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International Aid as Modern Imperialism—What Does Cross-Cultural Psychology Really Have to Offer? A Commentary on “The Positive Role of Culture: What Cross-Cultural Psychology Has to Offer to Developmental Aid Effectiveness Research, by Symen A. Brouwers”
Abstract
In his article, Brouwers argues that cross-cultural psychologists (CCPs; a term he uses to include cultural psychologists and indigenous psychologists) should be a resource for agencies and organizations that engage in international and developmental aid. His argument is that CCPs can help these agencies and organizations ensure that their interventions become “entrenched”—meaning they become long-lasting aspects of life in the communities receiving the aid. We agree with Brouwers that CCPs can and should be more involved with international aid organizations. However, we argue that CCPs’ primary concern should be ensuring the ethical and cultural appropriateness of the ways in which the aid organizations interact with recipient communities. We believe this can only happen when indigenous psychologists are involved in the intervention in ways that ensure recipient communities are fully engaged with any aid-based intervention. We highlight our argument by utilizing some preliminary analyses from a related project we recently completed in Guatemala.
... Cultural capital, which has previously been discussed in the economic (Throsby, 1999) and sociological (Bourdieu, 1987) literatures, refers to the worldviews, traditions, and values that a community shares and that provide meaning and well-being in community members' lives (Ashdown et al., 2021). Unfortunately, the importance of cultural capital in community development, and especially international community development, has too often been ignored (Ashdown & Buck, 2018;Ashdown et al., 2021). ...
... Because hundreds of billions of dollars are spent each year on international development and aid (Deloffre, 2016;Explorer.usaid.gov, 2018; International Committee of the Red Cross, 2016; Myers, 2016; Save the Children, 2016), it is vital that scholars and practitioners of community development ensure that their work avoids issues such as cultural imperialism, neo-capitalism, and white saviorship (Ashdown & Buck, 2018). While reading Baughan's book, it is easy to recognize that for many of SFC's first 100 years the organization was not only unconcerned about protecting the cultural capital of the youth and families they were working with, but was actively -and often purposefully -damaging (at best) or destroying and eliminating (at worst) local communities' cultural capital. ...
... Foreigners participating in a short-term medical mission were providing medical treatment, such as lice-killing shampoo, to local community members even though the people receiving the treatment could not understand the written instructions on the containers because those instructions were in English. High school-aged missionaries (sometimes also called voluntourists -people who travel to a community or country other than their own to engage in community development and service; Ashdown & Buck, 2018) "prescribed" aspirin to community members for a range of reasons, and it was unclear if the recipients understood what they were being prescribed and by whom. ...
This review discusses the book Saving the Children: Humanitarianism, Internationalism, and Empire by Emily Baughan. In the book, Baughan documents and discusses the first 100 years of the Save the Children Fund, which was established in the United Kingdom in 1919. In this article, I review the book in the context of the Community Capitals Framework, paying particular attention to the importance of cultural capital. One of the major shortcomings of Save the Children was the willful ignorance of and, at times, the purposeful destruction and elimination of the cultural capital of the communities, families, and youth they were serving. I discuss the consequences of ignoring and damaging cultural capital and provide examples of how, rather than being only a historical problem of large and complex organizations such as Save the Children, some current scholars and practitioners continue to neglect and harm cultural capital in their own community development work.
... NGOs, such as Habitat for Humanity, also send volunteers to places around the world to provide service with the goal of improving the lives of others (habitat.org). This activity, sometimes referred to as mission trips, volunteer tourism, or voluntourism can be done well…but it can also be done poorly and have more negative consequences than positive impacts on the local communities (Ashdown and Buck 2018;Talmage and Gassert 2020). The difference in power relationships between wealthier countries and less wealthy countries is substantial (Kiely 2016;Martin and Griffiths 2012;Richey 2016), begging the questions: How is this impacting the well-being of the communities and people living in the receiving countries? ...
... Other strings attached to this aid may, at times, be justified (such as requiring receiving communities to address issues of corruption). But more often, the strings demonstrate a type of cultural imperialism damaging to cultural capital and well-being (often tied to a sense of superiority referred to as the 'White Savior Industrial Complex') that expects a group of people to abandon their own way of life and adopt that of the group or government providing the support (Ashdown and Buck 2018). In addition to often being connected to a White Savior Industrial Complex (which occurs when relatively wealthy people, who are usually White, see themselves, and might be seen by the people they are imposing on, as having all the answers needed to solve a problem; Belcher 2016; Bex and Craps 2016;Jailani 2016;Straubhaar 2014), this imperialistic behavior is rooted in histories of colonialism (Aronson 2017;Ashdown and Buck 2018;Rigney 1999;Rios 2015), and should always be avoided. ...
