Qualitative Approaches to the Study of Thriving: What Can Be Learned?

Using the data from two ongoing studies of resilience and thriving, one of gay men growing up in heterosexist environments, the other of women living with AIDS, we review how qualitative approaches have enabled researchers to grapple with conceptual, methodological, and ethical dilemmas related to the study of resilience and thriving. We discuss the implications our values as researchers have on determining who is thriving; the powerful social, cultural, and political contexts that must be considered when investigating the effects of and resistance to adversity; and the implications of conceptualizing thriving as a process. Finally, we consider the opportunities opened up by qualitative analysis and suggest some avenues for future research.     

弱关系的弱势及其转化——“关系”的一种文化阐释路径

本文试图对“关系”的文化特质加以探讨。作者首先梳理了学界有关“关系”的文化论题、结构论题和工具论题，并阐明了重拾文化论题的必要性。在此基础上，作者指出，有必要突破以往过于倚重中国社会本土概念的文化阐释方法，寻求更具有普遍意含的社会学概念和理论工具来界说和分析中国社会的“关系”现象。作为一种初步尝试，作者提出，社会网络理论中的弱关系概念对于认识中国社会的“关系”具有特殊的意义。在作者看来，在中国社会，“关系” 是与家族（或家族）内部关系相对应的一种社会关系形式，前者以弱关系为特征，后者以强关系为特征，两者在满足的功能、成员的可供选择性、规范性和社会分层效应等诸多方面都具有明显的差异。作者认为，“关系”实际上是指导社会成员处理某些家庭外部社会关系的行动模板。作者还提出，中国的“关系”不仅是一种弱关系文化，而且由于它善于促成弱关系向强关系的方向转化，善于从弱关系的动员中释放出巨大的社会能量，因而深刻地塑造了中国的社会结构形态。     

Identity Politics Among Arab‐American Women*

Objective. Identity politics has dominated contemporary analyses of protest movements. Although multiple identities are commonplace, progress in delineating their empirical relationship has been slow. This article examines the relationships among ethnic and religious identities and feminist orientations among Arab‐American women, a group that bridges multiple cultural identities. The primary research question is whether ethnic and religious identities undermine feminism in this population or whether multiple identities are mutually supportive. Methods. Using data from a national mail survey of Arab‐American women, regression analyses examine the separate effects of various dimensions of ethnic and religious identity on women's feminist orientations. Results. Arab political identity is positively associated with feminism while religious and feminist identities are inversely related. The effects of ethnic cultural identity and Muslim affiliation are negligible. Conclusions. This study finds a complex pattern of relationships among multiple identities and underscores the underlying political dynamic linking group identities.     

Socioeconomic Distinction, Cultural Tastes, and Cigarette Smoking

OBJECTIVES: The inverse relationship between socioeconomic status (SES) and smoking is typically seen in terms of the greater economic and social resources of advantaged groups, but it may also relate to cultural resources. This study aims to test theories of symbolic distinction by examining relationships between smoking and ostensibly unrelated cultural preferences. METHODS: Using the 1993 General Social Survey, ordinal logistic regression models, and a three-category dependent variable (never, former, and current smoker), the analysis estimates relationships of musical likes and dislikes with smoking while controlling for SES and social strain. RESULTS: Preferences for classical music are associated with lower smoking, while preferences for bluegrass, jazz, and heavy metal music are associated with higher smoking. CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest that SES groups may use smoking, like other cultural tastes, to distinguish their lifestyles from those of others.     

社区治理主体问关系:问题、成因与重构

社区治理主体间关系是一个关乎社区治理绩效的重要问题.当前我国社区治理主体间存在着权力冲突、关系混乱的状态,不利于推进社区的和谐与发展.社区治理主体间关系存在问题的直接原因在于社区治理明显的"行政化倾向",而这又根源于我国传统计划经济体制、行政管理体制以及文化观念的影响.要理顺社区治理主体间关系,需要综合平衡各种社区治理...     

