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Applying a socio-spatial perspective, this study examines the ethnoreligious identities of Turkish immigrant parents in Germany within home--school--society relational spaces. A total of 22 qualitative interviews with parents of children aged 3-6 years or 8-12 years were conducted and analyzed using content analysis. The findings show that parents construct a home space by adopting religious congruence with or separation from school and societal spaces based on their ethnoreligious identities. The inclusive or exclusive school and societal spaces reproduce each other and, in turn, shape parental identities that influence beliefs and practices related to ethnoreligious upbringing within the home space. Besides contributing to the spatial perspective in educational research, this study has implications for policy and practice.

University graduates are required to possess intercultural competence in addition to strong academic skills in today's globalized world. Although such competence has been defined in various theoretical models by intercultural scholars, it remains unknown how the recipients of higher education (the students) define this concept. A total of 130 undergraduate university students (from Western and non-Western cultures), living on a multicultural campus, provided short qualitative responses to a written question on how they define intercultural competence. According to a qualitative content analysis, the students defined intercultural competence in terms of interaction, communication, and cultural harmony. Unlike intercultural scholars, the students placed more emphasis on the understanding and awareness of other cultures rather than focusing on their own culture. It appears that young university students from multicultural backgrounds consider tolerance and collective harmony as the most important components of intercultural competence in their initial stages of intercultural development.

University education is increasingly becoming international. Therefore, it is important that universities prepare their new students for the challenges of an intercultural academic environment. The aim of the current study was to quantitatively evaluate the effectiveness of an intercultural peer-to-peer training offered to all new incoming students at Jacobs University Bremen, Germany. The training aims to facilitate the social and academic integration of students at this international university. A total of 117 first-year undergraduate students completed a pen-and-paper questionnaire with 47 items one semester (6 months) after attending the intercultural training. The results suggest that participants liked the structure of the training and the use of senior students as peer trainers. It appears that the training improved the awareness of the effects of culture (own and other) on the social life of students. However, the training was less adequate at preparing the participants for the student-centered academic culture at this university. In light of its cost-effectiveness, the intercultural training could be easily adopted for use at other universities as part of the campus-wide orientation activities. However, regardless of their culture, all new university students require more assistance to academically adapt to and succeed in multicultural classrooms.

Western scholarship has underlined the relevance of social identity, perceived efficacy, emotions, and cost–benefit assessments as central catalysts of collective action. Little has been done to understand the context‐sensitivity of these catalysts by means of cross‐culturally comparative designs. The current study explores their context‐sensitivity. It aims to find out whether existing opportunity structures in a democratic, nonrepressive country like Germany produce catalysts of collective action different from those produced in an autocratic, repressive country like Turkey. It also aims to understand the role of social media in mobilizing people in these two contexts. Semistandardized interviews with activists were carried out in both countries (n = 18 in Germany and n = 15 in Turkey) and analyzed by means of a cross‐culturally comparative inductive coding procedure including initial and focused coding. Results show that collective action is related to different configurations of collective‐action catalysts in the two countries. Solidarity concerns at the face of existential risks are more pronounced in Turkey, whereas political‐change concerns are more important in Germany. The role of social media accordingly differs, adhering to the different activist goals. Theoretical implications for the role of context in studying collective action are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on the psychology of the Internet and social media (POISM) is characterized by a heavy methodological compartmentalization. In the current contribution we show empirically that 1. quantitative methods constitute the preferred gold standard of the field's mainstream (favored over qualitative and mixed methods), 2. the field is divided into separate communities of practice (psychology, communication, cultural/media studies), each with their own type of causal claims and associated methods. To show this we content analyze published articles in 2020 across six pertinent POISM journals for instances of quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods as well as regularity-type versus subjective meaning-type causal logic. We find that regularity-type causal logic is at the center of quantitative research practices in psychology and communication, while qualitative subjective meaning-type causal logic is adopted by scholars in cultural/media studies, with hardly any overlap in between, and only few mixed methods studies. To describe how the research area would profit from mixed methods approaches, we subsequently present a mixed methods study about social media-based integration patterns of Korean and Turkish-heritage individuals in Germany. We conclude by dissolving some of the exclusive stereotyped notions of causality and methods in POISM research and suggest avenues for methodologically more inclusive practices of inquiry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By applying a relational spatial approach, we examine how Turkish-origin mothers in Germany perceive and experience socio-spatial segregation and how they relate this issue to the quality of education received by their (pre-)school-age children. Socio-spatial segregation is examined using the concept of 'space', to interpret not just physical but also symbolic boundaries perceived at the intersections of school and society. To explore the mothers' subjective perceptions, qualitative interviews with 22 mothers were conducted and analysed using qualitative content analysis. The findings indicate that mothers who live in immigrant-dense neighbourhoods criticise the quality of education in their children's schools. Some of these mothers also state their worries regarding the exclusion or 'Germanisation' of their children in ethnic German majority schools. Strategies for selecting appropriate places of residence and school for the family, considering social and ethnic composition, are mentioned among respondents – rendering diversity both beneficial and problematic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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