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In the last thirty years appropriation has been studied as the practice of reworking earlier works of art or literature by presenting them in new contexts, or to challenge notions of individual creativity or authenticity in art. However, the term "appropriation" is hotly debated in the fields of Indigenous and Post-colonial studies for technologies such as the English language, writing and visual art have for a long time assumed the connotation of 'colonial property'. The object of this enquiry is to explore the extent to which Indigenous Australian appropriations of the English language, writing and visual art, provide -- though they differ widely in terms of themes, strategies and styles -- a terrain for discussing unexplored issues of intercultural representation, epistemology and interpretation. The dissertation offers a close reading of literary and visual "practices of proximity", such as interlanguages, editorial relations and cross-cultural exhibitions, in order to demonstrate that Indigenous Australian appropriations variously disrupt neo/colonial claims of property. This dissertation is organized thematically, and consists of three parts entitled "Interlanguages", "Intertextual Performances" and "Contested Sights". Each part consists of three chapters, which move from an initial questioning of technology as colonial property, to the close analysis of some Indigenous appropriations and non-Indigenous counterappropriations. Situated at the crossroads between Indigenous and Postcolonial studies, the dissertation offers insights into the timely debates on sovereignty, difference and subject positioning. The combination of theories of "appropriation" and "intersubjectivity" illuminates a new path in theorizing Australian intercultural relations. The Australian contact zone is unveiled as a place of Indigenous sovereignty where the colonial subject is ontologically and epistemologically constituted in correlation with Indigenous peoples. Thereby, the Indigenous/non-Indigenous intersubjective relation is recognised as the ground from which notions of the colonial self and other derive and which colonial reifying selfreflection has misconceived as separate.

This descriptive research project is a survey and analysis of nineteen community mediation programs in the State of Oregon. These programs were evaluated to determine their responsiveness to issues of culture and ethnicity. Data was gathered by face-to-face and telephone interviews with community program staff members and administrators. Information was written on cards or tape recorded for analysis. General questions were asked about kinds of services, target groups, and minority use of services provided. Other questions related to information about training, mediator selection, intake, and the mediation process. A review of selected authors, such as Hall, Hofstede and others, forms a background for cultural issues related to mediation. Cultural factors included in this study highlight the characteristics and variables of cultural and conflict. The literature review includes current thinking regarding the nature, merit and challenges of community mediation programs and a description of mediation in the State of Oregon. The findings of the research indicate that most community mediation programs in Oregon do not service minority communities. The need for adequate funding, personnel, time, and solutions to serve diverse populations within their neighborhoods produces a constant tension affecting the extent to which programs are responsive to diversity issues. Outreach to develop community awareness and recruit volunteers varies significantly. Very little outreach is specific to minority communities. Most advertising is in English. Training programs differ from location to location, but aspects related to culture are minimal. The intake process for each program varies only slightly. Usually procedures and techniques remain consistent regardless of the cultural or ethnic backgrounds of disputants. With the exception of language considerations, the mediation process also remains the same for all cases. Recommendations are included to strengthen the development of programs to be more responsive and open to the cultural needs of minorities. / Graduation date: 1999

