A Cultural-Historical Study of How Children from Hong Kong Immigrant Families Develop a Learning Motive within Everyday Family Practices in Australia

This article draws on a cultural-historical theorization of child development alongside the Chinese concept of learning in order to study children's development in the Hong Kong Australian community. In particular, it aims to understand in detail how a 9-year-old child develops a learning motive under highly structured family practices. The data analysed were selected from a larger set of data involving 80 hr of video observations generated from the recording of everyday practices in three Hong Kong immigrant families. The findings indicate that encouragement plays an important role in bridging the gap between parental demands and the child's wishes, which assists the child to appropriate family values, thus facilitating the development of a learning motive and learning itself.     

秘鲁城市女性劳动参与的微观研究

本文利用2001年秘鲁国家统计和信息局第三期家庭抽样调查数据,运用Logistic回归,分析了在秘鲁城市中,人口、经济和教育变量是如何影响女性劳动参与的.并且将首都利马和利马以外的其他地区加以区分来进行分析。研究结果表明在秘鲁城市范围内.女性劳动参与随着女性生命周期的变化出现了很明确的模式;生育、婚姻状况、与家长的关系、接受高等教育(指硕士及以上和培训)明显地影响女性劳动参与。在首都利马和其他地区的大部分影响方向很类似。但是在首都利马的影响程度要大一些。     

The potential of child care tax credits to reduce poverty and welfare recipiency

As more and more mothers of young children enter the work force, interest in government financing of child care grows. The chief government subsidy for child care is the child care credit in the federal Internal Revenue Code. This is a nonrefundable credit and therefore provides benefits only to those with incomes high enough to require them to pay income tax. Yet of the $ 5.5 billion spent by the federal government on child care in 1986, this program accounted for $ 3.5 billion.This paper simulates the effects of expanding the child care tax credit by (1) doubling the reimbursement rates of the current credit; (2) making the credit refundable; and (3) both making the credit refundable and increasing its value for all families with income below $ 32,000.Results suggest that these changes will have modest effects on the income and earnings of mothers, and on the poverty gap and welfare recipiency. Costs, however, differ substantially. Doubling the value of the credit is far more expensive than either making the credit refundable or making it both refundable and more generous at the bottom of the income distribution. Making the credit refundable may cost taxpayers very little by leading to increases in hours worked and concomitant reductions in welfare payments.     

Integrations,identity and conflicts: A cross-border perspective on residential relocation of Hong Kong citizens to Mainland China

This paper aims to test if traditional literature on both internal residential mobility and international migration hold up in explaining the driving forces behind the home-moving behaviours of Hong Kong residents to the Chinese Mainland, under a mixture of economic integrations, past connections along with present structural and identity differences. The multi-dimensionality of this behaviour, in comparison to other forms of residential movements in the literature, is shown as there is no single attribute, albeit all necessary conditions, sufficient enough to encourage such movement on its own. Instead, the cross-border residence is primarily a middle-class, middle-aged phenomenon, due to one’s past connections with Mainland China throughout his/her life course and the possession of financial resources insufficient to afford larger living space in Hong Kong yet enough to benefit from the remarkable living cost advantages on the other side of the border. It provides some directions for studying similar forms of residential mobility in the era of globalization when the functions of national borders have become more obscure than before. Implications from this residential behaviour are then discussed.     

THEORY OF SEGMENTED ASSIMILATION AND THE ADOPTION OF MARIJUANA USE AND DELINQUENT BEHAVIOR BY ASIAN PACIFIC YOUTH

This article examines the adoption of behaviors of the teen drug and delinquent subcultures among Asian Pacific youth within the framework of the theory of segmented assimilation. Alejandro Portes and Min Zhou's theory offers a new perspective to the question: Under what conditions are youth susceptible to marijuana use and delinquent behavior? In contrast to Milton Gordon's classic one‐path theory, segmented assimilation theory looks to the immigrant culture and social capital (e.g., social solidarity) as critical factors in the assimilation process. The theory suggests several different types of adaptation by immigrant youth and Asian youth born in the United States. The data from the Asian Student Drug Survey were used to analyze the patterns of marijuana use and delinquent behavior among Japanese. Chinese, Filipino. Korean, Southeast Asian, Asian Indian, and Pacific Islander youth, controlling for human capital and social capital, as well as other relevant factors. Logistic regression analysis was used to determine the factors that affect the odds of marijuana use and delinquent behavior for the seven ethnic groups in this study. The likelihood of marijuana use differed significantly among the ethnic groups. For example, Pacific Islander and Filipino youth were much more likely than Japanese youth to use marijuana. Korean, Southeast Asian, and Asian Indian youth did not differ significantly from the Japanese youth in marijuana use. Like the model that predicted marijuana use, the Chinese youth were least likely to engage in delinquent behavior, while Filipino and Pacific Islander youth were most likely. Segmented assimilation theory points to the importance of the human and social capital that serve to insulate youth from the influence of the teen drug and delinquent cultures.     

