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This study set out to understand how student audiences make sense of fictional representations of journalism in television series. To do so, we conducted five focus groups with American students. First, participants expressed a need for more diversity in representations of journalism in terms of narratives and characters as they see fiction as a complementary source of information on the profession. They relied on non-fictional reference media, normative journalistic discourses, and if applicable, experiences with working in (school) newsrooms to make sense of these representations. Second, they discussed how public opinion on journalism is influenced by fiction and consequently fear that one-sided and stereotypical representations of journalism contribute to increasing the already low levels of mistrust in U.S. news media. This fear was also found to be gendered as the participants expressed concerns about the stereotypical representation of female and minority journalists as "bitchy" and "promiscuous." This manuscript puts forward journalism fiction as a metajournalistic discourse in which non-fictional and fictional journalism blur in confounding ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study delves into the differing attitudes of Chinese and American students regarding product placement (PPL) in major motion films. It employs a theoretical framework comprising three key aspects of PPL: its historical evolution, brand integration, and past perceptions. The research employs two primary research methods, questionnaires and focus group interviews, in order to gather insights and opinions from consumers on their views and attitudes toward PPL. Drawing upon the findings from the questionnaires and insights obtained through interviews with Chinese and American consumers, it reveals two distinct sets of attitudes: Chinese participants predominantly express strong reservations about PPL, while a majority of American respondents present diverse arguments in support of its efficacy in the American media ecology in general and in films in particular. While data collection for this study was undertaken already in 2015, this data is nevertheless worth analyzing, both for historic reasons as well as for revealing continuing differing trends in different cultures regarding their media awareness.

Research finds that going far from home has many positive psychological outcomes such as enhanced creative thinking, and research on creativity reveals that nonconformity can be a useful tool to stimulate innovation. Merging these findings, we theorise that foreign experiences increase nonconformist attitudes and behaviours. In Studies 1 and 2, surveys of Chinese university students and non-student adults consistently showed that multicultural experiences were negatively related to conformity tendencies. Study 3 found that American students who were studying in China demonstrated a lower conformity tendency than American students without multicultural experiences, which suggests that the multicultural experience – conformity link cannot be accounted for by the effects of culture. Results from Study 4 indicated that compared with participants who had planned to go abroad but had not left their home country yet, participants who had lived abroad reported lower levels of conformity. Lastly, experimentally manipulating a focus on foreign experiences (vs. home experiences) facilitates non-conforming ways of thinking in terms of product preference (Study 5). Together, these findings provide evidence that exposure to diverse cultures not only produces divergent psychological consequences as have been found by other researchers, but also leads to the emergence of nonconformity attitudes and behaviours. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, the foreign‐language anxiety (FLA) of American students of Arabic on three study‐abroad programs in Morocco was examined. Exploratory factor analyses (EFAs) of the students' data based on items from the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale yielded four distinct factors, or domains, of FLA: Somatic Distress, Self‐Doubt, Nonengagement, and Apprehension. Although the students had a moderate level of self‐doubt concerning their studies as well as a moderate level of apprehension about being with Arabic L1 users, they tended to report engagement and absence of somatic distress in relation to Arabic. Scores among all four factors differed significantly from each other, apart from the comparison between Self‐Doubt and Apprehension. In addition to having implications for pedagogical practice and study‐abroad programs, this research is an attempt to demonstrate best practice in EFA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the intersectionality in the educational experiences of Korean American students with autism as they navigate the transition from high school to college. For these students, dis/ability status alone does not shape the pathway to adulthood: dis/ability is tightly bound with other social categories, such as race, language, and immigration status, impacting everyday experiences of the students, including preparing college applications, deciding where to apply, and then selecting a major or course of study. Using intersectionality theory, we disentangled the intersections of multiple sites of marginalization and interwove the social dynamics of transition trajectories. We also discuss these findings in the context of transition services and suggest directions for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The goal of this study is to uncover latent classes of maternal and paternal helicopter parenting among American and Chinese college students, and to examine whether latent classes of maternal and paternal helicopter parenting are related to college students' mental health (depression and self‐esteem). Background: Previous studies have examined the association between helicopter parenting and college students' well‐being. However, less is known about how the multidimensional construct of helicopter parenting is related to college students' mental health across Western and Eastern cultural contexts. Method: We conducted three‐step latent class analyses using nine helicopter parenting indicators for 1,386 mother–child and 1,214 father–child groups in the United States and 520 mother–child and 454 father–child groups in China. Next, we tested the association between the class membership of maternal and paternal helicopter parenting and college students' mental health. Results: We identified distinct helicopter parenting latent classes among four American and Chinese parent–child groups. We also found that American college students in the strong maternal helicopter parenting latent class reported poorer mental health than those in other latent classes. Conclusion: Our findings indicate that the multidimensional construct of