Workforce Localization among Chinese State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) in Ghana

Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) have gradually localized their workforce since they began operating in Ghana in the 1980s. Examining their workforce localization patterns, the Chinese SOEs in Ghana appear to be diverse in their business practices and highly autonomous from the Chinese state. Our hypothesis on the substantial autonomy of Chinese SOE overseas subsidiaries, which is consequent to the lack of management control from the Chinese central authority since the Chinese economic reform, contrasts the dominant assumption in the China–Africa debate, in which Chinese SOEs are depicted as closely linked to the Chinese state and/or as the arms of the new Chinese policy in Africa. The workforce localization process of Chinese SOEs in Ghana is largely determined by factors like profit maximization objective, market competition and political pressure. The localization experience is similar to those of Western companies in Africa where complete workforce localization takes a long time to achieve.     

Parental Self-Efficacy and Bullying in Elementary School

This study investigated associations of general and specific parental self-efficacy factors with bullying and peer victimization behaviors among 142 fourth and fifth graders and their parents. Using structural equation modeling, exploratory factor analysis was used to examine one general parenting self-efficacy measure and a bullying-specific parent self-efficacy measure. The latter produced two unique factors: (a) self-efficacy to know when one’s child is bullied, and (b) self-efficacy to respond to one’s child being bullied. Child reports of bullying and peer victimization were simultaneously regressed on the three (i.e., one general and two specific) parent self-efficacy factors. Findings revealed that parental self-efficacy to know when one’s child is bullied was uniquely and negatively associated with both bullying and victimization. Additionally, and contrary to expectations, parental self-efficacy to respond when one’s child is being bullied was uniquely and positively associated with victimization.     

论我国防治虐童行为法律体系的完善--基于法教义学的分析

虐童行为主要表现为躯体虐待、情感虐待、性虐待及忽视等形式,对儿童身心健康会造成潜移默化的损害,进而阻碍儿童身心的健康发展。《儿童权利公约》规定了儿童的生命权和发展权等基本权利,上述权利免受一切形式的暴力侵害是其应有之义。当前,我国已构建以宪法为统领、以未成年人保护法为核心的防治虐童行为法律体系,同时以司法机关和行政机关出台的司法解释文件、部门规章予以补充。在法治社会建设过程中,以法教义学的研究方法为切入点,结合相关案例对我国防治虐童行为法律体系进行全面梳理并进行体系化的分析,可以为我国防治虐童行为法律的进一步完善提供有益的思路。     

Child Welfare Assessment Practices in Scotland: An Ecological Process Grounded in Relationship-Building

Beginning with the initial contact with the family, Scottish child welfare policy and practice are grounded in ecological practice and community relationships. New guidance called “Getting it Right for Every Child in Scotland” (GIRFEC) is focused on universal child well-being and may have a significant impact on social work practice. This article explores the results of a multi-methods case study conducted in Scotland and highlights key aspects of new policy implementation and relational social work characteristics that are important to advance ecological child welfare practice. It may also have implications for other cultural contexts.     

China Goes to Africa: a strategic move?

Entering the twenty-first century, particularly under the reign of Hu Jintao, China began to pursue an increasingly pro-active diplomacy in Africa. Most analysis on China's offensive diplomacy in Africa focuses on Beijing's thirst for energy and raw materials, and for economic profits and benefits. That is why it is often called ‘energy diplomacy’ or ‘economic diplomacy’ as if China, just like Japan in the 1980s, became another ‘economic animal’. But if one looks at the history of the PRC's foreign policy, Beijing has seldom pursued its diplomacy from purely economic considerations. Is this time any different? This article exams China's diplomacy in Africa from a strategic and political perspective such as its geo-strategic calculations, political and security ties with African countries, peacekeeping and anti-piracy efforts in the region, support for African regionalism, etc. It argues that China's diplomatic expansion in Africa, while partially driven by its need for economic growth, cannot be fully understood without taking into consideration its strategic impulse accompanying its accelerating emergence as a global power. Africa is one of China's diplomatic ‘new frontiers’ as exemplified by new Chinese leader Xi Jinping's maiden foreign trip to Africa in 2013.     

Kids Are a Worry!

There is much that we in the affluent West could learn from watching our poorer cousins in Africa and elsewhere. Above all, when you’re starving and thirsty, you quickly develop a strong sense of life’s real priorities.     

“Those Are Our People and That's Our Family”: Wabanaki Perspectives on Child Welfare Practice in Their Communities

In collaboration with the Maine Wabanaki-State Child Welfare Truth and Reconciliation Commission Convening Group, this study explored perspectives of Wabanaki community members and tribal child welfare staff on state child welfare involvement in Wabanaki communities. Qualitative analysis of three focus groups found that participants perceived fundamental differences between what guides the work of tribal child welfare staff and state child welfare staff, as well as differences in understanding the profound impact of removing a child from the community. These findings are suggested to be elements of a Wabanaki counter-narrative that contrasts with the historical dominant narrative about Native families and children.     

