Westernization

About: Westernization is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 1154 publications have been published within this topic receiving 15791 citations. The topic is also known as: occidentalization.

Korean Students and Politics

Abstract: In most underdeveloped countries, students play a large role in the national political life. During the years that Syngman Rhee ruled Korea, however, it appeared that Korean students were an exception to the rule. Their activities had no influence upon the course of national politics. Rather, any student activity that went on was a result of political events, since the students docilely marched in the hundreds of demonstrations sponsored by Rhee to give the appearance of support for his policies. Any other form of political activity was forbidden to the students who were regimented by the Student Defense Corps set up by Rhee's Liberal Party. The political inertness of the Korean students was puzzling, since they appeared to be subject to the same influences as the highly political students of Latin America, the Near East, and Southeast Asia. Though still young, they formed a sizeable portion of the nation's supply of persons with modern educational and thus were in a position to swing more weight in society than students can hope to do in a Western country where a large part of the population is educated. They also were subject to the forces of cultural and social change. In the process of Westernization, the old Confucian philosophy had become discredited, family ties and local loyalties had been weakened,2 and ways of life had changed as technical innovations and urbanization took effect. In other developing nations, the loss of a philosophy to which the students can commit themselves, together with the absence of a community to which modern loyalties can be attached, has led to the growth of nationalism to fill both gaps.3 When students must study under adverse economic conditions, when they face only unemployment upon graduation,4 and when their expectations are unrealis-

Westernisation of Gender Roles in House Construction in Botswana

Abstract: Women in Botswana and other sedentary pastoral communities in Africa have traditionally been house-builders. However, recent studies and census reports indicate that house construction—especially of modern buildings—has become a ‘man's job’, in that women are absent or grossly under-represented at construction sites. Those women who are employed in the construction industry have badly-paid, unskilled and peripheral jobs such as cleaning, mixing concrete and cooking. While some scholars have attributed this male appropriation of female roles to the transfer of housing from the female domestic sphere to the male public sphere, this paper uses Westernisation theory to account for the changes. With the introduction of Western socioeconomic, political and institutional systems, gender roles have tended to become more European than African. The paper shows that through the widespread adoption in Lobatse, Botswana, of Western building processes, skills, house designs and materials, African women have lost their ...

Management Organization and Methods in Turkey

Abstract: Westernization of Turkey began with Kemal Ataturk only forty years ago. This was an attempt to bring about a complete social, economic, and political revolution through new legislation, organizations, and activities directed at discarding Ottoman oriental concepts of life.

Thai Women: Key Players in the Country’s Economic and Social Development

Abstract: The aim of this study is to analyse the economic and social role of women in the wake of the strong economic growth experienced by Thailand over the last few decades The first section will deal with the social-cultural and historic background including the legal, religious, educational, political, social, and symbolic representation of women The second part will look at the role played by women in the country’s economic activity Finally, the third part will analyze the effects of urbanization, industrialization, globalization, and westernization on social and family structures, and on cultural values

Land of the morning calm, land of the rising sun: The East Asia travel writings of Isabella Bird and George Curzon

Abstract: The developments in East Asia in the late nineteenth century became a matter of great interest to Britain. The rise of Japan and the wrangles among the great powers over China and Korea were some of the issues that put East Asia in the spotlight. In China, Western powers had been contending fiercely for economic and political hegemony since the Opium War. Japan, after abandoning its national policy of seclusion in 1854, carried out the Meiji Restoration in 1868 and was driving towards rapid Westernization. Here modernization took place in a relatively smooth manner and there was no need to fear external threats, but domestic tensions were inevitable. Finally Korea, after being forced to open its doors in 1876, suffered from acute dissensions between conservatives and progressives, and fierce competition between China, Japan and Russia over hegemony in Korea complicated the situation further.