International Journal of Intercultural Relations最新文献

The COVID-19 global health crisis has caused widespread concern among people worldwide, affecting their mental health and behavior. People’s response to this crisis varied greatly from country to country, with cultural tightness being one of the key influences. Countries, like China, with tighter cultures demonstrated a clear advantage. Its strict anti-pandemic measures prompted the population to adopt more effective protective behavior to curb the spread of the virus while protecting their mental health. However, research on people's attitudes towards such cultural tightness is lacking. Additionally, previous studies have mainly focused on individuals' concern of their own infections, neglecting their concern about the infections of people around them. Lastly, it is unclear whether this process varies during and post COVID-19 lockdown. To address those questions, a study of 614 mainland Chinese participants was conducted. The results indicate that, Chinese individuals were more concerned about their family, significant others and the public being infected than they were about themselves being infected. In terms of infection concern of oneself and public, individuals who more concerned desired more cultural tightness, which in turn led to better mental health and greater engagement in protective behavior. Interestingly however, people who more concerned about their family members being infected expect a looser culture during the lockdown and desire a tighter culture post-lockdown, which promotes more protective behavior and better mental health. Furthermore, the association between the desire for tightness in response to concern about COVID-19 infection and promoting mental health and protective behavior was more pronounced post-lockdown compared to lockdown phase.

Criticism of minority group practices is commonly examined in terms of prejudice and racism, but might also coexist with a non-prejudiced inclusive attitude. With latent profile analysis, we examined how Dutch and German (N=3712) majority members combine their perception of gender inequality among Muslim minorities, feelings towards Muslims as a minority group, and support of Muslim expressive rights. Three identified subgroups perceived that Muslim minorities engage in gender inequality practices. In addition to reflecting anti-Muslim prejudices, for a third of the population this perception co-exists with an inclusive attitude indicating that non-prejudiced individuals can still be critical of specific minority practices. The subgroups’ distinctiveness is validated using indirect prejudice measures and considering authoritarianism. The findings present a more nuanced picture of the ways in which majority members can perceive minorities and demonstrate that an inclusive orientation can coincide with being critical towards perceived minority beliefs and practices.

Intergroup contact has been reliably associated with reduced prejudice and improved intergroup relations in research; however, relatively little is known about the association between intergroup contact and psychological capital. Guided by the tertiary transfer effect of intergroup contact, this study examined the latter association. A total of 1501 adolescents (M = 15.72 years, 55.8 % female) from areas in China mainly inhabited by ethnic minorities participated in this study. Latent profile analysis revealed that psychological capital could be classified into four different types: lowest (7.1 %), lower (51.0 %), mid (34.5 %), and high (7.3 %). Multinomial logistic regression revealed a positive association between contact quality (but not contact quantity and the product of contact quantity and quality) and the odds of adolescents being classified into the lower, mid, and high groups when compared to the lowest group. Moreover, the association between contact quality and being classified into the high group, compared to the lowest group, was stronger for boys than for girls. The implications of these findings are discussed in both theoretical and practical terms.

This meta-analysis focuses on the strength of association between four different national identity dimensions – national identification, national pride, nationalism, content of national identity – and pro-immigration attitudes. It seeks to provide systematic evidence on whether and to what extent there is a clash between efforts to strengthen national identity and create an accepting social environment for immigrant populations. The study collates and summarises evidence from 81 published and unpublished sources, 151 studies and 255 effect sizes. Drawing on random-effects meta-analysis models, we find statistically significant negative summary effect sizes of nationalism (Partial correlation coefficient (PCC) = −0.09, p < 0.001) and support for ethnic national identity criteria (PCC = −0.11, p < 0.001). The former is defined as the belief in superiority of one’s nation compared to others, and the latter relates to treating place of birth, ancestry, length of residence and religion as important national membership criteria. However, summary effect sizes of national identification, national pride, and support for civic national identity criteria were not statistically significant. The meta-regression models show that countries with a long immigration history (so-called settler societies) are characterised by a more positive association between national pride and pro-immigration attitudes than those for which immigration is a relatively new experience. We discuss the broader significance of these findings as well as offer potential future directions for the research field.