Family Relations and the Adjustment of Young Children of Mexican Descent: Do Family Cultural Values Moderate These Associations?

This study examined the role of family cultural values as moderators of the association between family relations and the adjustment of young children. Fifty‐five families of Mexican descent with young children enrolled in Head Start programs in the Southwest participated. Mothers provided information about closeness of the mother–child relationship, warmth in the sibling relationship, child behavior problems, and familism and simpatía, or two cultural values associated with families of Mexican origin. The children's preschool teachers provided information about child emotional adjustment and social functioning with peers six months later. Familism was found to act as a moderator, whereby warmth and closeness in family relationships coupled with the endorsement of a family cultural value that complements these relationship characteristics was associated with more optimal functioning in preschool classrooms. Results demonstrate the need to evaluate family cultural values or beliefs systems in conjunction with qualities of family relationships as determinants of children's developmental outcomes. Specifically, familism emerged as a family characteristic capable of promoting young children's adjustment within and beyond the family context.     

Chinese male victims in intimate partner violence in the United States: examining help-seeking behaviours through a systems perspective

Few researchers who studied intimate partner violence (IPV) have focused on the relationship between the needs of male victims and their help-seeking behaviours. In addition, there is a lack of research relating to the needs of Chinese male victims of IPV. To facilitate research in this area, the authors utilized a dynamic systems perspective to build a conceptual framework to examine the help-seeking behaviours of Chinese-American males who are victims in violent relationships. This conceptual framework uses a social focus and analyses connections among major system components, such as culture, society, family, and the male victim as an individual. The authors identified four key analytical categories (cultural changes, societal expectations, influences of the family, and reactions to victimization) that practitioners and researchers can use to gain insight into the help-seeking behaviours of Chinese-American men. We anticipate that the conceptual framework can be used in future research to expand knowledge of male victimization and design effective intervention strategies.     

老舍的文学创作与影视传播

老舍的文学作品与当代影视媒体有着良好的互动态势:一方面它在特殊的历史语境中给影视媒体提供了不可多得的文学脚本,另一方面,影视传媒也宣传扩大了作品的影响,使其在当代赢得更多的读者和观众。着力描写下层市民的喜怒哀乐与婚丧嫁娶、情节的曲折感人、文化意蕴的深刻悠长、语言的幽默风趣是老舍作品备受当代影视传媒青睐的主要原因。     

试论汉语国际推广的文化战略定位

汉语国际推广是中国国际战略中的一部分。它不仅可以弘扬中华优秀文化,而且可以促进世界了解中国,加强文化交流,将为中国"和平崛起"创造有利的国际环境。中国经济的腾飞促进了汉语国际化的推广,而经济大国保持长期的繁荣又必须借助语言文化的影响力。     

To be fair,generous, or selfish: The effect of relationship on Chinese children’s distributive allocation and procedural application

Previous research has found that children’s sharing with others relies on fairness norms, but also varies according to their social relationships. The current study focuses on the conflict between fairness and relationship, exploring their impacts across two resource allocation contexts. We used a parallel work task to explore the effect of relationship with different recipients (friend, stranger, or disliked peer) on three allocation patterns (generous, fair, or selfish), when children directly allocated resources (distributive allocation), or applied different procedures to recipients (procedural application). Participants consisted of 123 Chinese children between the ages of 6 and 12. We found that in the distributive allocation context, in which participants directly decided the outcome, children primarily considered their relationship with recipients when dividing resources, not fairness. However, in the procedural application context, in which children could choose different allocation procedures for recipients, children primarily preferred fairness, regardless of social relationship. Moreover, when making distributive allocations, 6‐ to 8‐year‐olds were more selfish toward their disliked peers, whereas 9‐ to 12‐year‐olds tended to be more fair and generous toward their friends and strangers. These findings shed light on the link between social relationship and fairness within different allocation contexts among children of Chinese cultural background.     

