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This paper presents an example of transformative learning afforded to social work students participating in an international study program between United States and Germany focusing on Genocide and the Holocaust. Using epistemic justice as a frame, it foregrounds the experience of a Black female social work student who was the target of microaggressions while abroad and highlights the critical theories, such as critical consciousness, critical realism, and intersectionality, used to help students reflect on and make meaning of their experiences. Through self-reflection and sustained dialogue, the experience offers examples of how students were engaged in a learning process that enabled them to become critically aware of the various individual and social forces that impact the lived experience of others. It also demonstrates how examining past issues of social injustice and oppression can be central to transformational learning about agency and advocacy in the modern day. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Health Information National Trends Survey (HINTS) is a well-established U.S.-based research program administered by the National Cancer Institute to track the public access to and use of health information. This paper introduces a German research initiative, part of the International Studies to Investigate Global Health Information Trends (INSIGHTS) research consortium. This adaptation of the HINTS is important for initiating analyses of global health communication practices and comparing health information seeking behaviors (HISB) across nations to pinpoint potentials and challenges of health information provision and contribute to a deeper understanding of socio-contextual determinants of HISB. First cross-country comparisons revealed that the share of residents seeking for health information is high in the U.S. (80%) and Germany (74%), but different primary sources are used. Whereas a clear majority of U.S. residents chose the Internet to gather health information (74.9%), Germans most often turn to health professionals (48.0%). Socio-structural and health(care)-related predictors were found to contribute to the explanation of HISB in both countries, whereas information-related predictors were only relevant in Germany. The results indicate the need to engage in patient-provider communication to initiate HISB and to improve the access to information for residents with lower socio-economic backgrounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Negotiations over wages have always been a central part of industrial relations in capitalist economies. The unstable value of money in the 19th and 20th centuries has made these negotiations both crucial and complex. Linking contemporary understandings of monetary values to wage bargaining provides an important historical background for a better understanding of real wage developments and the agency of workers. Adopting a comparative perspective, this paper discusses how managers and workers dealt with changing monetary values in Germany and the United States from the 1870s to the immediate aftermath of the First World War. The paper also discusses the extent to which actors understood the instability of their respective currencies' purchasing power and whether their perceptions changed over time. The paper reveals that negotiations were never exclusively shaped and guided by concepts such as inflation or the 'cost of living' in both countries but that the importance of the concepts changed with the level of price fluctuations and institutional setting. Indices could achieve a dominant role only in exceptional circumstances due to their artificial and contestable nature, their neglect of the complexity of workers' job contexts and living environments, and their normative implications concerning wage demands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents abstracts of medical education, which include the use of games as teaching tools in surgical residency, computer-based testing of the modified essay question and the joint U.S.-German collaboration project in medical education.

This paper compares the prevalence and age-specific changes of coresidence patterns, by means of a classification of 12 coresidence types, for the age range from 16 to 30 in the United States (US), Germany (GE), Taiwan (TW), and mainland China (CN). Panel data were used in separate nested logistic regression models to estimate transitions in coresidence for individuals in each society in the transition to adulthood. On the first level, decisions to move from different types of family-of-origin-households were modeled, depending on intergenerational solidarity and parental resources. On the second level, target household types were modeled, depending on others' trajectory events and their interaction with gender. The analysis used the National Longitudinal Study of Youth (NLSY97) from the United States, the German Family Panel (pairfam), the Taiwanese Youth Project (TYP), and the China Family Panel Studies (CFPS). Age-specific coresidence patterns were pooled and transitions probabilities were estimated for a two-year period. The systematic comparative approach makes it possible to correct misinterpretations based on analyses from single societies. Our results demonstrated that differences in coresidence patterns within the patrilineal, collectivistic societies (CN and TW), and within the bilineal, individualistic societies (US and GE) were as important as the differences between these two groups of societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on contemporary press articles and applying a comparative methodology, this study examines the responses of important British and American quality papers to the unfolding of Nazi anti-Semitism from September 1930 until April 1933. Besides reconstructing and comparing the press coverage, the study seeks to explain the patterns beneath the journalistic perceptions and interpretations of Nazi anti-Semitism in the liberal democracies. During the final years of the Weimar Republic the papers reported fully and critically on Nazi anti-Semitism, yet they underestimated its radical nature. The extent of the assault on the Jews following Hitler's seizure of power therefore surprised British and American observers. Between 30 January 1933 and the anti-Jewish boycott of 1 April 1933 the journalists struggled to grasp