... But more often, the strings demonstrate a type of cultural imperialism damaging to cultural capital and well-being (often tied to a sense of superiority referred to as the 'White Savior Industrial Complex') that expects a group of people to abandon their own way of life and adopt that of the group or government providing the support (Ashdown and Buck 2018). In addition to often being connected to a White Savior Industrial Complex (which occurs when relatively wealthy people, who are usually White, see themselves, and might be seen by the people they are imposing on, as having all the answers needed to solve a problem; Belcher 2016; Bex and Craps 2016;Jailani 2016;Straubhaar 2014), this imperialistic behavior is rooted in histories of colonialism (Aronson 2017;Ashdown and Buck 2018;Rigney 1999;Rios 2015), and should always be avoided. What could be more damaging to cultural capital and community well-being? ...
In this perspective article, we argue that too often, foreign and developmental aid devolves into a form of imperialism and colonialism that we more fully define in the article. We believe that aided communities and community members are often expected (or required) to change their own cultural ways of living to continue receiving the aid or support they have been offered and may need. Ironically, the need for this aid is often driven by the way the aid is provided, creating potential cycles of imperialism and dependency, which can negatively impact individual and community well-being. Fortunately, better practices and ethical guidelines are available to direct the ways that both providers and receivers – communities and individuals – of aid are fully engaged in the process to ensure that all people benefit while being able to continue to live according to their own cultural worldviews. This perspective article provides our ideas about better practices and ethical guidelines for how community development professionals, psychologists, and other behavioral scientists who engage in international aid (in any of its forms) do so in ethical and appropriate ways.
... Here, I provide suggestions from my experiences guiding 26 undergraduates while conducting psychological research in Guatemala. This work has resulted in five publications (including nine undergraduate co-authors), various conference presentations, and other ongoing projects with another seven student collaborators (García Egan et al., 2014;Faherty et al., 2016;Ashdown and Buck, 2018;Rohner et al., 2019). ...
... International research requires partnerships with local collaborators (Pao, 1992;Ashdown and Buck, 2018). Such collaborations are more successful (Pao, 1992), and local collaborators have better access to local populations, understand local customs, and can serve as cultural ambassadors in addition to collaborators. ...
... Working with local collaborators helps researchers avoid falling into the trap of the "White savior complex" (Straubhaar, 2014;Belcher, 2016;Bex and Craps, 2016;Jailani, 2016;Ashdown and Buck, 2018). This complex occurs when researchers (usually highly-educated, relatively wealthy White people from the Global North) view themselves (and are sometimes viewed by participants) as having all necessary skills and knowledge to research an issue or solve a problem. ...
Many challenges of conducting research with undergraduates while abroad are similar to working with undergraduates on campus. Undergraduates are research novices, requiring significant supervision and training (Thiry & Laursen, 2011; Shellito, Shea, Weissman, Mueller-Solger, & Davis, 2001). Challenges specific to international research, like working in unfamiliar locations and avoiding specific cultural and ethical pitfalls, can be managed by focusing on five issues: (1) establish local collaborations, (2) avoid “safari” research, (3) understand students’ cultural and research skills, (4) get official institutional support for students’ travel and work, and (5) model international research ethics.
... Here, I provide suggestions from my experiences guiding 26 undergraduates while conducting psychological research in Guatemala. This work has resulted in five publications (including nine undergraduate co-authors), various conference presentations, and other ongoing projects with another seven student collaborators (García Egan et al., 2014;Faherty et al., 2016;Ashdown and Buck, 2018;Rohner et al., 2019). ...
... International research requires partnerships with local collaborators (Pao, 1992;Ashdown and Buck, 2018). Such collaborations are more successful (Pao, 1992), and local collaborators have better access to local populations, understand local customs, and can serve as cultural ambassadors in addition to collaborators. ...
... Working with local collaborators helps researchers avoid falling into the trap of the "White savior complex" (Straubhaar, 2014;Belcher, 2016;Bex and Craps, 2016;Jailani, 2016;Ashdown and Buck, 2018). This complex occurs when researchers (usually highly-educated, relatively wealthy White people from the Global North) view themselves (and are sometimes viewed by participants) as having all necessary skills and knowledge to research an issue or solve a problem. ...
