When and Where Global meets Local: A multilevel analysis of determinants of social trust in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi

Abu Dhabi's transformation to a modern society in recent decades provides an ideal context to explore the interplay of tradition, transition, and modernization at various levels, which shapes the trajectory of the development of social trust. This study offers multilevel analyses of the effects of social, psychological, and ethnical factors on social trust by using data from Abu Dhabi General Social Survey conducted in 2018. The results sustain the validity of both social capital and social network theories in explaining social trust. Contrary to the findings in other Middle East countries, in Abu Dhabi, the full‐time employed and people who are more satisfied with their household income tend to show a higher level of trust. A negative but insignificant relationship is found between community ethnic fragmentation and social trust.     

城镇居民普遍信任的区域间及区域内差异分析——基于“资源因素论”视角

本研究采用CGSS2003数据分析普遍信任的区域间及区域内的差异,发现中国城镇居民的普遍信任程度从高到低排序依次为东部、中部和西部。该发现从“资源因素论”的视角验证了普遍信任的程度差异与地区层面的宏观公共资源的相关性,微观层面的资源（包括个人拥有的资源和个人借用的资源）对地区内城镇居民的普遍信任有正向影响,这一影响会因宏观层面资源的不同而发生变化。     

市场社会中社会参与的路径问题——关系信任还是普遍信任

已有研究多数认为市场经济、社会参与有助于普遍信任的建立,“关系”则阻碍这种信任的形成。基于CGSS2005数据,本文应用结构方程模型和多层次线性模型分析了市场经济、社会参与和关系信任对普遍信任的多重影响。研究表明：以亲属信任为核心的关系信任对普遍信任具有消极影响;当社会组织成员间信任仍是一种关系信任时,社会参与对普遍信任也呈现出消极作用;市场经济发展能够提高普遍信任,但同时推动了“关系”的使用,从而使得当代中国的市场经济与普遍信任间存在着相反的双向影响。因此,在经济建设中必须进一步推动社会参与。社会参与不仅仅要关注于组织的增长,也需要在制度层面上给予“跨关系”成员交往更多的支持。     

Political trust,young people and institutions in Europe. A multilevel analysis

The constant decline of political trust has been shown in political sociology. Young people in particular seem to display lower levels of political trust, which is a challenge for the sustainability of democracy. Still, these levels of political trust among youth differ greatly from one country to another. This article therefore seeks to answer the following question: How can we account for cross‐national diversity with regard to young people’s political trust? To answer this question, I performed multilevel analyses based on data from the European Social Survey. I show in the article that cross‐national diversity stems from the institutional arrangements that structure entry into adulthood, i.e., what I call ‘youth welfare citizenship regimes’: The more inclusive is the youth economic citizenship and the more individualised is their social citizenship, the higher is young people’s political trust – which could buffer the decline in political trust.     

‘We Don't Have to Take This’: Zero Tolerance of Violence against Health Care Workers in a Time of Insecurity

Doctors, nurses and other health care workers in the UK are said to be increasingly aware of the ‘risks of the job’ as a result of mounting verbal abuse, threats and assaults from patients and their relatives. In the late 1990s the UK government introduced a policy of ‘zero tolerance’, which it claimed was designed to minimize the risk of such violence. Current policy refers to the need to be tough on offenders and encourage a culture of respect. In this article we review this strategy and the reasons for its introduction and consider some of the potential consequences. The article starts with an account of the policy, the definition of violence that underpins it and how it has been measured, and assesses the evidence regarding prevalence. This is then interpreted in the context of wider policies of zero tolerance to crime, and debates about risk, anxiety and insecurity.     