the nature of Nazi anti-Semitism and the role of Hitler therein. Ultimately, their reading of events in Germany was preconditioned by their own liberal democratic outlook. Even if they reached differing conclusions, they were united in their conviction that Hitler and the Nazis would not dare to continue their anti-Semitic campaign in the face of adverse ‘world opinion’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The paper examines the intellectual and structural change that German economics experienced after the Second World War. This development often was described as ‘Americanisation’, since it seemed to rest upon the influences of the American occupation regime. In contrast, the paper applies another meaning of ‘Americanisation’. It is considered a ‘discourse’ that serves to structure the disciplinary procedures to produce progress. As it can be shown by the adoption of Keynesianism and neoclassical microeconomics, the change of the discipline was not primarily driven by direct American influences. Rather, in some respect the German reception took a path of its own. That contradiction can be solved by a theoretical modification of the classical concept of ‘Americanisation’. ‘Americanisation’ there meant a change of the operational procedure of German economics to generate progress. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The paper engages in a brief expose of responses to terrorist acts in mainstream (Western) music. In particular, this paper compares and contrasts the (West) German response to the RAF (Red Army Faction) between the years of 1968 and 1977 and the American music response to the terrorist attacks against the United States on September 11, 2001. The argument is advanced here that in both American and German society a left-oriented bastion of musicians show sympathy, and in some rare instances support, for these terrorist movements. The biggest difference between these two cultures is the existence of a pro-government, right-oriented country music scene in America. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Bureaucratic Politics Model (BPM) is usually employed to explain crisis decision-making in US foreign policy. Proponents of the model argue, however, that its explanatory scope also encompasses non-crisis decision-making in domestic political issues in parliamentary systems. This paper takes up this claim and applies the BPM to the reform of the German Federal Criminal Police Office. In line with the BPM's predictions, the paper finds that the policy preferences of the key actors were indeed strongly influenced by their bureaucratic position and the outcome of the decision-making process was a compromise solution. However, the model cannot account for the impact of two non-executive institutions, that is, the Federal Constitutional Court and the Bundesrat, on the executive bargaining process. This finding suggests that the BPM could be an even better analytical tool if it were expanded to systematically incorporate the influence of non-bureaucratic actors into its framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on a research study of the long-term effects of a high school home-stay experience for German and American students who participated in the Youth For Understanding program in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. With emphasis on the German sample, this paper (1) briefly describes the study's methodology, (2) provides an overview of major findings, and (3) poses the question: what next? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper will give a short outline of the project DDC German. The project is not limited to a mere translation of DDC 22, but aims at the implementation of Dewey in the library networks of the German-language countries. Use of DDC mainly for retrieval purposes, not for shelving, leads to certain new approaches in classifying with Dewey which are described in detail and presented together with the German web service Melvil. Based on the German experience of cooperation and data exchange in the field of verbal indexing, the paper develops some ideas on future Dewey cooperation between European and American libraries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although literature emphasizes the importance of creating value for the customer in business-to-business marketing, our under- standing of this concept is limited. Against this background, this paper examines the antecedents of customer value within the context of business-to-business relationships. In a departure from previous conceptualizations of value, the paper introduces the concept of core benefits and add-on benefits as well as purchasing price, acquisition costs, and operations costs to the business-to-business marketing literature. The impact of product, relational, and supplier characteristics on the perceived benefits and sacrifices are examined. Results from a survey of 981 purchasing managers across multiple manufacturing product categories in the United States and in Germany provide support for the hypotheses proposed in this paper. Managerial implications and directions for future research are identified following a discussion of the results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The intention of this paper is to analyse why people go to war, despite the, at first sight, divergence between benefits and costs. This paper provides a comparison of the willingness to go to war in different OECD countries using World Values Survey data. The empirical findings in the United States, Switzerland, Spain, Sweden and West Germany, using the willingness to fight as a dependent variable, indicate that such factors as pride, trust, and political ideology significantly influence individuals' willingness to go to war. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is based on a doctoral dissertation that examined various aspects of Holocaust education in two societies: the United States and Germany. This cross-national, ethnographic study attempted to shed light on the way in which the history of the Holocaust is taught in Germany. The observations made in this study are based on a longitudinal study of a 3[SUPrd] grade classroom in a New Jersey school. Rather than concentrating on the results of the dissertation, this paper discusses issues related to cross-national studies such as: analyzing US Holocaust Education as a German researcher (an outsider), communication between a German researcher and a US Teacher, and the relevance of the American Experience for German elementary school pedagogy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes reactions in the German publication Der Spiegel to the attacks of September 11. The paper starts by describing the live reporting in the German media and then analyzes the Der Spiegel edition of September 15. The aim is to give an idea of how European journalists handled the situation and how different conclusions developed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares recent developments in income inequality in Canada, Germany, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In addition to describing cross-national variation in changes in income inequality, the paper examines different explanatory factors for these recent developments. The findings reported indicate that there is substantial cross-national variation, not only with regard to the level of inequality, but furthermore with regard to changes in inequality. The results indicate that the equalizing effect of welfare state redistribution did not decrease in all countries. By contrast, in all countries there was a universal tendency towards increased inequality in the pre-tax and transfer distribution, although the magnitude of the change differs from country to country. Even though a polarization of the earnings distribution is reported, the results still give no support to cross-national convergence with regard to income inequality during the 1980s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT This paper will focus on the use of longitudinal micro data and the potential of household panel studies. Beginning with a brief discussion of methodological issues of the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) results of cross-national comparisons are presented. Research findings from a comparative analysis of the process and outcomes of the school-to-work transition are presented, showing that substantial differences in transition patterns persist between Germany and the United States. A typology of labour mobility is presented to discuss the differences of the overall active labour force participation in West and East Germany and the UK. The findings indicate that West Germany shows a significant higher job stability for men and women. The paper closes with some recommendations for feasible further comparative analysis with an integrated longitudinal data archive of household panels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This case study documents the news reporting of Edward J. Meeman (1889–1966), who was among the first reporters from the Scripps-Howard newspaper chain to visit Germany after the Nazis consolidated their power in the summer of 1933. The completeness of the record surrounding Meeman's month-long visit makes his reporting from Germany an excellent way to examine the issues that visiting US journalists faced in the earliest days of the Nazi dictatorship and the quality of information they could obtain about the regime. This paper, in particular, contributes to our understanding of how much of Nazi Germany's anti-Semitic foundations were evident to visiting American journalists in 1933. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines the effect of absurd advertising on memory and persuasion across cultures. Drawing on Hofstede's cultural dimensions, it is hypothesized that the effect of absurdity on recall is culturally invariant, whereas the effect on attitude toward the ad is contingent on the recipients’ cultural orientation. The assumptions are tested using a between-subjects experimental design, in which we manipulated type of absurdity and used the cultural dimensions as blocking variables. Data was collected from 274 students in the United States, Germany, Russia, and China. We discuss theoretical and managerial implications of these findings as well as guidelines for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper first provides a brief review of trends in public transport demand from 1980 to 2010 in 16 countries in Europe, North America, and Australia. The focus, however, is on a detailed analysis of public transport demand in Germany and the USA, using uniquely comparable national travel surveys from 2001/2002 and 2008/2009 for both countries. Public transport has been far more successful in Germany than in the USA, with much greater growth in overall passenger volumes and trips per capita. Even controlling for differences between the countries in demographics, socio-economics, and land use, logistic regressions show that Germans are five times as likely as Americans to use public transport. Moreover, public transport in Germany attracts a much broader cross-section of society and for a greater diversity of trip purposes. The success of German public transport is due to a coordinated package of mutually supportive policies that include the following: (1) more and better service, (2) attractive fares and convenient ticketing, (3) full multimodal and regional integration, (4) high taxes and restrictions on car use, and (5) land-use policies that promote compact, mixed-use developments. It is the integrated package of complementary policies that explains why public transport in Germany can compete so well with the private car, even among affluent households. Conversely, it is the lack of complementary policies that explains the continuing struggle of public transport in the USA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Asylum seekers and refugees tend to be marginalized in physical and discursive spaces, especially in times that are orchestrated as socially, politically, financially and environmentally risky. This article explores the interrelationship between genre and social space from the perspective of asylum seekers and refugees, and how refugees and asylum seekers in the USA, Germany and Hong Kong exposed spaces of risk through testimonio (testimonio is a genre term used throughout the paper and will be explained later). Asylum seekers and refugees testified to social practices like lengthy asylum processes, immobility, criminalization of asylum seekers, or distrust by locals in virtual space and in face-to-face encounters. Testimonio, thus, reflected on social practices and through this reflection, exposed spaces of risk that threatened the well-being of forced migrants. However, asylum seekers did not dwell in those spaces of risk. By publishing testimonios in virtual environments, some asylum seekers became agents of their biographies and created spaces in which they could voice themselves on their own terms. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Increasingly, faculty members are rewarded financially for prestige-maximizing publications. As a result, the balance between publishing and other activities such as teaching or public service may collapse, as argued by Leisyte, Enders, and de Boer (2009). In our paper, we focus on career-related rewards and study their impact on publication productivity to see whether economic incentives do indeed affect faculty behavior, as measured empirically. We compare economic incentives resulting from two different career systems, namely those within the German and the U.S. university systems. We derive three hypotheses regarding expected publication patterns and test them by comparing the lifetime publication patterns of German and U.S. business and economics faculty members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Strong societal requirements and consumer acceptance are the driving force of nanotechnology development. The necessity for qualified experts and strong demand on education in the multi-, trans- and interdisciplinary field of nanotechnology is a logical consequence of this driving force. There is the need for a comprehensive national skill-needs-identification study as a first step towards developing the appropriate workforce and to prevent any skill gap or shortage. This paper provides an analytical overview of skill needs and human resources development for the emerging fields of nanotechnology and gives recommendations for further research. Emphasis is placed on the role of vocational educational training (VET) in skill development for nanotechnology. Evidence review and secondary analysis of the literature are used as the methodological approach. A comparative analysis of approaches to nanotechnology workforce development in Germany and the United States is done. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Transatlantic Orientation Exchange/Multiplikatorenschulung im transatlan-tischen Austausch is a collaboration between volunteers and staff in both the US and German AFS organizations. The goal of the project is to increase the level of intercultural learning of German and US secondary education exchange participants and their host families. Germany and the US are among the largest country groups in mutual exchanges within the network: every year around 450 American families host a student from Germany and around 100 German families welcome somebody from the USA. The project was conceived in part as a result of a paradigm shift within AFS in which participants and host family members are now viewed as equal partners in the intercultural learning process. The material presented in this paper was developed in a dialogue process between the work groups in both countries who met virtually and in person multiple times over the course of the project. This construct allowed for group members to engage in a parallel process of intercultural learning and discovery as they identified and applied to their own experience the concepts that would be useful to host families and participants in their respective countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By comparing the US environmental justice movement with recent European developments, this paper suggests an environmental justice framework which is based on the idea of environmental justice as a heterogeneous process rather than an analytical or normative category. Using major debates on environmental justice particularly in the UK and Germany as a touchstone, eight dimensions of environmental justice are carved out and integrated into a processual model. It is discussed how environmental justice as a process may become robust enough to integrate and react to changing natural and social conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to evaluate which mode of birth first-time mothers in Germany and in the USA prefer and how this desire is related to maternal well-being and sense of coherence. The paper describes emotional well-being postpartum in relationship to mode of birth. For data collection a prospective cohort study was conducted in both countries. A self-administered questionnaire including validated instruments (WHO-5 Well-Being Index, Sense of Coherence Scale and Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale) was used. Results showed that only a few of the pregnant women in Germany and the USA preferred to deliver by caesarean section. There was a relationship between women's well-being, women's sense of coherence and the preferred mode of birth. The majority of women who wanted a caesarean section delivered in this way. No relationship was found between women's well-being and the type of birth experienced. Well-being in both samples generally decreased after giving birth, but there was a difference between German and American first-time mothers on the postpartum well-being and depression scores. German mothers had a higher postnatal quality of life and lower postnatal depression scores. To give families the opportunity for a healthy start, midwives and obstetricians should try to enhance women's well-being and they should give some thought to health professionals' decision-making processes. Expanded postpartum care might have an impact on women's depression scores. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Regional financial arrangements and monetary integration in East Asia and Europe have made considerable progress in recent years. This paper discusses whether governments in both regions, Japan and Germany as the most advanced regional economies in particular, can use the new dynamics as levers to raise their status vis-à-vis the United States. It will be argued that activities are defensive rather than offensive, aiming at protecting the respective region from financial risk. Japan, in particular, would find it difficult to raise its status vis-à-vis the United States significantly by promoting regional financial and monetary integration, principal reasons being actor heterogeneity, the role of China, hesitation to bear burden and risk, and the historical legacy of a bank-oriented system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the paradox that although the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has reached a broad consensus, various governments pursue different, if not opposing policies. This puzzle not only challenges the traditional belief that scientific knowledge is objective and can be more or less directly translated into political action, but also calls for a better understanding of the relation between science and public policy in modern society. Based on the conceptual framework of knowledge politics the use of expert knowledge in public discourse and in political decisions will be analysed. This will be carried out through a country comparison between the United States and Germany. The main finding is that the press in both countries relies on different sources of scientific expertise when reporting on global warming. In a similar way, governments in both countries use these different sources for legitimising their contrasting policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares the planning process in Germany and the United States. We note fundamental institutional and structural differences between the two countries and discuss recent trends and patterns. Contrary to the US, planning in Germany is mediated through a vertically integrated and consensus-oriented institutional framework. In response to the socio-economic consequences of unification and European integration, German planning has experimented with new regional associations. In the US, concerns over sprawl have led to increased state-level planning and intervention. We conclude that these trends are in response to different circumstances and are subject to different institutional constraints. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I identify whether budgets in Denmark, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States are punctuated and investigate the variation in budget punctuations over time. Building on stochastic process methods, I find that budgets in all four cases exhibit mostly incremental changes punctuated by extreme shifts. In order to explain variation in budget punctuations over time, I rely on two models: partisan control of government and partisan distance of the assembly. The two models are tested using national budgetary data across all government functions for the four countries from the mid-1960s to 1989. I find that greater distance in strength and ideology among parties leads to increases in the degree of punctuations in the German and the British cases, whereas there is some evidence for the partisan control model in the American cases. In the Danish cases, partisan distance reduces the degree of budget punctuations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the key findings of the first comparative survey of online journalists in the United States and Germany. It is based on a sub-sample of the latest American journalist study and the study "Online Journalists in Germany." The article develops the objectives of the studies and explicates the methodology, and it presents key findings on basic characteristics of online journalists, jobs and tasks in online journalism, and the professional views and attitudes of Web journalists in the United States and Germany. The comparisons show some striking differences between American and German online journalists. Their basic characteristics, levels of professionalization and role perceptions are more different than expected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to compare the relationships that exist between computer use and science achievement for 15-year-old students in the USA and Germany, based on data from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA). The results of this study show that what has an effect on science achievement is the way in which computers are used. The results indicated that students who used computers frequently at home, including for writing papers, tended to have higher science achievement. Students who had frequent availability of computers at school, who used them at that location, and who frequently used computers for programming had lower levels of science achievement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares the regulation of biotechnology in Britain, Germany and the United States and shows that systematic differences have developed around four issues: abortion, assisted reproduction, stem cells, and genetically modified crops and foods. Policy choices with respect to these issues reflect the capacity of each nation's regulatory institutions to deal with the scientific, social and ethical uncertainties around biotechnology. National regulatory frameworks constitute an apparatus of collective sense-making through which governments and publics interpret biotechnology's risks and promises. Specifically, regulatory choices position the novel ontologies created by biotechnology either on the side of the familiar and manageable or on the side of the unknown and insupportably risky. The comparison shows that public responses to biotechnology are embedded within robust and coherent political cultures and are not ad hoc expressions of concern that vary unpredictably from issue to issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The city of West Berlin was of supreme importance to the United States and the Federal Republic of Germany in their effort to fight the Cold War during the 1950s. Only by utilizing billions of dollars and (later on) Deutschmarks could the city survive in its isolated position east of the Iron Curtain. The reasons for, and the particulars of, American aid during the first years after the Berlin airlift is described in this paper as well as the West German aid, which began to replace direct American support in the middle of the 1950s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Utilizing the analogy of violence to a volcano, with its seething preconditions that ultimately lead to an eruption, this paper applies negotiated order theory to an analysis of violent outbreaks in 1992-93 in Los Angeles and numerous German cities but not in Chicago, New York, or Dresden. Such theoretical considerations as assumptions, perceptions, power relationships, social structure, communication, and interaction strategies emerge as pertinent considerations. Despite different cultures and histories, similar patterns in Germany and the United States are found, suggesting one possible means of proactive steps to prevent violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]