The number of culturally diverse project teams has increased significantly over the years, as internationalization within organizations become more common. Individuals are more interconnected than ever, due to increased cultural exchange. The increased globalization also has created many challenges, such as streamlining multinational organizations, management and communication in multicultural settings. Furthermore, there has been studies showing that culturally diverse project teams have both a positive and negative impact on projects. The purpose of this study is to contribute to a deeper understanding of perceived challenges in multicultural project settings. In order to get a deeper understanding of the challenges, the study will address the perceived impacts of cultural differences in regard to the project member, as well as the challenges project members encounters and how these are managed. The author found that the cultural differences were noticeable when adapting to a new culture but faded as the respondents adjusted and became more like the individuals in the new culture. The challenges most of the respondents faced not speaking the language, not being used to the language and surrounded by different accents, which originated from language barriers. There was no universal solution to these challenges, instead, respondents dealt with it their own way or with the help of guidance from organizations. The study was done by conducting semi-structured interviews with a qualitive method to ensure extensive data. There were ten interviews in total, with individuals from different backgrounds and cultures around the world.

Throughout the history of Catholic schools in Los Angeles, the mission of Catholic schools and the Archdiocese governing its schools has been clear: Catholic schools must strive to serve children with varied learning needs. However, despite calls for inclusion from the Vatican, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, and efforts from trained administrators and professionals to help facilitate inclusion in schools, Catholic inclusive programs are not able to include all learners. Using qualitative research with semi-structured interviews, focus group, and document review, this study uses the framework of ableism and disability studies to research and analyze the two questions regarding inclusive practices in one Catholic elementary school that has had a program running for five years. The research questions are as follows: 1) What are St. Mary teachers’ beliefs, experiences, and perceptions about disability and inclusive education? 2) What do St. Mary teachers and administrators think are the best ways to foster acceptance of inclusive education in the school? Despite the fact that Catholic educators recognize that Catholic schools, as a matter of social justice, should be teaching all children, it is challenging and frustrating for them. Due to a lack of resources and support, limited exposure and experience of people with disabilities, and technical special education training, even the most dedicated, talented, and sympathetic Catholic educators wanting to serve children with special needs have difficulty doing so. Reasons relating to inconsistent teacher training, beliefs and experiences that students with special needs are “trouble,” limited resources, and teachers’ perceptions of fairness, time, and equity, all contribute to teachers’ frustration and limitations when including learners with special needs in their classrooms. The significance of this research study lies in documenting a Catholic school’s experience of developing, evolving, and establishing a working model of an inclusion program in one Los Angeles Catholic elementary school. To this end, this study provides larger contextual data to those in similar Catholic school settings across America about Catholic teacher training and the implementation of inclusive practices in Catholic schools. Also, this study hopes to further the discussion in the field of Catholic education about the right(s) of all Catholic children, regardless of ability, to a Catholic education, since, according to the Vatican, that it is a matter of human dignity that they receive a spiritual and emotional education as well as one that is appropriately academic.

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Language sample analysis has come to be considered the “gold standard” approach for cross-cultural language assessment. Speech-language pathologists assessing individuals of multicultural or multilinguistic backgrounds have been recommended to utilize this approach in these evaluations (e.g., Pearson, Jackson, & Wu, 2014; Heilmann & Westerveld, 2013). Language samples can be elicited with a variety of different tasks, and selection of a specific method by SLPs is often a major part of the assessment process. The present study aims to facilitate the selection of sample elicitation methods by identifying the method that elicits a maximal performance of language abilities and variation in children’s oral language samples. Analyses were performed on Play, Tell, and Retell methods across 178 total samples and it was found that Retell elicited higher measures of syntactic complexity (i.e., TTR, SI, MLUw) than Play as well as a higher TTR (i.e., lexical diversity) and SI (i.e., clausal density) than Tell; however, no difference was found between Tell and Retell for MLUw (i.e., syntactic complexity/productivity), nor was there a difference found between Tell and Play for TTR. Additionally, it was found that the two narrative methods elicited higher DDM (i.e., frequency of dialectal variation) than the Play method. No significant difference was found between Tell and Retell for DDM. Implications for the continued use of language sample for assessment of speech and language are discussed. / Communication Sciences

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