China's Economic Diplomacy towards the Arab Countries: challenges ahead?

Since the outbreak of the Arab revolts in late 2010, China has adhered to its ‘business-first’ economic diplomacy towards the Arab countries, a policy driven by China's ongoing geoeconomic interests. The ten-year-old China–Arab States Cooperation Forum serves as the nucleus for China's economic diplomacy in the region. The Chinese authorities have also initiated interagency coordination and central–local governments' power sharing in order to pursue this diplomacy successfully. However, while its economic diplomacy may be evolving, China, unlike what it has achieved in Black Africa, seems to have failed to develop strategic, political and cultural exchanges with its Arab counterparts. The intertwined geopolitical and geoeconomic factors that have emerged since the Arab revolts might make it harder for China to reap economic benefits while shelving political entanglement to sustain this economic diplomacy in the longer run.     

China's widening economic disparities and its ‘Go West Program’

This paper analyzes the serious widening of economic disparities in China during the last two decades. The economic disparities indicate that there is a substantially lower standard of living, and lower economic activity in the western region of China as compared with the eastern region. The causes of these disparities include a wide range of factors: geographical differences; government policies that address market distortions; preferential treatment that favors the eastern coastal areas; and an imbalance in China's industrial structure. To avoid further deterioration and a further widening of the disparities, Chinese leaders have embarked on the so‐called ‘Go West Program’. By adopting the node–axle theory, this study recommends that selected areas in the western region be considered as pilot nodes for this development, with each node networked to other axles for further development. The government's policy declaration on the ‘Go West Program’ should not lead one to be overly optimistic about this program. Evaluations of investment prospects in western China should take into consideration the constraints inherited by the western regions: a weak legal system, local government inefficiency, and inferior infrastructure and labor quality.     

Taiwan's Foreign Policy and Africa: The limitations of dollar diplomacy

The search for status, or more correctly, the desire to maintain status, lies at the heart of the Republic of China on Taiwan's (ROC) foreign policy. This is particularly so vis-a ¤ -vis its official state-to-state relations. In this regard, the ROC has been constrained by a conscious policy by the People's Republic of China (PRC) to try and marginalize Taiwan on the international stage. Due to objective realities, Taiwan has had to become satisfied with maintaining official state relations with small states only. All, with the exception of the Vatican, are in the developing world, with a number in Africa. This paper examines Taiwanese foreign policy and its diplomatic initiatives, with particular reference to its use of 'dollar diplomacy' in its activities in Africa. The constraints and limitations of such policies are drawn out.     

The CPC's Policy on Protestant Christianity, 1949–1957: an overview and assessment

After the establishment of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949, the state–church relationship in China entered a new phase. This article, which is substantially based on party reports and archival documents, attempts to reconstruct and assess the party-state's policy on Protestant Christianity from 1949 until the eve of the Anti-Rightist Movement in 1957. The focus is not on the repeated dichotomy between ‘state’ and ‘religion’ but explores multiplicity and interaction as two possible aspects of the church–state relationship. The article investigates the following questions: what were the factors influencing the formation and development of the Communist Party of China's (CPC) policy on Protestant Christianity after the establishment of the PRC? Were there multiple actors within the party-state and Protestant Christianity? What kinds of relationships existed between the party-state and Protestant Christianity? Particular attention is given to how the CPC chose between ‘struggle’ (douzheng) and ‘unity’ (tuanjie) when dealing with Protestant Christianity under ideological constraints and complex political situations.     

Child Well-Being: Where Is It in Our Data Systems?

Child well-being is a required goal for public child welfare. Despite this requirement, there continues to be no systematic inclusion of child well-being indicators in administrative data, particularly for children remaining in the home. This brief commentary provides a rationale and suggested steps for moving toward inclusion of well-being indicators as a part of standard electronic record-keeping. Suggested operationalized elements for inclusion in electronic records are offered as well as suggestions for linkage across systems to begin to capture elements of the outcome of well-being automatically. Limitations and barriers are discussed as well as present policy changes that may provide support for this endeavor.     

