No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

In a time of expanding globalization and worldwide interconnectedness through the Internet, the need for a better understanding of diverse cultures has taken on a new urgency. One way people learn about cultures other than their own is through the news media. Yet journalists have long been criticized for their inability to represent the complexities of cultures. The concept of cultural competence has been used to enhance cultural understanding in a variety of professions, including health care, social work, psychology, business and public relations. This dissertation applied the concept of cultural competence to journalists, using as theoretical frameworks the social construction of reality and concepts related to social cognition. The study explored factors that contribute to or hinder the cultural competence of journalists, including multimedia journalistic practices that influence the cultural competence of reporters and their news coverage. To answer the research questions posed in this dissertation, an extensive case study was conducted in a multimedia journalism laboratory at Temple University in Philadelphia, PA, in which student reporters produce news pieces about urban neighborhoods. The research involved 223 surveys, 28 observations of students reporting in the field, and 71 in-depth interviews with student reporters, news sources, neighborhood representatives, and lab professors. A textual analysis also was conducted of selected multimedia news packages produced by the student reporters. Five key factors were found to influence the cultural competence of journalists: awareness of self; awareness of the complexity of "insider" or "outsider" status; use of journalistic ethics, norms and routines; knowledge of the other, and skills and attributes that influence knowledge of the other. New multimedia journalistic practices were found to provide the potential to move journalists and their news texts toward more cultural competence. This study provides new meaning for what it means to be a journalist as one who dwells in the borderlands, occupying liminal spaces and promoting understanding over current norms of objectivity. This new meaning could be supported by journalism education programs that encourage future reporters to strive for a culturally competent approach to reporting and news production that promotes understanding for themselves and their audiences. / Mass Media and Communication

No / Findings from surveys of qualified social work practitioners and students indicate a need for social work education and practice to focus attention both on the importance of religious and spiritual beliefs in the lives of many service users and on the potential usefulness of religious and spiritual interventions. In this British study, undertaken in 2003 and 2004, students were less likely than their qualified colleagues to consider religious or spiritually sensitive interventions as appropriate. Attitudes varied little between those students who held religious beliefs and those who did not, but Muslim students and qualified social workers were more likely to view these types of interventions as appropriate. The authors conclude that there is a clear need for all social work practitioners and educators to give greater priority to exploring the potential significance of religious and spiritual beliefs in their training, in their professional practice and in the lives and perspectives of service users and colleagues. Social workers need to be able to respond appropriately to the needs of all service users, including those for whom religious and spiritual beliefs are crucial. `Culturally competent¿ practice depends, amongst other things, on an understanding and appreciation of the impact of faith and belief.

Yes / There is increasing demand for work-based learning experiences to form part of undergraduate degrees concerned with working with people. Social justice and anti-oppressive practice underpin the philosophies of many such degrees which attract students with the promise of working within diverse communities and with the marginalized and vulnerable. Benefits to students include the development of a professional identity, an anti-oppressive approach and culturally competent practices. Despite this, critical approaches to work-based learning highlight ways in which the student can be colonized by dominant values via ‘cultural voyeurism’. This can lead to power inequalities being replicated and perpetuated by the student rather than challenged. The roles of identity and alterity in these learning processes are examined and the concept of professional identity is questioned. The article concludes that the tasks of negotiating identity and alterity are characterized by uncertainty and unfinalizability, and that the notion of cultural competence is itself problematic.

Thesis advisor: Sr. Callista Roy / Social Cognition and the Impact of Race and Ethnicity on Clinical Decision Making Most literature reflects the persistent existence of unequal treatment in the care provided to ethnic and racial minorities. Comparatively little about ethnic bias in the literature goes beyond the retrospective study as the most frequently encountered method of inquiry. Access to providers and the ability to pay only provide partial explanation in the known data. A more controversial hypothesis is the one offered in this dissertation. This qualitative research explored the cognitive processes of ethnic bias as a phenomenon in clinical decision making. The method was a simulation that captured events as they occurred with a sample of nurse participants. The racial and ethnically related cognitive content of participants was evoked through the interactive process of playing a board game. Immediately following that activity, a video vignette of an ambiguous pain management situation involving an African American male was viewed by each nurse who was then asked to make a "treat" or "not treat" clinical decision. The dialogues during playing of the board game in addition to the rationale for the treatment decision provided data for analysis. Content analysis is the primary approach for using the data to answer the research question. Themes of latent and manifest content were described for those who made the decision to treat and those who decided not to treat. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2012. / Submitted to: Boston College. Connell School of Nursing. / Discipline: Nursing.