The ability to communicate in a foreign language requires more than linguistic accuracy. To understand and be understood by others requires the ability to recognize cultural differences. For example, polite behavior in one language may not be the social equivalent in another language. In order to acquire cultural competence, students have to…

This study examined college students' perceptions on interactions across racial and cultural differences at a major research university in the United States. Approximately 30 freshman students from various groups volunteered to participate in a year-long program intended to encourage students to become cross-cultural mentors and allies for each…

This paper briefly compares the uses of video as a medium of instruction in higher education in the United States and China and makes tentative explanations from a sociocultural perspective of the differences between these countries in using this medium. Video has been used similarly in a number of ways in both countries, but the ways it is used…

This book presents outcomes of UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) studies on teacher training in eight countries (Bolivia, the Czech Republic, Jordan, Lebanon, Mauritius, Poland, Senegal, and Tunisia) representing different levels of development and different regions of the world but who are facing a common…

A primary purpose of this book is to show the danger of racism and inaccuracy in the often-told Asian American success story by telling about the other side of Asian American academic success. Outlining an approach to family-based multicultural education, the book provides a model for paraprofessional, bicultural counselors to meet the needs of…

Demystifying some of the implications of multiculturalism might allow the opportunity to ground the field in the basic exercise of cultural affirmation, self-determination. Contributors to this book affirm that self-determination and moving beyond the comfort zones to which multiculturalism has advanced are essential to seeing multiculturalism as…

This issue of the Canadian journal "Transitions," presented in French- and English-language editions, deals with immigration as it relates to families. "Immigration, Integration, Families, Values: Old Wine in New Bottles" (Morton Weinfeld with Kathy Eisner) discusses the process of immigrant integration, which spans…

The history of Western social thought may be examined by focusing on the linkage between dominant legitimating ideologies and various institutional structures of the social formation. As society moves in the direction of postindustrialism, the development of a constructivist, rather than deconstructive, form of postmodernism is needed.…

The increasingly diverse ethnic composition of the nation's children poses new opportunities, but also serious challenges, to the nation's education institutions, including the early childhood programs that lay the foundation for children's school experience and achievement. In light of the controversy on this subject, its significance for…

Intended to be used as a resource guide, this book provides educators with information about writers and artists whose backgrounds and works reflect the diversity of our society. The guide includes 39 authors and illustrators who celebrate their diversity of cultures. These subjects represent a variety of minority and ethnic groups but have in…

A study examined differences between cultural models and educational strategies of three minority groups (African Americans, Chinese Americans, and Mexican American/Latino) to help explain the differences in school performance. Data also provide the first large scale test of J. Ogbu's theory of these school performance differences. Surveys were…

Field research conducted at a Japanese computer-assembly plant in Germany is reported, and aspects of translingual and intercultural communication between two American competitors, the Japanese and the Germans, are examined. Translingual communication is defined as any language-based communication and information transfer between native speakers…

This study used the marginal man theory to try to understand the work experiences of a group of Chinese immigrant professors at American institutions of higher education. Marginal man theory describes an individual with dual, perhaps not resolvable identities in two cultures. Five male professors at a Midwestern university participated in the…

Shifting the focus of earlier editions from reading to literacy and defining a knowledge base for content literacy, this book presents preservice and inservice teachers with theory and related teaching strategies designed to help middle and secondary students in reading and learning from their textbooks. The book addresses issues related to…

This paper describes an ongoing doctoral study on the preparation of teachers to work in a variety of student cultural populations. It will examine teachers from three distinctly different geographical and sociocultural areas. The three areas are urban, suburban/rural, and rural isolated school jurisdictions in Alberta and Saskatchewan (Canada).…