The sexual in Chinese sociology: homosexuality studies in contemporary China

Through a meta‐literature review, this paper examines the changing contours of Chinese sociology of homosexuality in contemporary China. It unfolds the different theoretical orientations and methodologies that construct the modern male homosexual subject under major socio‐economic and political changes. Chinese sociology of homosexuality started in the reform era and has been dominated by Western knowledge production and the political ideology of the communist party‐state. Fused with the bio‐medical model and the state's modernization project in the 1980s–1990s, the sociological study adopted a functionalist and positivistic approach with survey‐based methodology in the main which focused on the etiology of homosexuality. A new transnational knowledge production of sociology of homosexuality has formed since the 2000s which has shifted towards a constructivist/ post‐structuralist approach and reflexive qualitative methodology. The new sociological study examines the rise of male (as well as female) homosexual identity in China, questions the hetero/homosexual binary and discusses how an individual makes sense of homosexual identity to form same‐sex intimate relationships. By tracing the epistemology of homosexuality in contemporary China, this paper rethinks the dominance of the Western construction and the role of the state in shaping the knowledge of homosexuality and proposes alternative spaces for theorizing Chinese sexual identities, desires and practices.     

Financial Knowledge and Behaviors of Chinese Migrant Workers: An International Perspective on a Financially Vulnerable Population

ABSTRACT

Making informed financial decisions is crucial to the wellbeing of Chinese migrant workers. Using interview survey data (N = 329), this study examined financial knowledge and behaviors of migrant workers in China. Results showed that participants demonstrated low levels of financial knowledge (51.4%) and beneficial financial behaviors (51.0%). Multivariate results indicated that a modest proportion of the variance in financial behaviors was explained by financial knowledge, attitudes, and socio-demographic characteristics (e.g., marital status and income). Findings underscore the importance of disseminating culturally-relevant educational interventions to financially at-risk, low-paid migrant workers in China.     

Processes Employed by Social Work Practitioners in Child Welfare for Exchanging and Using Knowledge

Organisations in the health and social services sector expend a considerable amount of energy promoting the implementation of better practices and research data use in their establishments. In the field of social work, several studies suggest that social work practitioners do not make great use of scientific knowledge and tend to favour knowledge acquired from their colleagues or through their own occupational experience. However, interactions between types of knowledge are rarely analyzed in explanations proposed by the scientific literature. Based on research conducted with social work practitioners in child welfare, this article discusses the different ways that they acquire knowledge.     

小学校长服务型领导对教师知识分享行为的影响研究

以山东省248名小学教师为有效样本，探讨了服务型领导、教师同事信任、情感承诺和教师知识分享行为之间的关系。研究结果显示：服务型领导与教师知识分享行为显著相关；教师同事信任部分居间联系了服务型领导与知识分享行为之间的关系；教师同事信任部分居间联系了服务型领导与情感承诺之间的关系；情感承诺对服务型领导与知识分享行为关系的中介作用不显著。     

Spatial Data Usage,Spatial Thinking and Spatial Knowledge Generation: The Case of Planning Practitioners in Arequipa,Peru

Spatial thinking and spatial knowledge generation in decision-making are still not mature fields of study in planning research, despite these being crucial elements in addressing the issues of the twenty-first-century city. This article contributes to their understanding by exploring their interrelationships with spatial data usage. Through storylines, it analyzes the arguments that planning practitioners offer in support of infrastructure-led decisions in Arequipa (Peru), before and after spatial data usage. The article concludes that spatial data usage improve spatial thinking to different extents, yet suggests aligning spatial data generation and the inclusion of GIS-based spatial analyses with the spatial knowledge needed by routine planning practice.     

Investigating the link between migration and civicness in Italy. Which individual and school factors matter?

