Intercultural qualitative research and Ph.D. students

Abstract

The educational environment for postgraduate health professionals from developing countries in contemporary western universities is an intermediate zone between home and host culture. In this zone, knowledge is shaped through the development of concepts within the limitations of (often) pre-fluent language capacity. It is characterized by the mutual exchange of knowledge between western teachers and their developing-country students, who will return home to leadership roles working with marginalized individuals, communities and populations. This qualitative research aims to improve health education for global health professionals from developing countries, and in so doing it illustrates many of the difficulties and benefits involved in intercultural qualitative research for Ph.D. students.

Building bridges across knowledge systems: Ubuntu and participative research paradigms in Bantu communities

“…Lack of documentation, clear ownership, and development makes it easy to ignore African IKS in favour of Western knowledge systems. Ditton (2007) notes the mono-cultural predominance of Anglo-American-Australian educational approaches to serve the business and capital interests of these countries. An example is Western curricula in Bantu educational institutions that mainly grow Western knowledge systems, and not so much Bantu IKS.…”

“…Eisenhart and Borko explain that cultures are coherent, profound and systemic to the extent that 'discrepancy in school achievement' could be the manifestation of discontinuity between culture at home and the expectations at school. Hence, Ditton (2007) recognises different epistemologies in different contexts, and cultures. It is therefore argued in this paper that each epistemology represents an IKS for a given culture.…”

Impact of COVID-19 on the Quality of Life of Households in Saudi Arabia

“…For example, in 2020, an equivalent of 400 million full-time jobs were lost worldwide [2], employees' income dropped by 10% [3], investment decreased by 19% [4], global GDP shrank by nearly 22 trillion dollars [5], remittance flows decreased [6], and poverty and hunger increased [6,7]. However, aggregate data may ignore significant segments of the population and be inadequate, compared to simple surveys, in tracking the well-being of the poor [8]. Therefore, it is essential to conduct micro-level studies through direct surveys of households for a systematic and in-depth look at how COVID-19 has disturbed people's lives during the worldwide epidemic.…”