There are more Japanese people coming to the United States than ever before. Increasing numbers of problems and conflicts are occurring between the Americans (hosts) and Japanese (guests). Many scholars have stated that there is a distinct difference of communication patterns between Americans and Japanese. The Asia University American Program (AUAP) established between Oregon State University and Asia University in Japan is designed to give the students intensive English study and exposure to American culture. Using AU Japanese students and OSU American students for samples, this project sets out to determine to what extent their cultural and language barriers affect the intercultural and interpersonal communication between Americans and Japanese in their dormitory environment. Including an American-American paired control group, rates of satisfaction with roommates were compared between the Japanese students and experimental American students of the Japanese-American pairs, along with the control group of American pair students. The study also examines factors which affect satisfied and unsatisfied communication between Americans and Japanese, and investigates what efforts the students made to overcome cultural differences and language barriers. Questionnaire surveys and face-to-face semistructured interviews were conducted to discover these elements. The results revealed that the rates of satisfaction are similar for the Japanese- American paired roommates, and the American-American control roommates. Therefore, ethnicity did not influence the level of roommate satisfaction for the three groups. Although cultural difference and cultural similarity did not influence the roommate relationship according to quantitative measurements, cultural differences that had qualitative and subjective effects on the relationship were found. The results of the analysis also show that English competence was not a predictor for satisfactory relationships. The key factors for successful relationships were the levels of the Japanese students' eagerness to talk to their American roommates and the American students' willingness to listen to their Japanese roommates. A combination of eagerness and willingness between the roommates reinforced the opportunity for success. Regarding sex, the data shows that the female students were more satisfied than the male students. The research literature also supports the observation that female students achieve more satisfactory relationships. The main traits that contributed to satisfactory relationships on the part of American roommates were the traits of "patience", "open-mindedness" and "willingness to make an effort". The traits of Japanese students which contributed to satisfactory relationships were "trying to talk" with their American roommates and "willingness to make an effort". The main factors for the unsatisfied relationship are just the opposite of those contributing to satisfactory relationships. Roommates who had unsatisfactory relationships typically had little communication with their roommates because they stayed away from their rooms. / Graduation date: 1993

published_or_final_version / Politics and Public Administration / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

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The research literature documents the relative disadvantage of widows in coping with grief, both in a greater vulnerability themselves for mortality or ill health, but also for a sudden loss of resources from losing a spouse. Moreover, widowhood in the Canadian cultural communities may be an additional burden if met with service from mainstream care professionals and agencies at variance with their culturally-appropriate grieving practices and assumptions. Specifically, the meaning(s) of bereavement and grief for Hindu-Canadian widows are not well understood, and the goal of this study is to enhance transcultural understanding of this population in counselling and beyond. An inductive, descriptive qualitative method focusing on the subjective, lived experience of key co-researchers, using selective and nonprobability sampling was utilized to maximize the relatively small sample size typical of a phenomenological approach. This was used to describe and explain the meanings and experiences of grief for five older Hindu-Canadian widows within the context of their own cultural setting and world view. Data were collected from five female members of the Hindu- Canadian communities. An additional triangulation method of a general class of culmraUy-informed co-researchers was used to help corroborate the obtained themes. The co-researcher's responses were the data for this study, and a method of "constant comparative analysis" (I^ininger, 1985) was utilized in a search for themes through a process of higher abstraction. Data analysis of the verbatim transcripts occurred simultaneously with data collection and, guided by Leininger's (1990) 'Thases of Analysis for Qualitative Data," the process unfolded with: (a) collecting and documenting raw data; (b) identification of descriptors; (c) pattern analysis; and (d) theme formulation. Ultimately six themes were abstracted from forty-five sub-categories as a portrait of the meanings and experiences of widowhood for this group of Hindu-Canadian widows. Themes for this group of key co-researchers are as follows: First, status transition from wife to widow meant resignation to the husband's death, rather than acceptance through discrete stages of recovery: Second, meanings and expressions of grief centered on beliefs about the enduring and eternal quality of the husband's life force as intrinsic and essential to the widow's own lifeways: Third, the transition from wife to widow entailed a double affliction in status loss as well as in the personal domain of intimacy and partnership: Fourth, the meanings and expressions of both grief phenomena and status transition reflect an ethic of collective good and duty-based interpersonal morality, but with acculturation causing a nascent and generational transition in such moral orientation: Fifth, status transition can entail a degree of liminality, out of bicultural dislocation and transformational variables such as education: Finally, a fundamental meaning of their Hindu-Canadian widowhood experience is its spiritual opportunity. Despite some diversity in their Hindu diaspora and sect, the explicated themes illustrate a common experience and meaning attendant on widowhood for the co-researchers. This study investigated a portion of the underlying cultural logic of widowhood and grief phenomena for these constituents of Hinduism, and highlighted their cultural constructions of meaning and experience, allowing us to improve our transcultural knowledge and understanding of the unique needs of this population in the field of Counselling and beyond. As a phenomenological study, themes and suppositions abstracted from this relatively small sample are limited beyond the precisely-defined context of its five co-researchers. Nevertheless, a counsellor might well benefit from the potential offered here for finer-grained assessments and therapeutic relationships with widows in our Hindu communities.

