Finding common ground: how superdiversity is unsettling social work education

For social work education in the Netherlands, the rapid transition towards superdiversity means that its capacity to adapt to this new reality and to adjust to diverse students’ backgrounds is fiercely challenged. The key aim of this article is to discuss how social work educators are dealing with the unsettling challenges of increasing diversity, based on the research outcomes of an explorative study amongst Turkish–Dutch and Moroccan–Dutch female professionals. Two different groups of educators were asked to comment on the outcomes of this study. One of the dilemmas for educators is to determine what can be considered supportive and inclusive and as reducing inequality in education. The authors used two key theoretical concepts, ‘superdiversity’ and ‘the capability approach’. These theoretical perspectives were used to deconstruct the rather massive concepts of diversity and social justice, by emphasising contextual approaches. Both perspectives stress the urgent need to involve students as ‘active agents of change’, by building a social work community to stimulate and facilitate an on-going dialogue. To successfully fulfil a pivotal role in the upward mobility or emancipation of ethnic minority students, social work education needs to be adjusted to accommodate diverse student groups.     

京津冀文化消费的影响因素与结构特征

在京津冀协同发展战略中,文化创意产业在取得初步发展成果的同时,还依旧面临着不少亟待解决的问题。采用问卷调查法实地走访采集区域居民文化消费数据,并进一步通过决策树算法进行数据挖掘,发现京津冀文化消费的影响因素及结构特征,据此提出打造区域共同文化品牌、保障居民收入持续平稳增长、针对青少年文化消费市场创新营销模式、培养其正确的文化价值观及文化创新能力等改进措施,从而优化推动京津冀文化消费市场协同发展的路径,打造互联互通、开放统一的区域文化消费市场,使区域居民文化消费需求成为促进文化产品供给的市场新动力。     

外资法的选择:南非改革《投资保护法案》

国际投资体系正在遭遇危机，越来越多的国家开始质疑双边投资协定提供的投资者保护制度是否确实有益于增加投资的流动，全球多个国家正在审慎地进行外国投资法的改革。基于此，文章以南非的实践为现实起点，通过概述南非投资保护制度变革的缘由以及深入剖析《投资保护法案》的立法意图，阐明其以国内立法维护公共利益监管权力的法律选择，旨在“一带一路”背景下，为远赴南非的中国投资者提供法律风险的预判，揭示外资法变革对于中国投资者可能产生的影响。对于南非建立新的投资保护制度，其将面临的挑战是如何维持稳定、可预测的投资环境与实现投资保护改革的若干目标之间的平衡。      

Retrospective Paternal and Maternal Parenting Styles,Regulatory Self-Efficacy and Adolescent Risk Taking

This study aims to calculate a scaled risk-taking behavior index and to test a model in which maternal and paternal parenting styles affect risk-taking behavior with a mediation of adolescents’ regulatory self-efficacy. Participants were 816 adolescents (44% males) responding to a self-report questionnaire about their risk-taking behavior, regulatory self-efficacy, and retrospective memories of paternal and maternal parenting styles. Results suggested an item rating in the index showing that behaviors considered less risky referred to alcohol use and the unplanned first sexual intercourse, whereas behaviors considered more risky referred to the lack of use of contraceptives and the age of the first sexual intercourse. Results revealed a significant indirect effect of authoritative and authoritarian styles on risk-taking behavior. These styles shaped the adolescents’ regulatory self-efficacy, which in turn predicted adolescent risk-taking behavior. Results underline the complex interplay of relationships between parents and their children.     

Deliberative democracy in the real world,the contribution of the capability approach

ABSTRACT

Drawing on Amartya Sen’s writings, this article presents the capability approach to democracy and shows its relevance for the sociological reflection and research on democratic processes conceived as ways to convert individual preferences into collective norms or decisions. Two moments are key in this respect: the formation of individual preferences and their translation into collective norms in the course of public debates. The initial sections present Sen’s conception of democracy, particularly emphasizing its articulation with the notions of ‘positional objectivity’ and ‘conversion’. Then, this conception is compared with two other mechanisms that may be used to coordinate individual decisions or preferences, namely the market and idealistic views on deliberative democracy. The article emphasizes how the capability approach departs from these two conceptions with regard to the two key concepts of capacity to aspire and capability for voice. The final section shows how Sen’s notion of democracy may open up a new field for research, namely the sociological investigation of the informational (or knowledge) basis of democracy.     

The disembedded digital economy: Social protection for new economy employment in China

This research focuses upon employment in the new economy, exploring labour protection and social protection in the digital age in China. Through an empirical survey conducted in three Chinese cities, social insurance and the labour rights of employees in the digital economic sector, such as gig employment, e-commerce, and various other forms of online employment, have been examined in-depth. This study reveals new regulatory loopholes in the digital labour market, which have substantially eroded the basis of social policy arrangements in China, “softening” participation in social insurance branches and compliance with labour regulations remarkably. Drawing upon the theoretical concepts of Polanyi on embeddedness and disembeddedness, we argue that the digital employment sector in China has been increasingly disembedded from social institutions and social control. The new configuration in the digital field of social policy requires novel conceptual models and institutional settings to cope with increasing social risks in virtual spaces.     

障碍研究论述与社会参与：无障碍、通用设计、能力与差异

障碍研究在过去40年的发展奠定了其对公共政策影响的基础。障碍者社会参与的责任逐渐由以往个人承担与调适，转向社会与国家承担。本文简述西方国家障碍研究的两个主要论述--社会模式与普同主义取向，对比这两个主要论述所衍生出的政策：由早期的无障碍设施到通用设计，至最近的能力取向。障碍者参与社会生活与活动是其基本权利的一部分，这项权利内涵具有积极性，需要政府与社会投入资源，改善外部社会结构与环境，使环境对障碍者更为友善，为其社会参与权利提供保障。     

Conditional time-dependent nonparametric estimators with an application to healthcare production function

ABSTRACT

By using the probabilistic framework of production efficiency, the paper develops time-dependent conditional efficiency estimators performing a non-parametric frontier analysis. Specifically, by applying both full and quantile (robust) time-dependent conditional estimators, it models the dynamic effect of health expenditure on countries’ technological change and technological catch-up levels. The results from the application reveal that the effect of per capita health expenditure on countries’ technological change and technological catch-up is nonlinear and is subject to countries’ specific income levels.     

Max‐infinitely divisible models and inference for spatial extremes

For many environmental processes, recent studies have shown that the dependence strength is decreasing when quantile levels increase. This implies that the popular max‐stable models are inadequate to capture the rate of joint tail decay, and to estimate joint extremal probabilities beyond observed levels. We here develop a more flexible modeling framework based on the class of max‐infinitely divisible processes, which extend max‐stable processes while retaining dependence properties that are natural for maxima. We propose two parametric constructions for max‐infinitely divisible models, which relax the max‐stability property but remain close to some popular max‐stable models obtained as special cases. The first model considers maxima over a finite, random number of independent observations, while the second model generalizes the spectral representation of max‐stable processes. Inference is performed using a pairwise likelihood. We illustrate the benefits of our new modeling framework on Dutch wind gust maxima calculated over different time units. Results strongly suggest that our proposed models outperform other natural models, such as the Student‐t copula process and its max‐stable limit, even for large block sizes.