helicopter parenting can be interpreted differently by parents and college‐aged children according to their social and cultural contexts. Implications: The findings of this study suggest that it is necessary to strengthen understanding of the multidimensional construct of helicopter parenting for parents with college‐aged children to enable them to develop more appropriate parenting practices as well as support their children's well‐being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates feelings and emotions in intercultural development through an analysis of students' journals. It looks into the affective reactions to life in Spain and how these relate to the intercultural development of a cohort of 26 American students participating in a calendar year study abroad programme (SAP) in a Spanish university, a pertinent study given that Spain, which hosts 9,5% of total American students abroad, has become the third preferred destination of American university students (Institute of International Education, 2019). Although the literature on cultural dissonance highlights the prevalence of feelings of distress when sojourners are removed from their social support systems, findings divulge a myriad of feelings classified into 9 areas that show a balance between uncertainty and stress of study abroad (SA), and excitement and feelings of well-being. Departing from affective reactions, analysis has likewise been conducted on how students come to terms with a different reality. Data evince that understanding new meanings and symbols is done through a comparative/contrastive problematising orientation through which SA is presented as challenge rather than as threat. The paper concludes that SA and reflection upon it contribute to reassess and shift frames of reference, influencing intercultural development and personal growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the discussion on Supreme Court stated in no uncertain terms having "separate educational facilities being inherently unequal." Topics include minority students attending majority-minority schools not performing as well as the White4 counterparts at majority White school; and education policies effectively creating dual systems of education for American students.

The COVID-19 pandemic has created various challenges for all students, regardless of ethnicity. Research reveals how historically minoritized groups have struggled in their educational pursuits due to the pandemic. Black/African American students have encountered increased challenges in learning online, job insecurity, and negative impacts on their health or emotional state. While research indicates these negative influences have adversely affected students' overall engagement in postsecondary education, literature is scarce regarding how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected Black or African American students in postsecondary science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and computing (STEM+C) education. The purpose of this exploratory study is to understand the influences of COVID-19 on Black/African American STEM+C majors at a Hispanic serving institution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we examine how meta‐agentive discourse was enacted and linguistically encoded with constructed dialog. We analyze interviews with 4 American undergraduate students who expressed their interest in study abroad (SA) and submitted applications but later withdrew them. The analysis centers on the ways agency was assigned to different actors in participants' decision‐making processes as mediated by discourses of SA. We demonstrate that in their interviews, the participants primarily assigned agency to (a) themselves by way of self‐reports, (b) a 'collective' author by way of vague referents, and (c) SA programs and leadership by way of hypothetical constructed dialog. Notably, discourses about SA were often repurposed in divergent ways within the same interview by multiple participants. We urge scholars examining agency to closely consider the trajectorial and situated nature of meta‐agentive discourse in applied linguistics research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This cross-cultural study investigated country and gender differences among American (U.S.A.) and Japanese students' reading motivation. Fourth-grade students (94 from the United States and 102 from Japan) were administered a reading motivation questionnaire. Study results indicated American students had higher reading motivation than Japanese students on most dimensions, including Self-Efficacy, Challenges, Curiosity, Importance, Involvement, Recognition, Grades, Competition, and Social. We found that culture may impact students' reading motivation and discuss how individualistic and collectivistic cultures influence students' reading motivation. Contrasting with the existing research, this study did not show any significant gender differences in reading motivation across the two countries. The null effect of gender needs to be re-examined in future studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates how people from different cultures negotiate meanings in email interactions. The data is composed of 120 emails written by two groups of students: sixty emails are written by Jordanian university students and sixty by American university students. The emails are supposed to be written to hypothetical friends. The data were analysed qualitatively, relying primarily on discourse analysis complemented by the theory of politeness, in addition to the notion of cultural stereotypes. The evaluation of the data indicated that the American students used much more indirect strategies than their Jordanian counterparts. The results of this study offer insights into the nature of politeness strategies as employed by the two groups of students. This study argues for the importance of including pragmatic and intercultural communication instruction in language classes to teach students how to be polite in a foreign language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chinese students are more likely than US students to hold a malleable view of success in school, yet are more likely to hold fixed mindsets about intelligence. We demonstrate that this apparently contradictory pattern of cross-cultural differences holds true across multiple samples and is related to how students conceptualize intelligence and its relationship with academic achievement. Study 1 (N > 15,000) confirmed that US students endorsed more growth mindsets than Chinese students. Importantly, US students' mathematics grades were positively related to growth mindsets with a medium-to-large effect, but for Chinese students, this association was slightly negative. Study 2 conceptually replicated Study 1 findings with US and Chinese college samples, and further discovered that cross-cultural differences in intelligence mindset beliefs corresponded to how