Community-based Arts Program for Youth in Low-Income Communities: A Multi-Method Evaluation

This article reports on a multi-method evaluation of a national arts program conducted over 3 years in five sites across Canada. Statistical analysis involve growth curve modeling of five waves of data and interviews with participating youth and parents. The results indicate that high-quality arts programs have a significant effect on children’s in-program behavior and emotional problems. The findings from the qualitative interviews suggest that active recruitment, removing barriers to participation, and high parental involvement enhanced youth engagement. Perceived youth gains included increased confidence, enhanced art skills, improved prosocial skills, and improved conflict resolution skills.     

“中国梦”建构中的青年发展与青年责任

青年梦与中国梦是相辅相成的。中国梦要靠广大青年的努力奋斗去实现,从近代中国的悲惨命运和新中国成立后的探索与前进,到如今我们终于有了拥有梦想的勇气,靠的是中国共产党的领导,靠的是一代又一代的青年,现在,时代又赋予青年去实现中国梦的历史使命。从中国梦的内涵可以看出,青年人不仅是中国梦的建设者,而且也会成为中国梦建设成果的最大受益者。我们可以说,当代青年的价值观及创新精神就是中国未来的希望。同时,青年在实现中国梦的过程中能够锻炼成才,实现自身的全面发展。     

Doing Fake Masculinity,Being Real Men: Present and Future Constructions of Self among Black College Men

Through a qualitative analysis of twenty‐nine black college men at a large research university, this project explores how black masculinity is physically, behaviorally, and materially constructed from idealized images resulting in a contextually adaptive sense of self. The findings suggest that black masculinity, specifically the thug image, is symbolically affirmed or denied through a particular type of raced, gendered, classed, and sexualized discourse within black public social spaces. Moreover, these data show that maintaining this construction of black masculinity promotes bodily self‐doubt or insecurity and inauthentic intra‐ and interracial interactions. In contrast, black manhood is thought to involve more genuine interactions, regardless of the social location. Unlike doing masculinity, the idealized notion of being men allows young black men to project a future construction of self that seemingly resolves their feelings of inauthenticity or bodily insecurity.     

实现“中国梦”与构筑当代青年的精神支柱

确立以中国特色社会主义核心价值体系为主导的思想素质和精神支柱,是青年群体实现"中国梦"和人生理想所必备的道德品质成长的基石。精神境界高尚,思想政治素质优良,当代青年运动的方向就能始终代表着时代前进的步伐,成为推动经济与社会发展的生力军。进入新的历史时期,面对国际国内的各种挑战,我们要以科学发展观为指导,以为人民群众服务的社会实践为载体,大力弘扬爱国主义和民族精神,进一步强化思想道德建设,不断构筑当代青年群体强大精神支柱,引导他们在全面建设小康社会、实现"中国梦"的新征程中,奋发进取,继往开来,成长为社会主义的合格建设者和可靠接班人。     

自反性青年亚文化——青年文化的空间属性与情感转向

“青年文化”具有“亚文化”属性,不仅仅指“青春叛逆”这一特质,在新媒体时代更涉及到“网络媒介”对“青年文化”的形塑。通过当代大学生阅读调查、网络使用习惯调查以及实际社交状况的深描,探讨青年群体在虚拟空间与现实空间中不同的身份表达,可以发现当下“赛博空间”中的青年自我表征与现实身份认同的关系具有“自反性”,一方面“次元壁”的区隔显示出青年身份认同的焦虑,另一方面从“网络—现实”空间的二元对立中又生产出身份认同的路径,即通过“自我对抗”最终生产出青年的主体性。     

The Use of the Arts and the Strengths Perspective: The Example of a Course Assignment

This article reports the findings of a study that explored factors affecting the choice to graduate from social work made by active students in one of the three social work departments in Greece. Research focused mainly on structural factors (students' socio-economic background and demographic characteristics, the educational system and the system of admission to higher education). It also touched briefly upon students' prevailing work values. Findings indicate that students' socio-economic background and the educational system's structure play a significant role in their choice to graduate from social work. These structural factors seem to have caused their educational/ occupational choice to be a rather limited one, since approximately 30% of the students decided to graduate as a form of compromise. Students rated intrinsic work values highly, which is consistent with prior research findings.     