对宗教组织之信任的探索性研究——以上海数据为例

本文利用上海市的调查数据,从宗教归属、人口学变量、社会经济地位因素、社会信任、社会参与和其他机构信任等方面对宗教组织信任进行分析,了解人们对宗教组织信任的现状及影响因素,并对相关的研究进行回应。结果显示,与对其它机构的信任相比,民众对宗教组织的信任处于一个较低水平;宗教归属、社会信任、组织参与和对世俗机构的信任对宗教组织信任的影响最大;阶层、社会参与也有一定的影响;性别、年龄、受教育程度和政治面貌等无影响。     

民族伦理学研究的人类学视角

民族伦理学涉及民族学和伦理学两门学科,而民族学与人类学在学科性质上的“亲缘性”、在研究目标和理论立场上的共通性,内在地要求民族伦理学 应主动采用人类学的研究方法,以推进民族伦理学研究由抽象演绎向实证分析和文化解释的转变。深化民族伦理学研究,需要研究者面向普通人的生活世界,深入民间进行田野工作;需要研究者以历史主义的学术立场,探究民族伦理文化的历史变迁和现实状况。民族伦理学应关注不同民族人民用自身的道德话语和道德行为“书写”出来的道德生活史,在对人们日常交往生活的微观叙事中展现民族丰富多样的伦理文化。     

Changes in marital status and links to self-rated health: A study of temporal relationships

This study examines whether self-rated health (SRH) changes predict marital status changes or vice versa, and tests whether changes in trust mediate the relationship between marital transition and SRH change. A logistic regression model and a mediation analysis method are used separately to analyze the longitudinal data on 2,042 respondents from the Panel Study of Family Dynamics (PSFD) in Taiwan. The survey achieves response rates above 70%. The findings show that none of health status at either time point predict the three types of marital transitions including never married to married, married to divorced/separated, and married to widowed. Bonding trust plays a more important role than generalized trust in mediating the adverse effect of remaining widowed status on health change within a context of Confucian culture. Those who maintain a widowed state have a lower likelihood of sustaining high levels of bonding trust, which in turn leads to poor SRH. Hence, the findings provide more support for a social causation hypothesis rather than a health selection hypothesis.     

一般信任模式的跨部门差异及其中介机制: 基于2010年中国综合社会调查的研究

本文基于“市场”与“国家再分配”两种不同制度环境的讨论，利用中国综合社会调查2010年的数据，运用倾向值匹配方法处理潜在的选择性误差，考察了不同部门中个体的一般信任水平。结果显示，相比私有部门（外资企业和私营企业），在公共部门中工作的个体呈现了更高的一般信任水平。进一步的分析表明，政治参与水平和相对剥夺感作为中介于工作部门与一般信任水平之间的解释机制是显著的，在公共部门中工作的个体不仅在态度上对内在政治效能感有更高的认定，而且也能积极参与居委会社区的选举。这些特征极大提升了他们的一般信任水平。此外，公共部门中的个体在社会地位与经济地位上所持有的较低的相对剥夺感也有助于其建立更高的一般信任水平。     

新生代对基督教的信任态度及中介机制——以长三角地区数据为例

本文基于经典的“世代分析”框架和系统信任研究的“文化论”路径,试图回答：与其前辈相比,出生并成长于改革开放之后的新生代在对基督教信任方面有无差异？若有,近代以来影响国人对基督教态度的科学主义和文化民族主义在其间是否仍具中介影响？以此会突显民众对基督教怎样的态度变化？文章通过对长三角地区调查数据的分析发现,与前辈相比,新生代对基督教的信任度更高;科学主义与文化民族主义在世代与基督教信任间发挥着部分中介效应,且影响较弱。由此,我们可以在一定程度上看到新生代在实现包容性国民精神转型方面的向好态势。     

Measuring social trust and trusting the measure

Decades of rigorous quantitative scholarship have generated a wealth of knowledge regarding the causes and consequences of crossnational variations in social trust. However, while some social science disciplines have made significant contributions to this conversation, others have largely failed to do so. The field of international relations, for example, has lagged behind in producing aggregate-level scholarship on social trust. This is surprising given that (1) trust influences public opinion and thereby the incentive structure for political leaders and (2) many peacebuilding efforts directly target the levels of trust in post-conflict settings. Country-level trust scholarship in international relations and the social sciences more generally is hampered by data scarcity. The main purpose of this article is to present a new publicly available data set on aggregate levels of social trust. Relying on a set of 19 widely accepted correlates, we construct a new cross-sectional measure of the concept that covers all countries from 1946 to 2010. We then perform a series of empirical tests establishing the validity of our measure. Finally, we offer a number of bivariate analyses to demonstrate the broad utility of our new variable for scholars in the social sciences.     

