From equality and inclusion to cultural pluralism – Evolution and effects of cultural diversity perspectives in schools*

Schools are a major context for academic and socio-emotional development, but also an important acculturative context. This is notably the case in adolescence, which is a critical period for the development of a social and ethnic identity, as well as moral reasoning and intergroup attitudes. How schools approach cultural diversity issues is therefore likely to affect these developmental and acculturative processes and adaptation outcomes. In the present article, the manifestation and effects of the most prominent approaches to cultural diversity, namely those guided by a perspective of equality and inclusion, and those guided by a perspective of cultural pluralism, are reviewed and compared in the context of multi-ethnic schools. The aim is to explore when and how the potential of cultural diversity can best flourish, enhancing the academic and socio-emotional development of culturally diverse students.     

Love,duty and burden: Mothers' and daughters' engagements with familial obligations

The proliferation of transnational migration has attracted scholars from diverse disciplines to investigate the experiences of migrants from different cultures. While cultural anthropologists are trained to understand the subjects' emic perspectives, other social scientists who grapple with cultural diversity tend towards applying an etic analytical lens, without deeper engagement with given cultural logics. In order to fully overcome the conceptual marginalisation of cultures in our discussion of family relationships and intimacy, cultural specificities need to be more thoroughly taken into account. This article adds to the discussion of diverse forms of culturally specific intimacy by exploring familial obligations undertaken by Tongan female migrants and their second-generation daughters in Australia. Ethnographic case studies examine their emotions in relation to love and the feelings of burden and duty in practices of the creation and maintenance of intimate relationships both in proximity and at a distance. Deep engagements with Tongan cultural concepts and their emic viewpoints enable this article to challenge the simplistic view that envisages first generation migrants as ‘traditional’ and their daughters as more ‘Westernised’ or ‘individualised’ along the scale of individualisation.     

Applying a relational lens to ethnographic inquiry: Storied insight into the inner workings of multicultural teams in men's elite football

ObjectiveTo examine the impact of transnational migration on the functioning of multicultural teams in men's elite football and to explore the cultural transition experiences of transnational players from the relational perspective of receiving football environments.Designand Method: This 26-month ethnographic study adopted a researcher-practitioner approach to investigate two elite European football clubs during the course of two complete seasons. Over 80 male participants from 18 different countries were involved in the approximately 1200 h of field observation (e.g., practices, games, closed-door meetings, etc.) and 50 h of transcribed interviews. Detailed field notes and interview data were thematically analyzed, followed by a narrative analysis of structure and form. Finally, the genre of ethnographic creative non-fiction was employed to present the findings.FindingsBy applying a relational lens to the study of cultural transitions, this investigation illuminates the centrality of relations in the daily functioning of multicultural teams embedded in transnational networks and spaces. The complex interactional dynamic between transnational players and members of the receiving environment as well as the structural constraints shaping footballing (sub)cultures and behaviours highlight the salience of restrained agency as a collective phenomenon in elite men's football. Moreover, the study explores the hows of cultural transition by engaging with temporality and proposing a complementary perspective that extends current understandings in the narration of cultural transition experiences.ConclusionsThe findings carry applied utility that can benefit stakeholders and practitioners working with culturally diverse teams in the deployment of culturally informed club management strategy, educational tools, and interventions.     

Context and Perceptual Salience Influence the Formation of Novel Stereotypes via Cumulative Cultural Evolution

We use a transmission chain method to establish how context and category salience influence the formation of novel stereotypes through cumulative cultural evolution. We created novel alien targets by combining features from three category dimensions—color, movement, and shape—thereby creating social targets that were individually unique but that also shared category membership with other aliens (e.g., two aliens might be the same color and shape but move differently). At the start of the transmission chains each alien was randomly assigned attributes that described it (e.g., arrogant, caring, confident). Participants were given training on the alien‐attribute assignments and were then tested on their memory for these. The alien‐attribute assignments participants produced during test were used as the training materials for the next participant in the transmission chain. As information was repeatedly transmitted an increasingly simplified, learnable stereotype‐like structure emerged for targets who shared the same color, such that by the end of the chains targets who shared the same color were more likely to share the same attributes (a reanalysis of data from Martin et al., 2014 which we term Experiment 1). The apparent bias toward the formation of novel stereotypes around the color category dimension was also found for objects (Experiment 2). However, when the category dimension of color was made less salient, it no longer dominated the formation of novel stereotypes (Experiment 3). The current findings suggest that context and category salience influence category dimension salience, which in turn influences the cumulative cultural evolution of information.     

How to Create Shared Symbols

Human cognition and behavior are dominated by symbol use. This paper examines the social learning strategies that give rise to symbolic communication. Experiment 1 contrasts an individual‐level account, based on observational learning and cognitive bias, with an inter‐individual account, based on social coordinative learning. Participants played a referential communication game in which they tried to communicate a range of recurring meanings to a partner by drawing, but without using their conventional language. Individual‐level learning, via observation and cognitive bias, was sufficient to produce signs that became increasingly effective, efficient, and shared over games. However, breaking a referential precedent eliminated these benefits. The most effective, most efficient, and most shared signs arose when participants could directly interact with their partner, indicating that social coordinative learning is important to the creation of shared symbols. Experiment 2 investigated the contribution of two distinct aspects of social interaction: behavior alignment and concurrent partner feedback. Each played a complementary role in the creation of shared symbols: Behavior alignment primarily drove communication effectiveness, and partner feedback primarily drove the efficiency of the evolved signs. In conclusion, inter‐individual social coordinative learning is important to the evolution of effective, efficient, and shared symbols.     