Some Issues of Particular Concern to Sociologists As Academic Administrators

As a sociologist who has served in deanships and other university administrative positions in the past 15 years, the author has been particularly concerned with race/class/gender issues in academia. This paper identified some of the issues and discussed the relevance of sociological training in addressing them.     

稻壳膨化粉栽培毛木耳试验

试验和推广应用的结果表明，用膨化谷壳粉与棉籽壳、玉米芯、木屑作培养料，按10～20：20～30：20～30：20～30的比例混合栽培毛木耳，风干耳率达20．00％～24．85％，烘干耳生物学效率（BE％）为18．00％～19．86％，与棉籽壳、玉米芯、木屑按1：1：1的比例混合的常规配方的产量差异不显著，干耳产量高，优质耳片率高，料成本可降低0．10～0．20元／袋，经济效益提高0．15元／袋。表明可以选用膨化谷壳作为商业化栽培毛木耳的一种主要原料。商业化栽培毛木耳的培养料不需添加有机氮源，如玉米粉、麸皮、米糠等；亦可不加磷肥、石膏、碳酸钙等无机肥料。     

An Unfinished Reflexive Journey: Social Work Students' Reflection on their Placement Experiences

The fieldwork placement is recognized as one of the major componentsof social work education and a major determinant of its quality.A key aspect of the learning process in the fieldwork placementis the exposition of practice encounters to the students’critical reflection. Given the importance of the process of‘reflection’ or ‘reflective learning’,a qualitative study based on the reflective logs of social workstudents was conducted to explore the meaning of social workfield education and the learning experiences of social workstudents during their placement. The study findings revealedthat disturbing events experienced by students in their fieldworkwere a catalyst to their reflective process. Meanwhile, theirundue concern with knowledge and skills application within acircumscribed knowledge frame suggests the dominant influenceof scientism and competence-based practice in social work, inwhich learning outcomes and instrumental and technical reasoningare highly emphasized. Discovery of ‘self’ was alsothe major premise in the students’ reflection logs, inwhich a majority of them took their prevailing self-identityas a constant state to be verified in interaction with othersin the fieldwork placement. Reflexivity is manifested in askingfundamental questions about assumptions generated by formaland practice theories; it addresses the multiple interrelationsbetween power and knowledge, and acknowledges the inclusionof self in the process of knowledge creation in social workpractice. Its realization in social work education requiresthe social work educators’ reflexive examination of thedynamics that influence the construction of curriculum, whichin turn construct our prospective social workers.     

Use of Quality-Adjusted Life Year Weights with Dose-Response Models for Public Health Decisions: A Case Study of the Risks and Benefits of Fish Consumption

Risks associated with toxicants in food are often controlled by exposure reduction. When exposure recommendations are developed for foods with both harmful and beneficial qualities, however, they must balance the associated risks and benefits to maximize public health. Although quantitative methods are commonly used to evaluate health risks, such methods have not been generally applied to evaluating the health benefits associated with environmental exposures. A quantitative method for risk-benefit analysis is presented that allows for consideration of diverse health endpoints that differ in their impact (i.e., duration and severity) using dose-response modeling weighted by quality-adjusted life years saved. To demonstrate the usefulness of this method, the risks and benefits of fish consumption are evaluated using a single health risk and health benefit endpoint. Benefits are defined as the decrease in myocardial infarction mortality resulting from fish consumption, and risks are defined as the increase in neurodevelopmental delay (i.e., talking) resulting from prenatal methylmercury exposure. Fish consumption rates are based on information from Washington State. Using the proposed framework, the net health impact of eating fish is estimated in either a whole population or a population consisting of women of childbearing age and their children. It is demonstrated that across a range of fish methylmercury concentrations (0-1 ppm) and intake levels (0-25 g/day), individuals would have to weight the neurodevelopmental effects 6 times more (in the whole population) or 250 times less (among women of child-bearing age and their children) than the myocardial infarction benefits in order to be ambivalent about whether or not to consume fish. These methods can be generalized to evaluate the merits of other public health and risk management programs that involve trade-offs between risks and benefits.     

Corporate social responsibility reporting and firm performance: evidence from China

A series of product safety and child labor scandals in the mid-2000s aroused global concerns over business ethics and corporate social responsibility (CSR) in China. The general public expects companies to be socially responsible and to look beyond the maximizing of profits. In this study, we examine the relationship between the issuance of CSR reports and performance, in terms of accounting income, market return, and growth by firms listed in China in 2008–2009. We find that the historical performance of firms has significant and positive effects on the issuance of standalone CSR reports. There is also a positive correlation between current CSR disclosures and subsequent performance. Finally, we find that corporate donations are positively associated with improved performance in the following year. Our results support the view that CSR is a useful business strategy even in a developing country such as China. We call for government authorities in emerging markets to advocate CSR practices and for the market participants to change their perception of and attitude towards CSR.