Social harmony is a valued relational rule in collectivism. Using data from in-depth interviews with 20 Chinese American couples, the authors study how husbands and wives interpret and negotiate marital harmony within a multicultural context and how gender relates to this process. Although all participants appear to seek harmony, the result indicates two quite different forms. Structural harmony is based on traditional social norms that emphasize obligation to the whole. Relational harmony is "we-centered" and prioritizes the marriage relationship itself. Not all couples fall neatly in either category; couples in transition experience a push-and-pull process between the multiple influences in their lives. These tensions are explored through six dimensions: (a) conflict between relational and structural goals, (b) communal versus dyadic obligation, (c) unclear authority structure, (d) intersection of family and workplace, (e) harmonizing multiple voices, and
As the fields of counseling and psychotherapy have become more cognizant that individuals, couples, and families bring with them a myriad of diversity factors into therapy, multicultural competency has also become a crucial component in the development of clinicians during clinical supervision and training. We employed a qualitative meta-analysis to provide a detailed and comprehensive description of similar themes identified in primary qualitative studies that have investigated supervisory practices with an emphasis on diversity. Findings revealed six meta-categories, namely: (a) Supervisor's Multicultural Stances; (b) Supervisee's Multicultural Encounters; (c) Competency-Based Content in Supervision; (d) Processes Surrounding Multicultural Supervision; (e) Culturally Attuned Interventions; and (f) Multicultural Supervisory Alliance. Implications for practice are discussed.
Movement toward gender equality occurs in incremental steps, but how such change occurs has not been well studied. A qualitative analysis of 20 heterosexual Singaporean couples identified the processes that equalize power within couple relationships. Results reveal that (i) prioritizing women's careers encourages men to change role expectations, take on household tasks, value wives' contributions and emotionally attend to them, and encourages women to seek influence, and (ii) the shift toward equality occurs within a gender structure where men retain the ultimate choice regarding power shifts and wives find ways to influence them. Though the shifts are gradual and partial, they constitute potential recalibrations of institutional gender hierarchy as new expectations flow between couple relationships and the larger social arena.
Despite the long history of work addressing cultural competency, relatively little attention has been given to how supervisory discourse affects the supervision unit in any context-particularly within the Chinese context. This article reflects a consideration of Chinese cultural values within the supervisor-supervisee discourse and their potentially positive and negative effects on the supervisory system. We describe an approach to supervision that details how to address intersecting forms of cultural values such as social hierarchy, piety, face-concerns, other-centeredness, and harmony that may be operating within the Chinese social and professional context. We include three supervisory practices to address Chinese values, with case examples that illustrate them.
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