This paper investigates the link between migration and civicness using data on cognitive skills and civic competences collected from a sample of 2747 eighth-graders in Italy. Contrary to the abundant evidence of migrant/native gaps in educational and occupational attainments in the country, this study finds no migrant-specific gap on civicness development. Children of immigrants achieve lower levels of civic knowledge than natives, but differences disappear once social background and, particularly, cognitive test scores are equalized across groups. Moreover, no differences are found, on average, between natives and children of immigrants with respect to institutional trust. However, at the top tail of the civic knowledge distribution, children of immigrants display less trust than natives. This result, coupled with their greater openness towards immigrants’ rights, suggests that immigrants’ children attach great importance to the inequality in rights concerning the immigrant population in the country and, as a reaction, participate more actively in the community. Insignificant or positive associations between the proportion of immigrants’ children in the classroom and natives’ civicness are found. Finally, fairness in student–teacher interactions is found to improve students’ civicness development, suggesting that, besides citizenship education, also the school climate plays a vital role in enhancing children's civic competences.     

Young Norwegians and their views on climate change and the future: findings from a climate concerned and oil-rich nation

Young people represent the future, but little is known about their attitudes towards climate change, one of the most serious issues facing the world today. The purpose of the present study is to contribute with improved and new knowledge of young Norwegians’ understanding of and attitudes towards this issue, with a special focus on perspectives of the future. Of particular interest is the influence of divergent framings of the climate question in Norway, due to conflicting interests between the petroleum industry and climate concern. The young people's voices are elicited through two different surveys undertaken during the fall of 2013, one national (Norwegian Citizen Panel) and one local (School survey conducted among high-school students). The study generated both quantitative and qualitative findings, stemming from closed-ended as well as open-ended questions. The data were handled through a mixed methods approach, combining quantitative and qualitative analyses. The results show that the voices tend to be oriented towards the opinion that Norway has a responsibility to help poor countries as well as a duty to prevent climate change and that the country should reduce its oil production. We further observe that young Norwegians have an optimistic view of the future, based on a pronounced belief in technology and science.     

客观性与境域性——道德实在论的收敛

道德实在论是应对道德多元主义而兴起的。它为寻求道德的确定性,收敛到道德的客观性,但这面临着事实和价值之间的矛盾。因而,它又收敛到人类都有关于建立美好社会的愿望的共识,但这种观点不仅面临着理想人以及知识和信仰之间跳跃的问题,而且将其设为目标来追求,还会导致专制和道德虚无主义的困境。只有走出理论思辨,采取局部的实践哲学的方法和根本的存在论境域的方法,才能解决自己的困境。     

论道德之“见”的认识困境——也谈《孟子》“见牛未见羊”

近年来,学界对《孟子》齐宣王"见牛未见羊"现象多有阐发,由此引发了人们对儒家道德之"见"的广泛关注。其实,《孟子》论"见牛未见羊",阐述了因"见牛觳觫"而产生"德性之知"的德性主义认识路线。在这条认识路线中,"见"不仅可以使见者体认本心良知,也使某些无良被见者有了欺骗君子"以方"的可乘之机。"见"在促成德性之知的过程中积极有为,但也隐藏着诚与欺的认识困境。无疑,摆脱这种道德认识困境对当前中国道德文明建设是具有一定积极意义的。     

The logic of strategic ignorance

Ignorance and knowledge are often thought of as opposite phenomena. Knowledge is seen as a source of power, and ignorance as a barrier to consolidating authority in political and corporate arenas. This article disputes this, exploring the ways that ignorance serves as a productive asset, helping individuals and institutions to command resources, deny liability in the aftermath of crises, and to assert expertise in the face of unpredictable outcomes. Through a focus on the Food and Drug Administration's licensing of Ketek, an antibiotic drug manufactured by Sanofi-Aventis and linked to liver failure, I suggest that in drug regulation, different actors, from physicians to regulators to manufacturers, often battle over who can attest to the least knowledge of the efficacy and safety of different drugs - a finding that raises new insights about the value of ignorance as an organizational resource.