Toleration or trust? Investigating the acceptance of ‘boat people’ among young Australians

There has been intense debate in Australia regarding how asylum seekers who arrive by boat should be treated. Some call for compassion towards those prepared to risk their lives to seek protection, whereas others believe ‘boat people’ should not be allowed into the country. This article uses data from a large representative sample of young people in Queensland, Australia, to understand the acceptance of asylum seekers by young people in Australia. The findings suggest that young Australians are more accepting than the Australian adult population. Several social and political background factors were also found to be associated with the belief that ‘boat people’ should be permitted into Australia. Fewer factors, however, are associated with the trust young Australians have in people from another country. This suggests that while some young Australians may believe boats carrying asylum seekers should not be turned away, fewer might be prepared to enter into trusting relationships with ‘boat people’ should they resettle in Australia.     

Giving money to strangers: European welfare states and social trust

Jensen C, Svendsen GT. Giving money to strangers: European welfare states and social trust Int J Soc Welfare 2011: 20: 3–9 © 2009 The Author, Journal compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare. Why would you give money to strangers? That is the fundamental question posed by a new body of research into the relationship between social trust and willingness to accept high taxes and extensive welfare states. The literature argues that generalised trust causes and upholds universal welfare state institutions, an entirely plausible explanation of the Scandinavian social democratic welfare states. However, it cannot explain the presence of very large welfare states in Continental Europe, where the level of generalised trust is much lower than in Scandinavia. The article adds to the existing literature by arguing that the ‘bumblebee’ of conservative welfare states is characterised by particularistic trust and familiaristic welfare institutions, which are functional equivalents to the mechanisms found in Scandinavia. Future research into the trust–welfare state relationship should therefore focus on the trust profile of a country to understand how the welfare state provides its citizens with benefits.     

The Self-Fulfilling Property of Trust: An Experimental Study

A person is said to be ‘trust responsive’ if she fulfils trust because she believes the truster trusts her. The experiment we report was designed to test for trust responsiveness and its robustness across payoff structures, and to discriminate it from other possible factors making for trustworthiness, including perceived kindness, perceived need and inequality aversion. We elicit the truster’s confidence that the trustee will fulfil, and the trustee’s belief about the truster’s confidence after the trustee receives evidence relevant to this. We find evidence of strong trust responsiveness. We also find that perceptions of kindness and of need increase trust responsiveness, and that they do so only in conjunction with trust responsiveness.      

美国族群问题及其破解对策

美国是一个多族群的国家,族群之间的矛盾和斗争充斥着整个美国历史发展过程。"二战"之后,特别是20世纪80年代以来,由于白人至上主义和极右思潮的抬头,美国族群关系更趋于紧张。然而,在前苏联、南斯拉夫这些多族群国家解体的后冷战时代,美国却能够保持相对稳定的族群关系。这主要得益于其不断完善的法律制度、多元与一体的相对平衡,以及不断改进的社会保障制度等因素。由于美国族群政策是建立在资本主义私有制基础之上的,具有不可避免的局限性,因而对美国的族群政策应重于研究、分析,慎于借鉴。     

