Trends in Child Poverty in Hong Kong Immigrant Families

In Hong Kong, child poverty is a serious social problem which may lead to intergenerational poverty, but nevertheless only a few studies have examined this issue, particularly for immigrant families. Using Census data (5 %) from 1981, 1991, 2001, and 2011, we assessed child poverty rates in the past three decades and identified key variables contributing to changes in the risk of child poverty for both immigrant and local families. Our results indicate that child poverty rates in Hong Kong-born families have fluctuated between 14.3 and 15.8 % over the past three decades, while for immigrant families they have increased steadily and substantially from 18.1 % in 1981 to 36.5 % in 2001 and then to 37.5 % in 2011. We show that the increase in immigrant child poverty is associated with changes in the Hong Kong economy that have made it more difficult for such families to adapt to the host society, especially in the 1990s and that this negative effect offset the positive influence of compositional changes among this group of immigrant families in terms of parental education levels and family size. The gap between immigrant and local families in terms of child poverty risk is mainly due to the fact that during the 1990s the negative effect of contextual changes in Hong Kong was cancelled out by the beneficial impact of compositional changes for local families, but not for immigrant families where the latter effect was minimal.     

Understanding contextual effects on externalizing behaviors in children in out-of-home care: Influence of workers and foster families

The expression of externalizing behaviors of children in-care can be influenced by a multitude of factors. The current study examined the simultaneous levels of influence of workers and foster families on children's externalizing behaviors in those receiving out-of-home care. A cross-classified multilevel model was used to partition variance in children in-care's externalizing scores into worker, foster family and child-specific levels of influence. The extent to which processes are explained by worker and foster-family level predictors was examined. Assessment and Action Record (AAR) data from the Ontario Looking after Children (OnLAC) project were analyzed. The sample included data from 1063 children between 10 and 17 years of age (M age = 13 years, 6 months, SD = 2.08 years). While individual differences in children's externalizing behaviors were primarily attributable to child-specific effects (72%), 10% and 18% of the variance can be explained by worker and foster family influences respectively. Worker education accounted for substantial differences seen between workers where more difficult children were monitored by workers with less educational attainment. Furthermore, foster-family level predictors also explained variance in children's externalizing behaviors. Relative to children in foster care, those in kinship care displayed significantly lower levels of problem behaviors while children in group care displayed significantly higher levels. Higher levels of parental negativity within the foster family and the experience of more differential parental negativity relative to siblings were significantly associated with more externalizing behaviors. Lastly, children who were more satisfied with their placement displayed significantly lower levels of problematic behaviors. These results suggest that children in-care can be conceptualized within a multilevel framework.     

Corruption across countries: Impacts from education and cultural dimensions

Corruption, which is defined by Transparency International as the misuse of entrusted power for private gain, was related to the number of people participating in tertiary education across countries. It was found that as the number of people participating in tertiary education increased, the incidence of corruption occurring in the countries decreased. Similar to other studies, the higher the GDP per capita of a country, the lower the cases of corruption. Interestingly, correlation results showed that enrolment in tertiary education had a positive result with GDP per capita. Hofstede's (1984) cultural dimensions were also found to affect the acts of corruption indirectly through enrolment in tertiary education and GDP per capita. Overall, this study has included 56 countries and results were similar in two different time periods.     

Social capital and its relevance to the Japanese-model welfare society

Current debates and initiatives relating to the welfare regime in Japan focus on the contributions of informal and community networks. In this article, we adopt the concept of social capital, which is assessed according to three categories – structural social capital, experiential individual social capital and anticipatory individual social capital – in order to evaluate the assumptions and strengths of community in Japan. The findings are based on a small-scale survey conducted in the Greater Kobe area in 2002. The study revealed that the level of structural social capital is 'average' and the level of experiential individual social capital is 'rather low'. However, the anticipatory individual social capital, which is the expectation of future assistance whether conditional or unconditional, is higher than the experiential individual social capital. The findings suggest that, in Japan, people's belief that they will receive assistance in the future has a significant impact on their level of achievement. Such findings may help us understand the nature of the welfare regime in Japan: it depends on a sense of general trust, which effectively supports the informal groups and community networks that provide assistance to their members.     