... By the same token, more discussion about the implications of embracing inter/multi/cross-culturalism is needed to better understand the epistemological and conceptual opinions on the matter. It is an occasion for inquiring or 21 investigating whether colonial takes on cross-cultural experiences are still perpetuating culturally imperialistic practices in which hierarchies and the white saviour complex prevail (Ashdown and Buck, 2018;Nordmeyer, Bedera and Teig, 2016;Aronson, 2017). ...
... Beth (E6) and Susan (E7) clearly state some main characteristics of the so-called "white saviour complex". Their reviews manifest an empathy that contradicts this syndrome (Ashdown and Buck, 2018;Nordmeyer, Bedera and Teig, 2016;Aronson, 2017). In fact, the way Beth (E6) and Susan (E7) tackle the North American superiority mindset contributes to dealing with it in a different and more positive manner. ...
While inter/cross-cultural learning continues as a paramount and central topic of discussion in the foreign language teaching, the current debate on intercultural communicative competence as a goal for cross-cultural experiences has gained complexity as a result of critical considerations on interculturality and language learning. Although the literature on intercultural learning is long and verbose within the scope of study-abroad, there is still much to see and explore in the lived experience of sojourners to comprehend intercultural experiences and language learning/teaching practices abroad. This qualitative case study examined 32 students' reflective essays with Atlas.ti for text mining and codification. Results suggest that empathy was the most salient feature to understand language, people, and culture. The lived experience of the person who is not a native speaker helped Lee University students to put themselves in someone else's position. In this vein, the role of language was pivotal to engage in the resignification of differences/similarities between cultures. This study contributes to the growing literature on the power of cross-cultural experiences for internationalization and decolonization.
RESUMEN Si bien el aprendizaje intercultural continúa siendo un tema de discusión primordial en la enseñanza de lenguas extranjeras, el debate actual sobre la competencia comunicativa intercultural como objetivo de estas experiencias ha ganado complejidad a raíz de consideraciones críticas sobre la interculturalidad y el aprendizaje de los idiomas. Aunque la literatura sobre el aprendizaje intercultural es extensa en el ámbito de los estudios en el extranjero y las estancias interculturales, todavía hay mucho que explorar en la experiencia vivida por los viajeros para comprender los espacios interculturales y las prácticas de aprendizaje y enseñanza de una lengua extranjera. Este estudio de caso cualitativo examinó los ensayos reflexivos de 32 estudiantes con Atlas.ti para la minería de textos y la codificación. Los resultados sugieren que la empatía fue la característica más destacada para comprender la lengua, las personas y la cultura. La experiencia de quienes no son hablantes nativos del idioma español ayudó a los estudiantes norteamericanos de la Lee University a posicionarse en el lugar del otro. En este sentido, el papel de la lengua fue fundamental para comprometerse en la resignificación de las diferencias/similitudes entre ambas culturas. Este estudio contribuye a la creciente literatura sobre el poder de las experiencias interculturales para la internacionalización y la descolonización. Palabras clave: experiencia intercultural; estudios en el extranjero; empatía cultural; interculturalidad; Competencia comunicativa.
... Organizations like the WB and IMF utilize metrics of economic progress and financial improvements that in neoliberal thinking will lead to improvements in health, nutrition, and education. As Ashdown and Buck (2018) discuss, the connection between the capitalist free market and improving social markers is not guaranteed. In fact, these economic indices are considered outside the Namibian context in which the interventions and aid are introduced. ...
... An aid organization should strive to be "an invisible helper" that is a catalyst for grassroots change the community itself recognizes it needs, for which the community designs culturally appropriate means to address, and to which it dedicates its own efforts to implement. The help that is given should be the help that is requested, thereby respecting the recipient community's autonomy, respecting their capabilities, and respecting their cultural values and practices (Ashdown & Buck, 2018). How many aid efforts truly respect the communities they serve, by relinquishing control to their community partners, by touting the community's efforts more than their own, by striving to become invisible and ultimately unnecessary sources of assistance? ...
