The purpose of this research was to evaluate response acquisition of Indian Ss relative to non-Indian Ss and to examine the relationships between questionnaire and performance data. A questionnaire, based on Harding's (1964) study, was used to evaluate Ss' attitudes towards work authority, aspirations, family and the like. Performance measures were also employed in order to provide data with which to assess whether attitudinal differences have significant behavioural consequences. In order to assess rural-urban biases, a paired-associate task similar to that designed by Havron and Cofer (1957) was used. An attempt was also made using a verbal conditioning technique (Taffel, 1955) to evaluate whether or not the two groups would perform differentially under positive and negative verbal reinforcement.

This study compares the cultural values that manifest themselves in beer-centered television advertisements in Russia and in the United States. The study intends to give an exploratory overview of the main appeals employed in the advertisements and discusses the observed differences and similarities found within. The purpose of my research is to discover whether the more culturally congruent advertisements are more attractive to the consumers than advertisements with unique foreign values. Individual values are taken into consideration. Lists of most common advertising appeals have been identified. The findings are not generalizable to report a significant positive relationship between cultural congruency and advertising effectiveness. However, the study provides rigorous description of a few cases offering deep insight for possible advertising strategies in multicultural advertising environments. / text

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It has been repeatedly observed that home and local context matter in the education of children. A smooth transition between home and classroom prepares children for enjoyable and meaningful life-long learning. Knowledge building in children is influenced by previous experience, values, beliefs and sociocultural factors associated with community. Against this theoretical background, the thesis examined the integration of local spiritual and cultural values to improve science education in Ethiopia. This autoethnographic research used in-depth interviews, supplementary observations and focus group discussion and my biography to identify the perception and practice of common and unique spiritual and cultural values. The study examined whether these values were included and/or excluded in the school curriculum and explored the possibilities for incorporating values in science education and the anticipated tensions resulting from their inclusion. Students, science teachers, parents, employers, curriculum experts, policymakers, elders, and religious leaders participated in the research, conducted in a randomly selected secondary school in Addis Ababa. The sampling followed a kind of snowball method, with a total of twenty key informants participating in interviews, fifteen classroom observations, and one focus group discussion. The data collection aimed at generating stories, which underlie the autoethnography methodology. Findings indicated that belief in and fear of God animated and sustained the Ethiopian way of life. Although spiritual teachings derived from sacred writings were the initial foundation for Ethiopian cultural norms, the two merged together later, creating a mosaic pervading every aspect of life in Ethiopia. Education was sustained on this merger of spiritual and cultural norms and values. It was also shown that the now century-old system of formal education did not incorporate those local spiritual and cultural values. Current science education also has little relationship to Ethiopian spiritual and cultural norms and is, therefore, in need of restoration. Findings showed that efforts to recapture local spiritual and cultural values in the curriculum may encounter obstacles and tensions. Clearly, the future of a more prosperous Ethiopia depends on the extent to which curriculum stakeholders can overcome these obstacles and put in place a relevant, contextual, and holistic education.

As the most prevalent chronic health condition in children under the age of 18, asthma is a disease for which significant health disparities exist. Current literature has established that ethnic minorities, families living in poverty, and families living in urban environments are at higher risk for worse morbidity. In recent years, studies focusing distinctly on Latino families, with emphasis on Puerto Rican families, have emerged. As a singular group, Puerto Rican children have demonstrated the worst outcomes and a significantly greater use of emergency room (ER) services, often related to poor adherence to adequate asthma care regimens. Guided by the biopsychosocial approach, this study sought to examine cultural and family variables and their relationship to pediatric asthma morbidity. Data from a sample of 639 children and their families from the Rhode Island region and Puerto Rico participated in this study. The data derived from the Rhode Island/Puerto Rico Asthma Center (RIPRAC) study and collected between 2002 and 2007. Bivariate analyses investigated correlations among familism and morbidity variables. Group comparisons were conducted between mainland Puerto Ricans living in the Rhode Island region and island Puerto Ricans and between Latino and non-Latino White families living in mainland United States. Confirmatory factor analysis using Mplus software evaluated a measurement model of familism and morbidity, followed by invariance testing in multiple group analyses by asthma severity and ethnicity. Lastly, structural equation modeling investigated a predictive relationship between the latent variables of familism and morbidity and meditational relationships through balanced integration. A secondary analysis for families who endorsed alternate child caregivers investigated a meditational relationship between familism and morbidity through involvement in asthma management by alternate caregivers. Significant correlations and group differences on mediator variables and observed familism variables and morbidity variables were found. Although a significant relationship between familism and morbidity was not found, significant relationships between familism and balanced integration and between balanced integration and morbidity were identified. This study contributes to emerging research on family variables as potential protective factors in pediatric asthma by focusing on familism as a primary concept amongst biological and psychosocial variables.

