Lived curriculum & identité linguistique : discours parallèles but intertwined

The author uses an autobiographical approach to reinterpret her memories of being an immigrant and an English language learner and to probe how these memories are intimately involved in the process of becoming a science teacher. This reflexive process of “excavation” (Grumet, 1999) allows the writing of narratives that explore how words and language impact identity formation.L’auteure emploie une approche autobiographique pour réinterpréter les souvenirs de son immigration et de son apprentissage de l’anglais comme langue seconde, ainsi que pour examiner la manière dont ces souvenirs sont intimement liés à la formation de son identité en temps qu’enseignante des sciences. Ce processus réflexif “d’excavation” (Grumet, 1999) permet l’écriture de narrations qui explorent l’impact des mots et du langage sur la formation de l’identité

Exogenous schwann cells migrate, remyelinate and promote clinical recovery in experimental auto-immune encephalomyelitis

Schwann cell (SC) transplantation is currently being discussed as a strategy that may promote functional recovery in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) and other inflammatory demyelinating diseases of the central nervous system (CNS). However this assumes they will not only survive but also remyelinate demyelinated axons in the chronically inflamed CNS. To address this question we investigated the fate of transplanted SCs in myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein (MOG)-induced experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) in the Dark Agouti rat; an animal model that reproduces the complex inflammatory demyelinating immunopathology of MS. We now report that SCs expressing green fluorescent protein (GFP-SCs) allografted after disease onset not only survive but also migrate to remyelinate lesions in the inflamed CNS. GFP-SCs were detected more frequently in the parenchyma after direct injection into the spinal cord, than via intra-thecal delivery into the cerebrospinal fluid. In both cases the transplanted cells intermingled with astrocytes in demyelinated lesions, aligned with axons and by twenty one days post transplantation had formed Pzero protein immunoreactive internodes. Strikingly, GFP-SCs transplantation was associated with marked decrease in clinical disease severity in terms of mortality; all GFP-SCs transplanted animals survived whilst 80% of controls died within 40 days of disease

Mainstream Social Participation Mediates the Relation between Mainstream Cultural Orientation and Language Outcomes

Competence in the mainstream language (L2) plays a critical role in migrants' cultural adaptation to a new society and is closely tied to psychosocial adjustment. A substantial body of work on acculturation and Second Language Acquisition (SLA) has shown that migrants with a more positive outlook on the mainstream cultural group report more favourable language outcomes, broadly conceptualized here as “linguistic adjustment”. However, the mechanisms underlying this outlook-language outcomes link have not been fully explored. Targeting this gap, the present research shows that migrants' social participation in the mainstream society (interpersonal interactions and relationships) mediates the relation between cultural orientation toward the mainstream cultural group and L2 outcomes. Five manuscripts, reporting on six studies of multicultural first-generation immigrant students to Montreal, examine different aspects of this mediation model. First, Manuscript 1 discusses in detail the methodological issues facing acculturation research and that informed this dissertation. Second, two manuscripts provide empirical support for both quantitative and qualitative aspects of the relation between mainstream cultural orientation and social participation. Manuscript 2 reports on two longitudinal studies showing that more positive baseline mainstream cultural orientation prospectively predicts greater social participation. Manuscript 3 reports on two studies using a daily diary approach to show that moment-to-moment cultural affiliation during social interactions is related to characteristics of the local context and to mainstream cultural orientation. Third, Manuscript 4 shows that a more interconnected L2 social network, another aspect of mainstream social participation, is associated with lesser communication-related acculturative stress. Finally, Manuscript 5 uses a path analysis and provides evidence supporting the overall mediation model guiding this research. Together, these studies make a strong case for the role of social participation as a mechanism underlying the relation between mainstream cultural orientation and language outcomes. In parallel, this dissertation aims to support two arguments: (1) methodological issues hinder progress in acculturation research and therefore it is essential to go beyond cross-sectional self-report attitudinal scales, and (2) integrating acculturation research in cross-cultural psychology and research on SLA in applied linguistics – two largely separate research strands – would greatly benefit our understanding of migrants' cross-cultural adaptation processes

Job security and the promotion of workers’ wellbeing in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic: A study with Canadian workers one to two weeks after the initiation of social distancing measures

Background: Due to the current coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis, workplaces have had to make significant alterations in the way they conduct business. This, in addition to the current financial instability, may put workers at risk of experiencing job insecurity and, in turn, lower wellbeing. Job insecurity is a key determinant of wellbeing, but little is known on how it is impacted by public health crises, and more specifically how it relates to workers’ positive and negative wellbeing in the midst of a pandemic. Research is lacking on resilience levers that workplace interventions should target to support wellbeing in times of insecurity. Objective: Framed from a multidisciplinary perspective (public health, positive and organizational psychology), the study explores (1) workers’ job (in)security during the COVID-19 pandemic one to two weeks after social distancing measures were implemented by Canadian governments, (2) how job (in)security relates to wellbeing during the pandemic, and (3) the potential positive effects of workplace-related resilience levers. Method: 1,073 Canadian workers working full-/part-time or who were temporarily laid off completed an online survey, including measures of wellbeing at work or in general, job security and potential resilience levers (workplace disaster preparedness, policy, social capital). Results: Multiple regression findings highlight that marginalized workers (e.g., women, migrants, people facing financial hardships) reported lower job security, and having temporarily lost one’s job was negatively associated with job security. Low job security was related to lower scores across measures of wellbeing. Distress was high in the sample. Workplace disaster preparedness, policy and social capital were associated with higher wellbeing. The effects of these resilience levers tended to be stronger at higher job security levels. Discussion: Recommendations include a systemic, collaborative approach that includes policies fostering job security as well as resilience-promoting interventions in the workplace to protect/increase the wellbeing of workers during COVID-19