Criticisms against international aid in Africa focus mainly on the notion that aid creates dependency, induces corruption, fosters currency overvaluation, hurts economic development, and doesn’t allow aid recipient countries an opportunity to take advantage of the global economy. Neglected by these arguments are how aid efforts weaken the cultural capital, resourcefulness, and ways of life of recipient communities. The strength and sustainability of any community lies in its cultural values and systems. In this paper, we frame indigenous beliefs in the context we know and work (Namibia), outline indigenous social welfare practices, and argue that aid is not neutral or value-free, but loaded with assumptions, motives, and beliefs alien to the recipient country, which can harm local systems, practices, and institutions.
... People, professionals or otherwise, who engage in community development work without a clear understanding of the perspectives, desires, and goals of the receiving community run the risk of doing more harm than good. As my colleagues and I have argued elsewhere (Ashdown & Buck, 2018;Ashdown et al., 2021), community development work that is planned and executed by community outsiders often imperils, and sometimes destroys, the cultural capital of the community. In fact, we claim that community development work managed or controlled by community outsiders, without clear and meaningful oversight by local community members, is a form of neo-colonialism and cultural imperialism. ...
... In some past work with my colleagues (Ashdown & Buck, 2018;Miller & Ashdown, 2020;Talmage et al., under review), we have argued that community development work that ignores the cultural capital of a community or worse, damages or destroys that cultural capital, is neo-colonialist and culturally imperialistic in nature. To assume that practitioners, scholars or educators of community development know more about what a particular community needs than the members of that community is not only ridiculous but perhaps the peak of bad scholarship and practice. ...
In this relatively informal commentary, I discuss the potentially helpful and harmful roles that postmodernism and critical theories have in academia in general and particularly in community development scholarship and pedagogy. After introducing postmodernism and critical theories as well as some of the common criticisms of these frameworks, I discuss the importance of cultural capital in community development and how postmodernism and critical theories can protect and maintain cultural capital as well as damage and diminish it. I also discuss the importance of ensuring students in community development courses understand these frameworks and understand that they are but some of the theories and skills students will need to know to be effective and ethical community development scholars and practitioners. The duty of educators is to ensure that students have the abilities and support to do the hard work of critically evaluating and analyzing all viable approaches to community development work.
... Scholars have established the relevance of cultural and location-specific issues for individual well-being (Panelli & Tipa, 2007) and community well-being (Wiseman & Brasher, 2008). The restraint, destruction, or diminishment of cultural capital can have detrimental effects on the well-being of community members , whether this is caused by unethical business practices, shortsighted international development, natural disasters, or global pandemics Ashdown & Buck, 2018;Miller & Ashdown, 2020). ...
... For CD to be sustainable and support the well-being of community members, cultural capital must be sustained. Cultural histories, traditions, and views -which have been utilized by communities for generations to create individual and community health -deserve the utmost respect and deference by SCD practitioners, scholars, and supporters (Ashdown & Buck, 2018). It can be tempting to focus on other types of capital, especially financial capital, during and after the current global COVID pandemic. ...
The world faced stark challenges during the global pandemic caused by COVID-19. Large forces such as climate change, cultural ethnocentrism and racism, and increasing wealth inequality continue to ripple through communities harming community well-being. While the global pandemic caused by COVID-19 exacerbated these forces, lessons across the globe have been captured that inform the field of community well-being long-after the end of the pandemic. While many scholars have looked to political capital, financial capital, and social capital to tackle these challenges, natural capital and cultural capital have extreme relevance. However, scholarship tends to overlook the inextricable and important links between natural capital and cultural capital in community development and well-being work. These capital forms also inform contemporary understandings of sustainability and environmental justice, especially in the fields of community development and well-being. This perspective article showcases the deep connections between natural capital and social capital through literature review and community cases across the globe. Questions are posed for future research and practice tethering together cultural capital and natural capital when looking to bolster community well-being.
... Regarding the second aspect of communication, a full understanding of the eutrophication issue, including an effective solution, requires integration of the experiences and perceptions of Maya communities who are among the most regular lake-users and observers. This is imperative to achieve long-lasting improvements, ensuring the health of lake residents, and avoiding White Saviorship and cultural/scientific imperialism in the process (Ashdown and Buck 2018). A White Savior Industrial Complex occurs when relatively wealthy, typically White and Western-educated people see themselves, and are often seen by the people upon whom they are imposing, as having ultimate solutions (Belcher 2016;Bex and Craps 2016;Jailani 2016;Straubhaar 2014). ...
