We examine children's cognitive skills and cultural representations in naturally occurring discourse, integrating theoretical perspectives from psychology, cognitive anthropology, and sociolinguistics. We focus on two interactional events recorded in our 10-year study of children's language socialization in Kwara'ae involving the same child at ages 2 and 4 years interacting with an older child and an adult, respectively, around routine tasks. In both cases a potentially serious cultural anomaly that challenges the children's own constructions of cultural models tests their strategic creativity (...) and agency in negotiating an outcome. The resulting discourse reveals how they are construing and modeling culture in a time of rapid social change. (shrink)

Using the theoretical constructs “biographical disruption” and “limit experience” and also methodological frameworks from autoethnography and discourse analysis, we discuss the divergent ways in which language and healing are conceptualized and performed, first in an American medical clinic and then by traditional healers in Kwara‘ae (Solomon Islands). Discourses at the Dallas clinic draw on allopathic and complementary medicine and in emphasizing a scientific approach to talk about illness and treatment, were found to create ambiguity in patients’ sense of their (...) physical and metaphysical identities. In contrast, Kwara‘ae healing involves disappearing into silence, in which the physical and metaphysical are never separated, and where healing occurs. (shrink)

Kwŏnil chʻŏn. Kibon wŏlli pʻyŏn -- kwŏni chi. Chŭksa ihwa pʻyŏn -- kwŏnsam in. Pulcha haengdŭng pʻyŏn.

This Korean study replicated a previously published American study. The conceptual framework and method combined ethical enquiry and phenomenology. The research questions were: (1) What is nursing students’ experience of ethical problems involving nursing practice? and, (2) What is nursing students’ experience of using an ethical decision-making model? The participants were 97 senior baccalaureate nursing students, each of whom described one ethical problem and chose to use one of five ethical decision-making models. From 97 ethical problems, five content categories emerged, (...) the largest being health professionals (69%). The basic nature of the ethical problems was the students’ experience of conflict, resolution and rationale. Using an ethical decision-making model helped 94% of the students. A comparison of the Korean and American results yields important implications for nursing ethics education, practice and research. (shrink)