Internationally, there is a growing body of research that focuses on teachers’ informal learning. However, there is very little research in South Africa on informal learning and most research focuses on formal professional development initiatives. The purpose of this study is to address the gap in South African literature on the contemporary educational phenomenon of informal teacher learning. The study aims to investigate how teachers learn informally at school. The key research questions, 1. What do the selected teachers understand by the concept teacher learning? 2. In what ways do teachers learn informally at school? 3. What kinds of knowledge do teachers learn informally at school? were used to frame the study. The body of literature surveyed for this study makes reference to the variety of ways teachers learn informally in school and the benefits derived from this alternative form of learning. In South Africa, studies undertaken by Abrahams (1997) and Graven (2004) seem to suggest that there is some kind of support for collaboration and communities of practice as models of teacher learning. This study was conducted with a group of five teachers, both novice and experienced at a suburban government girls’ high school in KwaZulu-Natal. The study used the exploratory, descriptive style of case study methodology where the case is teacher learning in a high school. It was designed to unfold in four different stages and a data collection instrument specific to each stage was used to generate the necessary data: Journals (Stage 1), Photographs (Stage 2), Photovoice (Stage 3). The data were analysed in three steps: (1) Identifying patterns and themes emerging from the interview transcripts and journal entries. (2) Content analysis to give a rich, textured description of all the details of the participants’ experiences and reflections through the narrative written about each participant. (3) A deeper analysis then followed linking data to literature by looking across narratives of the five participants for what was similar or different about what knowledges they learnt and in what ways they learnt these knowledges. Some of the key findings indicate that these participants are self-motivated and that each of them took the initiative in an individual capacity to engage in informal teacher learning to either enhance or develop their content knowledge, pedagogic knowledge, pedagogic content knowledge or contextual knowledge. They learnt these knowledges by engaging in either individual learning (planned or unplanned) or social learning (planned or unplanned) from or with colleagues. / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2011.

During the last fifty years, family life has noticeably changed in industrialized countries. Among many changes, it appears that there is a shift from a "family dominated" society to a more "individualistic" society where the concept of family loses its importance, family ties weakens, and elders lose their essential roles within the family because the continuity between generations in respect to family traditions and values is stopped. Ethnic-elders have different expectations from their family members based on their ethnic-identity, family values, and the extent of their acculturation. These value differences might also influence the accessibility and provision of psycho-social services. Therefore, the purpose of the present cross-cultural study was to understand and compare different ethnic-elders' expectations from their family members and from psychosocial service providers based on their concept of perception of family values. An instrument was designed for this study implementing a 4 point-scale and vignettes. Data were collected from seniors from South Asian (Sri-Lanka), Korean, Hungarian and Jewish communities and from a group of Social Worker (N = 94). Significant differences were found between group values: overall the Social Worker group was the most individualistic/non-traditional with the Jewish group next; the South Asians and Koreans were the most family-oriented/traditional; and these attitudes were the most different from those of the Social Workers. These particularities have important implications for the delivery of social services.

In recent years, with the development of DNA tests and genetic knowledge, there has been a growth of genetic counseling services and research in Canada and Japan. Although the uniqueness of genetic services in medicine lies in the preliminary assessment of the entire family rather than a single patient, few attempts have been made by social scientists to examine the technical and social construction of family trees and medical pedigrees. The purpose of this thesis is to analyze how the family data taken by genetic counselors are transcribed as medical pedigrees and used by associated health care workers in different cultural settings. The comparative analysis was based on an ethnographic approach that included participant-observation in genetic counseling sessions, interviews with clinical workers, and content-analysis of medical textbooks. The findings include three major points: (1) cultural views of the family are taken for granted by genetic counselors; (2) the process of documenting family data consists of four stages: primary transcription, secondary transcriptions, combination and publications; (3) the clinical workers' use of medical pedigrees results in the construction of family history as part of the present family illness.