Suchergebnisse

This paper is an initial attempt to evaluate the challenges of promoting a new national language as a medium of instruction (MOI) in a post-socialist higher education (HE) context. In the case of Kazakhstan, the choice of MOI is perceived as a key tool to strengthen national identity and resist domination of Russian; in higher education sector language policies are constructed to foster cultural independence which translates into establishing Kazakh as a full-fledged medium of academia. Drawing on the historical-structural approach (Tollefson, 1991, 2013), we analyze the ideologies and practices of university students studying in Kazakh. Findings from audio-recorded interviews suggest that implementing Kazakh-medium instruction policies face numerous pragmatic and ideological challenges, such as a dearth of teaching and learning resources in Kazakh and lack of Kazakh-speaking faculty. This study contributes to scholarship on language revitalization in the context of tertiary education.

. At present, for any country that does not belong to the "collective West", there are risks of external and internal threats to national security. Modern China is a country with a large territory and a large population, the devel-opment and achievements of which were directly related to integration into the world community, on the one hand, and the ability to protect the identity of the political system, social structure and culture, on the other. However, modern Chinese culture has faced new challenges, in connection with which China is striving to cre-ate a stronger and more effective security system. This article attempts to analyze and describe the main strat-egies of China's cultural security policy in the context of modern globalization, to consider the main directions of the country's cultural policy as a whole, and its current trends.

Building on remarkable and sudden fundraising success during the Covid-19 pandemic, many National Health Service (NHS) charities in England and Wales have undergone a period of rapid organisational transformation and growth. This article explores these developments by considering how claims to distinction contribute to new organisational identities and allow access to valuable resources and funding opportunities. After situating recent developments within the policy background and key changes in governance and regulation since the 1990s, we report on interviews with directors and trustees of NHS Charities Together (NHSCT), the national membership organisation of NHS charities. These offer new insight into strategic shifts and the desire to form a distinct and unified identity for NHS charities. Highlighting ongoing tensions and debates within the sector, findings raise important questions over the role of NHS charities and their position in relation to the NHS and the state.

AbstractAre cues from party leaders so important that they can cause individuals to change their own issue positions to align with the party's position? Recent work on the importance of party cues suggests they do, especially given the literature on partisanship as a strong and persistent group identity. However, in this paper we test the limits of those partisan cues. Using a unique two-wave panel survey design we find that the effect of party cues is moderated by the prior level of importance individuals place on an issue. We find that when a person believes an issue area to be more important, party cues are less likely to move that citizen's position, particularly when the cue goes against partisan ideological norms. Our results show evidence that an individual's own issue positions—at least the important ones—can be resilient in the face of party cues.

Abstract
As early as 1989, Kimberlé Crenshaw had proposed investigating the interconnection between gender and ethnic identities, especially in her work about black identities. Subsequently, many scholars have extended investigation of the interconnection to the field of Indigenous studies. However, most studies focus on women's suffering, rather than their active engagement in the process of anti-colonial resistance and Indigenous identity formation. Despite painful colonial histories—including displacement and assimilation—Indigenous peoples have resisted and survived and have been revived. Indigenous women played a crucial part in these processes, but their contributions were often neglected or forgotten. Through analyses of two renowned post-colonial films—Seediq Bale (dir. Wei Te-sheng, 2011) from Taiwan and Utu (dir. Geoff Murphy, 1983) from New Zealand—this essay explores how Seediq and Maori women showed great strength in Austronesian indigenous people's resistance to colonialism and in their campaign to rewrite history.

AbstractThis article presents an in-depth understanding of information selection strategies in referendums. It builds on the theories of motivated reasoning, cognitive dissonance, information utility, and social identity to examine selective exposure in the context of referendums, and highlights how individuals select information, opting for either congruent and partisan (selective choice) or balanced and discrepant (enlightened choice) sources of information. Empirically, our study relies on two cross-sectional online surveys (N = 2,245; N = 735) that took place in a real referendum campaign on an Energy Act in Switzerland. We exposed respondents to different information contexts and measured whether they chose selectively or in an enlightened way. We conclude that individuals choose balanced or discrepant sources of information more frequently than the literature on selective exposure suggests. Moreover, attitude strength plays a twofold role: In a pre-campaign context, attitude strength motivates individuals' enlightened choice; mid-campaign, however, it strengthens voters' selective choice.

Ha Jin is one of the most important contemporary Chinese-American writers in American literary circles. His diaporic identity, on one hand, offers him the priority to observe and retrospect the two cultures. On the other hand, it makes his composition imprinted with strong features: unique narrative mode and skillful design, through which he exposes thoroughly human nature and probes into the intricacies of the heart.This essay intends to analyze how Ha Jin's cultural and literary capital has enhanced the theme of the novel Waiting. He is especially good at depicting everyday details in simple English with a Chinese flavor. By these detailed descriptions, he gives us insight into the lives of Kong Lin and Manna Wu which are mechanistic and dehumanizing. We can also see how an individual's fate is determined by everyday life from everyday details of the characters in the novel.

AbstractWhat role do national icons play in a political community's drive for ontological security? And what implications does this have for global politics? This article situates national icons in service of state ontological security. Icons both unify and divide political communities; therefore they serve, but also disrupt, ontological security-seeking of collectives. Building on research on ontological security and status in International Relations, we examine two case studies of national icons – Vesna Vulović, the celebrated Serbian flight attendant who miraculously survived a major plane crash, and Muhammad Ali, the American boxing legend. Both Vulović and Ali initially generated, and then countered, ontological security for their national communities as they transformed from popular culture celebrities into anti-regime political activists. We conclude the article by discussing opportunities for future avenues of research on icons and the politics of identity going forward.

