This 3-year study examined how 10 Chinese-American families from various socioeconomic and educational backgrounds fostered their children's success in school through personal, family, ethnic community, and mainstream community resources, focusing on the experiences of two particular families. The study grouped the families into three types: (1)…

This book presents a collection of essays that reflect the experiences of educators who have responded to the challenges of cultural diversity on their campuses or within their educational regions. Essays examine instructional strategies, curriculum issues, and creating the climate for change. Essay titles and their authors are as follows:…

Research in the teaching of second/foreign languages has called for an emphasis on interactional competence, or the ability to think and behave as an interactional partner in a second language. The aim of this paper is to find out if the specific interactional skills acquired by students through their first language experience are automatically…

This paper examines the characteristics of high school and college as life stages of young people in Japan and the United States and suggests some of the ways in which these experiences mesh with the demands of the occupational structure. The paper first contrasts the differences in the Japanese and American student experience during their high…

This paper analyzes a study by Fukushima (1990) of the English offers and responses of Japanese English as a foreign language (EFL) college students and reports on an experiment designed to address the perceived weaknesses of Fukushima's work. Fukushima's study found that many Japanese EFL learners could not use appropriate levels of politeness in…

The impact of cultural variables on the clinical and personality assessment of Asian Americans is discussed, with emphasis on Chinese Americans. Any assessment procedures must take into account the diversity of Asian Americans, who belong to more than 29 distinct subgroups that are heterogeneous in language, religion, custom, degree of…

A comprehensive overview of Mexican American families and their socialization practices is presented, along with a review of major parenting models and their applicability to Mexican American families. The evolutionary development of the Chicano family is analyzed using a psychological-sociological-cultural experience iconic model to explain the…

A curriculum examining various aspects of the Mexican American culture was designed for a training program conducted by the Texas Department of Public Welfare for its case workers and other personnel. Intended to heighten awareness of the cultural variables affecting the relationship of Mexican American clients to case workers and to the…

The Southern Regional Education Board administered a three-year Faculty Development in Nursing Education Project. Its three objectives were (1) to provide opportunities for faculty to improve their abilities to identify learning problems; study alternative learning strategies; present instruction appropriate to the learning types of students; and…

This paper draws from a number of sources, from Muhammad Ali to TV commercials, to demonstrate the quite different conceptions that black and white Americans have of the meaning of boasting and bragging. For blacks, boasting and bragging are two distinct ways of speaking and communication. Boasting is a joking, playful verbal bahavior, not to be…

This collection of essays was prepared to promote an appreciation of ethnic pluralism as part of the curriculum for professional social work. It is presented in seven chapters. Chapter I reviews the past and present status of the sociocultural factors in American social work and social work education, presents a theoretical framework of ethnicity,…

Attention is focused on the profession's current concern over the formidable problems involved in a language teacher's attempting to interpret a target culture with generalizations that might well be non-verifiable when scrutinized by such areas specialists as cultural anthropologists, behavioral psychologists, psycholinguists, semanticists, and…

This collection of papers presents scholarly writings and personal reflections on Puerto Rican students in American schools. Following "Introduction and Overview" (Sonia Nieto), there are 12 chapters in five parts. Part 1, "Historical and Sociopolitical Context," includes: (1) "Puerto Rican Students in U.S. Schools: A Brief History" (Sonia Nieto);…

Examines the effects of cultural influences on social behaviors of children from diverse backgrounds and suggests practical applications for developing and implementing social skills training programs for these children and their parents. It defines "social skills" and provides charts of behavioral characteristics for students with…

Examines the relationship between culture and children's fears by analyzing responses of Navajo and Anglo third-grade students to items from the Louisville Fear Survey for Children. Findings indicate a correlation between cultural background and levels of fear. (FMW)