students defined intelligence. Together, these studies demonstrated systematic cross-cultural differences in intelligence mindset and suggest that intelligence mindsets are not necessarily associated with academic motivation or success in the same way across cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research evaluated racial differences in ratings of school climate, focusing specifically on African American, Hispanic, and White high school students enrolled in one urban school district. The study hypothesized that White students would rate school climate more favorably. compared to non-White students. The quantitative analysis revealed statistically significant differences between White and non-White students' ratings of school climate in that White students rated the quality of school climate more favorably than non-White students. Implications of these findings, such as a continued racial discrepancy in schooling experiences despite a trend in climate reform over the last decade, are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the research is to comparatively investigate the opinions of students in doctoral education in the USA and Turkey about academic self-efficacy. The research used the basic qualitative research pattern from among qualitative research designs. The study group in the research comprised a total of 32 doctoral students with 16 from Turkey and 16 from the USA. Of these students, 25 were male (78%) and 7 were female (22%). With the aim of determining the participant group, criterion sampling was used from the targeted sampling methods. A semi-structured interview form was used to gather data in the research. For analysis of data, the content analysis technique was used. It has been determined by the results obtained from the study that Turkish and American students have similar goals to attend a Ph.D program in some respect and they have a high level of academic self-efficacy belief (ASEB) in using the relevant terminology and reaching the literature. In addition, it has been determined that Turkish students have a weaker academic self-efficacy belief than American students in respect of using scientific research methods and qualitative and quantitative data analysis techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The blend of traditional and contemporary culture in South Korea offers study abroad students a valuable setting to learn about psychological constructs. Despite South Korea’s potential as a study abroad destination, the body of literature on teaching psychology abroad in the country remains undeveloped. An immersion experience can be a valuable way to teach study abroad students about culture-specific constructs. The present article highlights how I attempted to teach three culture-specific constructs (han, jeong, and chemyon) during a short-term, intensive study abroad experience in South Korea, utilising various excursions and activities. Examples of learning activities discussed in this article are The War and Women’s Human Rights Museum to learn about han, Baby Box to facilitate discussion of chemyon, and dining out experience to learn about jeong. As appropriate, I integrate student written assignments and results from a survey to illustrate how the learning of the culture-specific constructs took place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Competent use of the Internet to locate information is an important skill for today's youth. Yet, many lack the knowledge and dispositions to engage in the processes necessary to effectively and efficiently find information on the Internet. As a result, various countries have incorporated references to the processes of online inquiry within their educational standards. Despite similarities in these standards, however, international comparisons are rare and have not produced insights into broader themes and patterns regarding how cognitive, metacognitive, and affective variables interact to influence outcomes on related measures of success, e.g., international assessments. The purpose of this research was two-fold: to examine the measurement invariance of a German-language version of the Survey of Online Reading Attitudes and Behaviors across a sample of participants from Germany and to compare the results with students from United States who completed the English-version of SORAB. The results justified comparisons across the samples with respect to the latent factor variables and comparisons yielded differences associated with cognitive and behavioral engagement, value/interest, and anxiety. No differences were noted with regard to self-regulation and efficacy for online reading. Implications are framed within broader contextual variables that may have been influential in producing the differences between the samples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks into the intercultural development of a cohort of 26 American students in Spain. Spain constitutes the third preferred world destination of American sojourners. Starting from an analysis of students' knowledge areas about the host culture, this study explores the relationship between intercultural knowledge and other dimensions of intercultural competence through students' journals. Results indicate that sojourners increase their knowledge of 13 areas of the host culture, especially of issues related to food and drink, daily life, house, and institutions and services. Data also reveals that the acquisition of and reflection on culture-specific knowledge instigates intercultural development by honing awareness of intercultural verbal and non-verbal communication and the processes inherent in adjustment to life in the host country, learning from experience, and critical stances. The paper concludes that informed and critical reflection on sojourners' experiences of otherness during study abroad, facilitated by an intercultural orientation program, favors positive attitudes towards the outgroup and enhances the intercultural attitudes of empathy, curiosity or willingness to adjust, along with the intercultural skills of communicative awareness, cultural awareness, awareness of the self and the other, action-taking, or suspending judgement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How could American students of intermediate French be the catalysts for a work of avant- garde French literature? This article centers on Le rendez- vous, an intermediate French- language textbook that combined a novel written by the French New Novelist Alain Robbe- Grillet with grammatical exercises written by Yvone Lenard, a prominent textbook author and instructor of French in the United States. Focusing on previously unexamined archives of this publication, from its release in America to the publication of Robbe- Grillet's novel in France under the title Djinn, the essay reveals an unknown literary history of transnational collaboration and exchange and places new emphasis on Robbe- Grillet's