Chinese-American, and non-Asian American parents. <u>Variables</u>. The independent variables are the parents’ ethnic background (Chinese, Chinese-American, or non-Asian American) and the child’s sex (male or female). The dependent variables are eight parental child-rearing practices dimensions: father’s and mother’s parental control, father’s and mother’s encouragement of independence, father’s and mother’s expression of affection, and father’s and mother’s emphasis on achievement. <u>Methodology</u>. The subjects of this study are the mothers and fathers of children from intact families enrolled in kindergarten, 1st grade, and 2nd grade. Forty-four Chinese Chinese, 46 Chinese-American, and 48 non-Asian Americans parent-couples participated in this study. The Chinese parent couples were recruited in Taiwan. The immigrant Chinese-American parent couples were recruited from the states of Maryland and Virginia. The non-Asian American parent couples were recruited in Virginia. The child-rearing variables were measured by four subscales, 28 items, from the Child-Rearing Practices Report (CRPR) developed by Block (1986). The subjects rated each item on a 5-point rating scale. A two way-MANOVA (3 x 2) (ethnic group x child’s sex), univariate ANOVA tests, Tukey tests, repeated measure analysis, Pearson correlation coefficients, and dependent ṯ-tests were used to analyze the data. <u>Findings and Conclusions</u>. The two way MANOVA yielded significant group effect on the parental variables <u>F</u>(16, 250)= 10.31, <u>p</u><.0001. Generally, it was found that Chinese and Chinese-American parents tended to rate higher on parental control, encouragement of independence, and emphasis on achievement than American parents. / Ph. D.

Thesis (MA (Psychology))--University of Stellenbosch, 2006. / This research project investigated differences in hypnotic suggestibility between young adults of different ethnic groups, and between male and female subjects. Further, the relationship between creativity and suggestibility in young adults was examined. Therefore, 15 white female, 11 white male and 10 black female students participated in the study. For this research, the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale, the Abbreviated Torrance Test for Adults, and a biographical questionnaire on Individual Creative Background were utilized. Analyses of variances and regression were used as statistical procedures in order to analyse the data. From the findings it appears that young black South Africans are more suggestible than white South Africans. Gender differences were found regarding suggestibility, but no significant differences between white and black females. Regarding the outcomes on suggestibility and creativity, it can be concluded from the regression analysis that there is no relationship between suggestibility and creativity in this sample. It can be said that suggestibility cannot predict creativity and vice versa. It appears that young South Africans do not differ in creativity regarding cultural group or gender. Nevertheless, creativity and relationship to the parents in childhood were significantly related. Further, creativity was highly correlated with the amount of time for unstructured playtime in childhood. Reasons for results obtained are discussed and suggestions for future research made.

The current study focuses on customer relationship management initiatives in different organizations and in different countries. A proposed CRM model was adopted and used to evaluate the CRM initiatives of the chosen organizations in both Saudi Arabia and the UK. The scope of this research was affected by the differing levels of cooperation received from the organizations which participated in the case studies, thereby resulting in differing sizes of the said case studies. The adopted CRM conceptual model was used to evaluate the level of CRM maturity in the organizations studied. This model is believed to be a significant contribution to the theory and field of CRM. This model could be used by organizations to evaluate their CRM initiatives and assess their CRM readiness and status. The proposed CRM model specifies the basic parameters of the CRM sequential stages and their essential supporting conditions. Another important contribution of the study is that it identifies and highlights the potential effects of the cultural disparities existing between Saudi Arabia and the UK on CRM initiatives yet to be undertaken in both countries. In depth open-ended questions were used to collect the data. The analysis of the data gathered went through two main stages. The first stage was to transcribe the data collected from all the organizations chosen and produce detailed write-ups for each case. In every case the write-ups were similarly structured to help the researcher in the second stage, the cross-case analysis. The cross-case analysis was based on the researcher’s proposed conceptual CRM model. The central research question for this study is: Why and how do CRM initiatives succeed or fail? In order to answer this question, the following research questions were formulated and answers were deduced from the findings and results of the qualitative analysis conducted: RQ1: What are the critical success factors of CRM initiatives? The answers received resulted in the emergence of some critical success factors, such as: 1. Senior Management Support 2. Business Plan and Vision 3. Making the Change in Small Steps 4. Inter Departmental Collaboration 5. Clear Ownership of Data 6. Training for End-users 7. End Users' Acceptance of Change 8. Degree of Analysis and Customer Segmentation 9. Degree of Alignment 10. Language Considerations 11. Internet Presence RQ2: What are the common difficulties when adopting a CRM initiative? The answers came up with the following common difficulties: 1. Resistance to Change 2. Human Errors in Feeding the System 3. Governmental Legislation 4. Cultural Barriers RQ3: What does CRM mean for different organizations? The answers exposed a common interesting finding that different organizations considered CRM to be different things. Some considered CRM to be branded CRM software, others as call-centers, yet others as loyalty programs and/or simple tools to manage and satisfy customers. This confirmed that CRM meant different things to different organizations. RQ4: Is CRM the right solution for every organization? The answers proved that if branded software from recognized vendors only was to be recognized as CRM, then this standard and rigid kind of CRM could not always be implemented by all organizations. On the other hand, if the managerial concepts behind CRM were to be taken into consideration, then CRM could indeed be implemented by every organization.

