Miao Identities,Indigenism and the Politics of Appropriation in Southwest China during the Republican Period

This paper examines the conception of Miao identities in the writings of three indigenous intellectuals during the Republican period. Being members of three different indigenous groups who are classified as Miao today, these writers imagined the Miao community differently in terms of geographical boundaries, cultural contents, and historical experiences. While these differences need to be explained by the writers' unique life histories unfolded in particular local, national and transnational contexts, these writers in general appropriated and domesticated Chinese ethnic categories to reformulate their own conceptions of the indigenous community in terms that stretched beyond the boundary of their own local groups, forming part of their political activism to struggle for official recognition of ethnic minority status in the Republican regimes' nation-building project. This politics of appropriation and recognition constitutes some indigenous groups' special form of activism in Southwest China to struggle for self-definition in the process of being integrated into the modern Chinese state. It shaped the historical conditions for indigenous responses to the Communist Party's minority policies, showing that indigenous people were not waiting passively for their historical fate of being classified according to some state-imposed supra-local ethnic identities after the Communist takeover.     

Obtaining efficient estimates of park use and testing for the structural adequacy of models

This paper provides an examination of the problem of heteroscedasticity as it relates to estimating park use, although the results can also be applied to a wide variety of flow problems involving traffic, people or commodities. The major issue is that estimates of flows obtained using ordinary least squares, OLS, often yield statistically significant results while still giving rise to large differences between observed and predicted flows (residuals). The paper presents results which show that for the flow estimation problem of concern, more accurate use estimates may be obtained by using generalized least squares, GLS, rather than using OLS. Weights to use in GLS regression are developed taking into account the variance to be expected in origin-destination flows. It is shown that deriving the correct weights, estimates of variances, to use in a regression analysis results in an ‘absolute’ test for the structural appropriateness of the regression model. Tests related to the ‘absolute’ adequacy test are introduced and their use to identify specific structural problems with a model is illustrated.     

Practice wisdom in social work: an uncommon sense in the intersubjective encounter

Social work is not, and should not be, a practice of common sense. The author revisited a vast array of literature on practice wisdom in social work and parallel conceptions in cognate disciplines. For better or worse, the idea of practice wisdom has been revitalized in standing against the deprofessionalization of social work. However, its ambiguity in meaning has somehow overridden its reputation. Practice wisdom is intuitive, tacit, and spontaneous in nature. It is an embodied phronesis of experienced practitioners. The author argues that practice wisdom in social work is not only the wisdom of analytical experience, but it is also the wisdom or a quality characterized by courtesy, kindness, consideration, compassion, and benevolence. It is uniquely uncommonsensical and has to be cultivated through the intersubjective encounter between the practitioner and service user.     

Coordinating replenishments in a supply chain with quality control considerations

We study the impact of coordinated replenishment, a popular supply chain initiative, on a quality control system. We use the (Q, S) policy to manage a two-item inventory control system. If the items are jointly replenished, the number ordered for each item varies from lot to lot. As the number varies, the sampling plan will also be changed. Companies have to determine sampling plans to minimize quality cost when the order is mixed with several items and the number of each item varies from order to order. Management's primary concern is to determine the optimal sampling sizes and acceptance numbers for all items in an order.     

Five-Way Experiential Learning Model for Social Work Education

Social workers exercise their practice skills by helping clients find strengths and solutions. In order to comprehensively practice skills for diverse client situations, it is crucial to practice and fine-tune the applications of various therapeutic approaches through clinical drills. This paper presents an experiential learning model, expanded from Kolb's Learning Cycle, which fits the dynamic pedagogical needs of the social work profession. It examines the implementation of the use of the ‘Five-Way Experiential Learning Model’ based on practice learning through personal reflections and professional evaluations. This practice learning study helped 79 MSW students define their ‘five-way learning’ and to analyze its impact on their acquisition of social work skills and clinical practice competencies. This process demonstrates the importance of the transtheoretical connection to achieve a better understanding of clients' situations through the process of change and peer input. Discussions will focus on the model elements, results on experiential learning, and ethical considerations.     

