scholarly journals Fieldwork Experience as Cultural Immersion: Two International Students and Their Professor Reflect on a Recent Evaluation Practicum

2021 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Grettel Mariana Arias Orozco

In this Practice Note, two international students (one from Latin America and the other from West Africa), reflect on their first evaluation experience gained through an evaluation practicum course. The paper includes a reflection on four main cultural challenges faced by these international students related to immersion in the culture and program context, interpersonal and communication skills, learning the language of evaluation and telling the story. The course professor, responsible for selecting projects and providing guidance to students throughout the semester, provides further reflections about the students’ perspectives and the challenges of teaching evaluation to international students.

1996 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-122
Author(s):  
Joseph R. Stimpfl

The literature annotated here is from a subset of literature in cultural anthropology that deals with ethnographic fieldwork: the basic research exercise of cultural immersion. This bibliography is meant to offer a representative sample of literature in anthropology that deals with the fieldwork experiences of researchers. Cultural anthropology is devoted to the concept of “discovering the other.” Its method of inquiry is often referred to as participant/observation: the researcher lives the culture while observing it. Since so much of the fieldwork experience deals with personal adjustments to living in different cultures, the literature is charged with the problems of adjustment and understanding so common to study abroad experiences. This literature is particularly relevant to those interested in cross-cultural learning and issues in cultural adjustment. 


2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 263-274 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tonia Crawford ◽  
Peter Roger ◽  
Sally Candlin

Effective communication skills are important in the health care setting in order to develop rapport and trust with patients, provide reassurance, assess patients effectively and provide education in a way that patients easily understand (Candlin and Candlin, 2003). However with many nurses from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds being recruited to fill the workforce shortfall in Australia, communication across cultures with the potential for miscommunication and ensuing risks to patient safety has gained increasing focus in recent years (Shakya and Horsefall, 2000; Chiang and Crickmore, 2009). This paper reports on the first phase of a study that examines intercultural nurse patient communication from the perspective of four Registered Nurses from CALD backgrounds working in Australia. Five interrelating themes that were derived from thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews are discussed. The central theme of ‘adjustment’ was identified as fundamental to the experiences of the RNs and this theme interrelated with each of the other themes that emerged: professional experiences with communication, ways of showing respect, displaying empathy, and vulnerability.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Clara Inés Pardo Martínez ◽  
William Alfonso Piña ◽  
Angelo Facchini ◽  
Alexander Cotte Poveda

Abstract Background Currently, most of the world’s population lives in cities, and the rapid urbanization of the population is driving increases in the demand for products, goods and services. To effectively design policies for urban sustainability, it is important to understand the trends of flows in energy and materials as they enter and leave a city. This knowledge is essential for determining the key elements characterizing future urban growth and addressing future supply challenges. Methods This paper presents an analysis of the energy and material flows in the city of Bogotá over the time span from 2001 to 2017. Urban flows are also characterized in terms of their temporal evolution with respect to population growth to compare and identify the changes in the main input flows, wealth production, emissions and waste in the city. Results The results of the analysis are then compared with those for other selected large urban agglomerations in Latin America and worldwide to highlight similarities and make inferences. The results show that in Bogotá, there was a decrease in some of the material flows, such as the consumption of water and the generation of discharge, in recent years, while there was an increase in the consumption of energy and cement and in the production of CO2 emissions and construction materials. Solid waste production remained relatively stable. With respect to the other large cities considered, we observe that the 10-year growth rates of the flows with respect to population growth are lower in Bogotá, particularly when compared with the other urban agglomerations in Latin America. Conclusions The findings of this study are important for advancing characterizations of the trends of material and energy flows in cities, and they contribute to the establishment of a benchmark that allows for the definition and evaluation of the different impacts of public policy while promoting the sustainability of Bogotá in the coming decades.


2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (60) ◽  
pp. 253-272 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diego Olstein

Abstract World history can be arranged into three major regional divergences: the 'Greatest Divergence' starting at the end of the last Ice Age (ca. 15,000 years ago) and isolating the Old and the New Worlds from one another till 1500; the 'Great Divergence' bifurcating the paths of Europe and Afro-Asia since 1500; and the 'American Divergence' which divided the fortunes of New World societies from 1500 onwards. Accordingly, all world regions have confronted two divergences: one disassociating the fates of the Old and New Worlds, and the other within either the Old or the New World. Latin America is in the uneasy position that in both divergences it ended up on the 'losing side.' As a result, a contentious historiography of Latin America evolved from the very moment that it was incorporated into the wider world. Three basic attitudes toward the place of Latin America in global history have since emerged and developed: admiration for the major impact that the emergence on Latin America on the world scene imprinted on global history; hostility and disdain over Latin America since it entered the world scene; direct rejection of and head on confrontation in reaction the former. This paper examines each of these three attitudes in five periods: the 'long sixteenth century' (1492-1650); the 'age of crisis' (1650-1780); 'the long nineteenth century' (1780-1914); 'the short twentieth century' (1914-1991); and 'contemporary globalization' (1991 onwards).


