As U.S. higher education institutions strive to educate students to meet the needs of an increasingly complex world, there is great importance in studying the interplay between leadership and culture to enhance preparation of global-ready graduates. This inquiry examines the relationship between intercultural competence and leadership styles. The construct of intercultural competence focuses on effectiveness in engaging people across cultural differences, while the construct of leadership style or "connective leadership" focuses on the achieving styles employed to engage diverse followers. The Fulbright International Student Program offers an unparalleled opportunity to examine the dynamic interplay of intercultural and leadership development. More than 100 participants were surveyed using the Intercultural Effectiveness Scale and Achieving Styles Inventory psychometric instruments. Statistically significant correlations emerged between intercultural competence and connective leadership across four critical themes: individual development, the Fulbright Program, international education, and higher education. Overall, multiple leadership styles can be achieved through curiosity and continuous learning about cultural differences. Implications for individual learning and organizational development are discussed.

Colleges are struggling to retain students of color at four-year academic institutions (Kuh, 2005). The result is that while African-American and Latino students are entering college, fewer successfully complete their programs of study and obtain an undergraduate degree (ACE, 2006). For this reason, institutions are establishing supportive learning communities to not only recruit, but to retain this population.Learning communities have become welcoming places in the academy, and are designed to help students succeed in college by providing a formative, integrated academic experience that builds strength, perspective, and commitment. Employing Vincent Tinto`s (1975) student integration theory as a conceptual framework, this qualitative case study examined the relationship between student participation in a learning community, college persistence, and college retention. This research addressed the experiences of eight students of color who participated in the Louis Stokes Alliance Minority Participation (LSAMP) learning community program. Participant experiences were gathered through the administration of demographic questionnaires, in-depth interviews, a focus group, and a non-participant observation. The findings of this research study revealed that college persistence and retention is a function of four strategies, all of which are incorporated into the Louis Stokes Alliance Minority Participation Program: (a) Social Integration; strengthened connections amongst students of color and between students, faculty and staff (b) Academic preparedness; making sure students of color have the resources and skills needed in order to be academically successful (c) Group identity; helping students overcome feelings of isolation that are common on large college campuses (d) Providing both an academic and social atmosphere where students can succeed. The implications of this study assert that learning communities have a profound impact on positive student outcomes for both African-American and Latino students who attend predominately white institutions.

In the United States there exists a clear and disconcerting racial disparity in the distribution of good health, which can be seen in differential levels of morbidity and mortality affecting blacks and whites. Previous research has examined the role of SES in shaping racial health disparities and recent studies have looked specifically at the effect of education on health to explain the racial disparity in health. Higher levels of education are robustly associated with good overall health for both blacks and whites and this association has been examined over the life-course. This research explores racial differences in the effect of education on health in general as well as over the life-course. Specifically, this paper examines race differences in the effects of education on health over the life-course. Pooled data from the National Health Interview Survey were analyzed using multivariate logistic regression to estimate the effects of race, education and age on health. The results of these analyses indicate that blacks receive lower education returns on their health than whites. The effect of education on health was shown to grow in the beginning of the life-course and diminish at the end of the life course in accordance with the mortality-as-leveler hypothesis. The black white health disparity was shown to grow over the life-course among the highly educated, whereas the disparity was consistent over the life-course for the poorly educated.

Using the perspectives of individualism-collectivism, Social Cognitive Theory and other concepts such as gay community attachment, this study focused on issues of homosexual identification, disclosure and sexual risk practices in relation to cross-cultural differences among gay Asian and Caucasian men in Sydney. Mostly recruited from gay social venues, 19 gay Asian men participated in exploratory focus groups discussions, another 201 gay Caucasian and 199 gay Asian men completed an anonymous questionnaire, and a further 10 gay Caucasian and 9 gay Asian men took part in in-depth one-to-one interviews. The major findings were: gay Asian men tended to experience conflict, in being both gay and Asian, related to individualism and collectivism; the gay Asian and Caucasian men differed in various aspects of homosexual practice, but shared certain sexual traits and practices; self-efficacy in safe sex and gay community attachment were key factors associated with gay men???s sexual risk practices (???risk??? being defined as unprotected anal intercourse with any casual partners or with a regular partner whose HIV status was not concordant with the participant???s). This study provides evidence that the inclusion of individualism-collectivism, social cognitive variables and gay community factors in the examination of homosexual identity and practice among men of different cultural backgrounds holds promise. It further suggests that educational programs to encourage safe sex will continue to yield benefits from increasing individual awareness, confidence and ability to effectively deal with situations that could pose risks of HIV transmission.

