No description available.

Sojourners, or people who live in a foreign country for a limited period of time, must prepare to communicate effectively in a foreign culture. Current theory suggests that sojourners learn to develop primary social interaction schemas to prepare for intercultural communication. Because sojourners may not stay in a country long enough to develop schemas, sojourners could benefit from a tool designed to help them acquire schemas for their host countries. Conceptual and situation metaphors can help sojourners gain useful insights into the cultures they prepare to face. To investigate metaphors that may assist sojourners, international students studying in the United States were interviewed to uncover the metaphors they already used to describe their experiences, as well as to see if new metaphors could be created to assist future sojourners. The conceptual and situation metaphors uncovered are discussed in within the framework of schemas. / Master of Arts

abstract: This dissertation examined sojourner adjustment success utilizing a unique method for collecting and analyzing the perceptions and sense making of the sojourner participants. Although previous research studies in this area have mostly relied on quantitative survey designs and researcher-generated models, this study relied on in-depth, participant-driven, qualitative interviews that were semi-structured using a software-assisted method called Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM). Through this dissertation research, study abroad students (sojourners) had the opportunity to reflect on their sojourn experience, share their adjustment stories, and identify factors that were personally relevant to their success. This study broke new ground while building on the vast body of work in cross-cultural and sojourner adjustment. Sojourners were asked to provide their perspectives on the relationships among those factors reported in the literature that are commonly believed to influence successful adjustment. This allowed me to connect existing literature on the subject with the lived experience of the sojourner participants. This dissertation sought to answer two research questions. First, what factors do participants identify as being keys to the success of their sojourn? Second, what relationships do participants perceive among the factors contributing to successful sojourner adjustment? This dissertation found that language proficiency played a key role in their adjustment and openness was the factor most selected by participants in their explanation of a successful sojourn. Additionally, participant profiles and influence structure summaries provided evidence of the relationships participants saw among success factors in their lived experiences. In terms of preparing sojourners for going abroad, analysis of the composite structure revealed what could be prioritized in pre-departure training for impending sojourners. Themes emerged which provide insight into the commonalities of the sojourner experience despite differences in one's program or personality. This dissertation also explained additional success factors participants identified (e.g., ability to manage language fatigue, creation of connections with other travelers) that were not initially provided to them. Finally, suggestions for study abroad students/coordinators, researchers, and employers are provided. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Communication 2014

Thesis advisor: María Estela Brisk / This study was conducted to understand student identities of five Japanese children (the second through sixth grade) and the processes of identity negotiation within their sojourning experiences between Japan and the United States. An increasing number of Japanese elementary students internationally sojourn in today's globalized societies, and consequently shape their identities in multiple school contexts. Previous research has suggested the reciprocal relations between linguistic minority learners' identities and their diverse school experiences, and reported a wide variation of bilinguals' self-perceptions. However, few studies have focused on elementary sojourners to holistically theorize the internal and external processes of their identity negotiation. In this interpretive multiple case study, children's own perspectives were inductively gathered by following the constructivist grounded theory guidelines. Data collection methods included child in-depth interviews enhanced with drawing activities, classroom observations, and teacher and parent interviews. The cross-case analysis was facilitated by interpretive focus group interview with Japanese former sojourners. The results indicated that the children across varied stages of sojourning integrated their consistent self-relevant attributes (ordinary student status and familiar personal traits) and their changing attributes (oral English proficiency) together as the fuel for pursuing their identity standard--their own interpretation of positive student identities--which fundamentally represented their social adaptive and socioemotional competences. Their experiences with Japanese language and culture, bilingual/bicultural competences, and international transitions, appeared potentially influential for their student identities. Through the multi-layered complex negotiation processes, they successfully verified, improved, balanced, and imagined their self-relevant attributes salient for their identity standard. By proposing a competence-based identity negotiation model, this study recommends all educators to support their sojourning students by attending to two types of school competences: (a) the Identity-Relevant Competence which contributes to identity standard and (b) the Identity-Negotiation Competence to practice the holistic processes of identity negotiation for sustaining the identity standard. The findings add a new theoretical scope to the evolving field of child identity research, and suggest further interdisciplinary explorations of sojourners' student identities. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2009. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Teacher Education, Special Education, Curriculum and Instruction.

