Assessing Corporate Social Responsibility in China’s Sports Lottery Administration and Its Influence on Consumption Behavior

The purpose of this study was to identify and examine consumer perception of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in China's sports lottery industry, and the effect of perceived CSR initiatives on sports lottery consumption behavior. Research participants (N = 4,980), selected based on a computer-generated, randomly stratified multistage sampling process, comprised Chinese residents who had purchased sports lottery tickets in the past 12 months. They completed a questionnaire that was derived from a qualitative research process. A factor analysis extracted two factors associated with perceptions of CSR in China's sports lottery administration: Regulatory and Prevention Responsibilities and Product Development Responsibility. Logistic regression analyses revealed that these two factors were influential of consumer behavior (i.e., relative and absolute expenditure, purchasing frequency, and time commitment). This study represents an initial effort to understand the dimensions of perceived CSR associated with Chinese sports lottery. The findings signify the importance of enforcing CSR in sports lottery administration.     

Improving research about us,with us: a draft framework for inclusive autism research

It is both epistemologically as well as ethically problematic if the autistic voice is not heard in relation to social scientific research seeking to further develop knowledge of autism. Ever since autism first emerged, it has remained medicalised and almost exclusively the preserve of non-autistic researchers. More recently, autistic individuals have begun to contribute to autism research. However, the vast majority of research in autism is still undertaken on autistic people, rather than with them, and is often not concerned with improving the day-to-day lives of people with autism. We discuss the concepts of participatory research and emancipatory research before presenting a draft framework for what we regard as truly inclusive research in autism. Our proposals are firmly based on ideas developed by the members of a university-based group of autistic adults (the Asperger’s Consultation Group) as well as the knowledge and experience of the other contributors.     

Care networks in play: Understanding death of a parent as a contributing factor to homelessness

Offering an understanding of specialized service needs of those becoming homeless because of the death of a parent or parental figure, this project is set in Detroit’s urban context, where residents face economic hardship and intergenerational poverty. In this study, we analyze the voices of practitioners (n = 5) and men (n = 5) who have experienced parental death as a contributing factor to homelessness in Detroit, Michigan. Findings include the following: (1) the impact of death and dying experiences on these men and (2) the role of care networks in these men’s lives, particularly when these men have and lack “default” caregivers after death of a parent. This community-based research project was a result of a partnership between a local agency serving persons experiencing homelessness, where the practitioner initiated the project with the researcher. The paper concludes with implications for social work practice.     

Digitization and materiality: researching community memory practice today

Among the most deep‐seated anxieties of the Internet age is the fear of technologically produced forgetting. Technology critics and sociologists of memory alike argue that daily exposure to overwhelming flows of information is undermining our ability to connect and synthesize past and present. Acknowledging the salience of these concerns our approach seeks to understand the contemporary conditions of collective memory practice in relation to processes of digitization. We do so by developing an analysis of how digital technologies (image and audio capture, storage, editing, reproduction, distribution and exhibition) have become embedded in wider memory practices of storytelling and commemoration in a community setting: the Salford Lads Club, an organization in the north of England in continuous operation since 1903. The diverse memory practices prompted by the 100th anniversary of the Club's annual camp provide a context in which to explore the transformations of access, interpretation and use, that occur when the archives of civic organizations are digitized. Returning to Halbwachs' (1992) seminal insight that all collective memory requires a material social framework, we argue, contrary to prevailing characterizations of digitization, that under specific conditions, digital resources facilitate new forms of materialization that contribute to sustaining a civic organization's intergenerational continuity.     

