Four fundamental distinctions in conceptions of wellbeing across cultures

One of the key roles of culture is to shape how human groups pursue personal and collective wellbeing, and thus each culture contains prescriptions and customs about how to achieve optimal functioning and wellbeing. This chapter identifies four fundamental differences in the conceptualizations of mental wellbeing across cultures. The identified differences are in the centrality of hedonic experience, self-enhancement, autonomy, and the relevance of contextual factors in determining wellbeing. These overlapping dynamics provide a framework for categorizing and making sense of existing cross-cultural findings on mental wellbeing. The chapter discusses the theoretical and empirical implications of the reviewed cross-cultural findings for international measurements of wellbeing. We argue that various measures of wellbeing may function differently in different global regions, with crucial implications for how countries are ranked based on wellbeing. Our review also highlights the relevance of cross-cultural variations in the concepts of wellbeing for designing interventions and policies and evaluating their effectiveness across cultures

Pre-service teachers' preparedness for classroom teaching: An investigation of teacher education program transferability and connection to ESL Classroom / Abang Fhaeizdhyall Abang Madaud

The major purpose of this study is to investigate to what extent do pre-service teachers apply the methods, theory, and training received during years of training in the teacher training program into their classroom teaching. Additionally, this study also examines the perceptions of pre-service teachers’ supervisors of their supervisees’ preparedness to enter the real world of teaching by analyzing their teaching ability in terms of content, pedagogical and grammar knowledge. Five interrelated research questions were formulated to guide the study; (1) What are the specific aspects of the teacher education program that helped the pre-service teachers during their teaching practicum?; (2) What are the difficulties and challenges faced by the pre-service teachers in the program and how to overcome them?; (3) How prepared are the pre-service teachers to teach English?; (4) To what extent are the strengths and weaknesses of the pre-service teachers as perceived by the university supervisors?; (5) What are the suggestions and recommendations by the trainees to better improve the current teacher education program? The sample involved in the study were pre-service teachers from the Bachelor in Education TESL program who had just completed their 3-month teaching practicum and are currently in the final semester. In addition, the university supervisors were also selected to be included as the participants of the study to answer research question number four. This study employed a qualitative research design and the data sources included pre-service teacher questionnaires and interviews, document analysis, and university supervisor interviews. The questionnaire distribution phase was conducted with 68 pre-service teachers who came for a one-day post mortem of their teaching practicum. Subsequently, interview sessions were conducted with 7 of the respondents afterwards. To gain better insight of the issues in teacher preparation program, interview with 5 university supervisors were also conducted. The findings of this study revealed significant courses such as ethodology courses and classroom management, theories in language learning, drama project, and microteaching experience as the important aspects that contributed to the trainees’ preparedness to teach. Additionally, the trainees also stated the challenges they faced in the program are in terms of dealing with the school students, their self-belief, the role of the supervisors and school related issues. Overall perceived preparedness to teach shows that the pre-service teachers perceived themselves as moderately prepared to teach which was similar to their supervisors’ perceptions. This study also revealed some strengths and weaknesses of the trainees in terms of grammatical knowledge, content knowledge and effectiveness in teaching, in which the supervisors have also provided some suggestions to address them. To conclude, the trainees offer some suggestions for improvement of the current teacher education program in terms of developing trainees’ teaching experience, courses amendment, authentic school experience, and removal of some less significant courses

Over de zuur-base-evenwichten in hooi, in normaal gras en in gras dat aanleiding geeft tot haemoglobinurie (bloedwateren) of tot grastetanie (kopziekte) bij runderen

Verslag van onderzoek, ingesteld naar de minerale samenstelling van gras van haemoglobinurie-weiden bij Hooghalen. Dit geschiedde mede in verband met het feit, dat de urine van het aldaar grazende rundvee gedurende de zomer van 1950 veelal een zure reactie gaf. De minerale samenstelling van het gras werd vergeleken met die van gras en hooi van andere herkomst

Northerners and Southerners Differ in Conflict Culture

The present study uses regression analysis of existing cross-national data sets to demonstrate that ingroup-outgroup discrimination and intergroup conflict management vary more along the north-south (latitudinal) axis than along the east-west axis of the Earth. Ingroup favoritism, outgroup rejection, political oppression, legal discrimination, and communication bullying are all less prevalent among Northerners than among Southerners in the Northern Hemisphere, but more prevalent among Northerners than among Southerners in the Southern Hemisphere. These findings provide a rich source for further research into how social conflicts are habitually experienced and handled by residents of northern versus southern habitats. A supplementary analysis specifies the extent to which ecological stressors-thermal stress, hydraulic stress, pathogenic stress, and subsistence stress-help explain why there are oppositely sloping north-south gradients of conflict culture above and below the equator. Taken in total, these results demonstrate the importance of considering latitude in forming a deeper understanding of conflict management and negotiation

Measures Matter: Scales for Adaptation, Cultural Distance, and Acculturation Orientation Revisited

Building upon existing measures, four new brief acculturation scales are presented, measuring sociocultural adaptation, psychological adaptation, perceived cultural distance, and acculturation orientation. Following good scale reliability in initial samples, the English scales were translated into nine different languages (Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, Thai, and Turkish). The translated scales were administered to a large sample of sojourners (N = 1,929), demonstrating good reliability and adequate structural equivalence across languages. In line with existing theory, sociocultural adaptation and psychological adaptation were positively correlated, and showed a negative association with perceived cultural distance. General measures of well-being were correlated with adaptation and distance, with better adaptation relating to higher well-being, and more distance relating to lower well-being. Acculturation orientation toward the home and host culture were measured separately and a weak negative correlation was found between the two, supporting their independence. Arguing against dichotomization, these subscales were analyzed as continuous variables. Regression analysis showed sojourners to be better adapted, if they were oriented more toward the host culture and less toward the home culture. These new scales are proposed as alternatives to existing measures

Human behaviour and economic growth: a psychocultural perspective on local and regional development

A renewed emphasis on behavioural traits has emerged as a means of explaining regional and local differences in economic performance and development. Given this, the aim of this study is to identify distinct local psychocultural behavioural profiles and to examine the extent to which these are associated with economic growth. Combining theories of community culture and personality psychology into a holistic spatially-oriented perspective, the paper argues that the types of human behaviour found across local places emerges from the co-evolution of cultural and personality factors. An empirical analysis of localities in Great Britain identifies and explores three underlying psychocultural profiles: Diverse Extraversion; Inclusive Amenability and Individual Commitment. It is found that inclusive amenable and individually committed psychocultural behaviour generally appear to hold back local economic growth, with the exception of recessionary periods. The reverse relationship is somewhat the case for diverse extravert behaviour. It is concluded that a better understanding of the holistic relationship and co-evolution of the cultural and psychological behavioural make-up of localities and regions has the potential to provide new insights into expected development outcomes as well as the forms of policy intervention that are required within regions and localities, each of which has its own individual psychocultural character