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In this chapter, Ravind Jeawon and I discuss the ideas around being responsive to diversity in an evidence based manner. Although this chapter belongs within the evidence based responsiveness section discussed in the previous chapter, we both considered it essential to provide a whole chapter on its theory and application, as it is an integral area often overlooked in clinical training and provided a curtesy overview during ongoing professional development and clinical supervision. The multicultural literature uses different terminology to refer to the practice of responsiveness, we discuss these ideas and the evidence base for them, while introducing the reader to other processes and theories which will help developing practitioners make sense of what can be a vastly complex area of clinical work. Several adapted, real life case examples are drawn from Ravind’s clinical experience to encourage reflection and provide insight into these processes.

The rise of the era of mobility, or at least of a rhetoric on the benefits of mobility for individuals, can closely be connected with the late modernity and optimist views of the self's capacity to adapt to the challenges posed by globalisation. Mobility thus becomes an act expressing the individual appropriation of an “enlarged” action-space, supposed to become less constrained by social determinism. According to this assumption, mobility can also be seen as a form of elective biography (do-it-yourself biography) and would favour the emergence of a freer individual. Results of the analysis of 80 student accounts on experiences of Erasmus mobility within Europe have shown that student mobility reinforces the individual belief of being able to face changing environments, to monitor the self and to be monitored as a self, and to take control on one's life-path in a reflexive way, by accepting risks impelling new dynamics. From the students’ perspective, mobility experience seems to release impulses for personal growth and individual autonomy. Yet this advantage, however important it may be, often dominates the other outcomes of a mobility period, such as cultural and political awareness, intercultural competence and enlarged feeling of belonging. This result creates a tension with views and expectations for students to become “culture carriers” and vectors of Europeanisation, since the pro-social and societal dimensions of student mobility outcomes, as an experience supporting cultural awareness and understanding, tolerance and civic conscience were less systematically present at the end of the stay abroad.

Cultural entrepreneurship research is on the rise, with a growing community of scholars paying attention to the cultural processes and outcomes involved in entrepreneurship, strategic innovation, and change. To further develop this community, in this volume we assemble a collection of contributions showcasing two promising advances. In Section A, a first set of papers puts culture in cultural entrepreneurship by highlighting a multi-faceted view of culture and exposing new ways by which culture shapes and is shaped by entrepreneurial action. In Section B, another set of papers takes cultural entrepreneurship beyond entrepreneurship – that is, the prevalent yet narrow focus on new venture legitimation and resource acquisition – by broadening the scope of what cultural entrepreneurship entails and explains. In this introductory paper, we discuss how contributions within each section move the conversation forward and identify cross-cutting themes that can be found in both sections of this volume.

Pervasive forms of worldwide communication now connect us instantly and constantly, and yet we all too often fail to understand each other. Rather than benefiting from our globally interconnected reality, the world continues to fall back on divisiveness, a widening schism exacerbated by some of the most pronounced divisions in history along lines of wealth, culture, religion, ideology, class, gender, and race. Cross-cultural dynamics are rife within multinational organizations and among people who regularly work with people from other cultures. This chapter reviews what we know from our scholarship on cross-cultural interaction among expatriates, negotiators, and teams that work in international contexts. Perhaps more important, this chapter outlines what we need to learn – and to unlearn – to be able to see diversity as an asset in helping individuals, organizations, and society to succeed rather than continuing to understand it primarily as a source of problems.

This paper provides a review of theoretical perspectives and empirical research on the role of culture in mergers and acquisitions [M&A], with a particular focus on the performance implications of cultural differences in M&A. Despite theoretical and anecdotal evidence that cultural differences can create major obstacles to achieving integration benefits, empirical research on the performance impact of cultural differences in M&A yielded mixed results: while some studies found national or organizational cultural differences to be negatively related to measures of M&A performance, others observed a positive relationship or found cultural differences to be unrelated to M&A performance. We offer several explanations for the inconsistent findings of previous research on the performance impact of cultural differences in M&A and develop a model that synthesizes our current understanding of the role of culture in M&A. We conclude that the relationship between cultural differences and M&A performance is more complex than previously thought and propose that, rather than asking if cultural differences have a performance impact, future research endeavors should focus on how cultural differences affect M&A performance.

Purpose – This concluding essay suggests how contemporary developments in cultural sociology can enrich and extend the American sociology of work. While recent studies in the sociology of work consider more fully the role of sense making and representations in workers’ lives, we propose additional possibilities for conceptual and theoretical cross-pollination. We propose questions that a cultural sociologist might ask about European workers in the age of neo-liberalism.

Methodology/approach – We examine how authors in this volume and its companion (Brady, 2011), and other students of workers approach culture-related phenomena. In particular we focus on how they use culture as explanans and explananda. Borrowing from Lamont and Small (2008) and Small, Harding, and Lamont (2010), we present a set of analytical tools that cultural sociologists use widely. We then draw from culturally focused studies of workers to illustrate how researchers have used these concepts.

Findings – Research on European workers documents important political and economic trends that affect this group, but it examines less frequently how individuals understand, experience, and respond to these changes. With tools from cultural sociology, we can explore these understudied aspects of the conditions and lives of European workers.

Originality/value of paper – To our knowledge, this is the first systematic discussion of how concepts from contemporary cultural sociology can enrich research on European workers.

Culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students often are not overtly aware of their cultures until they find themselves in a different one. The cultural capital students may have accumulated, at times, does not necessarily contextually match the culture of the classroom or school, possibly resulting in diminished returns academically and socially and an inability to acclimate to the dominant culture. The hope is that with time, all cultures will synthesize into one inclusive, nondominant culture that welcomes divergent thinking and behaviors. This chapter focuses on cultural capital and its possible effects in education, the identification of CLD students, and how interventions and responsiveness to intervention (RtI) may improve academic and social outcomes.

The endpoint and hallmark of the success of intercultural teaching is often seen as the attainment of intercultural competence. Yet, there is a need for a detailed examination of some of the enduring personal and professional identity and culture aspects of cross-cultural teaching. In this chapter, I deliberate over the application of narrative inquiry tools for unpacking teachers' experiences of immersion in a foreign country and culture of schooling. I reflect on my own experiences as a teacher in Japan and draw on an inquiry into the experiences of novice Canadian teachers in Hong Kong or Japan to shed light on fluid conceptions of culture shock and reverse culture shock in terms of cultural identity transformations. I also raise to the forefront inquiry puzzles about the phenomenon of intercultural competence acquisition.

In this chapter, we consider dominant arguments for the ‘disaggregation’ of the value of culture into discrete dimensions – economic, social, environmental, heritage and cultural and so forth – and their separate measurement. We discuss the role of proxies in assessment processes (‘parts’) and their relationship to the cultural experiences (‘wholes’) for which they are taken to be representative indicators. Disaggregation encourages a divisible approach to cultural activities that, at their heart, present as non-divisible experiences. Thus, we should speak of ‘culture's value’ as opposed to ‘cultural value’ as a way of highlighting a crucial methodological point – that arts and culture are more than the sum of their parts and that the assessment of a particular cultural activity must consider not only the benefits returned by its separate dimensions but also the activity's overall purpose, scope and place in the world. These non-divisible, often non-measurable, contextual features should not be considered contingent externalities but as sense-providing parameters that give meaning to any numerical data whatsoever. We conclude by looking at the issue via an example of a recent stage play from South Australia, Mi:Wi 3027 written by Ngarrindjeri playwright Glenn Shea and commissioned by Country Arts South Australia. The values of the drama cannot be and should not be distinguished from its value, and assessment processes must therefore look to frame the primary cultural experience it embodies in ways that make sense of its purpose, scope and place in the world.

Haitian immigrants have settled primarily in several metropolitan areas of the Northeast region (New York and Boston, followed perhaps by Philadelphia), Southern Florida, and some areas of the Midwest (mainly Chicago). As indicated in a previous work (Zéphir, 2004, p. 90), New York City has the largest concentration of Haitians in the country as well as the oldest and most diverse established Haitian communities. Estimates of the New York population and its surrounding counties (Nassau, Rockland, and others) range from 200,000 to close to 500,000. This variation depends on whether one only takes into account figures given by the Census Bureau and the Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS), or whether one also factors in the undocumented entrants and accepts estimates provided by Haitian community leaders themselves as being closer to reality. In more recent times, from the mid-1980s to the present, Southern Florida has been receiving the largest numbers of the new arrivals, particularly the cities of Miami, Fort Lauderdale, and West Palm Beach, as well as their vicinities. The US Census Bureau (2000), places the legal Haitian population in the state of Florida at about 270,000; but when one considers the clandestine population that number obviously increases. Let us not forget that Florida is the destination of the most desperate Haitians, those who risk their lives navigating the Florida straits in rickety boats to reach “the promised land” that the United States symbolizes for them. In fact, as recently as March 28, 2007, a boatload of about 100 Haitians reached Hallandale Beach, Florida. These Haitians have been put in detention centers, pending reviews of their cases. The state of Massachusetts follows with a conservative estimate of 75,000 Haitians, of which the majority are Boston residents. The state of New Jersey is home to approximately 40,000 Haitian immigrants, concentrated mostly in the city of Newark. In addition, two other Northeast states, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, in particular) and Connecticut have sizeable Haitians communities. In the Midwest, another very conservative estimate of 30,000 Haitians have settled in Illinois, over half of them in the city of Chicago. Although the aforementioned states and cities have the most significant numbers of the total Haitian immigrant population, it is important to mention that Haitians have migrated all over the country, from Louisiana, the Carolinas, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Missouri, to California. For example, in the city of St. Louis, there are several well-established families who have been in residence there since the 1960s. Indeed, several years ago, I met a couple of physicians who explained that, when they came to the United States to do their medical residencies, few hospitals in the country at the time would accept Black residents. One exception was Omer Philip Hospital, which has long since closed. These first Haitians brought their families with them, who in turn sent for relatives. In time, a solid Haitian community developed and prospered in St. Louis. Moreover, as this chapter was being written in June of 2007, I received a phone call from a Haitian in Kansas City who was telling me about the emergence of a Haitian community there as well, which he estimated at about 2,000 people. This particular individual is the director of a community center that, he said, is called Glory House, affiliated with the Baptist Church. This center has been recently established to help working-class Haitians, by offering them English classes and other social services. Those examples attest to the fact that Haitians are mobile and moving to other areas of the country where they have not traditionally settled, in search of better economic, professional, vocational, and educational opportunities.