formative involvement with American higher education during his literary career. Through close reading of manuscript drafts and publishers' papers, the essay demonstrates how the dynamics of global publishing and shifting trends in language pedagogy aligned to condition the production of what would become Robbe- Grillet's most commercially successful novel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building on various models for intercultural and interreligious competence (IC/IR competence), this essay argues that classroom learning about religious and cultural diversity will engage students' "sociological imaginations" and lead to increased IC/IR competence. The current strategy for increasing intercultural competence (attitude, skills and knowledge, to be developed in that order) does not reflect best practices for educating about social difference. Instead, knowledge acquisition about other cultures and religions is the "front line" task for increasing alterity competence, and the liberal arts classroom can represent a "safe space" for learning about cultural and religious differences in a depersonalized, sociological manner. Supporting this argument are self‐assessments of IC/IR competence collected from primarily European and white American students enrolled in "Religions of the World" or "Intercultural Communications," allowing an analysis of IC/IR competence in light of the two distinct disciplines and contributing valuable data toward a broader theory of IC/IR pedagogy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of these notes is to generalize and extend a challenging geometry problem from a mathematics competition. The notes also contain solution sketches pertaining to the problems discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the impact of group composition (one-on-one vs. multiple-to-multiple) and task design (student-selected vs. teacher-assigned) on undergraduate foreign language learners' interactions in a mobile-based intercultural exchange. The participants, 27 Korean students learning English as a foreign language and 27 American students learning Korean as a foreign language, interacted in pairs and groups via mobile phones to complete weekly tasks for eight weeks. This study used mixed methods to analyze the data from mobile chat scripts, questionnaires, and interviews. The results indicated that the one-on-one and multiple-to-multiple groups did not differ significantly regarding contact frequency or number of written chats. However, one-on-one and multiple-to-multiple interactions did differ with regard to the quality of the interactions, reflecting the unique nature of each group composition. A one-on-one relationship promoted a higher level of intimacy and friendship, thus rendering it appropriate for providing linguistic and emotional support in learning foreign languages. In contrast, multiple-to-multiple communications were found to be more beneficial for learning about different perspectives on the target cultures. In terms of task design, teacher-assigned tasks guided students to engage in productive interactions effectively, whereas student-selected tasks elicited their personal investment in the tasks. Supporting social interdependence theory (Johnson & Johnson, 1989, 2009), we argue that the establishment of intimate relationships among group members may be the key to quality interactions in mobile-based intercultural exchanges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the current study, by drawing on the literature concerning peer deviance and criminological social learning theory, and on theory and research concerning cultural variability in uncertainty avoidance, we offer a rationale for predicting that peer deviance will be lower among Japanese than among Americans. The lower level of peer deviance among Japanese, in turn, might explain why crime and deviant behaviour are less common in Japan compared to the United States. Analyses of comparable survey data from college students in Japan and the United States (N = 1271) provide strong support for our hypothesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores academic stressors and achievement goal orientations of college students, and the relationship between these variables using academic stressors as predictors. As the number of English as a Second Language (ESL) international students has increased rapidly in the US, students’ status (American or ESL international) was also examined. A total of 715 students participated in the study from two universities in the US. Results show that ESL international and American students have different achievement goal orientations and academic stressors. Additionally, student status and academic stressors predict college students’ various goal orientations. The implications provide useful suggestions to higher education professionals in order to better understand and assist diverse students to succeed in academia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ambiguity, this paper argues, is not merely a property of dream imagery, but ignites a process that is dreaming thinking. When images are ambiguous, the mind cannot fix on a single meaning. Hence dream ambiguity catalyzes a play of possible meanings that implicitly raises questions, not only about personal memories but also about those cultural models that these memories evoke. Dream thinking, then, renders people's ongoing subjective reactions to culture into images. Through data from a 2004 to 2009 study of Northwest American student dreams and life histories, I propose that people think within dreams by representing daily ambivalences as visual ambiguities. Excerpts from this dream study illustrate seven types of visual ambiguity in dreams. Implicit in this taxonomy is a method of cultural dream interpretation that I present through an analysis of a full dream from a young man, Clarence. Through this analysis I show how ambiguities in Clarence's dream represent his ambivalence about an American masculinity model—one that may underlie the school shootings that are now so common in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Guided by the theories of cultural intelligence and social distance, the purpose of this quantitative non-experimental study was to determine whether first-year Americanborn college students' political party affiliations and cultural intelligence (CQ) relate to their self-reported social distances (SDs) from international students. One hundred and twenty-one first-year college students at a 4-year Midwestern university participated in this study. Regression analysis showed that political party affiliation (β = .194, t = 3.074, p = .003), metacognitive CQ (β = −.239, t = −.2.885, p = .005), motivational CQ (β = −.363, t = −4.225, p = .001), and behavioral CQ (β = −.215, t = −3.078, p = .003) of American-born college students were statistically significant predictors of their social distances from