“Koe wai hoki koe?!”, or “Who are you?!”: Issues of trust in cross‐cultural collaborative research

Abstract

Cross‐cultural research designs are increasingly employed in the New Zealand context to investigate a range of complex social and environmental issues. However, there is little guidance for researchers who work for mainstream organisations and hapū (subtribe(s)) and iwi (tribe(s)) on how to undertake cross‐cultural collaborative research. Trust is a key issue that makes cross‐cultural research possible and it is surprising that issues relating to trust have not featured widely in the literature. In this paper, we reflect on our experiences working cross‐culturally and collaboratively with a hapū in Northland, New Zealand. We discuss how a mainstream research organisation worked with a community health trust and developed a working relationship with a hapū, forming the basis of a community‐driven collaborative evaluation of a central government‐funded project. Key findings were the establishment of a tuākana‐tēina relationship (where teacher and learner are interchangeable) between the members of the collaborative research team and the employment of appropriate research methods to develop a research agenda that ensured everyone would benefit from the research.     

社会表演理论：在仪式和策略之间建立文化语用学模型（下）

一直以来，对文化的社会研究不是被极端化为结构主义理论就是被极端化为实用主义理论，前者视意义为文本并注重探索提供相对自主性的模式，后者则将意义处理为由个人或集体行动之权变性的创发--即所谓的实践本身，并将文化模式作为权力和物质利益之反应加以分析。在本文中，我将阐述一个超越这种极化视野的文化语用学理论，以新的方式将意义结构、权变性、权力和物质性融为一体。我的论点是，实践的物质性可以由维度更多的表演概念所取代。通过对表演研究这一新领域的成果的吸收，文化语用学说明社会表演，无论个人还是集体的，是如何可能被系统地类推为剧场表演的。在定义了社会表演的要素之后，我认为，随着社会变得更加复杂，这些要素已经趋于“分解”（de fused）。只有在能够将这些日渐离析的要素“再融合”的情况下，表演才会成功。在融合化的表演中，观众认同演员，且文化剧本通过有效的舞台布景达到逼真的程度。而当诸要素重新连接的过程并不完美时,表演就会失败：表演要素仍处于分离状态，社会行动看上去不但不够本真（authentic），而且显得造作和难以令人信服。与此相对，再融合能使演员成功地传达其行动的意义并有效地实现他们的利益。     

The Politics of Partnership in Tropical Public Health: Researching Tuberculosis Control in India

In today's globalizing world the nature of relationships between the North and South is changing to account for the closing gap in capacity to carry out research of international standard. The development of a lexicon sophisticated enough to address adequately these changing relationships, however, lags behind and is not supported by the current recourse to the jargon of 'partnership'. In this paper we explore the difficulties of negotiating a productive path through the dynamics of power and control that characterize international research collaborations. We call attention to this issue through recounting the story of the development of two quite different, but related, international research relationships in which we have been involved. We suggest that there is an important difference between those aspects of the relationship that respond to institutional needs and agendas and those aspects that relate more directly to the human relationships upon which the work in the field actually depends. We set out this difference in a tentative framework, where the relationship between researchers is labelled 'partnership' and the institutional relationship 'collaboration'. It is hoped that, by its inclusion in a journal on social policy, this paper may also stimulate discussion on the extent to which these issues are particular to international relationships or are, indeed, generalizable to national-level partnerships and collaborations within the UK and Europe.     

社会表演理论——在仪式和策略之间建立文化语用学模型（上）

一直以来，对文化的社会研究不是被极端化为结构主义理论就是被极端化为实用主义理论，前者视意义为文本并注重探索提供相对自主性的模式，后者则将意义处理为由个人或集体行动之权变性的创发--即所谓的实践本身，并将文化模式作为权力和物质利益之反应加以分析。在本文中，我将阐述一个超越这种极化视野的文化语用学理论，以新的方式将意义结构、权变性、权力和实质性融为一体。我的论点是，实践的实质性可以由维度更多的表演概念所取代。通过对表演研究这一新领域的成果的吸收，文化语用学说明社会表演，无论个人还是集体的，是如何可能被系统地类推为剧场表演的。在定义了社会表演的要素之后，我认为，随着社会变得更加复杂，这些要素已经趋于“分解”（de fused）。只有在能够将这些日渐离析的要素“再融合”的情况下，表演才会成功。在融合化的表演中，观众认同演员，且文化剧本通过有效的舞台布景达到逼真的程度。而当诸要素重新连接的过程并不完美时,表演就会失败：表演要素仍处于分离状态，社会行动看上去不但不够本真（authentic），而且显得造作和难以令人信服。与此相对，再融合能使演员成功地传达其行动的意义并有效地实现他们的利益。     

