University students in Hawaii (N= 171) and in Germany (N= 61) completed the 6‐item Belief in a Just World Scale (BJWS; Dalbert, Montada, & Schmitt, 1987), an instrument developed in Germany to measure general just world belief. Results indicated that the BJWS is equally well suited to measure just world belief in an American sample. Subjects also completed a short instrument to assess justice judgments about the situation of a disadvantaged group (in Hawaii: Pacific Island immigrants; in Germany: foreign workers). For both samples, the disadvantaged group's situation was judged as more just by subjects with a greater belief in a just world and by those who were more socially similar to the disadvantaged group. Compared to students in Germany, those from Hawaii held stronger beliefs in a just world. Results were discussed in terms of generality and cultural specifity of the just world belief.

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The Hawaiian Studies Program (HSP) integrates the learning of Hawaiian culture with more traditional secondary curriculum in science, social studies, and English. Students also participate in weekly community service-learning sessions. Fifty-five HSP students and 29 peers (who were not involved in the program), completed a survey measuring: students' connection to, pride in, and responsibility for their community; civic attitudes; and career knowledge and preparedness. HSP teachers, community members, and students were also interviewed about program outcomes. Compared to other peers, HSP students tended to report feeling more connected to their community and school and to agree that they had career-related skills. Participants believed that service- learning contributed to these outcomes by making connections between school and community life and by exposing students to a variety of careers.

Some heritage language learners (HLLs) are comfortable identifying themselves as such, while others are decidedly reluctant to adopt this term (Piño & Piño, 2000). HLLs in this paper are defined as those students having a parent or grandparent who speaks German or those who have spent a significant part of their childhood in a German-speaking country (as suggested in Beaudrie & Ducar, 2005, p. 13). This paper highlights case studies of six HLLs of German at the post-secondary level who are participants in a motivation study (Dressler, 2008). Three students are ‘willing’ HLLs. The additional three case studies are of students that I will call ‘reluctant’ HLLs of German, and this paper explores the reasons behind their reluctance and the components of self-identification, which include language identity (Block, 2007; Pierce, 1995); language expertise; affiliation and inheritance (Leung, Harris, & Rampton, 1997); cultural artifacts (Bartlett, 2007) and positioning (Block, 2007).