The Liminality of Cosmopolitanism from the Global South – Transnational Activists in Costa Rica between Colonial Legacies and Decolonial Attitudes

The Master’s thesis examines whether and how decolonial cosmopolitanism is empirically traceable in the attitudes and practices of Costa Rican activists working in transnational advocacy organizations. Decolonial cosmopolitanism is defined as a form of cosmopolitanism from below that aims to propose ways of imagining – and putting into practice – a truly globe-encompassing civic community not based on relations of domination but on horizontal dialogue. This concept has been developed by and shares its basic presumptions with the theory on coloniality that the modernity/coloniality/decoloniality research group is putting forward. It is analyzed whether and how the workings of coloniality as underlying ontological assumption of decolonial cosmopolitanism and broadly subsumable under the three logics of race, capitalism, and knowledge, are traceable in intermediate postcolonial transnational advocacy in Costa Rica. The method of analysis chosen to approach these questions is content analysis, which is used for the analysis of qualitative semi-structured in-depth interviews with Costa Rican activists working in advocacy organizations with transnational ties. Costa Rica was chosen as it – while unquestionably a Latin American postcolonial country and thus within the geo-political context in which the concept was developed – introduces a complex setting of socio-cultural and political factors that put the explanatory potential of the concept to the test. The research group applies the term ‘coloniality’ to describe how the social, political, economic, and epistemic relations developed during the colonization of the Americas order global relations and sustain Western domination still today through what is called the logic of coloniality. It also takes these processes as point of departure for imagining how counter-hegemonic contestations can be achieved through the linking of local struggles to a global community that is based on pluriversality. The issues that have been chosen as most relevant expressions of the logic of coloniality in the context of Costa Rican transnational advocacy and that are thus empirically scrutinized are national identity as ‘white’ exceptional nation with gender equality (racism), the neoliberalization of advocacy in the Global South (capitalism), and finally Eurocentrism, but also transnational civil society networks as first step in decolonizing civic activism (epistemic domination). The findings of this thesis show that the various ways in which activists adopt practices and outlooks stemming from the center in order to empower themselves and their constituencies, but also how their particular geo-political position affects their work, cannot be reduced to one single logic of coloniality. Nonetheless, the aspects of race, gender, capitalism and epistemic hegemony do undeniably affect activist cosmopolitan attitudes and transnational practices. While the premisses on which the concept of decolonial cosmopolitanism is based suffer from some analytical drawbacks, its importance is seen in its ability to take as point of departure the concrete spaces in which situated social relations develop. It thus allows for perceiving the increasing interconnectedness between different levels of social and political organizing as contributing to cosmopolitan visions combining local situatedness with global community as normative horizon that have not only influenced academic debate, but also political projects.

Teachers' attitudes to and beliefs about web-based Collaborative Learning Environments in the context of an international implementation

"Fifty-six teachers, from four European countries, were interviewed to ascertain their attitudes to and beliefs about the Collaborative Learning Environments (CLEs) which were designed under the Innovative Technologies for Collaborative Learning Project. Their responses were analysed using categories based on a model from cultural-historical activity theory [Engestrom, Y. (1987). Learning by expanding.- An activity-theoretical approach to developmental research. Helsinki: Orienta-Konsultit; Engestrom, Y., Engestrom, R., & Suntio, A. (2002). Can a school community learn to master its own future? An activity-theoretical study of expansive learning among middle school teachers. In G. Wells & G. Claxton (Eds.), Learning for life in the 21st century. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers]. The teachers were positive about CLEs and their possible role in initiating pedagogical innovation and enhancing personal professional development. This positive perception held across cultures and national boundaries. Teachers were aware of the fact that demanding planning was needed for successful implementations of CLEs. However, the specific strategies through which the teachers can guide students' inquiries in CLEs and the assessment of new competencies that may characterize student performance in the CLEs were poorly represented in the teachers' reflections on CLEs. The attitudes and beliefs of the teachers from separate countries had many similarities, but there were also some clear differences, which are discussed in the article. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved."