... A White Savior Industrial Complex occurs when relatively wealthy, typically White and Western-educated people see themselves, and are often seen by the people upon whom they are imposing, as having ultimate solutions (Belcher 2016;Bex and Craps 2016;Jailani 2016;Straubhaar 2014). This imperialistic behavior is rooted in histories of colonialism (Aronson 2017;Ashdown and Buck 2018;Rigney 1999;Rios 2015), and should be avoided. Instead, international and developmental aid, as well as cross-cultural research, should be offered, provided, and administered in ethical ways that focus on the agency and solidarity inherent in community development work (Bhattacharyya 2004;Mathie and Cunningham 2011;Newman and Dale 2005), and that support equity and full participation of all stakeholders (Pyles 2016). ...
Cyanobacteria blooms, a recent phenomenon in Lake Atitlán (Guatemala), impact the lake’s ecology and local Maya communities’ cultural identity, subsistence, and employment. The blooms and their anthropogenic provenience are relatively well understood scientifically, yet beliefs and attitudes of impacted communities are less explored. We investigated one Maya community’s¹1 In this article we use the term Maya community to refer to the specific, local group we worked with in Santa Cruz La Laguna; when we are referring to the larger Maya community/population, we make this explicit. perceptions of the blooms via separate focus groups of three men and four women from Santa Cruz La Laguna. Participants described how daily lives and employment were negatively impacted by the blooms, expressing a desire for more communication among those working to improve water quality. Participants desired leadership and resources in order to participate and take action. Men and women differed in views of who is responsible for the health of Lake Atitlán; men expressed greater importance of government and non-goverment organizations; women emphasized that both the government and local citizens play critical roles. Participants expressed a desire for education and knowledge about cyanobacteria blooms and to contribute to solutions. To broaden understanding of indigenous stakeholders’ perspectives, additional research is needed that includes other Atitlán watershed communities to promote socio-ecological discourse. As cultural eutrophication exists at the nexus of science and culture, future work must be extended beyond disciplinarily boundaries and consider collectively the relevant natural and social sciences to understand the causes, consequences, and solutions to the blooms within the context of environmental justice.
... Advocacy does not need to be grandiose; even small actions, such as sharing her experiences with colleagues to raise awareness of these systemic gaps, contribute to building a more equitable professional environment. For example, therapists with training in minority world could be the resources for international organizations and local agencies to offer consultations and humanitarian aid to promote social justice (Ashdown & Buck, 2018;Masud, 2019). ...
Therapists trained in the minority world with Western psychological models often face significant ethical dilemmas when returning to practice in the majority world contexts, where cultural norms and systemic conditions may differ significantly from their training environments. Without a critical lens and intentional decolonization efforts, well-intentioned practices can inadvertently reimpose colonial power dynamics in mental health care. This article critiques the implicit universality of Western ethical standards and proposes a culturally responsive ethical framework tailored to majority world contexts. Key principles include cultural contextualization, relational ethics, social justice advocacy, integration of Indigenous practices, and reflective practice. Through a detailed case study adapted from a real-life event, the article illustrates the application of this framework for therapists in navigating complex dilemmas that arise at the intersection of cultural dissonance, systemic inequities, and global power dynamics. Recommendations for training programs are provided, emphasizing the integration of international competence, decolonial approaches, and community-based learning to better prepare therapists for culturally attuned and ethically sound practice.
... A lesson learned from developmental research in the Global South is that interventions that take a universal approach may be inconsistent with local child-rearing practices and socialization goals (Ashdown & Buck, 2018;Gibbons, 2022;Gibbons et al., 2024;Morelli et al., 2018;Serpell, 1993Serpell, , 2011. This document is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association or one of its allied publishers. ...
Knowledge from the Global South, including Latin America, has enriched our understanding of developmental science. Despite underrepresentation in the published literature, research from Latin America has advanced the psychology of parenting and child and adolescent development. An ecological approach is valuable in adding meaning and specificity to general cultural clusters and has revealed how responsibility, lovingness, and respect are enacted in the everyday lives of families and children. Although the evidence is not exclusive to the Global South, research from Latin America has broadened and challenged theories and accepted practices from the Global North. Examples include countering attachment theory with respect to multiple caregivers and sensitive responsiveness and problematization of children’s work in terms of family responsibilities. Research from Latin America has also challenged the notion of optimal parenting styles and revealed how the cultural values of familism and respect are evidenced in the daily practices of parents and children. Latin America boasts a psychology that acknowledges the importance of the political and social context and seeks to apply psychology to addressing social problems. To fully recognize and take advantage of knowledge from the Global South, the science of psychology should refrain from promoting “best practices” and sidelining research from Latin America and other regions of the majority world; it needs to fully document autochthonous parental ethnotheories, socialization goals, and practices and promote the implementation of the goals of local communities.
