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Thesis advisor: Rosen Valchev / The current rise in nationalist sentiments and emphasis on developing immigration policies around the world led to the question of how have attitudes towards immigration and non-native people affected the differences in economic growth across post-communist countries in the Central and Eastern Europe regions? Using survey data from two waves of the World Value Survey as well as quantitative control data and proxy variables, this study contradicts expectations based on current literature in that it shows how negative attitudes towards others are correlated with higher growth. Such results demonstrate what could be a recurring phenomenon for countries in transition. However, the possibilities of inaccurate survey responses and data limitations due to survey inconsistencies must be kept in mind. The following research is not an all-encompassing answer to the aforementioned question. Instead, it illustrates a divergence from current literature and demonstrates a need for continuous investigation into how personal values are affecting nations as a whole. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2019-05-01. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: . / Discipline: . / Thesis advisor:

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The availability of clean water is fundamental to the survival of all living things. Humans have altered fresh water cycles in a number of ways that affect both water quality and quantity. This has led to a global water crisis where an estimated nine million people are without access to a clean and reliable source of water. Yet water is more than a basic need, more than a physical resource. As a facet of daily life for communities all over the world, water carries many different cultural values and meanings. These values and meanings, in turn, have a strong influence on how people use water and how they relate to sources and suppliers of water. My study examined the complex and global challenge of managing water by focusing on cultural values and meanings about water on a local scale. I took an ethnographic approach to understanding the relationship between cultural values and water resources in the Sierra y Huasteca region of Hidalgo state in East-Central Mexico. Through participant observation, semi-structured household interviews and key informant interviews I: 1) described how water is used, obtained and managed; 2) evaluated local concerns about water management and access; and 3) compare two different water management systems; a communally managed system and a municipally managed system. My research resulted in three major findings. These were: 1) water scarcity is the main water concern in the two communities, which people attribute to deforestation; 2) despite considerable differences between the communities the primary concerns and values of water are the same; and 3) growing concern about water and other resources may be resulting in an increased environmental consciousness among the people in the two communities. This research contributes to practical, policy, and scholarly discussions about the relationships between humans and their natural resources. Understanding local social and cultural values can help in the effort to find equitable and feasible solutions to the global water crisis.

The research project aimed at understanding how culture and history shape the role of governance in public schools. It has highlighted the role that parents can and should play in school governance, as supporters, as governors, as co-teachers, as informed consumers and as partners. All these roles are within the legislative framework of the South African School Act 84 of 1996 (SASA). However, this study suggests that much of the literature has not looked at specific ways in which parents participate that are influenced by their interests, values, cultural background and beliefs. One of the major insights in the study is the cultural understanding of the role of school governance, which translates into a very different conception of justice and how it is articulated in the role of governing in conflict management. This study has shown that through the particular cultural practices that privilege restorative justice over retributive justice, traditional conceptions can be a strong force for conflict management and stability at schools. More specifically, this study has shown how governors can consciously use the framework legislation, i.e. the SASA, to reinforce particular social or cultural identifies.

Organizational justice literature indicates that high quality relationships will result in more favorable treatment of the individual. However, little has been done regarding how relationships with the supervisor (i.e., ingroup/outgroup identification, leader-member exchange, and guanxi: a Chinese concept for interpersonal relationship) can influence the effects of organizational justice on employees’ job satisfaction, organizational commitment, trust in the supervisor, and trust in the organization. Thus, the first purpose of this dissertation is to examine how different relationships with the supervisor influence the effects of organizational justice on individual and organizational outcomes. Further, most of the current research on organizational justice is done in the U.S. culture. But, there is still doubt that employees recognize principles of justice the same across all cultures, and that organizational justice would have the same consequences on affected employees. The second purpose of my dissertation is to investigate how the relationships between organizational justice and its consequences vary among employees with different cultural values, specifically in the U.S. and China. Finally, I explore the potential three-way interaction of relationships with supervisors, cultural values, and organizational justice on key outcomes. Specifically, I hypothesized that supervisor-subordinate relationships and cultural values will each separately moderate the effects of organizational justice on outcome variables. In addition, I hypothesized that there will be joint moderating effects of supervisor-subordinate relationships and cultural values on the influence of organizational justice. Data were collected from the U.S. and China to test the hypotheses of the present study. Results from hierarchical linear regression showed that only a small percent of hypothesized effects was significant and there was no strong evidence to support hypotheses. However, there were also some interesting results. LMX, guanxi, and ingroup identification all exhibited some extent of moderating roles on the effects of organizational justice, suggesting a multi-dimensional supervisor-subordinate relationship. Cultural values did not show much moderating effects as predicted. Threeway interactions among organizational justice, supervisor-subordinate relationships, and cultural values were more complex and did not show a consistent pattern. Possible explanations for these results and limitations were discussed. Contribution to the literature, practical implications, and future research were also addressed.

Culture has been recognized to play an important role in the formation of parental beliefs, but the question still remains of whether beliefs are maintained or revised over time, and how. The present study examined how proximal influences impacted parental beliefs in an immigrant sample of parents, the thesis being that distal influences have more to do with the formation of parental beliefs while proximal influences have more to do with maintaining or revising them. Effects of the proximal influences of education, occupation status, information networks, and parental agreement about childrearing, on parental beliefs of Mexican-origin fathers and mothers around cultural values of familism/respeto, simpatía, and individualism were tested longitudinally. The research questions were two-fold in nature, looking at within-time effects of the proximal influences on parental beliefs; as well as over-time effects of proximal influences on change in parental beliefs. The within-time questions were answered using hierarchical regression analyses while the over-time questions were answered using repeated measures MANCOVAs. Overall, the beliefs of parents in this study were seen to not change significantly over the course of the three years that they were assessed, and so the study did not yield the results expected in terms of the effects of proximal influences on parental beliefs. However, information networks and fathers' occupation status did emerge as promising proximal influences on parental beliefs, and the results also revealed maternal beliefs to be more responsive to the proximal influences of education, fathers' occupation status, information networks, and parental agreement about childrearing, than paternal beliefs.

The thesis examines the role of heritage values in urban transformation in contemporary London. Two cases of urban redevelopment are explored in detail: the No. 1 Poultry redevelopment in the City of London and the Market redevelopment in Spitalfields. The particular concern is how heritage values have a multitude of expressions and can serve a variety of differentially empowered interests. This diverse, and complex manifestation of the heritage impulse is explored through the thematic tension of Making Monuments and Imagining Communities. The study is located in a revised Marxist approach to cultural studies. It attempts to extend the critique of the current popular interest in the past and also the understanding of how culture and capital intersect in urban processes. The study has a number of distinctive methodological features including the reliance on a two case approach and the attention to contextualized discursive practices. The thesis concludes by examining the consequences of the 'hegemony of heritage' in contemporary urban redevelopment and particularly in relation to power in the city and the understanding of the intersection between culture and capital.