The pathway to accepting derogatory ingroup norms: the roles of compartmentalization and legitimacy

Objectives: The current experiment was conducted among ice hockey fans, and brings together theories of intergroup relations and self and identity literature. It investigated if perceiving strong norms in favor of derogating against fans of outgroup teams, and engaging in these behaviors oneself, leads to an increased compartmentalization of these behaviors (i.e., such that they are restricted to a particular compartment within the self). This association was expected to be especially strong, when derogatory behaviors are portrayed as illegitimate. We also explored whether this compartmentalization then flows on to vitality as a well-being indicator

Travels In Hyper-Diversity: Multiculturalism And The Contextual Assessment Of Acculturation

We argue that current acculturation research offers an incomplete picture of the psychological changes taking place in contemporary multicultural societies. Several characteristics of the Canadian multicultural context highlight the limitations in current acculturation research: namely, themes of hyper-diversity, hybridity, dimensionality and the importance of local context. Canada is a case in point, but these themes are generalizable to other contemporary multicultural contexts. To address the limitations of the traditional psychological acculturation paradigm, we propose an innovative research approach to study acculturation: the Cultural Day Reconstruction Method (C-DRM). We report on two studies that implemented this diary method, to demonstrate that this research tool (1) addresses theoretical critiques of current acculturation research and (2) captures some of the complexity of acculturation in contemporary multicultural contexts. The C-DRM was constructed in response to the local research environment but we hope it will become part of a new generation of tools for the contextual assessment of acculturation

Mixed-Methods Research: Integrating Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches to the Psychological Study of Culture.

The study of culture has grown increasingly central to North American psychology over the past several decades as ethnocultural diversity has increased. Confusingly, however, this work is often published within isolated literatures: cross-cultural psychology; several flavors of ‘cultural psychology’; multicultural counselling; and ethnic minority psychology. Psychological anthropologists and transcultural psychiatrists also pose broadly similar questions. While these subdisciplines represent particular intellectual communities with particular histories, a major reason for continuing separation is methodology – in particular, the distinction between quantitative and qualitative methods (Ritsher, Ryder, Karasz, & Castille, 2002)

Being a droog vs. being a friend: A qualitative investigation of friendship models in Russia vs. Canada

Introduction. A substantial body of work has established that friendship is an important non-kin interpersonal relationship, with many positive outcomes. An issue with this literature is that it originated primarily in anglocentric Euro-American societies, when several studies have shown that the meaning of friendship varies across cultural settings. In particular, linguistic analyses advance that the meaning of friendship in Russian is quite different from that in English. The goal of this study was to seek psychological evidence of these linguistic findings by documenting similarities and differences in people’s understanding of friendship in both cultural contexts. Methods. The research consisted of a qualitative investigation of friendship cultural models among Russian migrants to Canada, through semi-structured interviews that were analysed using an inductive thematic analysis, whereby data segments are coded and codes are gradually refined and streamlined in order to identify the main themes that emerge from the data. Results. Participants’ depictions of friendship in Russian vs. Canadian contexts were largely in line with semantic analyses of friendship in Russian vs. English, with friendship being described as a stronger and deeper bond, but also more demanding in Russia than in Canada. Discussion. The findings support Wierzbicka’s proposal that key terms in a language encapsulate cultural models prevalent among its speakers. The results are also consistent with the existence of close parallels between people’s cultural models and the linguistic ecologies in which they live

Initial Mainstream Cultural Orientations Predict Early Social Participation In The Mainstream Cultural Group

This work adopts a perspective that construes acculturation as a dynamic intergroup process and social contact with members of the new community as a key mechanism underlying cultural adaptation. We argue that migrants' initial self-reported mainstream cultural orientation constitutes an important antecedent of early social participation in the new community. Results from two longitudinal studies of newly arrived international students (N=98 and N=60) show that more positive initial mainstream cultural orientations prospectively predict higher social participation specifically in the mainstream group over the following months. This relation held after controlling for important alternative predictors, namely extraversion/shyness, mainstream language proficiency, and respiratory sinus arrhythmia, a physiological index of social engagement capacity. These studies focus on the very initial stages of the temporal dynamics of acculturation, contribute to bridging research on acculturation and on intergroup relations, and establish a link between cultural orientations, a subjective attitudinal construct, and concrete social engagement behaviors

Second language social networks and communication-related acculturative stress: the role of interconnectedness

Although a substantial amount of cross-cultural psychology research has investigated acculturative stress in general, little attention has been devoted specifically to communication-related acculturative stress (CRAS). In line with the view that cross-cultural adaptation and second language (L2) learning are social and interpersonal phenomena, the present study examines the hypothesis that migrants’ L2 social network size and interconnectedness predict CRAS. The main idea underlying this hypothesis is that L2 social networks play an important role in fostering social and cultural aspects of communicative competence. Specifically, higher interconnectedness may reflect greater access to unmodified natural cultural representations and L2 communication practices, thus fostering communicative competence through observational learning. As such, structural aspects of migrants’ L2 social networks may be protective against acculturative stress arising from chronic communication difficulties. Results from a study of first generation migrant students (N = 100) support this idea by showing that both inclusiveness and density of the participants’ L2 network account for unique variance in CRAS but not in general acculturative stress. These results support the idea that research on cross-cultural adaptation would benefit from disentangling the various facets of acculturative stress and that the structure of migrants’ L2 network matters for language related outcomes. Finally, this study contributes to an emerging body of work that attempts to integrate cultural/cross-cultural research on acculturation and research on intercultural communication and second language learning