Perceptions of African American College Applicants: The Roles of Race, Criminal History, and Qualifications

African Americans are under-represented in higher education and disproportionately represented among offender populations, with poor educational obtainment a risk factor for criminal behavior. While African American students report low acceptance from Caucasian peers that can influence their educational persistence, few studies have examined Caucasian students’ perceptions of African American students, while examining the influence of race and criminal history. This study endeavored to begin to fill this gap. Students evaluated 1 of 24 hypothetical college applicants, manipulated by race, arrest record, and academic qualifications. Results showed that hypothetical Caucasian applicants benefited from no criminal record when evaluated by Caucasian students, and received higher ratings than Caucasian applicants with a drug arrest record and African American applicants with any criminal record. When evaluated by Caucasian students, African American applicants with no criminal record were no more likely to be accepted than Caucasian or African American applicants with a criminal record. In addition, Caucasian students felt more comfortable around the Caucasian applicant with a DWI arrest over the African American applicant with the same arrest. Racial preference for Caucasian applicants by Caucasian participants also emerged when qualifications were mixed (e.g., low GPA/high ACT). These racial differences did not emerge when ethnic minority students rated these same applicants. Yet, when Caucasian students were asked why they chose their ratings, race was never mentioned. These results support research that African American students can experience race-based barriers in higher education by Caucasian peers, but in a form that is less overt and not readily acknowledged.     

Participatory spaces and the Alexandra Vukuzenzele Crisis Committee (AVCC): reshaping government plans

This article challenges the prevailing orthodoxy in the South African literature on participation in development, which suggests that it is government structures alone that determine citizen participation in development. It focuses on the empirical example of the Alexandra Vukuzenzele Crisis Committee (AVCC), an affiliate of the Anti‐Privatisation Forum (APF), to show the ways in which agents shape and recreate development practices on the Alexandra Renewal Project (ARP), an African National Congress flagship programme. To do this, the article draws from interviews with stakeholders involved in the ARP as well as the AVCC who seek to contest the allocation of houses in the ARP. Following Cornwall (2004 Cornwall, A. 2004. “Spaces for transformation? Reflections on issues of power and difference in participation in development”. In Participation from tyranny to transformation: exploring new approaches to participation in development, Edited by: Hickey, S. and Mohan, G. 75–91. London: Zed Books.  [Google Scholar]), this article argues that agents can force the government to concede to their demands despite the government's structures which initially appeared to exclude them.     

Neither Slavery nor Abolitionism: James M. Pendleton and the Problem of Christian Conservative Antislavery in 1840s Kentucky

The case of James M. Pendleton (1811–1891) adds clarity to understandings of the relationship between slavery and Christianity in the nineteenth-century USA. A white Baptist minister in his native Kentucky throughout most of the antebellum period, Pendleton actively opposed slavery because he believed it an affront to biblical teaching and an economically fruitless way to order a society. At the same time, however, Pendleton also opposed abolitionist measures that called for immediate emancipation of slaves, both because he felt immediatism threatened social stability and because abolitionism appeared to flaunt what he saw as Christian orthodoxy. Pendleton's example shows why slavery was such a complicated issue for Southerners, as well as why abolitionism held so little sway among Southern evangelicals – even among those that wanted slavery ended.     

Impact of Acts of Discrimination on Quality of Life Among Injecting Drug Users in Delhi, India

The study examines the association between quality of life (QOL) and discrimination perpetrated against a vulnerable population like injecting drug users (IDU). Given that QOL affects self efficacy which in turn affects behavior, it is relevant to examine QOL among IDUs in the context of HIV prevention, and to study whether discriminations and human rights abuses impact QOL in this population. A cross sectional study was conducted in two research sites in Delhi, India among 343 IDUs recruited through a respondent driven sampling. A Hindi version of the WHOQOL Bref survey along with a survey questionnaire of discrimination were used to interview participants. After controlling for demographic characteristics, experiencing physical and verbal abuse (OR: 0.46, CI 0.27–0.79),arrests and imprisonment for carrying needles and/or using drugs (OR: 0.53, CI 0.31–0.90) and lacking health information (OR: 0.49, CI 0.29–0.85)was associated with lower social QOL, while being denied health care services was associated with lower psychological QOL. The more discrimination experienced, the lower was the quality of life in the social and psychological domains. Participants’ perceived well being in the four domains was related to their living conditions, discriminatory acts and to perceptions of social support. Discriminatory acts and abuses appeared to have a greater toll on their psychological well being and social relationships, thus indicating the need for human rights advocacy in order to influence law enforcement practices and to reduce stigma, while expanding social support through an extended comprehensive IDU programme.