Group items tagged

"Here we present findings from the "Religion among Academic Scientists" study, a survey (N=1,646) and initial in-depth interviews (N=150) with natural and social scientists at twenty-one elite US research universities. We examine the attitudes academic scientists at these universities have about the perceived conflict between religion and science and their personal cultural construction of the boundaries between science and religion. Using survey data, results show that field-specific differences, being in the natural or social sciences, are not significant predictors of adopting the conflict paradigm, refuting previous research. Attention to in-depth interviews reveals three mechanisms of boundary-crossing, where boundaries between religion and science are transgressed: institutional pull, boundary pioneering, and environmental push. These results contribute key mechanisms of boundary change and boundary crossing between the specific knowledge domains of science and religion to the growing sociology of culture literature on boundaries."

Werner Heisenberg. Der Teil und das Ganze: Gespräche im Umkreis der Atomphysik. (Piper, 2001) This book is written by one of the foundator and leading scientist of quantum mechanics and physics and is a very light-speaking, anecdoting story telling about Heisenberg's life, education, personal life and development. When he mentiones his awakening interest in physicsm he talks a lot about Platon and it is very interesting to read about his attitude towards religion and the principal questions of religion. It is also him we attribute the famous sentence: The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you.

merci Dora, let us look at religion & science as two sources of knowledge. In my case, I would be most familiar with the Bahai Faith (www.bahai.org) and I do believe that this Faith has a new contribution in the task of transforming society.

A "cultural interpreter" is an active participant in a cross-cultural/lingual interaction, assisting the provider in understanding the beliefs and practices of the client's culture and assisting the client in understanding the dominant culture, by providing cultural as well as linguistic links. This model of interpreting service was developed out of an awareness that communication is seriously impaired by insensitivity to the role of culture in the content and manner of communication, particularly in formal interactions (Cairncross, 1989). There are certain ideas about what it means to be a good interpreter. Perfect knowledge of at least two languages, good memory and general knowledge are some of the skills people see as fundamental. However, one of the most important skills seems to be the ability to bridge the gap between two cultures, or in other words, to be aware of certain boundaries, which need to be crossed.

Everyone of has experienced boundaries or conflict in our work because of different perception about work´s aim, especially cause by diversity. Here is a study that shows how boundary spanning activities were used in a multinational company to overcome the barriers that diversity cause. In this article are mentioned very interesting initiatives implemented in this company to manage diversity and to stimulate knowledge sharing.

"New societal challenges for the European Union New challenges for social sciences and the humanities : thinking across boundaries : modernising European research Our modern world cannot live on fragmented knowledge and policies, and "business as usual" in research in social sciences and the humanities won't help. The European Commission is going a step further in addressing today's and tomorrow's major societal challenges that affect our citizens, the countries we cooperate with, and of course future generations of European citizens. The European Commission is launching large research cooperative projects of several million euros in social sciences and the humanities (at least EUR 6 500 000 for 2010) to address these societal challenges. This booklet explains how major changes will be required in the way researchers manage their projects, steer their interdisciplinary research and valorise their results in society at large. "

from the european union...

This article relates the story of Canadian students who went to India for a field placement and do social work. Grounding on Bhabha's theory of "Third Space", the authors describe the different boundaries (cultural, linguistic, cognitive and emotional) that the student had to face and could or not crossed while being in India basing their research on the different feedback given by them. The Student had to continually negotiate cultural difference which leads to inner and outer tension. This article reflects perfectly what every individual lives when going and living in another country. I think that it relates perfectly to everyone of us in this Master.

Dear Cecile, I am trying to read your article, but I cant open it. I am trying to find the options to register, but I cant find it. Can you send me the text by email. Thanks

This is typical example that shows clearly that you are never prepared enough for culture differences and to find a way how to manage them. From the students discourse, you can see that they know that they will experience culture´s shock, that they are going to encounter culture difference. They have also knowledge about Indian culture. But it´s obviously they know just the top of iceberg. I was reading what the students were saying. It´s very interesting to see their reactions. You have a group of students from the same country, the same context that react differently totally different context. The barriers of culture differences can make us more or more open to know and to share with the others or the totally opposite. Of course you need time and the example of the students is very concrete one. The students were in the process of knowing the culture, exploring it. As everything new that we encounter, we react also differently toward the unknown.

Here is an overview about how we can gain trust within a multicultural environment. The importance of information and knowledge about other cultures and language barriers help to improve the effectiveness of multicultural team´s interaction.

thank you. I wonder what the common values are, if we are to trust each other in multicultural environment.

Thank you Anola for this article. It is very interesting and reflects a lot what is happening in companies nowadays, as well as what we went through in this Master. I follow Dora's comments when saying that this topic should be seen from someone else's point of view. It is very clear that it is only the American's point of view on how to build trust as well as how other's see it. It would be interesting to compare it, and realize that maybe we don't define the concept of 'trust' the same way depending on the culture.