Family Background and the Process of Ability Formation*

This paper takes a sociometric approach to the process of skills formation in children as they mature into adults. Honda suggests that meaningful communication with family as a child is the determining factor that raises those abilities (ability β ¹ ) that fall outside of scholastic aptitude – motivation, personal relations skills, personality, and emotions. Along with considering the results of Honda's thesis, I have constructed an operating hypothetic model that includes two additional factors: the financial state of the family during childhood, and the transition of the communication target from within the family to a target outside the family. The data for this investigation were then verified. From the results, the direct effect of the observed family communication, when isolated from other influencing variables in the formation of abilities β, is not as decisive a factor as Honda emphasized. It was clear that the financial status of the family played a role, as did the indirect results of the intermediary shift from communication within the family to outside the family (the process of children becoming socially independent). The results of this analysis show that we should not necessarily be looking for the decisive factors of abilities β within the family; if anything, it reflects the existence of a formative route for abilities β that capitalizes on the resources outside the family. Based on the above, the results also show the potential for the introduction of social intervention to address the disparity and inequality in skills formation, and the possible anticipation of more rationality in the overblown discourse surrounding the role of the family in facilitating educational ability.     

中国台湾地区幼儿园乡土教学研究进展及未来展望

幼儿期是人生发展的关键时期，对幼儿进行乡土教育具有重要的文化传承意义。如何在幼儿园进行乡土教学也是一个值得研究的重要问题。台湾地区幼儿园乡土教学开展近三十年，在乡土教学的课程模式和个案实施方面具有了丰富的研究经验未来可以扩展乡土教学资源研究、加强乡土教学研究历程之间的衔接、开展行动研究编订乡土教材、加强乡土教学参与人员乡土认知的研究，进一步深化幼儿园乡土教学研究。     

苏格兰独立问题的历史与未来

苏格兰自1707年并入英联合王国后,要求独立的呼声始终未断,2007年苏格兰民族党成为执政党后,独立呼声愈演愈烈。"苏格兰的未来将由苏格兰人民来决定",2014年9月18日苏格兰进行独立公投。从历史沿革、政治权势博弈两个方面入手可把握苏格兰独立问题的整体脉络。将英国政治制度中的务实传统与当前多重利益因素综合考虑,可诠释苏格兰独立问题的产生原因、英国政府同意公投的实用主义倾向。     

对台湾技职类大学创新教育的几点思考——以朝阳科技大学为例

随着我国经济的转型发展创新教育在大学教育中的地位被凸显出来，技职类大学的创新教育是摆在我们面前的一个实际课题。我国台湾地区高校这类教育开始比大陆早一些，在政策的制定、教师的培养、课程的设计等方面有一些经验可以借鉴，能给我们一些重要的启示。     

回顾与展望:冷战后的台日关系

冷战后的台日关系经历了李登辉、陈水扁和马英九三个时期。李、陈时期从"台独"政治需要出发,在对日关系上,政治上谋求突破"七二体制",安全上谋求缔结军事同盟。马英九上台后,政治上回归"九二共识",安全上拒做"麻烦制造者",基于主流民意和民族认同,把改善和发展两岸关系作为政策的优先方向,同时强调与日本的"特殊伙伴关系",台日关系由"结盟"走向务实合作。本文的视角立足于冷战后台湾当局的对日政策,据此考察分析国际形势发生深刻变化背景下的台日关系。     

学人与光复初期台湾教育事业的推进

通过探讨学人在台湾光复初期教育重建中的奠基性作用,分析他们在教育界开展的以"启蒙"为导向的文化建设,以及他们在去除日本殖民教育影响基础上大力推广国语等活动,可以看到学人们在台湾教育事业推进过程中发挥了历史性的重要作用.     

An integrated system of engaging social workers and community volunteers in social care for the elderly: case studies in Taiwan

Integrating volunteers into social care is widely expected but rarely successful in practice. This paper discusses how the Community Care Centre Plan organising community volunteers to provide services to the elderly in Taiwan. This plan successfully integrated social workers and volunteers in a national system to offer service in local communities, showing a systemic practice of community care and a unique case of community-based and volunteer-based service. The purposes of this paper are to introduce the programme design and to understand how to integrate the mission of social workers and volunteers’ performance. The governmental policy and requirements, the role of social workers and the provision of voluntary community service which contributed to form the system were examined in this paper.     

Linguistic practice and identity work: Variation in Taiwan Mandarin at a Taipei County high school

This article examines variation in the use of two Taiwan Mandarin features, de‐retroflection of sibilant fricatives [?] → [s], and labial glide deletion [w?] → [?], in the speech of Taipei County high school students. The features become resources for the negotiation of identity positions within the highly structured school institution. I discuss the correlations between the use of Taiwan Mandarin and two social factors: membership in the small culture (Holliday 1999 ) of a particular bānjí or class, and individual aspirations. Holliday's concept of small cultures is proposed as a variant of the Community of Practice. I refer to Bucholtz and Hall's ( 2004 ) tactics of intersubjectivity framework as a possible tool for explaining variation at the school. I argue that the two Taiwan Mandarin features are invoked to perform different social goals, which is possible because they are imbued with related but significantly different sociocultural meanings (Brubaker 2012 ; Baran 2007 ).     

Assessment of Task-Centered Interventions with Families in Israel

The study describes and evaluates the effectiveness of task-centered interventions performed with families in two new neighborhoods in Jerusalem, Israel. Thirty-five low-income nondelinquent families experiencing financial, personal and family problems were treated by 11 social work trainees. Each worker performed a single-case time-series design to evaluate 2 to 4 families, using the Clinical Rating Scale and a Goal Attainment Scale. The families were interviewed at termination of treatment. Both practitioners' and families' assessments indicated improvements in the majority of clients. Improvements were associated with young age of spouses and with the application of the techniques of task assignment, focusing and guidance. The validity, generalizability, and practical implications of the findings are discussed.