What are the Links Between Theory of Mind and Social Relations? Review,Reflections and New Directions for Studies of Typical and Atypical Development

Twenty years after research on children's ‘theory of mind’ began, this field continues to be a leading influence in the study of developmental psychology and psychopathology. In this review we examine the contribution of research on children's theories of mind to our understanding of children's developing social relationships. Evidence shows that for both typical and atypical populations this relationship is neither uniform nor unidirectional. Theory‐of‐mind skills are multifaceted and the nature of the developmental relationship between different aspects is not yet known, and there is evidence that theory‐of‐mind skills both transform and are transformed by interpersonal and family relationships and by language communities. To understand the multifaceted and complex nature of development in this area, we need clearer definitions of the skills under investigation, as well as research designs that capture the transactional nature of the relationship between theory of mind and social relations. Addressing these issues should help to clarify (i) the processes by which children's developing understanding of others is influenced by the social environment, and (ii) issues concerning the specificity of theory‐of‐mind impairments in atypical populations and the processes by which these impairments develop.     

More Than Epistemology: Relationships in Applied Research With Underserved Communities

The nature and consequences of researcher-participant relationships are explored within methodological frameworks, and the impact of relationship roles and decisions are examined through an example of applied research with low-income women and an agency that serves them. Three types of relationship issues and decisions are discussed: (1) the construction of research relationships with two groups of participants: agency staff and agency clients; (2) the involvement of multiple researchers; and (3) the definition and boundaries of the research relationships pertinent to work with people and communities with limited resources. Researcher-participant relationship dilemmas and decisions have implications for the quality of our research and the lives of our participants.     

SPECIAL ISSUE： ECOLOGICAL CIVILIZATION AND BEAUTIFUL CHINA The Man-Nature Relationship in Chinese History： A Study from Multiple Perspectives

所谓“天人之际”,即天道与人事的关系,两千多年来一直是人们关注的问题,也是历史学研究的根本问题之一。这里需要思考的：一是空间的差异,我国地域辽阔,人与自然的关系差异很大;二是时间的差异,社会发展变化引起人地关系的差异;三是多民族统一帝国形成和发展与人地关系。今后环境史研究应从以下几方面入手：第一,区域研究应是人地关系研究的重要途径;第二,人地关系中的人为因素曾起过十分重要的作用;第三,地域政治与人地关系。首都所在地往往成为环境恶化最严重的地区。第四,近几十年现代化、城市化过程中人地关系的变化。     

城市电影:关于城市的想象与记忆

城市是电影生长的土壤,同时也是电影观察、注视的对象。电影成为城市文化工业的组成部分,见证、记录了城市的成长,城市独有的多变、斑斓的空间恰好也符合电影作为时空艺术的本质需求。电影对城市的记录与想象又促成人们对生活于其间的城市的重新认识,在某种意义上,城市是经电影塑造而成的环境。     

Secure Body Attachment and the Prevention of Eating Disorders: A Case Application

Drawing on attachment theory, the author explores the particular physical presence of the body as a significant aspect of the attachment relationship between two people, most notably between two females (the mother and the daughter). Recognizing the nature of one’s body attachment as a protective and a risk factor provides a greater understanding of the potential for resilience, as well as the presence of vulnerability in relationship to one’s body. Through a case application, the author argues that without a model of secure attachment to the body, a female is more likely to develop an attachment to cultural ideals as an extension of primary relationships and at the expense of her own body, moving her from exposure to action in the form of an eating disorder.