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A 2-week community health clinical experience in Ghana, Africa, provided undergraduate nursing students a study abroad opportunity to expand their cross-cultural skills. Journal entries ( N = 512) of four cohorts were analyzed for common themes using Atlas.ti 7 in this descriptive qualitative study. No emphasis was placed on how to cope with cultural shock in Ghana, nor any attempt made to teach effective coping skills during the trips. Bochner’s ABC cultural learning response model provided the framework for grouping themes. Positive coping skills included the need for control, humor, normalizing, and reframing as well as a need for a break and relaxation. Venting, frustration, and physical ailments were coded as negative responses to culture shock. Due to these findings, student preparation for short-term study abroad should include discussions on effective coping with culture shock during orientation sessions and on-going debriefing.

Les évènements tragiques du mois de mai 1992 ont placé la Thaïlande sous le feu des projecteurs. Au pays des Mille Sourires, des appelés ont tiré à bout portant sur des jeunes cadres qui manifestaient leur refus de voir un général imposé à la tête d'un gouvernement issu des élections. De nombreux manifestants avaient déjà vécu, en tant qu'étudiants, la répression sanglante de 1976. L'émergence d'une classe moyenne est en Thaïlande, comme ailleurs en Asie, l'une des principales manifestations ...

Les auteurs de ce livre essaient de jeter un regard lucide sur plusieurs pays d’Asie et d’Amérique latine en pesant les atouts et les handicaps au-delà des phénomènes conjoncturels.

Background: Reflective journaling has been widely used as an education tool. Minimal research has occurred to determine whether prompted or open format journaling nurtures cultural competence.Methods: The efficacy of journal prompts as a pedagogical tool was assessed in this descriptive study. Undergraduate nursing students (N = 49) reflected on their clinical experiences during 2-week trips to Ghana over 4 years (2013-2016). The 1st, 2nd and 4th trip, students were assigned open reflective journaling. The 3rd trip, students were given prompted questions to answer. Entries were coded using Atlas.ti 7.Results: The prompted format produced shorter entries with less rich and reflective substance. Some entries only allowed for two codes. Unprompted entries provided up to 28 codes.Conclusions: During cross-cultural encounters, unprompted journaling may produce the richest results. When prompts are used, the format needs to be carefully selected to facilitate transformative learning.

Each year, more than two million people die from diarrhea-associated diseases. Although there is a global need for safe drinking water, culturally appropriate health teaching is essential to behavior change. This study evaluated the impact of a health education program in a small rural community in Cameroon. Flash cards and a modified version of the CDC-KPC 2000 survey were used to collect data in 57 homes. Children who lived in households with working Manz BioSand filters were less likely to have had diarrhea in the 2 weeks prior to the evaluation. There remained a gap between health knowledge and healthy behaviors for hand hygiene and malaria prevention. This gap was significant in the diarrheal treatment (McNemar’s test, p < .000). The interdisciplinary program and 7-year time frame were crucial to sustainability. Faculty and students learned the importance of pairing service learning and research that respect local cultures in fostering a healthier global community.

How close is the Tanzanian-Chinese partnership today? Bi-lateral trade and Chinese economic presence in Tanzania are much bigger than in the 1970s; China’s “no strings attached” policy is still attractive; political solidarities and military co-operation have remained quite strong. However, this bi-lateral relationship does not have the importance, nor the exclusiveness it enjoyed in the heydays of socialism. Today, China must compete economically, politically and culturally, with the activism and soft power of a larger group of countries, particularly the United States. Although both in Dar es Salaam and in Beijing this relationship has remained presented as “special”, it has lost the structural role that it had until the late 1970s in shaping Sino-African relations. Instead, particularly since the mid-2000s, it is rather the growing Sino-American and Sino-Western competition in Africa that has structured Tanzania’s foreign policy, convincing Tanzania to adopt what we would call a “mild hedging strategy” towards China and helping it, at least to some extent, to better defend its own interests.