The literature on social class disparities in health and education contains 2 underlying, yet often opposed, models of behavior: the individual model and the structural model. These models refer to largely unacknowledged assumptions about the sources of human behavior that are foundational to research and interventions. Our review and theoretical integration proposes that, in contrast to how th...

OBJECTIVE The problem-based learning (PBL) tutor plays a role that is different from the role of a teacher in a conventional teaching format. In the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, United Arab Emirates, all students are Arab nationals and tutors are expatriates with different sociocultural backgrounds from the students. This study was designed to investigate how students evaluate tutor...

This article reports a case study that examined dynamic patterns of interaction that two small groups (Group A and Group B) of ESL students exemplified when they performed two writing tasks: a research proposal (Task 1) and an annotated bibliography (Task 2) in a wiki site. Group A demonstrated a collective pattern in Task 1, but switched to an active–withdrawn pattern in Task 2. In contrast, G...

Major Changes to the Second Edition Chapters have been reorganized for improved understanding of the academic plan model on which the book is based. Greater emphasis is placed on the sociocultural contexts that influence curriculum planning. Includes a new chapter on institutional influences that affect curricular decision-making. Two coordinated chapters on learning and selecting instructional...

BACKGROUND The role of race in human genetics and biomedical research is among the most contested issues in science. Much debate centers on the relative importance of genetic versus sociocultural factors in explaining racial inequalities in health. However, few studies integrate genetic and sociocultural data to test competing explanations directly. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS We draw on e...

Because every country has its own unique confluence of histories and cultures, the Year of Ghana like previous Annual Country Study Programs provides our learning community with an exceptionally rich opportunity to develop a more complex understanding of today’s interconnected world. Intercultural learning is about making the unfamiliar familiar. The study of Ghana is a study of social change a...

OBJECTIVE To demonstrate the value of viewing the pediatric transplant experience through a sociocultural lens and to offer an organized framework for identifying influential sociocultural variables in pediatric transplantation. METHODS A conceptual model is presented which organizes sociocultural factors that may influence the transplant process. A review of the pediatric and adult transplan...

This paper explores theories underlying the design and development of organizational information systems (IS). It summarizes and compares two very different perspectives on IS design and development: design as the (individual) solution of organizational "problems" and design as the (joint) construction of sociocultural artifacts. The different paradigms of operation engendered by these perspect...