... These problematic issues, based on my own limited experience, do not represent the full range of the dark side of interventions, but additional narratives from Guatemala are available (Ashdown & Buck, 2018;Newton & Early, 2015). Rumors from my social network and friends suggest more serious flaws, such as treatment by inept physicians-in-training, installation of unhealthy water supplies, and construction of unstable housing. ...
... Further supporting arguments for the inclusion of marginalized researchers, scientists conducting research on communities they do not belong to or do not have deep understanding of can be problematic (e.g., as evidenced by "Safari research" or temporary and superficial understandings of one's research sample; Ashdown & Buck, 2018). For example, not all scientists are trained to do "diversity" work or have culturally-relative understanding of non-WEIRD populations (Syed & Kathawalla, 2021). ...
Feminist researchers have long embraced the challenging, dismantling, and reimagining of psychology, though their contributions to transforming psychological science remain largely overlooked in the mainstream open science movement. In this article, we reconcile feminist psychology and open science. We propose that feminist theory can be leveraged to address central questions of the open science movement, and the potential for methodological synergy is promising. We signal the availability of feminist scholarship that can augment aspects of open science discourse. We also review the most compelling strategies for open science that can be harnessed by academic feminist psychologists. Drawing upon best practices in feminist psychology and open science, we address the following: generalizability (what are the contextual boundaries of results?), representation (who is included in research?), reflexivity (how can researchers reflect on who they are?), collaboration (are collaborative goals met within feminist psychology?), and dissemination (how should we give science away?). Throughout each section, we recommend using feminist tools when engaging with open science, and we recommend some open science practices for conducting research with feminist goals.
... Finally, French and Romero-Perezgrovas (2020) chapter on the importance of measuring and evaluating outcomes is vital. As any serious scholar or practitioner of community development understands, good intentions are never enough (Ashdown & Buck, 2018). Ensuring, via rigorous measurement and evaluation practices, that goals and outcomes are actually being achieved in effective ways is fundamental to this work. ...
... Different cultures have their own indigenous psychologies, which shape the applications of its results and interventions, and that creates possibilities for social change (Ashdown and Buck, 2018;Fredericks, 2009;Steel and Heritage, 2020;Wagoner et al., 2018). Organizations, like communal sociocultural environments, are formed by hierarchically structured and distributed systems (Chirkov, 2020). ...
Purpose
This paper researches the effects of the cultural context from values' ground on leadership roles and the effects of roles on styles. The idea behind this study is to show that cultural communities have different cultural models regarding the kinds of roles leaders should or should not play.
Design/methodology/approach
The sample was chosen from the part of the town where the immigrant workforce is growing, as well as it is the closest growing economic area to Europe in Turkey.
Findings
The analysis shows that cultural values significantly affect leadership roles. Additionally, there is a correlation between roles and paternalistic leadership style. Asian cultural values do affect leadership roles more than Western values. Additionally, each culture is diminishing the other. As leadership roles increase, they are acting as paternalistic leadership substitutes.
Originality/value
Interestingly we have introduced paternalistic leadership substitutes to literature and showed that paternalistic leadership is not only culturally but also contextually bounded.
... These differences in culturally-valued child outcomes, and the way that parents and caregivers will engage in different types of childrearing techniques to elicit the valued outcomes, make it clear that trying to define 'good' parenting is a Quixotic questand, really, a Quixotic quest that is culturally blind at best (Berry, 2013) and scientifically imperialistic at worst (Ashdown & Buck, 2018). Too often, relying on research and theory based on Westernized beliefs leads to comparisons between U.S. culture (or, perhaps, another Westernized, White, middle-income sample) and some other non-Westernized group. ...
What do we mean when we talk about “good parenting”? How do we know if someone providing care to a child is doing it the “right way”? These are important questions that any caregiver, teacher, researcher, scholar, or other parenting and child-care professionals should recognize can only be answered within cultural context. However, too often the way cultural values and beliefs interact with parenting values and beliefs is ignored in the scholarship. In this chapter, we make the argument that scholarship on parenting and caregiving is overly influenced by Western cultural ideals. We also introduce the format of this edited volume and explain the goal of providing scholars of parenting, as well as parents and other experts and professionals, with important and relevant information about cultural ideals and values in regard to parenting behaviors and outcomes.