Much has been made of the rise of English nationalism, reflected in the strong association of 'being English' and voting Leave in the Brexit referendum in 2016. This article examines recent books on Englishness, arguing that this is a complex and nuanced matter embedded in accreted myths. If there is a thoroughgoing 'nationalism' emerging in England, it requires not only significant and long-lasting shifts in national identity, but a conception of 'England' as an imagined community which is robust and relevant to modern social and cultural life. Furthermore, it requires a nationalism which is part of wider and ongoing political project, rather than a short-term political expedient such as Conservative mobilisation post-Brexit. The article argues that an older debate in the 1960s and 1970s, between Tom Nairn and E.P. Thompson sheds significant light on the origins and nature of Englishness, such that it has progressive rather than reactionary potential.

Written in the early months of the COVID pandemic, and in the midst of the second wave of Black Lives Matters protest, this article suggests that Americans experienced these shocking social events as a double-whammy cultural trauma, as deeply troubling to their collective identity as nation. How the trauma played out would determine the near-term future of American politics. Were the poor and non-white the principal victims of the double whammy, or were white Americans and the 'hard-working middle class' actually the injured parties? Who was the trauma's perpetrator? Was it China, inadequate healthcare, government bureaucracy, or Trump and 'know-nothing' populism? The performances that provided the most felicitous answers to such questions would determine whether the country moved to the left or the right in the months before the Presidential election that would take place before year's end.

Domestic violence impedes women's exercise of full participatory citizenship. This article explicates the role of family, community and social networks in the aftermath of an abusive relationship as both an indicator of intimate citizenship as an achieved status and as a facilitator of the process of citizenisation in the private and public spheres. Based on life history interviews with 26 South Asian women in the UK, the findings reveal the myriad ways in which denial of citizenship continues long after, and in part due to, the end of the abusive relationship, and outline women's efforts to regain a sense of identity, belongingness and membership within their intimate, family and community lives. In doing so, this article advances conceptual understandings of the lived practice of citizenship. It also problematises the binary construction of 'victims' versus 'survivors', which is premised on a linear and successful journey towards citizenisation following the end of the abusive relationship.

This study scrutinizes the nature of online citizen-driven collective actions aimed at countering terrorism following bombing attacks in Indonesia. In particular, this study illuminates the framing processes, public sentiments, and actors involved in the movement. An analysis of 10,000 tweets bearing the hashtag #KamiTidakTakut (we are not afraid) showed that the participants predominantly employed motivational frames to encourage others to engage in anti-terrorism efforts and defy terror by bolstering collective identity. Moreover, while the tweets were mainly conveyed in a positive tone, a considerable number of tweets voiced negative sentiments, including criticism of the movement. In addition, most tweets came from citizens, and some were from media outlets, civil society organizations, government agencies, and public figures. The study enriches the literature on online collective actions in the context of terrorism and offers practical insights into the design of public anti-terrorism campaigns.

This article explores the distinct social reproductive practices of the Black upper-middle class. In particular, this study focuses on the role of community organizations in socializing the collective habitus of a community at the intersection of Blackness and class privilege. I draw on interview data from members of one Black upper-middle class organization, Jack and Jill of America Inc., to identify how families and institutions collaborate to socialize children into a particular raced-classed habitus, passing on ideologies, discursive habits, and behavioral strategies aimed at producing citizens who are both culturally empathetic and socioeconomically mobile. I find that mothers rely on the blurred boundaries between family and social organizations to legitimate and reinforce the lessons taught at home. In particular, mothers explicitly socialize identity and affinity within a racial community while simultaneously socializing implicit, but powerful, behavioral habits related to social class.

AbstractPrevious explanations regarding transnational solidarity in the European Union (EU) have mainly focussed on factors including left–right self‐placement, support for European integration and European identity. We expand this model by considering deeper psychological determinants of transnational solidarity: values, operationalised as Schwartz's basic human values of universalism and security. We expect them to exert (1) direct effects on transnational solidarity – measured as support for pan‐European social benefits – and (2) indirect effects via the three aforementioned factors. We test and find evidence to support our theoretical framework using multigroup structural equation modelling and data from the European Social Survey. We further show that the effect size of the value of universalism on preferences for an EU social benefit scheme in each country is positively moderated by that country's net contribution to the EU budget, highlighting the interaction between material interests and psychological value motivations.

AbstractSocial scientists are frequently interested in who is most responsive to a treatment. By necessity, such moderation experiments often rely on observed moderators, such as partisan identity. These designs have led to an ongoing debate about where to measure moderators—immediately prior to the treatment, after the treatment, or in a prior wave of a panel survey. Measuring a moderator prior to the treatment is the most efficient and avoids posttreatment bias, but it raises concerns about priming. We contribute to this debate by systematically studying whether measuring moderators prior to an experiment affects the results. Across six different experiments, each involving a commonly used moderator, we find little evidence of priming effects, even when a moderator is placed immediately before the experiment. Our findings thus help resolve the debate, suggesting that researchers should measure moderators pretreatment. We conclude with advice on designing well‐powered moderation experiments.