Over half a century ago the scientist and novelist C. P. Snow described a world divided into two cultures – scientists on the one hand, literary intellectuals on the other. Both played a significant role in shaping the world, but were unable to even hold a conversation (Snow 1971). This dissertation brings a sociological perspective to this divide (now seen as a divide between the sciences and the humanities) and hope for reconciliation, as it has been revisited in the more technologically saturated environment of the twenty-first century. The digital humanities combines computer science and the humanities and its impact on the humanities has been called “game changing” (Bobley 2008). Just as technology has revolutionized science, in fields such as astronomy or neuroscience for example, by allowing scientists to see and analyze objects and patterns they could not before, digitization allows humanities scholars to ask questions, and find answers, that were not possible in the past (Katz 2005; Kirschenbaum 2010; Kornbluh 2008). The digital humanities also promises to expand the reach of the humanities in terms of what is studied, who is able to participate, and who has access. This dissertation argues that the digital humanities is leading to the democratization of the humanities by expanding access to and participation in the humanities. In addition, although there are still divides between the two cultures, the digital humanities is a place where a third culture is fostered, as digital humanists are increasingly becoming experts in both the humanities and computing. Three case studies are examined: the Centre for History and New Media at George Mason University, The Orlando Project, a joint project between the University of Alberta and Guelph University, and the Electronic Arts Game Innovation Lab at the University of Southern California. / Thesis (Ph.D, Sociology) -- Queen's University, 2011-12-31 17:50:49.587

Third culture kids are children raised in globally mobile families who have left their culture of origin to reside in a host culture. As this relocation occurs during childhood, the child combines the values, traditions, and norms of both cultures thereby creating a third culture, a unique culture created by the parent’s integration of the home culture, the host culture, and the domains of the organizational culture. Emotional Stability was found to mediate the relationship between family of origin Expression and Composite distress. Though this was the only hypothesized model that was supported, other interesting findings include that when participants were categorized by industry, statistically significant differences were found between Military, Missions, and the Other group on all of the scales. These differences are likely due to a cohort effect, given that the military family mean age was as much as twenty years higher than the other groups.

This study is a critical evaluation conducted by a Youth-led Participatory Action research team that has, over the course of five years, sought to investigate culturally responsive pedagogies in international schools populated with Third Culture Kids. Previous to this work, the youth researchers and I developed an interdisciplinary, choice and project-based honors program which we called the Small Learning Community. As such, this program became the object of and context for this review. We were guided by the question, What are, if any, the perceived learning benefits for students in the Small Learning Community?, and we sought to critically evaluate the program’s perceived impact on meaningful learning experiences, student agency, and transference of skills. We leveraged constructivist-oriented Grounded Theory—in part because of the value this approach assigns to emic knowledge—to examine interview transcripts of SLC participants. I then developed case studies and argue for pedagogical shifts in the international classroom that center more deliberately on (1) active participation, (2) the perception of new, (3) choice, (4) attention to process, (5) personal interest, and (6) social emotional learning, while addressing the need for more intentional and systematic practitioner research.

Denna systematiska litteraturstudie behandlar ämnet modersmål eller som det också kallas heritage language. Syftet är att med hjälp av diverse vetenskapliga artiklar komma fram till vilken roll språket spelar i en individs utveckling. Detta anses vara viktigt då man i lärarutbildningen ofta lyfter fram den enskilda individen i ett klassrum och det är då viktigt att skapa en förståelse för de ungdomar i dagens Sverige som har ett annat heritage langauge än just svenskan. Artiklarna visar att de ungdomar som fått lära sig sitt heritage language känner en koppling till sin kultur medan de som inte har fått möjlighet till det känner att de saknar något. Genom sådana resultat har man därför kunnat komma fram till att inte bara finns det en stark koppling mellan ens språk, kultur och identitet men att den också är mycket viktig.

Depuis les années 1950, des chercheurs comme Useem, Pollock, Van Reken et d’autres se sont interrogés sur le sujet des enfants qui ont grandi dans plusieurs pays. Cependant, la grande majorité de ce corpus vise les enfants ayant été scolarisés dans des établissements anglophones même s’il existe de nombreux établissements francophones hors la France. Ce projet vise cette population. Nous nous sommes demandés s’ils faisaient partie d’une double minorité, premièrement la minorité de Nomades Globaux (NG) mais dans cette population s’ils faisant partie d’une minorité francophone de NG. Pour ce faire, nous avons conduit des entrevues semi-structurées avec 12 participants en utilisant un cadre théorique construit autour de l’habitus de Pierre Bourdieu. Bien que nous ne puissions tirer de conclusions générales, il semble que ces NG ne se sentent pas comme faisant partie d’une double minorité.

