Internationalization raises the issue of whether, and to what extent, the inherent culture of a country may have particular influence on the nature of service interactions, and on education (i.e., student-professor interactions) specifically. Thus the service encounter in the classroom becomes a subject of increasing importance and interest with…

It has been suggested that the International Baccalaureate Organization could be expected to "influence" as many as 100 million people in the foreseeable future. This article focuses on some of the cultural dissonances that may be produced from attempts to "clone" on to non-Eurocentric models, educational systems and methodologies designed to…

The Seeds of Peace program began in August 1993 when forty-eight Egyptian, Israeli, and Arabic boys met at a summer camp in Maine for a two-week coexistence program that gave them the opportunity not only to meet their "enemies" for the first time, but to live with them in cabins, share meals, and participate in typical summer camp activities. In…

Results are presented of a cross-cultural study of differences in the reasons that children in the United States and Japan give for refraining from common types of aggression. Over 200 children, primarily fifth-graders, were interviewed individually. The study was an extension of previous research showing that children who voice a self-centered or…

This paper is a reflection on the two most significant challenges that I have faced teaching the introductory course in Islam. The first is the challenge of teaching Islam after September 11, 2001, the events of which gave rise to such pedagogical questions as how much and in what ways the course syllabus should change, and in particular how we…

In this essay I reflect on my experience thus far of teaching Islam as a non-Muslim at Metropolitan State University and at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota. I begin by narrating a conversation about conversation that I had with one of my Muslim students. Then I introduce the theme of multiplicity as a way of…

This paper explores the implications of a cultural studies as praxis heuristic "model: for transforming sport psychology". It provides a brief introduction to both cultural studies and sport psychology and discusses a cultural studies intersection with sport studies and sport psychology. Cultural studies, it asserts, provides one of several…

This study investigated whether significant differences exist between first and second language readers in their metacognitive awareness and perceived use of specific strategies when reading for academic purposes in English. Three hundred and fifty college students (141 US and 209 Moroccan) completed an instrument designed to measure their…

The purpose of this study was to propose and test a motivational model of performance by integrating constructs from self-concept and self-determination theories and to explore cultural group differences in the model. To this end, self-report measures of global self-esteem, academic self-concept, academic motivation and academic performance were…

This paper revisits the question of why pragmatics should be taught in the foreign language classroom and demonstrates how this can be achieved effectively with materials informed by conversation analysis (CA). Since findings in CA describe systematic action sequences underlying verbal activities that display cross-cultural variation, they capture…

It is a long and winding road from invention to innovation. Starting from this observation, this paper presents a historical perspective on the capabilities engineers should possess to do their work. The importance of the "communicative competence" involved in creating a social base for innovation is underpinned. We will present a…

Using the Intercultural Sensitivity Scale formulated by G. M. Chen and Starosta, the intercultural sensitivity of English major students, non-English major students, and multinational employees in China were investigated. In this study, intercultural sensitivity was defined as consisting of interaction engagement, interaction confidence, respect…

Background: The influence of grief and bereavement on the lives of people with intellectual disabilities is currently receiving much interest. Many of the long-standing rituals associated with bereavement are still practised in Ireland, probably more than in many other Western countries. The present authors were interested in studying the…

Today's teachers bemoan the fact that their students, immersed in a media culture, appear to be uninterested in reading works typically assigned in traditional language arts classrooms. However, the incorporation of young adult novels has served to engage even reluctant learners with their young adult protagonists dealing with familiar themes and…

This paper is the sum of the author's experience when she moved from England to Sweden four years ago. Sweden's international reputation for gender equality is unparalleled and therefore she expected to be part of a different gender order than that in the United Kingdom. However, she finds that at the level of everyday experience, gender relations…