This thesis explores two forms of modern Scottish migration, settler and sojourner migrations. It addresses the differing motives behind the choice of migration and the impact of different host environments on the creation and use of Scottish identity, the deployment of ethno-cultural capital, the use of social networks, Scottish associationalism, nationalism, and the return behaviours of Scottish migrants since 1950. The vehicle for this exploration is a comparison of Scottish migration to New Zealand and Hong Kong, where the former is used as an example of settler migration and the latter of sojourner migration. The study uses in-depth, semi-structured life-story interviews of settler migrants and the descendants of earlier settlers in New Zealand and the sojourners and returned sojourners of Hong Kong. These oral history interviews are supported by surveys of migrants in the host locations and returned sojourners in the UK and further validated against statistical sources. The thesis argues that migrant identities are individually manufactured, plural and fluid but also subject to change dependent on the demands of environment and the individual's needs as much as any inherent national identity. The comparative nature of the study highlights that migrant responses differ between destinations. Additionally, the comparison addresses the little understood or researched modern Scottish sojourner. The comparison against the better understood settler migrant cohort draws out the differences in motivations, identity constructions and deployment of Scottishness between the migrant groups. Both groups use their Scottish identities with varying intensity. In New Zealand, where Scottish identities are part of the cultural mainstream, and maintained by a multi-generational cohort, promotion is less intense than in Hong Kong. There, the small number of Scottish sojourners actively target and promote a hybrid form of human, cultural and social capital, as both a personal resource and a basis for usable networks. The thesis labels this form of capital as ethno-cultural capital, defined as the advantage or disadvantage, which accrues to an individual from belonging to, or being associated with, a particular ethnic group. The thesis builds on earlier studies and emphasises that the fluidity of identity construction has continued into the twenty-first century. Migration requires of individuals that they constantly reappraise and recalibrate their identities to align themselves to the environments of their destination as well as the homeland upon return, a constant and circular renegotiation of change. The thesis identifies ethnocultural capital as a hybrid form of capital, suggesting that Scottish migrants tend to be among its more adept promoters. It also proposes explanations as to why Scottish migrants are prepared to invest time and resources in ethno-cultural capital promotion. Reflecting the central themes of change, flexibility and adaptability, the thesis also argues that freed from the rigidity of colonial structures, Scottish associationalism in Hong Kong has broadened its reach and become more responsive to migrant needs. In contrast, New Zealand’s traditional Scottish associations have declined and their roles as sites of memory have been replaced by newer associational forms such as family history and genealogy research.

This study examined the orientations to cultural difference of sojourner educators in the Foundation Program at Qatar University to determine if orientations were correlated with select demographic and experiential variables, including gender, age, time overseas, education level, formative region, ethnic minority status, job position, length of time in Qatar, intercultural marriage, default language, formal teacher training, and overseas development organization experience. This study used a sequential mixed-method design. Perceived and Developmental Orientations were measured using the Intercultural Development Inventory© (V.3), which produced a measure of each respondent’s orientation to cultural difference. Focus group interviews were conducted to engage participants in explaining and interpreting the findings. Five focus groups of three to six participants each were conducted. Most of the teachers were found to operate from within the transitional orientation of Minimization, although individual scores ranged from Denial to Adaptation. On average, the educators were found to overestimate their orientations by 31 points. A positive correlation between orientation and formative region was found, with participants from North America showing the highest orientation. Statistically significant differences emerged for orientations when comparing Middle East and North African (MENA) and North American formative regions. Formative region was found to account for 4.8% of the variance in orientation and is a significant fit of the data. Focus groups participants speculated that (a) core differences regarding multiculturalism in MENA and North American cultures help explain the results, (b) aspects of the workplace culture and both the broader MENA and local Qatari culture encourage a sense of exclusion, and (c) external events further complicate cross-cultural relations. The study findings add to the literature by providing baseline orientation data on sojourner educators in post-secondary education in the GCC region, and by confirming some of the findings of similar studies. The study provides practitioners with suggestions for staffing and professional development. Future research should focus on the measurement of orientations in broader samples of educators, changes in orientation over time in Qatar and other cultural contexts, differences in orientation among short-term vs. long-term expatriates, the impact of employment systems and societal structures on orientations in sojourner educators, the impact of educator orientation to cultural difference on student achievement, and the design of effective cross-cultural professional development for educators.

"Spirited Media" analyzes distributed structures of authorship in the reform literature of the nineteenth-century United States. The literature that emerged out of reform movements like abolitionism often was a product of complex negotiations between speech and print, involving multiple people working across media in relationships that were sometimes collaborative, sometimes cooperative, and sometimes antagonistic. The cultural authority of print and individual authorship, often unquestioned in studies that focus on major or canonical figures of the nineteenth century, has tended to obscure some of this complexity. Moving from phonography, to Josiah Henson and Uncle Tom’s Cabin, to spiritualism, to Sojourner Truth and Walt Whitman, I consider four cases in which reporters, amanuenses, spirit mediums, and poets revived and remediated the voices of abolitionists, fugitive slaves, and figures from American history. By separating publication into events—speech, inscription, revision, and print—I show that "authorship" consisted of a series of interactions over time and across media, but that in the case of reform, the stakes for proving that authorship was a clear and indisputable characteristic of print were high. For abolitionist, African American, and spiritualist speakers and writers, authority depended on authorship, which in turn depended on the transparency of the print or the medium, or the perception of a direct relationship between speaker and reader. Like authorship, this transparency was constructed by a variety of social actors for whom the author was a key site of empowerment. It was authorized by appeals to revelation and race, two constructs often sidelined in media histories, yet central to discussions of society and politics in nineteenth-century America. Thinking of authorship as a distributed phenomenon disrupts models of the unitary subject and original genius, calling attention instead to uncanny acts of reading and writing in nineteenth-century literature. This dissertation argues that we should think about the transformative power of U.S. literature as located in revelation, not just creation, and in congregating people, not just representing them. / text

This paper offers grounded evidence in support of the elaboration of Kim's [(2001). Becoming intercultural: An integrative theory of communication and cross-cultural adaptation. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage] integrative theory of communication and cross-cultural adaptation (ITCCA) to include sojourner reentry. Findings from 24 intensive interviews validate the heuristic value of ITCCA in the reentry context, but also reveal unique features that set reentry adaptation apart from cross-cultural adaptation. Key theoretical contributions include (1) a nuanced description of the role of reentry communication competence, (2) greater complexity of the roles and networks of interpersonal and mediated communication upon return, (3) an expansion to the environment domain to include home environment, and (4) a long-range perspective on the development of functional fitness, psychological health, and intercultural personhood. Implications for sojourner reentry training are addressed.