The Moralities of Intellectual Property: Subtitle Groups as Cultural Brokers in China

This study investigates the moralities of intellectual property developed in the context of an underground network of Internet-based amateur translators in China. These translators are dedicated to unofficially subtitling and disseminating unauthorised US television programs and movies to Chinese audiences. I examine how translators have developed new moralities through their subtitling practices in the terrain of media technology. I explore how the subtitle community exists as a moral enterprise and how morality is constructed through subtitlers' disciplined practice, volunteer work and devotion to the media programs. I argue that regardless of their different opinions, subtitlers moralise their activities based on the conviction that Chinese youth and young adults want more knowledge, in spite of the state's media monopoly, and that fulfilling this need is a public good. Such a morality honours an unofficial moral code that is parallel to official state policy.     

The Accumulation of National Belonging in Transnational Fields: Ways of Being at Home in Vietnam

The notion of transnational citizenship emphasizes the mobility and flexibility of transmigrants with respect to the affective claims and disciplinary operations of the nation-state. Such representations tend to make redundant the analysis of the deep commitments of time, acculturation, and identification that have traditionally been considered the sine qua non of national belonging. I shall aim to put these modalities of citizenship into a more dialectical relation by arguing that in order to reap the full benefits of their mobility, that is, to be able to secure the highest rates of conversion for their transnational cultural capital, transmigrants must legitimate their claims to national membership by accumulating practical national belonging. These issues will be explored through an ethnographic analysis of the strategies by which overseas Vietnamese attempt to assert and accumulate legitimacy as subjects of national belonging in Vietnam.     

Entering Youth Justice: Comparing the Views of Human Services and Criminology Students

Abstract

The present paper explores how undergraduate students who are relatively new to the field of youth justice conceptualise their possible future work roles. The research compared the views of students who were commencing two undergraduate courses (subjects) concerned with working with young people. One course was taken by human services students and the other was taken by criminology students. Findings indicated that there were significant differences between these two groups in terms of their views about crime causation, as well as how they see the roles of youth justice workers. Students entered their respective programs and youth courses with differing professional orientations. The findings raise some intriguing questions at a time when universities and employers look to the potential benefits of “double degrees” and “joint degrees” that span supposedly complementary professional areas. However, contrasting beliefs about “troubled and troublesome” young people may resist easy accommodation within the same program of professional preparation.     

How culture influences foreign trade: evidence from the U.S. and China

Using a gravity model of trade and the U.S. and Chinese panel data, I present evidence that supports the views that linguistic links have become more important in foreign trade than geographical proximity and that linguistic influence on trade is more significant in China than in the U.S. The estimated result based on a broad panel of economies shows little overall relation between religious similarity and foreign trade in both the U.S. and China. But there is an indication that the religious dissimilarity tends to retard foreign trade with poor countries and regions and to encourage foreign trade with richer places. I also found that, although religious retardation on foreign trade is more significant in China than in the U.S., religious dissimilarity tends to retard the US export more than that of China; by contrast, it tends to retard the Chinese import more than that of the U.S. At last, the socio-economic implications of the estimated results are discussed.     

Provincializing Europe: Postcoloniality and the critique of history

This article begins from a perceived lack of empirical evidence in cultural studies, namely the ethnography of cultural globalization in ‘global cities’ other than those of the West. Youth culture among the upper strata of the South-Indian metropolis Bangalore is taken as an instance of how modernity is experienced and produced in the post-colonial Third World. The focus lies on the reception of Western pop music, but music is treated broadly as a practice situated in, and producing, real and imagined space. Two examples of these musical practices serve to elaborate on Indian power relations, Indian modernity and the critical geography of music.     

