Today's processes of cultural globalization involve three major trends: (I)the global expansion of transnational communications conglomerates; (2) the global implementation of market-oriented cultural policies; and (3) the global diffusion of new communication technologies. These processes have set in motion complicated consequencesa nd prompted a range of national responses.B oth China and Taiwan, the two locations which embody the Asian region's largest cultural formation, have experienced major shifis in their internal political and economic organisation and been significantly influenced by these interlinked global processes since the early 1980s. Taking the national film industries in both locations as a case study, this thesis examines the impact of globalisation on the organisation of national cultural production and distribution, and explores the uses of film in representing shifting conceptions of national culture and identity.

University writing programs increasingly serve student populations of growing diversity: more international students, first-generation students, disabled students, racial and ethnic minority students, and LGBTQ+ students, for example. Instructors thus teach in classrooms with many cultures and subcultures represented. Amid increasing demographic diversity, many writing programs seek to internationalize. In this dissertation, I investigate the current state of Culturally Responsive Teaching (CRT) in a university writing program as a potential avenue for internationalization. Culturally Responsive Teaching (CRT) is a social-justice-oriented, transformative approach to education that views cultural diversity as a resource, restructuring education settings to affirm students’ identities and home cultures. I evaluate CRT among a sample of 10 instructor participants and their students, propose a CRT assessment method, and suggest implementation of CRT as a sustainable, just, and resource-efficient method for writing program internationalization. I implement a mixed-methods research design that draws on both observational and self-report measures of CRT. Results indicate that instructor capabilities for CRT fall along a developmental spectrum. This developmental spectrum provides a useful model for assessment of CRT in a writing program context, as well as a basis for developing the CRT capabilities of instructors at both individual and programmatic levels. <br>

International education is big business and international students are a large minority on many of the U.S.’s most reputable institutions. However, a persistent issue has been the tendency for international and U.S. domestic students to socialize largely within their own groups of co-nationals. Utilizing a paradigmatic case study approach on a large public university, this dissertation consists of three separate, but connected, studies that feature, respectively, (1) staff and faculty intercultural learning and contact, (2) undergraduate student experiences of intercultural contact and friendship, and (3) undergraduate student assessments of campus spaces and programs for interacting across culture. These studies integrated frameworks from intercultural competence, intergroup contact theory, and conviviality. Findings throughout the case study confirmed that friendship and contact between international and domestic U.S. individuals was limited, even when the participants were motivated, experienced, and demonstrated many aspects of intercultural competence. Further, the case was characterized by administrative efforts to address the issue through formal classes, workshops, and festivals, while generally overlooking the informal spaces that students found most integral to their own experiences. These findings underscore a disconnect between trying to “prepare” individuals for contact rather than attempting to “create” the spaces and programs for such contact to occur, i.e., a focus on the individual’s knowledge and skills rather than the interpersonal and environmental conditions in contact. The findings culminated in the proposed Programmatic Conviviality Model, qualities which are theorized to support convivial intercultural contact. I argue that this model and the realignment to a focus on intercultural contact as a goal, is necessary for college campuses beyond the immediate case study and that this work is timely as campuses move back to in-person engagement after almost two years of COVID isolation.

<p>While the number of graduate students from different parts of the world in the United States is decreasing, the trend in Latin American populations is the opposite. Nonetheless, the current lack of information regarding the reasons behind this tendency, in terms of English language proficiency and cultural aspects, affects all parts involved: graduate students do not know what type of opportunities they can make use of; American universities do not have enough information to provide Latin American students with a sheltering environment; and Latin American governments are unable to make policies that encourage the application and facilitate admission to graduate school in American universities.</p> <p>The aim of this study is to establish a starting point for understanding the linguistic and cultural complexities of the Latin American population in graduate school in the United States. To do so, surveys and interviews were carried out to explore academic experiences, cultural influences and socioeconomic patterns that influenced the admission of Latin American students to graduate school. Mixed methods were used to describe the patterns of the survey responses quantitatively while leaving room for confirmatory quantitative analysis using the information of the interviews. The participants of this study were graduate students from Purdue University, one of the American universities with the highest number of Latin American graduate students. </p> <p>The results of this study underscore the importance of effective English language instruction during college years for reaching the graduate school admission scores, especially in cases when English language training during school was not possible or had little impact on the functional proficiency of the learner. Also, there is a large body of evidence indicating that undergraduate research internships could be one of the opportunities with the highest potential to recruit graduate Latin American students, regardless of their socioeconomic background.</p>