international peers. However, cognitive CQ (β = .009, t = .112, p = .911) was not a statistically significant predictor of social distance between these two groups of students. Recommendations for future examination of CQ and SD in the context of American higher education were provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study aimed at identifying the social and cultural perceptions of American students toward Arab international students at a Midwestern university. To achieve the objective, the researcher conducted individual interviews with 15 junior and/or senior American students in the business college (13 female and 2 male). Study participants were selected through purposeful sampling. The main questions led the study were: How do American students describe their social and cultural experiences with Arab students? And what factors influence their perceptions toward Arab international students? The results of the study indicated that most participants lacked accurate or in-depth knowledge about who Arabs are as an ethnic and cultural people. Participants held many misconceptions about Arabs and assumed they did not like to interact with Americans on campus due to some factors such as language barriers and cultural clustering. Because of these assumptions, Americans were hesitant to approach Arabs or build social relationships with them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates whether international teaching assistants (ITAs), compared to American teaching assistants (ATAs), lack any rapport norms that may affect their teaching effectiveness and, if yes, what may cause their lack of those teaching rapport norms. Based on the rapport management theory from Spencer-Oatey (2000, 2008), teaching rapport in this study is delineated in terms of valued attributes as well as rights and obligations of both teachers and students. The data of this study consists of one-on-one interviews with 9 ITAs and 11 ATAs in regard to their self-perceived teaching rapport work and norms. The information from the ITA group was elicited in both the contexts of their country of origin and America and that from the ATA group was only in the American context. The comparison of self-perceived teaching rapport norms between the two groups shows that like ATAs, ITAs are familiar with the norms of teacher and student rights and obligations in American teaching. However, different from ATAs, ITAs do not value other teacher and student attributes beyond their perceived obligations for each role. The differences between ITAs' self-perceived rapport work and norms in America and in their home country suggest that ITAs' lack of these rapport norms may be caused by their resistance to the expected instructor identity and/or their mixed feelings about how invested they should be in the expected instructor identity. The findings have pedagogical implications for ITA training, second language acquisition, and English for specific purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the many benefits associated with learning another language, multiple studies have indicated that students across nations have differing motivational profiles that leave them more or less interested in pursuing language learning. Understanding the motivational influences of language learners in different countries and cultures has the potential to help guide and shape curriculum that meets student needs and interests. In response, the researchers used a mixed methodology to investigate the motivational profile of 132 American students studying Spanish, 220 German and 184 Chinese students learning English, and 38 students from New Zealand studying German. Data collected from surveys and interviews suggested both many commonalities among the students with respect to their reasons for language study and what motivates them in their language classrooms, as well as a number of interesting differences. Foreign language teaching stakeholders should consider the results of the study when planning instruction, instructional materials, and programming in order to better meet the motivational profile of their students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This ethnographic case study examined the experiences of African American students within an urban school detracking reform initiative, which was intended to replace tracking practices through the institution of small schools. Over the course of a year, the researchers interviewed administrators, teachers, and students while gathering observational data from classrooms to explore the political nature of the reform and its impact on how students were viewed and treated by their teachers. Although this school reorganization aimed to expand opportunities for African American students, ultimately the data illustrated that restructuring efforts failed to change teachers' attitudes and academic expectations, thereby denying students equitable educations. We found colorblindness to be a key factor that informed teachers' persistent low expectations for students of color that reproduced tracking practices and inequitable opportunity structures in the smaller schools, thereby reinforcing the former stereotypes of low achievement for those students. This study calls for educators to challenge the racial ideologies of academic achievement, vis-a-vis teachers' colorblind expectations, through political, normative, and technical dimensions of change to actualize educational equity in urban schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To compensate for measurement issues in previous studies and to further test the utility of the social contact hypothesis, this mixed-methods study compared ethnocentric attitudes of American and international undergraduate students who participated in a semester-long collaboration with undergraduate students in a control group. The Generalized Ethnocentrism scale was used to measure the ethnocentrism levels of the 120 participants before and after the collaboration. Paired samples t tests were conducted to compare pre and post-test means. Qualitative data was also collected with open survey questions. Results reveal no significant differences in ethnocentrism levels as a result of the collaboration. However, qualitative findings indicate increased comfort levels and a desire for more frequent collaborative opportunities. Implications of the findings are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article describes the quality of science education from Moscow University in Russia. The American graduate students from the university gained two impressions of Russian education, including the emphasis on physical sciences and specialization. This resulted from the belief that the competition between a capitalist and socialist was more on science and technology. It provides a comparison on student programs, activities and finances and attitudes and study habits between the American and Russian students.