Reducing youth's drug abuse through training social workers for cognitive–behavioral integrated treatment

Cognitive–behavioral integrated treatment (CBIT) is an intervention that social workers can learn to treat youth's drug abuse by cognitive restructuring, behavioral modification, and goal setting. A way to enhance the learning is training specifically for CBIT. Evaluation of the effectiveness of such training in raising social workers' CBIT practice and their young service users' illicit-drug-free days is the aim of this experimental study. This study first randomly assigned 14 outreach social workers to receive training for CBIT and 14 outreach social workers not to receive the training. The study also assessed 222 young service users (aged 11–22 years) engaged by 28 outreach social workers before the training and 169 of them after the training in a six-month follow-up. Furthermore, the study identified the reduction in the youth's dysfunctional cognition of playfulness as a means to deter the youth's drug abuse, based on personal interviews with outreach social workers and their young service users before the training. Derived from the statistical analysis of assessment data, results principally showed cascading effects from the social worker's reception of the CBIT training to the young service user's reception of CBIT, reduced playfulness, and lengthened drug-free days. A supplementary finding was that the young service user's time in the outreach social work service prolonged drug-free days and reduced playfulness. These results imply that the outreach social work service, CBIT training, and CBIT are useful for treating youth's illicit drug abuse.     

Conditions for migrant mothers' socioeconomic disadvantages in Hong Kong

The present study utilizes both survey and interview data to examine the socioeconomic disadvantages in terms of limited social support, poverty, and non-employment in migrant mothers in Hong Kong, China. It seeks to understand the disadvantages from a social distance perspective, which holds that social distance hinders access to employment, and social and formal support. This article surveyed 837 mothers living in two impoverished communities. A subsample of 72 migrant mothers participated in follow-up in-depth interviews. Findings indicate the socioeconomic disadvantages and reveal some local conditions for the disadvantages. Specifically, the norms of childcare and self-reliance, social stigmatization of welfare recipients, and remote residential community come to shape migrant mothers' experiences of caring for young children. These findings provide implications to social work practitioners for targeting migrant mothers to reduce their social distance from local community resources.     

The Role of Worker Support and Religious Support in African American Special Needs Adoption: The Bennett Chapel Experience

Between 1998 and 2003 members and friends of Bennett Chapel Missionary Baptist Church in rural East Texas adopted 70 African American special needs children. Data from surveys of 113 Texas and Louisiana adoptive families, including 14 Bennett Chapel families, found that the amount of anticipated worker support influenced the decision to adopt, particularly for Bennett Chapel families, and actual worker support was significantly related to positive adoption impact on the family. Comparisons of Bennett Chapel with other families highlight the uniqueness of this initiative. Findings underscore the importance of worker support for facilitating adoptions in faith and rural communities and increasing adoptions of African American children.     

Psychometric evaluation of the inventory of Gambling Motives,Attitudes and Behaviours (GMAB) among Chinese gamblers

The present study aims to evaluate and refine the Inventory of Gambling Motives, Attitudes and Behaviours (GMAB) specifically designed to assess gambling-related cognitions and behaviours of Chinese gamblers with a random sample of 697 Chinese adults in Macao who were interviewed by telephone. Confirmatory factor analysis generally replicated the basic factor structure of the three domains of GMAB although the removal of several items with low factor loading or cross-loading was suggested. Moreover, the findings supported the addition of another motivational subscale, socialization. The revised version has six subscales of motives (self-worth, monetary gains, sensation seeking, boredom alleviation, learning and socialization), four of attitudes (fate and luck, negative consequences of gambling, techniques and superstition), and five of behaviours (impaired control, gambling involvement, arousal reaction, superstitious behaviour and controlled gambling). The psychometric properties of the revised GMAB (GMAB-R) were demonstrated to be satisfactory.