Segmented pathways of educational mobility: English language schools,working holidays,and divergent prospects among South Korea's global youth

Using participant‐observation and 58 in‐depth participant interviews, this study examines South Korean youth who undertake overseas English language acquisition across the Philippines, United States, New Zealand, and Australia. This research introduces a concept I call ‘segmented pathways of educational mobility’, which describes the multi‐dimensional and complex levels of stratification within regional educational mobility flows that reinforce existing class inequalities for many migrants. However, segmented pathways also reveal that while resource‐constrained youth understand that their migration choices are more limited, they seek to accrue alternative cultural resources across varied destinations to gain the experiences and credentials necessary to advance in the South Korean labour market. Despite increased opportunities for English study abroad via market liberalization, this research contends that it also produces more levels of stratification within and among youth migrants.     

The Use of a Modified Repertory Grid Technique for Assessing the Self-Concept of Children in Local Authority Foster Care

Dr. C. Hicks, School of Continuing Studies, University of Birmingham, P.O. Box 363, Birmingham, B15 2TT. Summary Two studies were carried out using a modified form of the repertorygrid technique to investigate the self-esteem of children inLocal Authority Care. The aim of the first study was to comparethe self-perceptions and self-esteem of Children in Local AuthorityCare with a group of matched controls. Two groups of ten subjectswere given a modified repertory grid task, which involved presentingeight pictorial elements and eight bipolar constructs, and askingthe subjects to rank order the elements according to their perceptionof each construct. The results indicated that children in Local Authority Carea) have significantly lower self-esteem scores (t=2.25, p<0.025)and b) have significantly fewer positive constructs about themselvesoverall (X²=7.07. p<0.01). The second study used a correlational design and looked at therelationship between the number of caretaker changes and self-esteem,in a single further group of eleven children in Local AuthorityCare. The same technique for assessing self-esteem was used as inStudy 1. The results showed a significant negative correlation(r=–0.638, p<0.025) suggesting that the more movesa child experiences, the lower the self-esteem is likely tobe. The results of both these studies are discussed in terms oftheir implications for Local Authority Child Care policy andfor the use of the repertory grid technique as a procedure forassessing self-esteem.     

Competing Orientations in Child Abuse Management

Summary This case study illustrates some of the problems which occurwhen different professionals are involved in the managementof child abuse cases.     

Model Hong Kong malls and their development in mainland China: consumer iconicity and the trans/national capitalist class

Relational geographies of capital and consumption between Hong Kong and mainland China have been forming through tourism engagement in Hong Kong and the development of model Hong Kong malls in China. This analysis of urban restructuring for the consumer economy identifies how landmark Hong Kong malls are reproduced in major cities of China by networks of Hong Kong property firms and mainland elites. Adapting Leslie Sklair's formulation of architectural iconicity in the culture‐ideology of consumerism, this economic relationship, which restructures urban space, constructs iconic built forms and develops Chinese consumerism, marks hegemonic opportunities of a national capitalist class, suggesting how Chinese state capitalism and its Hong Kong networks limit and incrementally engage transnational capital while instantiating Hong Kong‐style consumer iconicity. New malls in mixed‐use developments in China often occupy sites of historical markets and thus affirm Sklair's prediction that iconic architecture increasingly proclaims consumer space while claiming historic forms of public space.     

From Hollis to the Orange Book: Developing a Holistic Model of Social Work Assessment in the 1990s

Correspondence to Margaret Lloyd, School of Social Work, University of Manchester, Dover Street, Manchester M13 9PL. Summary Amidst questioning of its essential identity, social work iscurrently developing new procedures and training programmesin assessment, traditionally one of its core activities. Thedemand for this redevelopment has been created by the changingprofessional climate in both probation and social work practice,in particular the response to legislative changes such as theNational Health Service and Community Care Act 1990. This paperexamines the established model of social work assessment inhistorical context and identifies its shortcomings for practicein the 1990s. It argues that despite the apparently diverserange of assessment tasks now undertaken by social workers andprobation officers, there remains an identifiable, common setof skills. Moreover, unless social work anchors these assessmentskills in a conceptual framework, retaining a sense of its ownhistory, the essential character of social work assessment willbe lost amidst mechanistic procedures and competing philosophies.This paper suggests a typology for making sense of the rangeof assessment tasks in current practice, arguing that this mustbe rooted in a holistic theoretical and philosophical model.The term ‘social work’ is used in its generic senseto include probation practice.