The current research employed a person-centered and domain-specific approach to examine Belgian majority group members’ expectations regarding immigrant acculturation in private and public domains, utilizing a large-scale national probability sample. Applying latent profile analysis, we identified three expectation profiles: The largest profile consisted of people who made a clear distinction between the public and private domain, expecting assimilation to Belgian culture in public but favoring immigrants maintaining their heritage culture in private (public-private division profile, 58.7%). People in the remaining two profiles held similar expectations across domains, either expecting assimilation (‘assimilation’ profile, 13.2%) or favoring integration of Belgian culture and immigrant’s heritage culture (‘integration’ profile, 28.1%). Subsequent multinomial logistic regression revealed that the profiles differed in perceived symbolic threat, with those in the integration profile feeling the least, and those in the assimilation profile most threatened. Moreover, those in the integration profile were more likely to have intergroup friends than those in the assimilation profile, and they supported religious expression in public more. Our findings illustrate the value of employing a simultaneous person-centered and domain-specific approach. In the absence of our person-centered approach, we might have captured only an overall preference for adoption in public and maintenance in private, which proves to not hold true for all participants. Conversely, had we only examined the public domain, we might have concluded that over 70% strongly expect assimilation. Taken together, we thus encourage researchers to adopt both a person-centered and domain-specific approach when examining acculturation attitudes and expectations.

International students are an increasingly important population in the United States, growing in both size and contributions. While research has outlined challenges encountered by international students and the importance of campus climate, little research has defined and empirically assessed the friendliness of college and university campuses toward international students from the students’ perspectives, which was the aim of the current study. Universities with large international student populations were invited to distribute a survey that included the International Friendly Campus Scale (IFCS; Wang, et al., 2014) and two open-ended questions about students’ positive and negative experiences. The sample included 938 international students from eight universities in the United States, of which 622 and 566 students answered the first and second open-ended questions, respectively. Through thematic analyses of the open-ended questions, this study identified factors that international students find most helpful for their cross-cultural adjustment in addition to aspects of their campuses that could be improved. Results suggest that helpful factors for international student adjustment include social support, events, campus resources, access to shared and diverse cultures, an inclusive environment, language fluency and opportunities for learning, and individual characteristics. Areas of improvement include increased events and socialization, better communication, a more welcoming attitude toward diversity, improved administrative support, more financial support, and decreased discrimination. Additionally, correlation and group comparisons were used to assess international students’ perception of campus climate and compare patterns between different demographic groups. Practical suggestions based on these results are also discussed.

This study investigated the phenomenon of early marriage among Afghan migrant women in Yazd city, Iran. Data were collected using qualitative research method based on interview with 20 participants. The data were analyzed using Grounded Theory approach by employing open, axial, and selective coding and the findings include 13 main and one core categories, which presented in a paradigm model. Findings indicate that early marriage usually occurs in poor families, resulting from the interplay between poverty and gender discrimination. Discriminatory attitudes, women's lack of economic independence, gender division of labor, and unfavorable economic conditions ultimately lead to "lived experience of poverty". Therefore, in a reinforcing cycle, gender inequalities and poverty are aligned, and inequalities are strengthened in all dimensions, reproducing its own social and gender norms which once again reproduce the marriage cycle of poverty and inferiority.

The internationalization of higher education has been driven by an increasingly globalized and interconnected world. One concept that embodies this internationalization process is global citizenship, which can be promoted through student mobility, internationalization-at-home, or other forms of intercultural learning. While global citizenship remains a broad and highly contested term, the increased interest of its role in higher education has inspired research in different fields. The aim of this paper is to provide a review of existing research approaches to studying global citizenship, and to formulate future research directions that may integrate these approaches into a holistic framework. By reviewing literature from different fields in the social sciences, we have identified three main research approaches: intercultural competence, social identification with a global community, and civic engagement. While each approach reflects an important dimension of global citizenship, they remain separate in the literature, complicating the understanding and application of global citizenship in higher education. Therefore, for each approach we present a general conceptualization and a brief overview of prior findings. We discuss how integrating these approaches can lead to a more holistic understanding of global citizenship and guide future avenues for research and practice in higher education.

Owing to the Russo-Ukrainian War, many Ukrainians were forced to migrate, with 175,000 settled in Italy. Following this, several Italian families have offered to host refugees in their homes. The cohabitation of these two cultures has presented challenges and opportunities. In this context, food and culinary practices can represent a means of intercultural exchange. The present study explores the dynamics arising from the coexistence of Italian hosts and Ukrainian refugees, with a focus on food-related interactive exchanges. A qualitative approach was adopted involving semistructured interviews with 24 Italians who hosted Ukrainian refugees in their homes between December 2022 and May 2023. The interviews were analyzed using grounded methodology. The study identified several themes, including differences in eating habits, issues related to the eating habits of refugee children, food as an intercultural exchange, and the opportunities and challenges presented by commensality. In addition, significant challenges emerged regarding the eating habits of refugee children and dietary differences between the Italian host families and the Ukranian refugees. In light of this, it became clear that adopting a flexible and open approach to different eating habits is crucial for facilitating family coexistence and promoting mutual understanding between the Italian host families and the Ukranian refugees. In conclusion to promote harmonious and inclusive intercultural cohabitation, several targeted actions were suggested, such as educational programs, psychosocial support services, and food sharing initiatives.