Social Mobility via academic mobility: reconfigurations in class and gender identities among Asian scholars in the global north

ABSTRACT

Geographic mobility is increasingly perceived worldwide as a key to academic excellence, career advancement and upward social mobility. Drawing on long-term qualitative fieldwork data, this paper interrogates the impact of academic mobility in reconfiguring class and gender identities among students, early professionals and their families from Hong Kong and Indonesia who have studied or received further training in Germany, the Netherlands and the USA. This analysis problematises the crude ‘academic mobility?→?upward social mobility’ formula and considers international academic mobility as a contextual, dynamic and multi-directional process. Through this process social positions and identities of the moving individuals and families are negotiated in an on-going manner as migrants insert into, depart from and re-insert into the various social milieus where their mobility trajectories touch ground. Narratives of interviewees illustrate the complexity and contradictions in class and gender configurations as students move across borders. They show how these individuals are inserted in contrasting social positionings, and experience how a particular social class or gender position carries different connotations. The paper concludes with a few conceptual and methodological reflections.     

Examining educational inequalities in two national systems: a comparison of the North African second generation in France and the Mexican second generation in the United States

This paper aims to compare the educational outcomes of children of immigrants in France and in the United States to highlight the ethnic educational inequalities in both countries. The comparison focuses on children from two groups: North Africans in France and Mexicans in the United States. By using two longitudinal datasets, the French Educational Panel Survey and Add Health, we examine aspirations, expectations, and secondary attainment in the two contexts. We explore in particular the role of parental education on attainment. Immigrant families have high educational aspirations in both contexts. North-African families express higher aspirations than native French with similar background, while there are no significant differences between second-generation Mexicans and the majority group net of parental education. Second-generation children are disadvantaged in school in both countries; they are more likely to drop out and less likely to graduate from high school, but most of the disadvantage is related to their social background. Net of social background, the Mexican second generation does not differ from the majority group while the North African second generation is more likely to get the French high school diploma than their peers of French origins, in line with their high aspirations. However, North Africans are more likely to receive the technological baccalauréat than the general baccalauréat.     

Electronic payment mechanisms in social security: Extending the reach of benefit and contribution transactions

More often than not, the existing modes of contribution collection and benefit payment of social security organizations are adapted to the collective arrangements that characterize employer‐employee relationships. Extending coverage to individuals in difficult‐to‐reach groups, however, may require new modalities of service that can cope with many separate, secure transactions rather than a few bulk data transfers between organizations. Recent developments in electronic payment show its wide applicability in enabling huge volumes of such individual transactions. It is in this light that the article explores the potentials of this technology and identifies possible arrangements through which electronic payments could surmount barriers that stand in the way of covering difficult‐to‐reach groups. The high level of mobile phone penetration on a global scale augurs well for using e‐payment mechanisms to collect social security contributions and to deliver social security benefits and services. A generic model is used to describe the requisite elements to implement electronic payments in social protection programmes. Based on empirical evidence of current social protection practices from around the world, five scenarios are presented to describe possible configurations for electronic payment, from the simplest to the most sophisticated. The broader objective is to contribute in a practical manner to the international commitment to extend social protection to all, as defined by the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.     

The social security number: A small device underpinning big systems

The possession and use of a personal social security number helps to structure people's daily lives. However, despite its fundamental normative importance, the social security number remains a little‐known entity. Increasingly universal and yet diverse in form, it is a legal and technical norm which is as much a mechanism for surveillance and monitoring as it is a necessary instrument for giving effect to social rights. Analysis of this constituent element of social security systems permits as assessment of some of the technical difficulties presented by the ever‐increasing movement of people and data. Overcoming these technical difficulties should permit to envisage a first technical step towards realizing a universal and global social security system.     

Do peer effects mediate the association between family socio‐economic status and educational achievement?

Differences in levels of academic achievement according to socio‐economic status (SES), and parental education in particular, have been a persistent feature of Australian education systems. Young people with highly educated parents are more likely than their peers with low‐educated parents to attain high levels of achievement at school. Students with low levels of achievement are less likely than their high achieving peers to complete Year 12 and are more likely to experience negative post‐school outcomes. The SES of the neighbourhood, and in particular, the school attended, has also been found to have an effect on levels of both academic achievement and attainment. For this paper, we conduct analyses of National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy test scores for four cohorts of secondary school students attending government schools in the Australian Capital Territory to examine the associations between parental education, school attended and levels of educational achievement. Our findings show that students with university‐educated parents achieve at much higher levels than their peers with low‐educated parents and that attending a school with a higher proportion of students from educationally disadvantaged families has a negative effect on educational achievement.     

山寨制造的正名及调控

山寨制造和山寨文化的泛化,使中国信用建设遭遇了前所未有的挑战。规制山寨,一方面是重构社会信用体系,另一方面是建立中国标准,掀起世界产业革命,提高中国在国际标准和国际规则方面的话语权和决定权。我们必须进一步厘清山寨文化的各种表现、真实本质和国际比较,做好山塞制造的规范和调控,从而实现中国信用建设的科学发展。     

超越“范式”：国际问题研究的路径探微

当代国际政治理论的发展演变表现出一种对国际政治现象进行多重视角、多种层次研究的趋势,它给予人们的一个重要启示就是,没有一种能够解释一切的理论。但反过来说,不同的理论针对不同的对象也具有各不相同的解释力。我们必须认识到任何单一的理论都不可能解释国家对外行为的全部复杂性,必须提出一种综合的分析框架,结合现实主义、自由主义和建构主义各自精到的阐述,从历史、经济、政治、文化的视角来进行阐述和分析。     

我国农村女性地位的嬗变及其社会心理——性别平等视野下的分析

正是由于人类社会男人与女人两大主体的相辅而行,才有了人类社会的文明进步,但女性在参与社会多种活动中遇到的阻力远远超过男性。影响农村女性地位提高的不仅是经济因素,还有社会心理因素,即文化素质偏低、心理素质较差、政治素质偏低、身体素质欠佳及各种偏见和阻力的存在。国家应从实行倾斜性保护政策、为农村女性创造参与社会的条件和机会、提高农村女性的心理素质等方面,积极营造良好的社会心理氛围,以提高我国农村女性的地位。     

我国网络新闻传播专业教育现状的思考

本文从当前我国网络新闻传播专业教育的现状入手,论析现阶段我国网络新闻传播专业教育的相关问题。     

秦皇岛明长城券门雕刻艺术特色及现状调查

在秦皇岛境内的300余km明代长城中,有近千座敌楼,保存完整和较为完整的约占半数,在这些敌楼上都有券门和券窗,在很多券门上刻着具有很高艺术价值的浮雕装饰,他们利用当地特有的材料,就地取材进行创作,风格各异,材质变化丰富,使原本冰冷的军事防御工事,增添了许多文化气息和人文关怀,然而由于近年来缺少相应的保护措施,使得大部分精美作品遭到了不同程度的破坏和损毁,合理利用和保护这些文化遗产是迫在眉睫的事情。