Many modern researchers have explained the need and rationale for a wide range of cultural studies in combination with foreign language teaching. However, questions remain as to the content selection, forms of work and technologies that provide students with active interactions, and complete immersion. The paper focuses on the research questions: How can cultural knowledge and understanding be incorporated into the context of English language teaching? Findings indicates that including a culturally appropriate approach to foreign language instruction into professional training improves the art and cultural awareness of aspiring English teachers by allowing them to apply their acquired cultural knowledge in cross-cultural communication scenarios. It helps people become more focused on their jobs. Their motivation is increased, and an environment of openness and inquiry is fostered via cultural studies. The questionnaire was completed by 24 respondents.Keywords : pedagogic competence, teachers, cooperative learning
As the science and field of CBPR advance to the next level, it is clear that several things need to occur. We need more formal training in CBPR that is more broadly available to both academically-based researchers and community members. Post-doctoral training programs such as the Kellogg Community Scholars Program13 need to be expanded beyond the current 3 schools of public health, and need to be integrated into other health professional schools and within other established fellowship and post-doctoral training programs. Additionally, career development awards sponsored by federal agencies and private philanthropies need to be amenable to proposals that engage the candidate in CBPR projects and ideally should promote this in their solicitation and review process. We also need to encourage scholarship, not only in the application of CBPR, but also in better understanding the nuances of the model, so that it can truly live up to its potential. This includes developing a common language for describing CBPR-related research in the health services literature, so that it can stand on its own merits and be appreciated for the contributions it brings to the field. One possible framework for this common language is introduced in Table 1 and is meant to serve as a resource for authors considering submission of CBPR projects to peer-reviewed journals. Finally, we need to gain a greater appreciation for CBPR as “research-plus” that is reflected in funding priorities, review criteria, community empowerment, and academic advancement.
Neoliberalism--the doctrine that market exchange is an ethic in itself, capable of acting as a guide for all human action--has become dominant in both thought and practice throughout much of the world since 1970 or so. Writing for a wide audience, David Harvey, author of The New Imperialism and The Condition of Postmodernity, here tells the political-economic story of where neoliberalization came from and how it proliferated on the world stage. Through critical engagement with this history, he constructs a framework, not only for analyzing the political and economic dangers that now surround us, but also for assessing the prospects for the more socially just alternatives being advocated by many oppositional movements.
This chapter considers entrenchment and scaffolding, primarily in cultural and technological change or evolution. Because no extant account of cultural evolution casts the net broadly enough to include all necessary elements, we consider what is required. Diverse kinds of entrenchment and other factors are crucial in describing evolved complex organization. I consider especially the more complex cases where multiple entrenchment processes are operating simultaneously (common in cultural systems) and some of the complications this engenders. One very powerful kind of entrenchment, “combinatorial entrenchment,” where components are used as a constructional “alphabet” to make a wide variety of adaptive devices or artifacts, is a powerful force for standardization, and has often engendered adaptive radiations, both in biology and culture so I elaborate this process through a more detailed discussion of the emergence of interchangeable and standardized machine parts that was a major factor in midwifing the industrial revolution.
We exploit the construction and eventual demise of the colonial railroads in Ghana, and most of the rest of Africa, to study the impact of transportation investments in poor countries. Using new data on railroads and cities spanning over one century, we find that railroads had large effects on the distribution of economic activity during the colonial period and these effects have persisted to date, although railroads collapsed and road networks expanded considerably after independence. Initial transportation investments may thus have large effects in poor countries. As countries develop, increasing returns solidify their spatial distribution, and subsequent investments may have smaller effects. © 2016 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
This article focuses on current trends in scholarly literature concerning the evaluation of short-term medical missions. The paucity of information on short-term medical missions in general has contributed to the lack of sufficient frameworks for evaluating them. While examples in the scholarly literature are sparse, in those rare cases where missions are evaluated, they tend to (1) produce their own criteria for evaluation, and (2) evaluate themselves based on metrics that emphasize their perceptions of accomplishments. I draw on interviews (n=31) as well as participant-observation regarding medical missions, to critique these trends. The data analyzed derive from an on-going ethnographic study began in Sololá, Guatemala in 1999, which since 2011 has been directly focused on short-term medical missions. More specifically, my data suggest potential conflict of interest inherent to both volunteering and hosting a short-term medical mission. NGO hosts, who maintain long-term residence in Sololá, may differ from short-term volunteers in both how they understand volunteer obligations as well what they consider helpful volunteer activity. These same organizations may remain financially tied to volunteer labour, limiting their own perceptions of what missions can or should do. I argue that these conflicts of interest have created an evaluation environment where critical questions are not asked. Unless these hard questions are addressed, short-term medical mission providers cannot be certain that their own activities are consonant with the moral imperatives that purportedly drive this particular humanitarian effort. This study demonstrates how ethnographic methods can be instrumental in attempts to evaluate humanitarian endeavours.