Chen Xiaohua Sylvia. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 35-43). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / Chapter Chapter 1: --- Introduction --- p.6 / Conceptualizing Modesty as Self-Presentation Tactic --- p.7 / Modesty as Politeness Maxim --- p.7 / Modesty as Personality Trait --- p.9 / Modesty as Self-Presentation Tactic --- p.9 / Assessing Modesty with Behavioral Manifestations --- p.11 / Modesty Bias in Evaluative Ratings --- p.12 / Modesty Maxim in Linguistic Scenarios --- p.12 / The Modesty Facet in Personality Structure --- p.12 / Modesty Construct in Behavioral Manifestations --- p.13 / Predicting Modesty in Cultural Contexts --- p.13 / Modernity and Traditionality --- p.14 / Independence and Interdependence --- p.14 / From Self-Construals to Individuation --- p.15 / Self-Esteem and Self-Efficacy --- p.15 / Chapter Chapter 2: --- Method --- p.17 / Participants --- p.17 / Instruments --- p.17 / Procedure --- p.19 / Chapter Chapter 3: --- Results --- p.20 / Factor Analysis of Modesty Scale --- p.20 / Correlations of Modesty Measures with Other Variables --- p.20 / Gender and Cultural Differences --- p.21 / Predicting Modest Behavior --- p.22 / Predicting Individuated Behavior --- p.23 / Tables --- p.25 / Chapter Chapter 4: --- Discussion --- p.28 / Conceptualization of Modest Behavior --- p.28 / Composition of Modest Behavior --- p.29 / Interdependence in High-Context Communication --- p.29 / Individuation Is Not the Opposite of Modest Behavior --- p.30 / Gender Differences in Modesty --- p.32 / Cultural Differences in Modesty --- p.33 / Dispositional vs. Situational Measures of Modesty --- p.33 / References --- p.35 / Author Note --- p.44 / Appendix --- p.45

Since 1980, the number of people in the United States who speak a language other than English at home has increased by 140% (United States Census Bureau, 2010). Therefore a greater percentage of students now are multilingual. Throughout the world, multilingualism is considered the norm and monolingualism is the exception (Auer & Wei, 2008). In the United States, however, policies regarding instruction in schools are still influenced by monolingual ideology that carries expectations and assumptions of assimilation, loss of mother tongues, and defined hierarchical structures. As classroom populations become socially, ethnically, racially, and linguistically more diverse, it is increasingly important for teachers to have an understanding of how to address diversity in schools and for educators to understand how language use and the teachers' role in the classroom impacts learning. This paper explored the existing language beliefs and linguistic knowledge of preservice teachers as they prepare to enter linguistically and culturally diverse classrooms. The increasing prominence of cross-cultural interactions creates a necessity for teachers to develop intercultural competence. Employing a conceptual framework of intercultural communicative competence theory, this qualitative study investigated experiences and knowledge in linguistics that influence teacher speech acts. Research in fields of applied linguistics such as psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics, sociolinguistics, and educational linguistics revealed basic language knowledge that teachers need before they enter diverse classrooms including knowledge of language acquisition, phonology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, culture, instruction language, and how the brain processes language. The literature from these fields was used to create an instrument that included a demographics questionnaire, beliefs survey, linguistic knowledge assessment, and interview questions. Twenty-three preservice teachers participated in the study to describe their language beliefs and knowledge. Many of the findings in this study reflected key-findings in the literature; however, this study also found several significant findings that extend existing research. The results revealed significant impacts of 1) individual experiences with culture and linguistic contact, 2) the language used in classrooms, specifically languages other than Standard English and the deep and surface structure of language, 3) linguistic knowledge, specifically phonology, 4) meta-cognitive behavior and reflection, and 5) differences between monolingual and multilingual preservice teachers. The data also indicated that the majority of preservice teachers were concerned about preparedness in teaching in diverse classrooms. Implications for teachers working in culturally and linguistically diverse classrooms and for teacher preparation programs are discussed.

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