Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: In this paper, I explore the extent to which the ideal of constitutional patriotism can serve as a standard of incorporation and, hence, as a source of guidance for judging how best to address the conflicting imperatives and tensions of multicultural politics in liberal societies. Up until now, the theoretical discussion of constitutional patriotism has focused almost solely on the topics of political identity and motivation and specifically whether constitutional patriotism as the affective component of a post-national political identity is robust enough to motivate citizens to consider one another as co-participants in a common project of democratic decision making. (Bernstein 2001; Calhoun 2002; Honohan 2001; Ingram 1996; Laborde 2002; Lacroix 2002; McCarthy 1999; Pensky 2001; Yack 1996; but also see Bartholomew 2001 and Benhabib 2002) These issues are centrally important to contemporary democratic theory, of course, but in framing them in this way participants have tacitly assumed that the question of incorporation has been answered and the borders defining the set of legitimate participants have been set. In a world characterized by mass immigration in which the question ‘Who belongs?’ has become a central issue of contemporary politics, this seems a very large question to beg.

Publication Type: Session Presentation
Abstract: In light of the development of K-16 student standards, Performance Guidelines for K-12 Learners, ACTFL/NCATE standards for initial teacher licensure in foreign languages, Integrated Performance Assessments, OPI and WPT proficiency expectations, and rapid changes in technology, the presenters will address how these issues are affecting their foreign language methods courses.

Publication Type: Poster Presentation
Abstract: This poster displays a study of cross-cultural issues in classroom learning and teaching with an emphasis on such particular topics as attitude, culture shock, and a cultural psychology, saving-face consciousness. The results of this research present that the current situation in this light of the target educational institute, Idaho State University, is not that discouraging as is hypothesized, and that the participants produce an extremely negative response to the issue saving-face consciousness.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This paper examines the relationship between citizenship policies and noncitizen political behavior, focusing on extra-electoral forms of political participation by Korean residents in Japan. I analyze the institutional factors that have mediated the construction of Korean collective identity in Japan and, in turn, the ways that Korean community activists have re-conceptualized possibilities for their exercise of citizenship as foreign residents in Japan. My empirical analysis is based on a theoretical framework that defines citizenship as an interactive process of political incorporation, performance, and participation. I posit that the various dimensions of citizenship—its legal significance, symbolic meaning, claims and responsibilities, and practice—are performed, negotiated, and restructured in a triangular interactive relationship between the state, citizens, and noncitizens.
I address a puzzle that is both specific to Koreans in Japan and generalizable to foreign permanent residents in other advanced industrial democracies: Given their high levels of cultural assimilation, why does citizenship remain the last vestige of identity within the Korean community in Japan? Unlike previous studies that have focused on stringent citizenship policies at the level of the state alone, this paper explores the interactive process between institutions and communities. Based on their legal status, we would expect social movements in Japan’s Korean community to center around the quest for citizenship acquisition. Yet, the findings of this paper demonstrate that Korean organizations have concentrated their efforts on securing the community’s foreign citizenship status. I argue that postwar Japan’s ethnocultural citizenship policies both shaped Korean political identity in Japan and structured political opportunities for Korean activists to negotiate the terms of their community’s incorporation. Especially in recent years, new generations of Korean activists have reinterpreted the meaning of Korean citizenship as identity and practice in movements to democratize Japanese society. Rather than naturalize and become a small section of the voting population, Korean activists have increasingly used their noncitizen status as their “voice” to express their opposition to state policies. Based on ethnographic research conducted in Tokyo, Kawasaki, and Osaka over a twelve-month period, this paper explores how citizenship policies affect the political identities, claims, and strategies of noncitizen communities.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: This project aims at casting a new light on the evolution of political patterns of support for gay rights, by carefully analyzing the most recent data and integrating these results within a larger theoretical framework about political change and the American party system. Most of the literature on public opinion and gay issues has traditionally focused on the general attitude of the American public towards lesbians and gay men themselves, for most surveys in the nineties have suggested that homophobia and negative affect towards gays, is the likely source, and the strongest predictor, of an individual’s policy position on AIDS funding, gay marriage and adoption, and even antidiscrimination laws.
My first aim was to reassess the relative impact of this variable in recent opinion surveys. The most interesting result is the recent emergence of personal ideology as the strongest predictive factor (through direct as well as mediated effect), rather than affect towards lesbians and gay men (as was the case in all surveys from the eighties and nineties). The issue of gay rights, in other words, is increasingly integrated within an individual’s structured ideology, regardless of their personal experience with lesbian and gay individuals. Knee-jerk emotional reaction are likely to become less frequent, for, as the visibility of gay issues increases, people are forced to consider them, analyze them, and reconcile them (one way or the other) with their existing ideological beliefs.This evolution closely resembles what some scholars have conceptualized as an integration into the classical binomial liberal/conservative cleavage of an issue that was essentially private in character or that lacked visibility and salience.
This paper displays evidence for two propositions: first, much similarly to what happened in the case of abortion, the gap of opinions on gay rights between Republicans and Democrats has increased over time, as more and more loyal Democrats are “converted” to or “strengthened” in their tolerance for lesbians and gay men. Second, that this conversion is most striking, and most politically significant, in those Democrats who are not expected to display such tolerance, that is, whose socio-demographics would make them least likely to support gay rights. Whereas “homophobic” independents and Republicans have stayed relatively unfazed throughout the last decade, “homophobic” Democrats are today four times more likely than twelve years ago to support legislation that would end discrimination towards lesbians and gay men.