Making Modernity in China: Employment and Entrepreneurship among the New Generation of Peasant Workers

China is experiencing urbanization and modernization at the largest scale in human history. An army of over 280 million “peasant workers” are an integral part of this great transformation to modernity. Drawing on different data sources, including national representative random samples and the authors' first-hand survey data, we provide systematic comparisons between the older and the younger generation of peasant workers and between young peasant entrepreneurs in cities and young returnee entrepreneurs. We found that, compared with the older generation, the younger generation of peasant workers is better educated, holds more stable jobs, has a higher income, lives a happier life and is more optimistic about the future. Our analysis of the two types of peasant entrepreneurs shows that they are the elites among peasant workers, running successful business and making handsome profits. We also note that discrimination and institutional obstacles, especially the hukou system, remain to be overcome in the peasant workers' transition to modernity.     

Youth and social movements on the move: political engagement among young Spanish migrants in London

Since the beginning of the economic crisis in Spain young people have migrated abroad looking for job opportunities. In the meantime, after the 15-M movement in 2011, Spanish society created various social movements hoping to make change happen, as well as the pro-independence movement in Catalonia that gathered strength as a response to the Spanish economic and political crisis. This paper analyses how Spanish young people in London, as transmigrants rooted in two different countries, engage with the politics of their home country through two transnational social movements in London: ANC England and the Maroon Wave London. The article describes both local movements (comparing their goals, structure and activities), showing the reasons that young Spanish migrants get involved and their experiences within them. It also rethinks the nature and modalities of young diasporic identities and political engagement in the global age through the experiences of the young people interviewed.     

“碎片化”时代高校青年文化建设的转型与重构

当前“碎片化”时代下的社会结构性特征包括知识爆炸式增长、社会思潮多元化、快餐文化风行、传播手段多样性等,其发展态势影响了青年主体与文化的群像特征,包括加剧了青年的圈层主体性、导致了青年文化碎片化、一定程度上颠覆了组织及活动载体。研究提出了高校青年文化建设在“碎片化”时代下转型与重构的五条路径:围绕“立德树人”,发挥共青团在青年文化建设中的价值导向作用;加强“文化自信”,整合碎片化的信息与资源;深入基层,针对性渗透到青年文化的每个角落;创新整合及碎片重构,搭建大数据下的“智慧团建”;发扬先锋模范作用,培育示范性青年文化。     

Politeness as signs of difference: Semiotic differentiation and identity among Taiwanese in China

This study examines a prevalent discourse on Taiwanese politeness as part and parcel of identity and ideological work among Taiwanese residing in China. Using as data spontaneous discussions about politeness in interviews and online forum posts that evaluate politeness, this study explores how politeness is taken up as a sign to index Taiwan–China differences and how identity is simultaneously constructed throughout this ideological work, focusing on the succession of semiotic differentiations within or across talks and texts. Throughout this process, various qualitative contrasts are made and grouped by the soft/hard schema, and differentiation between Taiwan and China is constructed. The study also considers relevant historical and social conditions and explores how the complex Taiwan–China relations may give rise to the prevalence of such a discourse.     

Borrowing from the Rural to Help the Urban: Organic Farming Exemplars in Postsocialist China

This article examines an alternative food movement in China called exemplary agriculture. A key characteristic of the movement is its recuperation of legacies of state socialism including exemplary morality (leadership by example and the emulation of role models) and the pervasive urban/rural dichotomy (a dichotomy that privileges the urban over the rural economically, politically and culturally). Adopting practices derived from rural culture and putting a positive spin on them, movement protagonists promote alternative urban lifestyles they believe will improve the experience of city living and the malice of modernity. Drawing on ethnographic research across organic farms and farmers’ markets, this article examines some of the tensions revealed when these legacies of socialism interact with processes of globalisation such as consumer culture. It offers insights into the changing nature of activism in postsocialist China and how new economic classes are attempting to reconfigure the cultural and moral landscape of the city.