Labor force participation and juvenile delinquency in Taiwan: a time series analysis

This study examines the null hypothesis of Granger no-causality between labor force participation (LFP) and juvenile delinquency in Taiwan. In order to explore this issue more thoroughly, this study adopts the approach proposed by Toda and Yamamoto (1995, Journal of Econometrics, 66(1–2), 225–250). It uses official time-series data provided by the Government of Taiwan. After estimating both a four- and five-variable VAR system, one that substitutes both male and female LFP rates for the aggregate LFP rate, the primary findings of this study reveal the following: The higher the past juvenile crime rate, the lower the future aggregate and female LFP rate will be. In addition, the higher the past male LFP rate, the higher the future juvenile crime rate will be. These findings are quite robust in terms of different lag-length structures.

两种理论视野下的西欧穆斯林政治参与问题探析

20世纪60年代以来,穆斯林已经成为西欧社会不容忽视的现实存在,但是在政治参与方面,穆斯林远未能有效参与西欧各国的政治进程。穆斯林人口在种族、经济地位等方面的多样性是其有效参与政治的内在障碍。从资源动员理论和政治机会结构理论的分析可以发现,穆斯林对公民权、政治精英、参政渠道等政治资源的占有不足,加之欧洲殖民心理遗产的影响、欧洲的世俗化政策、伊斯兰恐惧症、外部穆斯林世界的影响等多种因素,共同构成了影响穆斯林广泛参与西欧政治生活的重要原因。     

浅析五四精神的继承与发扬——以五四精神淬炼新时代青年的理想信念

100多年以前,我国爆发了伟大的五四运动,青年是发起五四运动的主力军,在五四运动中起了关键作用,表现出了大无畏的牺牲精神、敢为天下先的精神和强烈的爱国主义精神.从此,青年在广阔的历史舞台上活跃起来,开启了青年发起进步运动的先河.当代青年应继承和发扬五四精神,为实现中华民族伟大复兴的中国梦而不懈奋斗.     

Does the availability of child care influence the employment of mothers? Findings from western Germany

There is a vast empirical literature investigating the effects of child care costson female employment. Day-care costs are usually treated as a reduction infemale wages and are supposed to reduce a woman's propensity to participatein the labor market. In this paper we argue that an analysis of the effects ofchild care on the employment of mothers in Germany should focus on theavailability rather than the affordability of care, due to peculiarities of theGerman day-care regime. Our empirical findings cast doubt on the effectivenessof the current German day-care regime. Specifically, we question the extent towhich it enables mothers to participate in the labor market.     

Participatory shaping of community futures in e‐waste processing hubs: Complexity,conflict and stewarded convergence in a Palestinian context

This article describes an unconventional participatory development approach carried out in an informal e‐waste hub in South‐West Hebron, an area that has collected and processed the bulk of Israeli e‐waste for over a decade. Our approach contributes to the critique and recovery of community representation in participatory development and the search for ways to facilitate representative community engagement. Specifically, we describe our use of a novel Delphi‐like method that allowed us to facilitate a broadly endorsed development trajectory within a heterogeneous and conflicted community. We show how the results yielded by this approach diverged from those that were likely to emerge from more facile forms of participation in ways that are important for other similar e‐waste hubs internationally, which face a destructive status quo on the one hand, or the economically ruinous international policies that ban e‐waste trade from “developed” to “developing” countries on the other. Despite real tensions and cleavages within the affected communities, the process described facilitated a shift from deadlocked environmental versus livelihood positions towards building capacity and regulating existing informal e‐waste trades to preserve livelihoods dependent on these.     

Community-based arts research for people with learning disabilities: challenging misconceptions about learning disabilities

This article presents some of the community-based artwork of a group of men with learning disabilities, who aimed to challenge some of the misconceptions associated with learning disabilities. People with learning disabilities regularly face many forms of direct and indirect stigma. The consequences of such negative perceptions may affect individuals’ social relationships and ensure that barriers are strengthened which prevent their full inclusion. The men in this project used a series of visual and creative methods to challenge some of these misconceptions by telling stories through art, demonstrating skill through photography, using poetry to talk about sexual identity and improvising drama and filmmaking to challenge stigma, and through sculpture expressed their voices. Thus, by doing so, they were able to challenge some of the stigma associated with learning disabilities, indicating that community-based arts research is a valuable way in which to promote the voices of people with learning disabilities.     