We argue for the importance of keeping a focus on the dynamically coordinated functioning of multifaceted cultural practices for investigating cultural aspects of human development. Although some research projects benefit from focusing on specific aspects of cultural functioning, it should be with the recognition that segmentation into 'variables’ is for the sake of analysis rather than assumed necessarily to reflect the reality of the phenomena that we study. The portfolio of research on cultural aspects of human development needs to include analyses that focus more broadly on the historically changing constellation of cultural practices in which individuals participate, even as other studies examine specific aspects as if they were freestanding variables. We illustrate this argument with research suggesting that middle‐class European American adults’ ways of interacting with children can be illuminated by seeing their practices as an aspect of a somewhat coordinated historical, cultural system. Cultural analyses that focus on coordinated, multifaceted practices can help us understand human development in the context of people’s participation in pervasive cultural institutions such as schooling and societal changes such as industrialization. For the research portfolio to develop a comprehensive approach to investigating coordinated patterns in cultural aspects of human development, we need a more open‐minded respect for a variety of approaches to cultural research than is sometimes found within disciplines.
Folk psychology, the naive understanding of mental state concepts, requires a model of how people ascribe mental states to themselves. Competent speakers associate a distinctive memory representation (a category representation, CR) with each mentalistic word in their lexicon. A decision to ascribe such a word to oneself depends on matching to the CR an instance representation (IR) of one's current state. As in visual object recognition, evidence about a CR's content includes the IRs that are or are not available to trigger a match. This poses serious problems for functionalism, the theory-of-mind approach to the meaning of mental terms. A simple functionalist model is inadequate because (1) the relational and subjunctive (what would have happened) information it requires concerning target states is not generally available and (2) it could lead to combinatorial explosion. A modified functionalist model can appeal to qualitative (phenomenological) properties, but the earlier problems still reappear. Qualitative properties are important for sensations, propositional attitudes, and their contents, providing a model that need not refer to functional (causal-relational) properties at all. The introspectionist character of the proposed model does not imply that ascribing mental states to oneself is infallible or complete; nor is the model refuted by empirical research on introspective reports. Empirical research on “theory of mind” does not support any strict version of functionalism but only an understanding of mentalistic words that may depend on phenomenological or experiential qualities.
Although institutions are believed to be key determinants of economic performance, there is limited evidence on how they can be successfully reformed. Evaluating the effects of specific reforms is complicated by the lack of exogenous variation in the presence of institutions; the difficulty of empirically measuring institutional performance; and the temptation to “cherry pick” a few novel treatment effect estimates from amongst the large number of indicators required to capture the complex and multi-faceted subject. We evaluate one attempt to make local institutions more egalitarian by imposing minority participation requirements in Sierra Leone and test for longer term learning-by-doing effects. In so doing, we address these three pervasive challenges by: exploiting the random assignment of a participatory local governance intervention, developing innovative real-world outcomes measures, and using a pre-analysis plan to bind our hands against data mining. The specific program under study is a “community driven development” (CDD) project, which has become a popular strategy amongst donors to improve local institutions in developing countries. We find positive short-run effects on local public goods provision and economic outcomes, but no sustained impacts on collective action, decision-making processes, or the involvement of marginalized groups (like women) in local affairs, indicating that the intervention was ineffective at durably reshaping local institutions. We further show that in the absence of a pre-analysis plan, we could have instead generated two highly divergent, equally erroneous interpretations of the impacts—one positive, one negative—of external aid on institutions.Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at www.nber.org.
Foreign aid: These countries are the most generous
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weforum.org/agenda/2016/08/foreign-aid-these-countries-are-the-most-generous/
Can helping hurt? Voluntourism in Guatemala
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No more heroes: Grassroots challenges to the savior mentality
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Did we do good? NGOs, conflicts of interest and the evaluation of short-term medical missions in Sololá
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2016 Save the Children International trustees' report and financial statements
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