The article presents the historical and pedagogical aspects of American students’ life values problem. The scientific views of American scientists on the problem of life values are analyzed. The most common is the understanding of life’s values as the foundation on which everyone builds their own life; as the principles of life, which determine how one should behave; as a beliefthat occupies a central posi-tion in the individual’s system of beliefs. In different historical periods, the most im-portant life values of American youth were the ability to intercultural communi-cation, freedom of choice, professional competitiveness, family well-being. American methods of studying terminal and instrumental life values of students in the process of obtaining their education in higher educational institutions have been described. The following main terminal values of American students at the beginning of the twenty-first century are highlighted: the existence of a family, self development, freedom of choice (statements and activities), pluralism and democracy in public relations, patriotism and active social position, professionalism and compete-tiveness, financialsecurity, health and fitness. Attention is drawn to the following functions ofAmerican students’ life values: 1) orientational towards ideals and pat-terns of activity; 2) constructive about life strategies; 3) normative about behavior styles. Curricula and programs of American higher education institutions are aimed at developing the students’life values in the following areas: spiritual, mental, eth-nopsychological, humanistic-communicative, social socialization, socio-political, professional competence and competitiveness, culture of health and safety.

This research paper explores the conflict management styles of Saudi and American students who pursued their education in the United States. The researcher used online survey questionnaire for collecting data and 200 Saudi and American students participated in this study. The study utilized quantitative methods for analyzing the data collection. Findings showed that there were significant differences between the two groups in terms of conflict management styles. This slight variation was due to individualistic collectivistic cultural background. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background. Nowadays there is a lack of empirical research comparing psychological time in Russia and other countries. Nevertheless, identification of national differences of time perception and time attitudes is important in that such research allows scientists to understand the how the populations of different nations differ in terms of consciousness and behavior. Objective. Based on A.R. Luria's postulate on cultural conditionality of mentality, the current study compared scores between students living in the USA and those living in Russia on an instrument designed to measure a global aspect of psychological time--thinking perspective [8, 9]. Design. Two hundred and forty-five Russia students (65% female) studying at the programs of a bachelor degree, aged from 18 up to 23 years participated in this research. The 45-item long form of the MTPI was translated into Russian and adapted on Russian sample. Scores on Past, Present, and Future thinking were compared between the Russian sample and previously collected data (American and global samples). Results. Russian students scores were highest on Past thinking (M = 72.71), followed by Present thinking (M = 69.49), followed by Future thinking (M = 60.85). Past thinking was the dominant thinking perspective of the Russian students, It manifests in individuals as a sensitivity to the presence of potentially negative environmental stimuli; a propensity to avoid risks; principled, judicious, reflective, and thoughtful decision making; a cautious, skeptical outlook on life; and a propensity to experience psychological distress, such as depression and anxiety. Scores on Future thinking for the Russian undergraduate sample were markedly lower than the other samples. Future thinking refers to the extent to which individuals imagine possible future scenarios and engage in visionary big-picture thinking that is often at odds with or divergent from prevailing social norms. Conclusion. Regarding the cultural comparison, we learned that there are clear differences in Future thinking with respect to the Russian and American and Global populations. These findings are consistent with R. A. Luria's idea of the conditionality the culture on mental activity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]