Pedagogical Practice Wisdom in Social Work Practice Teaching—A Kaleidoscopic View

Limitations of technical rationality, the dominant paradigm for making sense of human interactions in the context of social work practice, have drawn much attention. Currently, practice wisdom in social work education is at the center of a hot debate, but one confined to conceptual analysis. As of yet, there is no empirical reference for its substantive contents and operation. In the current presentation, four features of practice wisdom are developed, based upon a synthesis of the commonalities of practice wisdom as inferred from extensive scholars' views: the interplay of Moral Reasoning and Cognitive Knowledge, the Agential Nature of Knowledge, the Interactive Process of Knowledge Generation, and the Fluid Status of Knowledge. To advance the development of social work pedagogy by filling the gaps in empirical knowledge, these four features, hence, pedagogical practice wisdom, as exercised by practice teachers, are explored. Ten videotaped practice teaching scenarios and twenty co-reflection meetings were undertaken with five practice teachers and analyzed. The main finding is that practice teachers exercised nondeliberative reflection, each emphasizing different features of practice wisdom, thus shaping their teaching in ways unique to each. These results suggest a kaleidoscopic view in understanding pedagogical practice wisdom and specialized training for practice teachers.     

Sustaining Resilience Through Local Connectedness Among Sojourn Students

Resilience is desirable for promotion as a resource for international students to sustain adjustment and withstand stress. A yet uncertain way for the promotion is the student’s connectedness with host or local people. To ascertain the benefit of local connectedness, this study surveyed 215 sojourn students originating from Mainland China who studied in Hong Kong. Results show that local connectedness engendered a significant positive effect on resilience and a significant negative effect on depressed mood. They echo theory and research concerning the merit of bridging social capital. This notion calls for efforts to associate sojourn students with locals with similar characteristics and advance their mutual help.     

Surviving Hegemony Through Resistance and Identity Articulation Among Outreaching Social Workers

An understanding of outreaching social work in Hong Kong is viable through an analysis of discourses constructed and experienced by social workers. The discourses address hegemony by the government and consent, resistance, and identity arising from social workers. These discourses were the focus of the present study, which relied on repeated in-depth interviews with 20 practitioners in the outreaching social work field. The results give insight in three main ways: they unfold the discourses of hegemony and consent in terms of effectiveness, accountability, and social control; they address the discourses of resistance in terms of incompatibility, social defense, and others; and they examine professional identity in terms of respect for self-determination, relationship building, youth development, and unionization. All the discourses and identities emerged from a process of international spillover. Moreover, the study found that social workers realized that the hegemonic crisis triggered identity development because of the need to preserve the profession. The study implies that the social work profession has high levels of commitment and internationalization, both of which help proliferate the profession.     

几个亚洲国家的远程MBA教学项目的区域性比较研究

1 ＴｈｅＯｂｊｅｃｔｉｖｅＯｆＴｈｅＲｅｓｅａｒｃｈＰａｐｅｒＤｉｓｔａｎｃｅｌｅａｒｎｉｎｇＭＢＡｐｒｏｇｒａｍｍｅｓｈａｖｅｉｎｃｒｅａｓｅｄｔｒｅｍｅｎｄｏｕｓｌｙｉｎｔｈｅｐａｓｔｄｅｃａｄｅｉｎｓｅｌｅｃｔｅｄＡｓｉａｎｃｏｕｎｔｒｉｅｓ,ｅ .ｇ.Ｓｉｎｇａｐｏｒｅ.Ｍａｎｙｂｅｌｉｅｖｅ ,ｑｕｉｔｅｒｉｇｈｔｌｙ ,ｔｈａｔｂｙｉｍｐｒｏｖｉｎｇｔｈｅｉｒｋｎｏｗｌｅｄｇｅａｎｄｓｋｉｌｌｓａｎｄｕｐｇｒａｄｉｎｇｔｈｅｉｒｑｕａｌｉｆｉｃａｔｉｏｎｓ,ｔｈｅｙｃａｎｉｎｃｒｅａｓｅｔｈｅ…     

Familywise robustness criteria for multiple-comparison procedures

A criticism of multiple-comparison procedures is that the family of inferences over which an error rate is controlled is often arbitrarily selected, yet the conclusion may depend heavily on the choice of the family. Such ambiguity is most likely in large exploratory studies requiring numerous simultaneous inferences. In ambiguous situations it is desirable that results of multiple-comparison procedures depend little on the chosen family. To assess this, we propose several familywise robustness criteria to evaluate such procedures, and we find some of their properties theoretically and by simulation. Procedures that control the false discovery rate seem to be familywise robust.