Personal reflection and experience of a Fulbright Scholar: teaching a mental health course in Vietnam’s changing culture

This paper documents the experience of developing and teaching a course on mental health for undergraduate social worker students during a semester in Vietnam. Social work is a profession at the early stages of development in Vietnam, requiring much curriculum development. There are over 40 universities with undergraduate social work education programs, but few of the faculty have had training or experience in practicing social work. The paper will summarize the main reasons for developing such a course given the current state of mental health need and services in a changing culture, as well as the current state of professional social work education and the newly established profession of social work. The author describes the contexts underlying the course—the status of social work and social work education in Vietnam, the context of mental health and mental illness in Vietnam, and curriculum adaptation to the cultural context. From this experience, the lessons learned about the role of cross-cultural critical thinking, cultural knowledge, and other strategies will be discussed about teaching a subject like mental health internationally.     

Laying the foundation for a global body of knowledge in public relations and communications management

An internationally recognised body of knowledge is both possible and necessary for the future success and professionalisation of public relations. Through extensive content analysis of 31 credential schemes, education frameworks, and scholarly articles produced across six continents, the Global Alliance for Public Relations and Communications Management has developed a foundational list of knowledge, skills, abilities and behaviours (KSABs), which entry and mid/senior-level practitioners across the world should possess. This study and list of KSABs is laying the foundation for development of an internationally accepted framework which professional associations and academic institutions across the world will be able to use to benchmark professional credentials and curriculum outcomes.     

高校大学生教育管理模式转型方向及实践方式

教育管理是高校一项重要的工作,关系到高校教育的质量和效能,同时也决定了人才的成长和未来发展。在这种情况下,必须要注重高校大学生教育管理模式的打造,积极推进教育管理模式转型,从而为日常教育工作提供基础和保证。当前高校大学生教育管理模式中存在管理方式单一、管理内容陈旧、管理制度落后等问题,严重影响了高校教育工作的开展,不利于教育进步。文章以此为出发点进行研究,并为高校大学生教育管理实践提供思路指导。     

Fetal movements: What are we telling women?

Problem

Information that women receive about the importance of monitoring fetal movements and what to do if there are changes is inconsistent and may not be evidence based.

Supply Chain Strategies and International Tax Arbitrage

What motivates the geographic footprint of the supply chains that multinational firms (MNFs) deploy? Traditional research in the operations and supply chain management literature tends to recommend locations primarily based on differentials in production costs and the ramifications of physical distance ignoring the role of taxation. MNFs that strategically position parts of their supply chains in low‐tax locations can allocate the profits across the divisions to improve post‐tax profits. For the profit allocation to be defensible to tax authorities, the divisional operations must possess real decision authority and bear meaningful risks. Generally speaking, the greater the transfer of risk and control, the larger the allowable allocation of profit. These transfers may also create inefficiencies due to misalignment of business goals and attitudes toward risk. We model these trade‐offs in the context of placing in a low‐tax region a subsidiary that oversees product distribution (as a limited risk distributor commissionnaire, limited risk distributor, or fully fledged distributor). Our analysis demonstrates that the MNF's preferences regarding the operating structures are not necessarily an obvious ordering based on the amount of risk and decision authority transferred to the division in the low‐tax jurisdiction. We derive and analyze threshold values of the performance parameters that describe the main trade‐offs involved in selecting an operating structure. We find some of the optimal decisions to exhibit interesting non‐monotone behavior. For instance, profits can increase when the tax rate in the low‐tax jurisdiction increases. Numerical analysis shows that the Limited‐Risk Distributor structure is rarely optimal and quantifies when each alternative dominates it.     

Almost the same stories: narrative patterns in EU treaty referendums

ABSTRACT

The article analyses narratives that favoured or opposed European integration in three referendum debates held during the constitutional process of the 2000s: in France and the Netherlands in 2005 (Constitutional Treaty) as well as the first vote in Ireland on the Lisbon Treaty in 2008. In all debates examined, speakers used similar narratives of European integration. While most narrative patterns have transnational character, however, they are also remarkably country-specific. They depend on the specific cultural context and the social positions of the speakers articulating them.     

Financial Knowledge and Behaviors of Chinese Migrant Workers: An International Perspective on a Financially Vulnerable Population

ABSTRACT

Making informed financial decisions is crucial to the wellbeing of Chinese migrant workers. Using interview survey data (N = 329), this study examined financial knowledge and behaviors of migrant workers in China. Results showed that participants demonstrated low levels of financial knowledge (51.4%) and beneficial financial behaviors (51.0%). Multivariate results indicated that a modest proportion of the variance in financial behaviors was explained by financial knowledge, attitudes, and socio-demographic characteristics (e.g., marital status and income). Findings underscore the importance of disseminating culturally-relevant educational interventions to financially at-risk, low-paid migrant workers in China.     

Investigating the link between migration and civicness in Italy. Which individual and school factors matter?

This paper investigates the link between migration and civicness using data on cognitive skills and civic competences collected from a sample of 2747 eighth-graders in Italy. Contrary to the abundant evidence of migrant/native gaps in educational and occupational attainments in the country, this study finds no migrant-specific gap on civicness development. Children of immigrants achieve lower levels of civic knowledge than natives, but differences disappear once social background and, particularly, cognitive test scores are equalized across groups. Moreover, no differences are found, on average, between natives and children of immigrants with respect to institutional trust. However, at the top tail of the civic knowledge distribution, children of immigrants display less trust than natives. This result, coupled with their greater openness towards immigrants’ rights, suggests that immigrants’ children attach great importance to the inequality in rights concerning the immigrant population in the country and, as a reaction, participate more actively in the community. Insignificant or positive associations between the proportion of immigrants’ children in the classroom and natives’ civicness are found. Finally, fairness in student–teacher interactions is found to improve students’ civicness development, suggesting that, besides citizenship education, also the school climate plays a vital role in enhancing children's civic competences.     

Young Norwegians and their views on climate change and the future: findings from a climate concerned and oil-rich nation

Young people represent the future, but little is known about their attitudes towards climate change, one of the most serious issues facing the world today. The purpose of the present study is to contribute with improved and new knowledge of young Norwegians’ understanding of and attitudes towards this issue, with a special focus on perspectives of the future. Of particular interest is the influence of divergent framings of the climate question in Norway, due to conflicting interests between the petroleum industry and climate concern. The young people's voices are elicited through two different surveys undertaken during the fall of 2013, one national (Norwegian Citizen Panel) and one local (School survey conducted among high-school students). The study generated both quantitative and qualitative findings, stemming from closed-ended as well as open-ended questions. The data were handled through a mixed methods approach, combining quantitative and qualitative analyses. The results show that the voices tend to be oriented towards the opinion that Norway has a responsibility to help poor countries as well as a duty to prevent climate change and that the country should reduce its oil production. We further observe that young Norwegians have an optimistic view of the future, based on a pronounced belief in technology and science.     

Understanding Client Communities Spatially for Developing Effective Interventions: Application of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Technology for Program Planning in Health and Human Services Agencies

Social workers are better equipped to understand the need to incorporate geographical aspects pertaining to their clients’ lives as part of their practice, given the significant influence these factors have on client well-being. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technology is a useful tool for administrators and planners to make informed decisions regarding human service programs including examining program outcomes and impact as well as streamlining program implementation. This article synthesizes the literature to date on GIS in health and human services with examples of real world applications.