Toward a genealogy of the liberal government of youth

While discourses that define and demarcate young people such that they become legitimate targets of negative practices of marginalisation and exclusion have not disappeared, these are no longer the dominant discourses and modes of governing youth. Constructions of youth as self-determining subjects and empowerment polices of youth participation increasingly animate contemporary approaches to governing young people throughout the West and beyond. Until recently, the dominant critique of such developments consisted of accusations of failed attempts to realise certain principles in practice or of their ideological functions. There is however an emerging critical youth studies literature that analyses such developments drawing on the work of Beck and Foucault’s notion of ‘governmentality’. In this paper, I argue that while these studies challenge some of the assumptions upon which such developments rest, they are yet to challenge the extent to which these contemporary ways of constructing and governing youth are new. Using Foucault’s genealogical method my research traces an unacknowledged nineteenth century history of these common ways of constituting and governing youth today. To conclude I consider the strategic usefulness and ramifications of these findings for critical youth studies and policies of youth participation.     

高校团建主题网站建设探索

建设高校团建主题网站是开展团建工作的基础,也是高校共青团组织适应信息时代特点、创新共青团工作方式方法的“突破口”。团建主题网站的建设应以社会主义核心价值体系为指导思想来统领多元网络文化。在建设过程中应遵循政治性与导向性结合、规范性与特色性统一、时效性与互动性统筹、思想性与趣味性兼顾的原则,让团建主题网站成为引导青年、培养青年、服务青年和凝聚青年的综合性网站。     

Wilderness adventure therapy effects on the mental health of youth participants

Adventure therapy offers a prevention, early intervention, and treatment modality for people with behavioural, psychological, and psychosocial issues. It can appeal to youth-at-risk who are often less responsive to traditional psychotherapeutic interventions. This study evaluated Wilderness Adventure Therapy (WAT) outcomes based on participants’ pre-program, post-program, and follow-up responses to self-report questionnaires. The sample consisted of 36 adolescent out-patients with mixed mental health issues who completed a 10-week, manualised WAT intervention. The overall short-term standardised mean effect size was small, positive, and statistically significant (0.26), with moderate, statistically significant improvements in psychological resilience and social self-esteem. Total short-term effects were within age-based adventure therapy meta-analytic benchmark 90% confidence intervals, except for the change in suicidality which was lower than the comparable benchmark. The short-term changes were retained at the three-month follow-up, except for family functioning (significant reduction) and suicidality (significant improvement). For participants in clinical ranges pre-program, there was a large, statistically significant reduction in depressive symptomology, and large to very large, statistically significant improvements in behavioural and emotional functioning. These changes were retained at the three-month follow-up. These findings indicate that WAT is as effective as traditional psychotherapy techniques for clinically symptomatic people. Future research utilising a comparison or wait-list control group, multiple sources of data, and a larger sample, could help to qualify and extend these findings.     

Gaining by giving? Peer research into service user and carer perceptions of inclusivity in Higher Education

Abstract

Service users and carers (SUAC) have made significant contributions to professional training in social work courses in Higher Education (HE) over the past decade in the UK. Such participation has been championed by government, academics and SUAC groups from a range of theoretical and political perspectives. Most research into the effectiveness of SUAC involvement at HE has come from the perspectives of academics and very little SUAC-led research exists. This qualitative peer research was led by two members of the University of Worcester’s SUAC group. Findings were that SUAC perceived their involvement brought benefits to students, staff, the University and the local community. Significant personal benefits such as finding a new support network, increased self-development and greater confidence to manage their own care were identified in ways that suggested that the benefits that can flow from SUAC involvement at HE are perhaps more far-reaching than previously recognised. Barriers to inclusion were less than previously reported in the literature and the humanising effects of SUAC involvement are presented as a partial antidote to an increasingly marketised HE culture.