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Thesis advisor: Marilyn Matelski / This thesis examines the various ways in which cultures across the world have used the game of soccer, or football, as a cultural unifier. With minimal equipment and simple rules, football is universally understood and globally popular. The uniting and inspiring power of football reaches its peak every four years during the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) World Cup. The tournament pits 32 of the world‘s best national football teams against one another in a dramatic and wildly popular contest that declares one team the World Champion. Despite the competition on the field of play, the bidding process to win the privilege to host the FIFA World Cup is equally intense. Nations across the world vie for the chance to host one of the world‘s biggest and most prestigious sporting events, seemingly in the hopes of boosting the nation‘s economy. Scholarly research, however, claims that hosting a World Cup has a negligible, and sometimes even negative, effect on the host nation. Why, then, do nations bid so fiercely to host the World Cup? This thesis posits that the host nation is not primarily concerned with earning money, but with accruing ―social profitability‖ from hosting the tournament. The intangible benefits to hosting the World Cup include situating the nation as a world class destination for business, trade, and travel. Further, hosting the World Cup gives the host nation the chance to showcase its unique culture to the world, while fostering peace, unity, and fair play across the globe in celebration of the beautiful game, football. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2011. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Communication Honors Program. / Discipline: Communication.

This study explores the role perceived cultural difference and cultural priming have to play in influencing the home acculturation orientation of third culture individuals (individuals who have temporarily lived outside their home culture during their childhood years, or TCIs). Participants aged 19-74 years (N = 301) with a third culture background were surveyed using Amazon Mechanical Turk. Participants were randomly assigned to read a cultural priming scenario that oriented them either toward their home or host country, or to a third control group. All participants completed measures assessing their level of perceived cultural difference between home and host countries, and their level of home-country acculturation orientation. Results of this study supported hypotheses that perceived cultural difference was statistically significant in influencing TCIs’ home acculturation orientation but did not support hypotheses regarding cultural priming and an interaction between cultural priming and perceived cultural difference on acculturation orientation. Findings present implications for how the need for a cultural match between host and home countries can play a large role in influencing the third culture acculturative experience, and also provide further insight into a previously understudied population.

This study examined the electronic discourse in an online course to investigate if culture exhibited itself in the communication of students. The researcher also sought to find out if a third culture was built in this course and if so, what design features facilitated the emergence of this third culture. A graduate-level online course at a Southwestern university was examined in a case study. Computer-mediated discourse analysis was used as the method. The students were administered an online demographic survey to collect information about their background. The online communication of the students, the instructor, and the assistants were analyzed. A semantic analysis matrix was developed based on the pilot study that was used to investigate the content of the messages posted in the discussion conferences. The results showed that culture did not exhibit itself in the discourse. A third culture, however, was formed by the students. The discourse characteristics of this third culture are producing timely and intelligent comments and equal levels of participation; use of materials from both cultures; constant interaction among participants; creating a side conversation between two different cultures; a common discourse accent; words, expressions, acronyms created in the course; curiosity, sensitivity, openness towards otherness, critical engagement with others; and ability to understand and tolerate different perspectives and cultural phenomena. The design features of the particular online course were discussed. The design features that may have helped create a third culture among students are face-to-face meetings and introductions conference in the course; instructor’s teaching strategies such as creating expectations for participation and her scaffolding and mentoring throughout the course; and features of the course communication platform such as the ability to embellish the thoughts through the use of fonts, colors, and quoting.

The number of Americans living abroad currently is estimated at over four million, with over 37,000 matriculating into U.S. universities each year. If the social media giant Facebook were a country, it would be third largest in the world, with over 300 million users outside of America. The trajectory of our society is increasingly global. Amidst this shift, there is a unique multicultural subpopulation emerging-- Third Culture Kids (TCK), who experience a collision of cultures and form hybrid identities in the course of their development. TCKs are more specifically when a person spends a significant part of their developmental years outside their parents’ culture. The TCK takes on pieces of each culture, while never fully ‘belonging’ to any. They are most at home around others of a similar transient background. This report synthesizes research about globally mobile populations from across disciples, highlighting grief and ambiguous losses, acculturation stresses, and identity development. Potential implications for the college campus— at institutional and individual levels— will be discussed. This overview of current research and resources equips college counselors with a frame of reference for engaging this third culture in a holistic and contextualized manner. / text