This thesis critically compares how domestic human rights NGOs (DNGOs) in the United States, Britain and Germany use (or mobilise) law to enforce human rights standards and proposes a method to measure their effectiveness in doing so. To do this it draws upon both case studies and literature from many disciplines. On the basis of the data and the literature it finds that, despite their great diversity, DNGOs in each jurisdiction show general similarities in their ???styles??? of operation and use of the law. It also finds that their effectiveness in enforcing human rights can be ascertained with reasonable accuracy and that a DNGO???s size and access to resources does not necessarily correlate with its effectiveness. The context in which the above questions were investigated was one in which there existed very little literature that examined the work of DNGOs (as opposed to international NGOs) as well as few theoretical approaches that would allow their activities to be critically examined and compared. It was also a context in which there was a great deal of discussion in the literature about the crucial importance of DNGOs in human rights enforcement and a growing suspicion that Globalisation might be making their role even more important than it was in the past. To address these issues the author used case studies to supply the necessary detail and a method using ???ideal types??? to assess the data. He also proposed a method to measure DNGO effectiveness so that the case studies could be more thoroughly compared and their true success in human rights enforcement revealed. Despite the incredible diversity among DNGOs the author was able to draw a few useful conclusions about how successful DNGOs operate. In response to these conclusions the author proposed that one possible route by which DNGOs could improve their effectiveness was to transplant their characteristics between jurisdictions. The author also found some evidence that Globalisation was having an effect on DNGOs and proposed some ways in which individual case studies could take advantage of this.

University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities / Department of English

The aim of this study was to document the expressed beliefs and observed practices of elementary school teachers involved in music instruction in Vancouver and Hong Kong. It is important to understand beliefs and value systems of teachers since they form the basis for their educational practices. These beliefs are shaped by various contextual factors in a society. The music of a society is one such factor that constitutes both cultural and educational practices in that society. Therefore a cross-cultural, comparative study concerned with music education was undertaken so as to better understand the underlying contextual factors that shape teachers' overall understandings and practices of teaching music in the elementary schools. The present investigation is the only study of this kind to date. This study was designed as a qualitative multiple-case study, including five cases in Vancouver and five cases in Hong Kong. The tools for data collection were in-depth interviews and repeated classroom observations. The results of this study suggest that teachers' expressed beliefs and their classroom practices about music education are informed by the following major factors: (1) teachers' personal experiences, (2) social and cultural factors of the societies in which they live, and (3) the music curriculum as set by the school systems. Furthermore, these results shed light on ways in which music education is implemented in these two cosmopolitan cities and demonstrate interesting interplay of various cultural influences. The findings of this study add to the knowledge of Western and Chinese ideas, especially educational thoughts and music education, through presentations and analysis of beliefs and classroom practices of teachers from these two cultures.

No abstract available. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2004.

Using the perspectives of individualism-collectivism, Social Cognitive Theory and other concepts such as gay community attachment, this study focused on issues of homosexual identification, disclosure and sexual risk practices in relation to cross-cultural differences among gay Asian and Caucasian men in Sydney. Mostly recruited from gay social venues, 19 gay Asian men participated in exploratory focus groups discussions, another 201 gay Caucasian and 199 gay Asian men completed an anonymous questionnaire, and a further 10 gay Caucasian and 9 gay Asian men took part in in-depth one-to-one interviews. The major findings were: gay Asian men tended to experience conflict, in being both gay and Asian, related to individualism and collectivism; the gay Asian and Caucasian men differed in various aspects of homosexual practice, but shared certain sexual traits and practices; self-efficacy in safe sex and gay community attachment were key factors associated with gay men???s sexual risk practices (???risk??? being defined as unprotected anal intercourse with any casual partners or with a regular partner whose HIV status was not concordant with the participant???s). This study provides evidence that the inclusion of individualism-collectivism, social cognitive variables and gay community factors in the examination of homosexual identity and practice among men of different cultural backgrounds holds promise. It further suggests that educational programs to encourage safe sex will continue to yield benefits from increasing individual awareness, confidence and ability to effectively deal with situations that could pose risks of HIV transmission.

This thesis critically compares how domestic human rights NGOs (DNGOs) in the United States, Britain and Germany use (or mobilise) law to enforce human rights standards and proposes a method to measure their effectiveness in doing so. To do this it draws upon both case studies and literature from many disciplines. On the basis of the data and the literature it finds that, despite their great diversity, DNGOs in each jurisdiction show general similarities in their ???styles??? of operation and use of the law. It also finds that their effectiveness in enforcing human rights can be ascertained with reasonable accuracy and that a DNGO???s size and access to resources does not necessarily correlate with its effectiveness. The context in which the above questions were investigated was one in which there existed very little literature that examined the work of DNGOs (as opposed to international NGOs) as well as few theoretical approaches that would allow their activities to be critically examined and compared. It was also a context in which there was a great deal of discussion in the literature about the crucial importance of DNGOs in human rights enforcement and a growing suspicion that Globalisation might be making their role even more important than it was in the past. To address these issues the author used case studies to supply the necessary detail and a method using ???ideal types??? to assess the data. He also proposed a method to measure DNGO effectiveness so that the case studies could be more thoroughly compared and their true success in human rights enforcement revealed. Despite the incredible diversity among DNGOs the author was able to draw a few useful conclusions about how successful DNGOs operate. In response to these conclusions the author proposed that one possible route by which DNGOs could improve their effectiveness was to transplant their characteristics between jurisdictions. The author also found some evidence that Globalisation was having an effect on DNGOs and proposed some ways in which individual case studies could take advantage of this.