A masterpiece in intercultural training! Exploring Culture brings Geert Hofstede's five dimensions of national culture to life. Gert Jan Hofstede and his co-authors Paul Pedersen and Geert Hofstede introduce synthetic cultures, the ten "pure" cultural types derived from the extremes of the five dimensions. The result is a playful book of practice that is firmly rooted in theory. Part light, part serious, but always thought-provoking, this unique book approaches training through the three-part process of building awareness, knowledge, and skills. It leads the reader through the first two components with more than 75 activities, dialogues, stories, and incidents. The Synthetic Culture Laboratory and two full simulations fulfill the skill-building component. Exploring Culture is suitable for students, trainers, coaches and educators. It can be used for individual study or as a text, and it serves as an excellent partner to Geert Hofstede's popular Cultures and Organizations.

A study of Everquest that provides a snapshot of multiplayer gaming culture, questions the truism that computer games are isolating and alienating, and offers insights into broader issues of work and play, gender identity, technology, and commercial culture. In Play Between Worlds, T. L. Taylor examines multiplayer gaming life as it is lived on the borders, in the gaps—as players slip in and out of complex social networks that cross online and offline space. Taylor questions the common assumption that playing computer games is an isolating and alienating activity indulged in by solitary teenage boys. Massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs), in which thousands of players participate in a virtual game world in real time, are in fact actively designed for sociability. Games like the popular Everquest, she argues, are fundamentally social spaces. Taylor's detailed look at Everquest offers a snapshot of multiplayer culture. Drawing on her own experience as an Everquest player (as a female Gnome Necromancer)—including her attendance at an Everquest Fan Faire, with its blurring of online—and offline life—and extensive research, Taylor not only shows us something about games but raises broader cultural issues. She considers "power gamers," who play in ways that seem closer to work, and examines our underlying notions of what constitutes play—and why play sometimes feels like work and may even be painful, repetitive, and boring. She looks at the women who play Everquest and finds they don't fit the narrow stereotype of women gamers, which may cast into doubt our standardized and preconceived ideas of femininity. And she explores the questions of who owns game space—what happens when emergent player culture confronts the major corporation behind the game.

First published in the United States of America in 2016 by Cognella, Inc.

Cultural Psychology draws upon major psychological topics, theories, and principles to illustrate the importance of culture in psychological inquiry. Exploring how culture broadly connects to psychological processing across diverse cultural communities and settings, it highlights the applied nature of cultural psychology to everyday life events and situations, presenting culture as a complex layer in which individuals acquire skills, values, and abilities. Two central positions guide this textbook: one, that culture is a mental and physical construct that individuals live, experience, share, perform, and learn; and the second, that culture shapes growth and development. Culture-specific and cross-cultural examples highlight connections between culture and psychological phenomena. The text is multidisciplinary, highlighting different perspectives that also study how culture shapes human phenomena. Topics include an introduction to cultural psychology, the history of cultural psychology, cultural evolution and cultural ecology, methods, language and nonverbal communication, cognition, and perception. Through coverage of social behaviour, the book challenges students to explore the self, identity, and personality; social relationships, social attitudes, and intergroup contact in a global world; and social influence, aggression, violence, and war. Sections addressing growth and development include human development and its processes, transitions, and rituals across the lifespan, and socializing agents, socialization practices, and child activities. Additionally, the book features discussions of emotion and motivation, mental health and psychopathology, and future directions for cultural psychology. Chapters contain teaching and learning tools including case studies, multidisciplinary contributions, thought-provoking questions, class and experiential activities, chapter summaries, and additional print and media resources.

The impact of disasters and crises on culture, heritage, and religious tourism, have been realized in recent years, creating a need for solutions to heal and prevent future damage to these aspects of tourist regions. There is a need for strategies in mitigating these challenges and preserving cultural sites for the future. An emphasis on the importance of sustainability in cultural and heritage tourism, discussions on digitalization, stakeholder participation, and socio-economic livelihoods must be made to properly address this intricate issue. This book explores the development, marketing, and societal implications of cultural and heritage tourism enterprises, showcasing best practices and innovative business models. Exploring Culture and Heritage Through Experience Tourism is an academic research book that delves into the intricate relationship between tourism, culture, and heritage. It offers a comprehensive and interdisciplinary exploration of this evolving field. Drawing on the latest research and international frameworks, this volume identifies new areas of culture and heritage tourism, understand its scope and challenges, and highlight its interlinkages with various sectors of the industry and the broader economy. Designed for undergraduate and postgraduate students of travel and tourism management, this book serves as a valuable resource. It also meets the needs of universities with cultural and heritage tourism in their curricula, and offers insights for industry leaders, policymakers, and researchers interested in multidisciplinary studies.

Exploring Spirituality and Culture in Adult and Higher Education is written from the unique perspective of teacher, researcher, and author Elizabeth Tisdell who has extensive experience dealing with culture, gender, and educational equity issues in secular adult and higher education classrooms, and formerly in pastoral and religious education settings on college campuses. This important book discusses how spiritual development is informed by culture and how this knowledge is relevant to teaching and learning. For educators, an understanding of how spirituality is informed by culture, and how spirituality assists in meaning-making, can aid in their efforts to help their students' educational experiences become more transformative and culturally relevant.

In Exploring Borders Giuseppe Mantovani highlights and explores the ways in which culture acts as a framework organising our experience. He emphasises the differences across and between cultures and examines the depths to which these can go. He also analyses the functions of culture, including: mediation, meaning-making, and forming a repertory of values and principles. Finally, he considers some of the challenges raised by taking a cultural perspective and examines how these may be addressed in society. This highly original and eminently readable narrative will be invaluable to scholars of psychology, media and cultural studies, and to all those fascinated by culture and eager to to make the cultural dimension visible to all.