Author(s):  
Noor Azam Abdul Rahman ◽  
Noraziah Mohd Amin

This study was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of the use of the Malay language learning tool called PETAH to improve its communication skills. Learning aids are among the important elements to improve one's language skills, especially for second or foreign speakers. Past studies conducted by researchers like Fa'izah et.al (2010), Khuzaiton (2012) and others have proven that there are issues of communication among speakers of languages ​​other than English in the non-Malays in Malaysia. Based on these issues, the main objective of this study is to analyze the effectiveness of the use of PETAH learning aids on improving the communication skills of students who use it. This study uses a quantitative research method that uses a questionnaire containing 25 items aimed at the effectiveness of the use of PETAH learning aids. This questionnaire instrument was used to get feedback from respondents after they used PETAH learning aids. Data from the questionnaires were analyzed using SPSS version 21. The results showed that the majority of respondents (mean values ​​ranging from 3.35 to 4.71) agree that PETAH learning tools have improved their effectiveness in communication Malay language, especially if used continuously. In conclusion, a learning tool PETAH has a good impact on the improvement of communication skills of Malay language among non-Malays speakers in Malaysia.


2009 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 159-172 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carla L. Spagnoletti ◽  
Thuy Bui ◽  
Gary S. Fischer ◽  
Alda Maria R. Gonzaga ◽  
Doris M. Rubio ◽  
...  

2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 289-313
Author(s):  
Claire Farago

Abstract Five interrelated case studies from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries develop the dynamic contrast between portraiture and pictorial genres newly invented in and about Latin America that do not represent their subjects as individuals despite the descriptive focus on the particular. From Jean de Léry’s genre-defining proto-ethnographic text (1578) about the Tupinamba of Brazil to the treatment of the Creole upper class in New Spain as persons whose individuality deserves to be memorialized in contrast to the Mestizaje, African, and Indian underclass objectified as types deserving of scientific study, hierarchical distinctions between portraiture and ethnographic images can be framed in historical terms around the Aristotelian categories of the universal, the individual, and the particular. There are also some intriguing examples that destabilize these inherited distinctions, such as Puerto Rican artist José Campeche’s disturbing and poignant image of a deformed child, Juan Pantaléon Aviles, 1808; and an imaginary portrait of Moctezuma II, c. 1697, based on an ethnographic image, attributed to the leading Mexican painter Antonio Rodriguez. These anomalies serve to focus the study on the hegemonic position accorded to the viewing subject as actually precarious and unstable, always ripe for reinterpretation at the receiving end of European culture.


2017 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 106-113 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia Nazário ◽  
Sidney Alberto do Nascimento Ferreira ◽  
Eduardo Euclydes de Lima Borges

Abstract: Bactris gasipaes is a domesticated palm whose fruits are of great importance for the Amazonian people and whose heart of palm is also receiving economic interest in other brazilian and Latin America regions. The aim of this study was verify embryonic dormancy and its correlation with first cataphyll emergence in B. gasipaes seeds collected from four plants at Manaus city and four others at Coari city, both in the Amazonas state, Brazil. After extraction and cleaning, some of the seeds (4 replications of 25 per plant) were sown in a seedbed with a sawdust and sand mixture as substrate, and embryos (4 replications of 10 per plant), after extraction, were inoculated into half strength Murashige and Skoog cultures. Were used 100 seeds and 40 embryo per treatment. Whole seed and embryo germination varied between the different source plants and locations, with the greatest difference observed for the emergence of first cataphyll from seeds in the seedbed. For the most part of variables, results of seed and embryo were positively associated, namely, as one went up the other also, and vice versa. These results suggesting that, at least in part, seed dormancy in Bactris gasipaes is associated with embryonic dormancy.


2009 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
DOUGLAS SOUTHGATE ◽  
TIMOTHY HAAB ◽  
JOHN LUNDINE ◽  
FABIÁN RODRÍGUEZ

ABSTRACTPresented in this paper are the results of two contingent valuation analyses, one undertaken in Ecuador and the other in Guatemala, of potential payments for environmental services (PES) directed toward rural households. We find that minimum compensation demanded by these households is far from uniform, depending in particular on individual strategies for raising incomes and dealing with risks. Our findings strengthen the case for allowing conservation payments to vary among recipients, which would be a departure from the current norm for PES initiatives in Latin America.


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