Doctor of Education (Ed.D.) / At an upper level of education, especially Forms 5, 6 and 7 of secondary school and in tertiary institutions, Indo-Fijian students often perform better than their ethnic Fijian counterparts. This pattern of ethnic difference in academic performance is a long standing one, lasting over 70 years. However, both ethnic groups have been participants in the same educational system in Fiji. Educational policies have been implemented to reduce this difference. This present case study argues that there are cultural differences of values, beliefs and practices with respect to educational achievement among Indo-Fijians and ethnic Fijians. The achievement ethic of the two ethnic groups differs. Indo-Fijian culture respects and values education highly. Generally speaking, educating children has been always the top priority of Indo-Fijian culture. They believe that education changes people for the better, and the only way to “success” is through education. Thus, Indo- Fijian parents believe that helping children to strive for academic excellence is one of the most important tasks for them. The priority attached by such parents to educational success is one of the strongest forces behind academic success. By contrast, ethnic Fijian culture encourages children to have a strong sense of loyalty to their community and of becoming good members of their koro (i.e., village). Indeed, one’s total commitment to communal activities and cultural requirements is of vital importance. Although ethnic Fijian parents generally understand the importance of their children’s education and wish to support their education, ethnic Fijian communal demands are enormous in terms of time and labour. The pressure to maintain their moral and social obligations within the community tends to make ethnic Fijians spend a large amount of time, energy and money on functions such as ceremonial events and church activities, at the possible expense of providing for the formal education of their children. These demands mean that parents are often absent from home, and unable to supervise children’s homework. Ethnic Fijian children, upper secondary schoolers, feel strong pressure from their peers within their koro to conform to social activities, such as attending church, playing sports such as rugby and volleyball, and hanging around in the koro and town. Besides, the layout of the typical ethnic Fijian home is a more difficult environment than Indo-Fijian households for children’s study, largely due to the limited space to study independently. The socio-cultural background of ethnic Fijians, especially their home environment including family values and priorities, is one of the major barriers to their children’s educational progress. In addition, school leadership, teachers’ expectations, colonial policies and legacies, e.g., land tenure issues, play important roles in affecting differences in the academic performance of these two ethnic groups. Consequently, the educational achievement differences between ethnic Fijians and Indo-Fijians are revealed substantially during the secondary and tertiary educational institutions.

Examensarbete.

The aim of this study is to analyze the impact of national culture on organizational culture across borders from a cultural dimension approach. In order to find out how the national culture of a company's host-country impacts the organizational culture throughout the company, we examine Swedish companies that have established business in a culturally distant nation, namely India. A multiple case study is used for this research that includes qualitative data gathering from 7 interviewees from the Swedish companies Sandvik AB and Elekta AB. The main criterion of selecting the interviewees was to find people who have first-hand experience from both the Swedish and the Indian working environment. The study shows that national cultural values seem to be an unchangeable, nontransferable property, but that organizational culture practices can be learned, adopted, and thus transferred. The research indicates that personal interaction could be the key element in adopting foreign culture element; in this case, supervisor-subordinate relationship styles and attitudes towards rules. This study contributes to the literature by shedding light on the process, how elements from a company's home-country national culture can be transferred to overseas facilities through company practices and personal interaction. Future studies are recommended to address the topic in different settings and also by using longitudinal quantitative methods.

abstract: A theme in the life experiences of ethnic minority adolescents is the perception of discrimination and its concomitant challenges. Although existing literature has examined the perception of discrimination in adolescents, little research has examined how the cultural and familial setting may heighten or alleviate the impact of perceived discrimination on psychological outcomes in Latino youth. The current study investigated how traditional cultural values and parent-adolescent relationships prospectively interact with perceptions of group based discrimination to influence Latino adolescent mental health, adjustment, and risky behaviors. Data used from the Parents and Youth Study included 194 Mexican American (MA) adolescents. Adolescents reported on their perceptions of group discrimination, endorsement of traditional Mexican cultural values, and parent-child relationships in the 7th grade (Time 1). The study also used indices of externalizing (mother report), internalizing, substance use and risky sexual behavior (adolescent report) in 10th grade (Time 2). The findings demonstrated that traditional Mexican cultural values, particularly familism, moderated the relationship between perceived group discrimination and adolescent sexual behavior. Additionally, a better overall relationship with mother and father buffered the detrimental effects of perceived group discrimination on risky sexual behavior. The current work discusses future directions of how the context of culture and family may shape an adolescent's response to perceived discrimination and the well-being of minorities. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Psychology 2011

abstract: Recent reports have indicated that there are both mental health and educational disparities between Latino youth and their European American counterparts. Specifically, Latin youth are at a heightened risk for negative mental health outcomes in comparison to their non-Latino youth (e.g., Eaton et al., 2008). Further, 16.7% of Latino adolescents dropped out of high school compared to 5.3% of European American youth over the past several decades (1960-2011; U.S. Department of Education, 2013). Mexican American (M.A. youth in particular, have the lowest educational attainment among all Latino ethnic groups in the U.S. (U.S. Census Bureau, 2010). While these mental health and educational disparities have often been attributed to discrimination experiences that Latino youth encounter, there is also consistent empirical evidence linking discrimination with these maladjustment problems. These studies confirmed that discrimination directly related to depressive symptoms (e.g., Umana-Taylor et al., 2007), externalizing behaviors (Berkel et al., 2010), self-esteem (e.g., Zeiders et al., 2013), and academic outcomes (e.g., Umana-Taylor et al., 2012). Few studies to date have examined the underlying mechanisms (i.e., moderation and mediation) that help us to better understand resiliency paths for those Latino youth that display positive adjustment outcomes despite being faced with similar discrimination encounters that their maladjusted peers face. Therefore, the following two studies examined various mechanisms in which discrimination related to adjustment to better understand potential risk and resiliency processes in hopes of informing intervention research. Paper 1 explored cultural influences on the association between discrimination, active coping, and mental health outcomes in M.A. youth. Paper 2 examined how trajectories of discrimination across 5th, 7th, and 10th grades related to cultural values, externalizing behaviors, and academic outcomes in M.A. youth. Taken together, these studies provide a culturally informed overview of adjustment processes in M.A. adolescents who face discrimination in addition to identifying critical directions for future research in efforts to gaining a more contextualized and comprehensive understanding of the dynamic processes involved in discrimination and adjustment in M.A. youth. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Family and Human Development 2014