The paper describes the concept of Culture Profiles to facilitate globally distributed work groups. The concept describes a representation for cultural characteristics for groups and individuals and relates this concept to existing standards. Hence, it is embedded in the landscape of learning technology standards. A sample implementation for social communities – Culture Clouds – shows the feasi...

All health care providers may be confronted by a Muslim patient, but many health care professionals are lacking basic knowledge on the Muslim faith and medical ethics based on Islamic law (Shariah). One must endeavour to differentiate between ethnic customs and Islamic tradition. It is important for staff to have a general understanding of the principles of Islamic beliefs and actions to attain...

The Maasai pastoralists in sub-Saharan Africa depend on their livestock for income and food. Livestock production can be significantly improved by addressing animal health concerns. We explored the use of photovoice, a participatory action research method, to strengthen our understanding of the Maasai's animal health needs. Nine interviewees, representing warriors, elders, and women, identified...

Japanese and Canadian university students were compared on the changes they wanted in their lives. Contrary to their characterization as self-effacingly relational and group-minded, Japanese were no more likely than Canadians to wish for social or collective goods. Rather, Japanese were more likely than Canadians to wish for money or material goods, and less likely than Canadians to wish for be...

The Institute of Medicine has stated that greater diversity within health care professionals leads to improved patient outcomes. Therefore, greater diversity within academia and student bodies is required to create future diverse health care professionals. Cultural sensitivity is required from recruitment to physical environment for administrators, faculty, staff, and students. University, coll...

Telepractice is the application of telecommunications technology to the delivery of telehealth services via the online connection of clinicians, clients, and patients for assessment, intervention, or consultation. This article describes a pilot project in which speech-language pathology students in a university training program gained experience in working with culturally diverse preschool stud...

This study investigated the social transmission of memories and skills collected from a collaborative cooking task (raviolimaking) and across transmission chains. The transmission over three generations of pairs of participants occurred under two conditions. In the interactive condition, transmissions over generations occurred in face-to-face conversations, whereas in the non-interactive condit...

Museums, archives, libraries and other cultural heritage institutes maintain large collections of artefacts which are valuable knowledge sources for both experts and interested lay persons. Recently, more and more cultural heritage institutes have started to digitise their collections, for instance to make them accessible via web portals. However, while digitisation is a necessary first step to...

Cross-cultural research on well-being often focuses on the influence of socio-ecological factors on well-being. National accounts of well-being suggest that modern nations – wealthier, and well-educated nations –are happier than less developed nations. In the current thesis, I examined whether cultural factors influence individuals’ preferences towards self-evaluation, and whether (cross-) cult...