Precursors and pathways to adolescent prostitution in Taiwan

This paper identifies the major precursors and pathways to prostitution for contemporary Taiwanese girls and the socioeconomic and cultural changes that have facilitated the shift in pathways over the past 10 years. Special attention is paid to the case of Taiwanese aborigines, who have particularly suffered systemic disruption due to prostitution. Analysis of case files and interviews provide quantitative and qualitative data that highlight the role of filial piety and the shift from indenture to runaway as the major pathway in Taiwan. Discussion includes relation of these findings to juvenile entry into prostitution in other countries, directions for future research, and policy recommendations for Taiwan's government.     

Non-parametric estimation of population size from capture–recapture data when the capture probability depends on a covariate

Summary.  In capture–recapture experiments the capture probabilities may depend on individual covariates such as an individual's weight or age. Typically this dependence is modelled through simple parametric functions of the covariates. Here we first demonstrate that misspecification of the model can produce biased estimates and subsequently develop a non-parametric procedure to estimate the functional relationship between the probability of capture and a single covariate. This estimator is then incorporated in a Horvitz–Thompson estimator to estimate the size of the population. The resulting estimators are evaluated in a simulation study and applied to a data set on captures of the Mountain Pygmy Possum.     

Disabled people,choices and collective organisation: examining the potential of cooperatives in future social support

Major shifts in funding, demography, personal expectations and the rise of a global disabled people’s movement require new and creative solutions to the choices and rights agenda into the twenty-first century. Direct payments and the individual employment of personal assistants is one clear and recognised path to independent living. However, there have been some reservations about the nature, process and impact of the broader personalisation agenda more generally within which direct payments and personal budgets are located. Some commentators point to the loss of the collective impulse in personalised approaches – ideas that were central to the development of the independent living movement and its founding principles. Some countries have seen the rise of collective responses to direct payment developments. This is explicable in terms of a suspicion of individualist underpinnings of personalisation coupled with a collective vision of social life. This article is based on an exploratory study of collective approaches in the field of direct payments where choice and social solidarity are being combined. Drawing on developments in Sweden, England and Wales, the article aims to inform possible future debates about direct payments and cooperative approaches and argues that greater user-control is not inimical to enhanced collective action.     

Guilt and Shame in Chinese Culture: A Cross-cultural Framework from the Perspective of Morality and Identity

Olwen Bedford and Kwang-Kuo Hwang, Guilt and Shame in Chinese Culture: A Cross-cultural Framework from the Perspective of Morality and Identity, pp. 127–144.
This article formulates a cross-cultural framework for understanding guilt and shame based on a conceptualization of identity and morality in Western and Confucian cultures. First, identity is examined in each culture, and then the relation between identity and morality illuminated. The role of guilt and shame in upholding the boundaries of identity and enforcing the constraints of morality is then discussed from the perspective of each culture. The developed framework is then applied the emotions of guilt and shame in Chinese culture drawing on previous field research. Implications for future research are discussed.     

Making the familiar strange and making the strange familiar: understanding Korean children’s experiences of living with an autistic sibling

Based on the findings of a small‐scale study using visual ethnographic techniques with nine South Korean children, this article explores the role of culture in understanding autism. While autism is embedded within the ‘strange’ and ‘unfamiliar’, linked to exclusion and discrimination in Korean society, the children focussed on reframing their experiences of living with autism as ‘ordinary’. Despite the limitations of the small sample, the richness and depth of data generated by children themselves offers new insights into children’s interpretations and experiences of autism and raises interesting questions for cross cultural research in the field of disability.     

Enterprising? Disabled? The status and potential for disabled people’s microenterprise in South Korea

This article explores the position, potential and scope for self-employment and microenterprise for disabled South Koreans. The chronic barriers experienced in disabled people gaining paid work suggest that self-employment and enterprise might offer a good alternative to paid work. The self-determined nature of running a microenterprise has been shown to connect with disabled people who may not conform to standardised notions of body and brain that underpin many mainstream work contexts. Despite this promise, several barriers continue to beset disabled people’s access to micro-enterprise activity; barriers ranging from Confucian precepts, to employment protections that are geared largely towards paid employment and to the lack of training, finance and business support for disabled people starting up and sustaining microenterprise in Korea. The extension of legal protections, meaningful start-up subsidies, better business support and bridges between paid work and microenterprise are all seen as important policy correctives that would better support disabled people.     

How to be Resilient? Local Philanthropy as a Collective Response to Natural Disasters

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - When communities are struck by natural disasters, human service organizations play an important role in supplementing...     

‘Miss mum’: mind and affective experience of Korean learners identified with autism spectrum and cognitive difficulties

Responding to the call for culturally informed research on autism spectrum (AS) to allow for the provision of appropriate services, this paper qualitatively explores the affective experience of five Korean learners identified with AS and cognitive difficulties by listening to their voices. The learners, supported by the use of visual aids and a choice of their preferred mode of communication, expressed the complexity of their inner experience that encompassed abilities as well as difficulties. The findings highlight the commonalities of experience between Korean and non-Korean individuals with AS, along with some aspects specific to the Korean cultural context.     

On estimating the dimensionality in discriminant analysis

In discriminant analysis, the dimension of the hyperplane which population mean vectors span is called the dimensionality. The procedures commonly used to estimate this dimension involve testing a sequence of dimensionality hypotheses as well as model fitting approaches based on (consistent) Akaike's method, (modified) Mallows' method and Schwarz's method. The marginal log-likelihood (MLL) method is developed and the asymptotic distribution of the dimensionality estimated by this method for normal populations is derived. Furthermore a modified marginal log-likelihood (MMLL) method is also considered. The MLL method is not consistent for large samples and two modified criteria are proposed which attain asymptotic consistency. Some comments are made with regard to the robustness of this method to departures from normality. The operating characteristics of the various methods proposed are examined and compared.     

The rank distribution of the maximin in a random matrix

Let S be a set of tm distinct real numbers and R a random t × m matrix of these tm numbers with rows {r_i} and columns (c_i}. Define b = Max Min x. l≤i≤t x?r_i. Let c be the event Max Min x = Min Max x. l≤i≤t x?r_i l≤i≤m x?c_i. This paper derives the probability distribution of the rank of b in S, as well as the same distribution conditional on c.