Ethnicity and Occupational Pension Membership in the UK

Reflecting a relatively low‐value Basic State Pension, occupational pensions have historically been a key aspect of pension protection within Britain. Existing research shows that minority ethnic groups are less likely to benefit from such pensions and are more likely to face poverty in later life, as a result of the interaction of their labour market participation and pension membership patterns. However, the lack of adequate data on ethnic minorities has so far prevented the direct comparison of different ethnic groups, as well as their comparison to the White British group. Using data from the UK Household Longitudinal Study, this article explores patterns of employment and the odds ratios of membership in an employer's pension scheme among working‐age individuals from minority ethnic groups and the White British population, taking into account factors not used by previous research, such as one's migration history and sector of employment (public/private). The analysis provides new empirical evidence confirming that ethnicity remains a strong determinant of one's pension protection prospects through being in paid work, being an employee and working for an employer who offers a pension scheme. However, once an individual is working for an employer offering a pension scheme, the effect of ethnicity on that person's odds of being a member of that scheme reduces, except among Pakistani and Bangladeshi individuals for whom the differentials remain. The article also provides evidence on the pension protection of Polish individuals, a relatively ‘new’ minority group in the UK.     

It is not just scale that matters: Political trust in Utah

While the traditional assumption is residents have more confidence in governments that are closest to them, empirical studies supporting this claim remain limited. In this study, we test the claim that ‘small is beautiful’ by comparing citizen reactions to similar types of decisions affecting Utah residents made by political leaders at different levels of governance. Our primary goal is to test the claim that trust is higher for local governments. Our secondary goal is to examine potential determinants of trust and whether they vary across levels of governance. The central finding from this study is that, despite claims to the contrary, citizens are not necessarily more trusting of government closer to the people and higher levels of government can engender as much trust as more local levels of government. Our findings also emphasize that regardless of the level of governance considered, interrelations exist between residents’ views of procedural justice and trust in these officials.     

Focusing the mediating role of institutional trust: How does interpersonal trust promote organizational commitment?

Numerous organization scholars point out that trust is crucial for well-functioning organizations. However, trust in organizational settings could differ according to the objects of trust. This study compares two conceptually different models: main-effect model and mediation-effect model. The main-effect model assumes that both interpersonal trust and institutional trust promote organizational commitment independently, but the mediation-effect model assumes that institutional trust is cultivated by interpersonal trust and increases organizational commitment. The results of structural equation modeling (SEM) show that the mediation-effect model fits better than the main-effect model and that the structural coefficients of the mediation-effect model are neatly interpreted by social scientific studies of trust. This study's findings have two important implications: First, there seems to be sequential order between different types of trust in organizational settings. Second, interpersonal trust promotes organizational commitment only if it facilitates institutional trust, providing an explanation for the inconsistent findings of previous studies.     

Multicultural social work practice and South Asian migrants in Hong Kong

This paper explores how multicultural social work responds to the needs and structural issues faced by South Asian migrants in Hong Kong. Three working approaches, namely, the problem-solving approach, the strengths-based approach, and the rights-based approach are identified from our empirical data. The analyses demonstrate the generally insufficient awareness of the practice in critically addressing existing policies and power relations based on race. Moreover, there is a lack of critical reflection on the notion of culture and social workers’ ethnocentric biases. This paper argues that this insufficient awareness could lead to reinforcement of the existing social exclusion of ethnic minorities in Hong Kong. Using Hong Kong as an example, this paper reflects on the implications of applying Western-based literature and practice model in a non-Western society.     

现代中国民族关系的类型划分

由于历史发展过程中的种种原因,一国内部各种族、族群之间在文化传统、与中央政府的历史联系各不相同,在社会经济水平和能力方面发展不均衡,各族成员在获得资源和个体发展条件机会方面存在差距,族群间的这些重要差异不应忽视。因此各国政府需要根据实事求是的精神,尊重历史与现实国情,为本国不同群体设计不同的政策。中国历代王朝在这方面有许多成功经验。新中国成立后,政府在民族政策的许多方面采取“一刀切”的思路与做法,强调国情但忽视了族情。这些政策已执行了半个多世纪,其实践效果需要检验。本文回顾了民族史研究文献对民族的分类,讨论了中国各族群之间的差异,通过人口变量、族际通婚、文化变量、与中央政权关系、境外同族是否建立独立国家这5个因素对中国的55个族群进行初步分类,对各类群体的特点进行归纳分析,希望以此推动我国民族理论和有关政策的反思。