Parasites of the mind. Why cultural theorists need the meme’s eye view

Are there any such things as mind parasites? By analogy with biological parasites, such cultural items are supposed to subvert or harm the interests of their host. The hypothesis of cultural parasitism has appeared in different guises in the burgeoning field of cultural evolution. To unpack the notion of mind parasites, we first clear some conceptual ground around the concept of cultural adaptation and its relation to human agency. We then formulate Millikan’s challenge: how can cultural items develop novel purposes of their own, cross-cutting or subverting our own personal purposes? If this central challenge is not met, talk of cultural ‘parasites’ or ‘selfish memes’ remains vacuous. First, we discuss why other attempts to answer Millikan’s challenge have failed. In particular, we put to rest the claims of panmemetics, a somewhat sinister worldview according to which human culture is nothing more than a swarm of selfish agents, plotting and scheming behind the scenes. Next, we reject a more reasonable, but still overly permissive approach to mind parasites, which equates them with biologically maladaptive culture. Finally, we present our own answer to Millikan’s challenge: certain systems of misbelief can be fruitfully treated as cultural parasites, designed by cultural evolution to subvert the interests of their human hosts. As a proof of concept, we discuss witchcraft beliefs in early modern Europe, and show how the meme’s eye view promises to shed new light on a mystery that historians and social scientists have been wrestling with for decades.     

Feeling Half-Half? Exploring Relational Variation of Turkish-Heritage Young Adults’ Cultural Identity Compatibility and Conflict in Austria

Growing up in multicultural environments, Turkish-heritage individuals in Europe face specific challenges in combining their multiple cultural identities to form a coherent sense of self. Drawing from social identity complexity, this study explores four modes of combining cultural identities and their variation in relational contexts. Problem-centered interviews with Turkish-heritage young adults in Austria revealed the preference for complex, supranational labels, such as multicultural. Furthermore, most participants described varying modes of combining cultural identities over time and across relational contexts. Social exclusion experiences throughout adolescence related to perceived conflict of cultural identities, whereas multicultural peer groups supported perceived compatibility of cultural identities. Findings emphasize the need for complex, multidimensional approaches to study ethnic minorities’ combination of cultural identities.     

Making the Invisible Visible: Identifying and Articulating Culture in Practice‐Based Evidence

This study describes a conceptual tool, labeled the “culture cube,” developed to identify and articulate the cultural underpinnings of prevention and early intervention projects in five priority populations (i.e., African American, Asian Pacific Islander, Latino, Native American, and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Questioning), participating in the California Reducing Disparities Project Phase 2 (CRDP Phase 2). The culture cube was developed for evaluation of these practice‐based evidence services (PBEs) for three purposes: (a) to focus attention on revealing and articulating more fully the operative worldview and culturally grounded frameworks underlying PBEs, explicitly identifying the links between cultural beliefs and values, community needs, and intervention design; (b) to guide the methods used to assess and evaluate PBEs so that the outcome indicators and process measures are conceptually consistent, community defined, and culturally centered; and (c) to invite communities to use their own indigenous epistemological frameworks to establish credible evidence. After reviewing the literature in this area and describing the theoretical framework for the culture cube, we describe its development, application, and the response to its use in the initial stages of the California Reducing Disparities Project‐Phase 2.     

Processes of Natural Mentoring that Promote Underrepresented Students’ Educational Attainment: A Theoretical Model

Longitudinal studies suggest that naturally occurring mentoring relationships are associated with positive, long‐term educational outcomes, but little is known about the mechanisms underlying these potential effects. Predominant theories and research methods portray natural mentoring as a static, one‐to‐one phenomenon and are removed from specific sociocultural and developmental contexts. Thus, the current paper critically reviews existing literature and proposes a dynamic, network‐based process model of mentoring. Building on Rhodes’ (2005, Handbook of youth mentoring, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 30) theoretical model, the proposed model integrates sociological, educational, and psychological research to examine developmental pathways through which natural mentoring relationships might promote underrepresented (e.g., low‐income, ethnic/racial minorities) students’ educational persistence and success. In particular, mentoring relationships might enhance students’ positive help‐seeking beliefs and trust in nonparent adults. These mentors may possess key cultural capital and knowledge that help underrepresented students navigate White, upper‐ or middle‐class cultural norms. Mentors may also cultivate students’ school‐relevant selves and bicultural identities, facilitating integration into mainstream academia while affirming cultures of origin. Through these processes, previous mentoring experiences may promote the formation of new mentoring relationships, enabling youth to build dynamic support networks. Unfortunately, on a larger scale, advantage and disadvantage persist due to inequitable access to mentoring in educational settings.     

The Semantic Drift of Quotations in Blogspace: A Case Study in Short‐Term Cultural Evolution

We present an empirical case study that connects psycholinguistics with the field of cultural evolution, in order to test for the existence of cultural attractors in the evolution of quotations. Such attractors have been proposed as a useful concept for understanding cultural evolution in relation with individual cognition, but their existence has been hard to test. We focus on the transformation of quotations when they are copied from blog to blog or media website: by coding words with a number of well‐studied lexical features, we show that the way words are substituted in quotations is consistent (a) with the hypothesis of cultural attractors and (b) with known effects of the word features. In particular, words known to be harder to recall in lists have a higher tendency to be substituted, and words easier to recall are produced instead. Our results support the hypothesis that cultural attractors can result from the combination of individual cognitive biases in the interpretation and reproduction of representations.