Cultural

"Learning a foreign language encompasses a process of trial and error that can lead to the progression of the learner’s interlanguage, meaning that the learners make use of their language knowledge that receives feedback and brings about progress through diagnosis of the problems and being corrected by the teacher. Therefore, there exists a need to analyze the underlying reasons causing the students to remain taciturn with a low willingness to communicate (WTC) during a language class. There has been much work done investigating the role of the learner’s stable personal characteristics (traits) along with their situational changes at a specific time (states) that influence the student’s participation and interaction. In this study, we analyze the effect of a teacher’s gender on female /male student’s WTC in language classes where speaking is the focus. The research focuses on the potentials of male or female EFL teachers in isolation, and their varying roles in language classes of the opposite and same gender students. The analysis proposed here establishes that some of the effects found are due to different characteristics of men and women, and some are influenced by social/cultural orientations.

Keywords: Foreign Language Teaching, Willingness to Communicate, Gender, Social Factors, Cultural Orientations
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In December 2012 the world witnessed the beginning of a wave of demonstrations and popular uprisings across the Arab world, which has continued into 2012. One common feature of these uprisings is civil resistance. Given popular demands for greater democracy, it is perhaps time to encourage public debate on the type of education needed to build and sustain democratic practices, so as to enable future generations to benefit from these struggles. In this article we report on INTERDEMOCRATE (intercultural and democratic learning in teacher education), a small scale research and development initiative in the autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan. The project aimed to address children's rights and education for democratic citizenship (EDC). It made use of action research strategies, focusing on student centered learning (SCL). We understand SCL to encompass teaching and learning strategies whcih support democratic attitudes and enable students to realise their participation rights. The project was funded by the British Council's DelPHE programme, and built a partnership between Buskerud University College, Norway and Duhok University, Iraq.

"This paper presents a psychosocial analysis of interview data of three Canadian, middle-class, Jewish mothers engaged in processes and practices of ‘school choice’. We consider how middle-class, white identity intersects with Jewish ethnicity. We
also examine how commitments to Canadian ideals of multiculturalism sit in contradiction with investments in neo-liberal discourses of school performance and individual academic success and competition. Through analysis of narratives we
illustrate how the mothers invoke binaries to differentiate self and others: self in the form of the middle-class, Jewish self; others in the form of the risky and dangerous ‘multicultural’ body encountered in their children’s primary school. We examine how contradictions are salient in the mothers’ attempt to perform a morally legitimate selfhood in the face of competing commitments to individual attainment versus a collective good represented by ethnocultural diversity. Narratives reveal mothers’ aspirational fantasies for their children that inform their class- and ethnic based choices and decisions around schooling. School choice is thus thoroughly inflected with imperatives to preserve middle-classness and Jewish ethnic identity, and constituted through binary-making. Yet as we illustrate, these processes are not stable but subject to constant to psychical re-negotiation and flux."

Humanity is on the threshold of recognizing the fundamental error in its view of life and death. Both death as well as active life is necessary to the vital formation of a larger, more essential whole. In this paper, I apply the sociology of knowledge and change as it pertains to death and focus on ways in which we can step outside its traditional frameworks and limitations. I also discuss topics related to death such as birth, aging, sickness, and war, and examine cultural differences in attitudes toward death. I offer varying perspectives including the Buddhist view and from these draw implications and conclusions. I apply the lenses of contemporary social scientists such as Edgar Morin, Kenneth Gergen, Edward Stewart, Milton Bennett, Mary Catherine Bateson, E. Doyle McCarthy, Philip Slater, and Piotr Sztompka. To these I add other relevant passages from the writings and speeches of key thinkers on the topic of death, in particular, Buddhist philosopher, peacebuilder, and educator, Daisaku Ikeda. To construct a more humanistic and sustainable view of life, it is first of all crucial to establish a culture which perceives death in its larger living context as but one cycle in the expansive eternity of life.

"Spanish Language Music Survey - English dominant Spanish language music listeners

Purpose
The main purpose of this study was to determine the genres of Spanish language music being consumed and the mode of consumption.

Significance
Texas is approximately thirty eight percent Hispanic.  This number includes immigrants and natural born citizens with many countries of origin.  As more Spanish language immigrants come into Texas and as the native Hispanic population continues to grow, Spanish language product consumption patterns will continue to change.  This study captured current musical tastes and consumption preferences of Spanish language music listeners.

Recommendations
The preliminary findings of this study are compelling and sufficient to request additional research for a broader examination of Spanish language music consumption in Texas.  These findings also begin to document the genre preferences of an English dominant Spanish language music listener.  As the Spanish language market grows and English dominant culture continues to welcome multilingual songs such as South Korea’s “Gangnam Style” by Psy and Brazilian Portuguese “Ai Se Eu Te Pego” by Michel Teló, Spanish language music genre preference surveys conducted on a regular basis will provide data that captures musical tastes and reflects trends.
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