Attitudes towards suicide among Master’s degree students: a cross-cultural comparison between China and Finland

Attitudes towards suicide among Master’s degree students in Chang Sha (China) and Helsinki (Finland) were compared in order to explore possible cross-cultural differences. The sample included 206 Master’s degree students, 101 Chinese and 105 Finnish. Data were collected using the 30-item Multi-Attitudes Suicide Tendency Scale (MAST) and a demographic information form. According to the results, both Chinese and Finnish students held positive attitudes towards life, they held contradictory attitudes towards suicide, with Finnish students having more permissive and liberal attitudes towards suicide than their Chinese counterparts. In addition, three socio-demographic characteristics, namely religion, family structure, and economic status, associated with attitudes towards suicide among the Chinese Master’s degree students; meanwhile, all socio-demographic characteristics, including gender, religion, major subject, family structure, economic status, and received social support related to attitudes towards suicide among the Finnish Master’s degree students. However, after examining the interaction effect between socio-demographics and cultural backgrounds on attitudes towards suicide, the attitudes of Chinese students were more related to gender, marital status, family economic status, and received social support, whereas Finnish students were more influenced by religion. These findings suggest that culture plays an important role in shaping country-specific differences in attitudes towards suicide and their association with socio-demographic characteristics. Understanding individual attitudes towards suicide could help in intervention to prevent the development of suicidal ideation and in providing appropriate psychological counseling to reduce mental problems. Therefore, these cross-cultural differences may provide indications on how to conduct suicide prevention programs while considering culture-specific contexts.

Consumers' attitudes towards food prices

High food prices can be a barrier to healthy eating because some of the food products may be perceived as expensive. Understanding the role of price in food purchase situations is important, but only a few studies document attitudes towards expensiveness or cheapness in foods. In this thesis, the role of food price in food choice and consumers attitudes towards food prices were investigated and the aim was to measure the food price attitudes. Food price attitudes were hypothesized to have an impact on consumers willingness to pay judgements and their willingness to buy premium-priced food products. First, using qualitative data consisting of 40 thematic interviews the experiences of the expensiveness and cheapness in foods were explored by using functional food products as a target product category. Second, a Food Price Attitude Scale was developed using four quantitative surveys representing Finnish consumers (2001 N=1158; 2002 N=1156; 2004a N=1113; 2004b N=1027). Food price attitudes were confirmed to compose a multidimensional construct and consumers may perceive positive and negative attitudes towards both high and low food prices. Finnish consumers were clustered into four groups based on their food price attitudes. In the first group, 29% of respondents were negative towards high food prices and they were willing to seek low food prices, whereas respondents in another group (22%) were positive towards high food prices. Additionally, in the third group consumers (17%) were willing to pay for high quality but still looked for low food prices. In the fourth group, consumers (32%) were willing to look for low food prices, unwilling to pay for high quality, but high-priced food was appreciated if offered to others. It was found in qualitative data that consumers willingness to accept high prices in foods was connected to price fairness and to justifications. Feelings of fairness or unfairness might be a core element of food price attitudes. Using quantitative methods, it was confirmed that positive attitudes towards high food prices in terms of high quality enhanced consumers willingness to buy food products with certain benefits (e.g., a health claim). Additionally, the favourable attitude towards low food prices lowered the willingness to pay estimates. This type of tendency, however, can create a possible bias in small convenient samples. In the food price-related research, it is advisable to take into account food price attitudes as possible background variables. The Food Price Attitude Scale needs further development to increase construct validity even though, in the present study, it was shown to be a reliable measure with good predictive and discriminant validity. The theoretical and managerial implications of the results for a better understanding of the role of price in consumers food purchases are discussed.

The Role of Electronic Word of Mouth in Shaping Consumer Attitudes

The purpose of this research was to investigate the role of electronic word of mouth (eWOM) in shaping consumer attitudes towards various products and services with concentration on the consumer attitude change. eWOM has long been proven to play an important role in influencing consumer attitudes and has been researched from a variety of perspectives. This study attempts to look deeper into the process of consumer attitude change by applying as the central theory of the study the Elaboration Likelihood Model of Persuasion by Petty and Cacioppo. In the processes of examining the background academic and empirical research the Internet and Web 2.0 are closely depicted in order to understand how throughout the past centuries technology allowed the rise of various mediums where consumers can not only share their opinions online about products and services but also communicate with other consumers. Manuel Castel’s Internet Galaxy, Gildin’s, Carl and Noland’s, Hennig-Thurau, Gwinner, Walsh and Gremler’s researches on eWOM are the central works that helped to shape both the theoretical and empirical parts of this study. The mixed method approach was chosen as a research method for this study. An online survey was conducted via the Surveymonkey.com platform and eight qualitative in-depth interviews were conducted. The results of the study show that central route queues as text quality and text argumentativeness are more prominent among the research subjects and the peripheral route queues: source credibility and source expertise did not show considerable significance. Also more experience and participation consumers have with user-rating websites and applications more inclined they are to elaborate on the central route cues and are more likely to search for opinions that they consider rational and credible. Also these respondents are less inclined to search for ratings that confirm their existing beliefs about products or services. Less experience/participation they have about eWOM more likely they are to search for reviews confirmatory to their own.