西方之眼——论《看见十九世纪台湾》的知识生产

本文以《看见十九世纪台湾——十四位西方旅行者的福尔摩沙故事》（Curious Investigations：19th-century American and European Impressions of Taiwan）为主要分析对象,将西方人讲述的台湾故事当做西方对东方的观看和关于台湾的知识生产,探讨何种事物被选择为讲述对象,考察来自西方的“凝视”（gaze）究竟产生了怎样的台湾图景.首先,将西方旅行者对台湾自然事物的发现与19世纪西方的科学发展相联系,说明对未知世界的探险、科学化的叙述和世界范围内的知识传播是由西方主导的.而旅行者对台湾人文景观的记录则表现为观察与被观察、控制与被控制的权力关系,是西方主体对东方他者的认知投射.第二,借用文化与社会关键词的论述,将旅行者对台湾人文与社会的讲述集中于一些有代表性的词汇中,如“野蛮人”、汉人与儒家文化等,这些词汇体现了西方主体的意识与观念,呈现了当时西方眼中的台湾知识地图.原住民被作为讲述中心可能与西方眼中的文明位阶相关;汉人和儒家文化受到贬抑是中华文明衰落和西方文明崛起的世界格局所决定的.     

Bashing ‘the Chinese’: contextualizing Zambia's Collum Coal Mine shooting

The 2010 shooting of 13 miners at Zambia's small, privately-owned ‘Chinese’ Collum Coal Mine (CCM) has been represented by Western and Zambian politicians and media as exemplifying the ‘neo-colonial’ and ‘amoral’ practices of ‘China’ and ‘the Chinese’ in Africa. CCM has been used to provide a sharp contrast to the supposed ways of the Western firms that own most of Zambia's mines. Embedded in racial hierarchy and notions of strategic competition between the West and China, the discourse of the CCM shootings further shapes conceptions of global China and Chinese overseas. While examining all the oppressive conditions that have given rise to protest at the mine, we contextualize the shooting and subsequent conflicts. In analyzing CCM's marginal and troubled development, we discuss aspects of the 2010 shooting incident known to miners and union leaders, but ignored by politicians and media. We look at the shooting's political fallout, focus also on the epilogue that was the 2012 CCM riot—in which one Chinese person was murdered and several others seriously injured—and trace the sometimes violent discontent manifested at other foreign-owned mines in Zambia since their privatization in the late 1990s. The empirical data for this detailed study derive from hundreds of documentary sources and interviews with union leaders, workers, officials and others in Zambia from 2011 to 2013.     

The Rise of Neoclassical Economics and China's WTO Agreement with the United States in 1999

Drawing on the historical institutionalists’ emphasis on the effects of ideas on policy making, this paper focuses on the importance of economic ideas and ideologies on China's trade policy making with regard to the signing of the WTO agreement with the United States in 1999. The paper argues that trade liberalization in China was a result of top Chinese leaders’ embrace of neoclassical economic ideas which conceive a small role for the state in the marketplace, mainly as the regulator of the macro-economic environment and as the enforcer of the rule of law, rather than as a major player in the marketplace. Top Chinese leaders’ socialization with neoclassical economic ideas enabled them to forge a political consensus to link state-owned enterprise (SOE) reforms with speedy WTO accession and led to China's major concessions in WTO negotiations with the United States in 1999 which were inconceivable just a few years ago.     

Using Administrative Data to Monitor Racial/Ethnic Disparities and Disproportionality Within Child Welfare Agencies: Process and Preliminary Outcomes

Child welfare administrative data are increasingly used to identify racial/ethnic disproportionality and disparities at various levels of aggregation. However, child welfare agencies typically face challenges in harnessing administrative data to examine racial/ethnic disproportionality and disparities at meaningful levels of analysis due to limited resources and/or tools for reporting. This article describes the process through which a multi-state workgroup designed and developed management reports to monitor racial/ethnic disparities and disproportionality using a web-based child welfare administrative data reporting system. The article provides an overview of the process, outcome, and challenges of the group’s work with the goal of offering a starting point for discussion to others who may be seeking to monitor racial/ethnic disparities and disproportionality, regardless of their reporting system.     

Does the Money Matter? Examining the Source and Type of Child Welfare Dollars Through the Eyes of County Child Welfare Services Directors

Child abuse is addressed through a complicated design of federal, state, and local funds. Congress approved a new round of waivers permitting states to flexibly use funds, otherwise limited to foster care reimbursement, for other child welfare needs. Conducted in Ohio, this longitudinal study examined flexible funds from child welfare directors’ perspectives, including key informant interviews, a survey, and semi-structured interviews. Directors noted that improved discretion results in better child health outcomes and better community partnerships; community partnerships are essential to promoting the health and safety of vulnerable children; and federal child welfare success measures do not reflect directors’ perceptions of success.     

Police Charging Decisions in Child Maltreatment Investigations: Findings from the 2008 Ontario Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect

The objective of this study was to use logistic regression and examine factors that influence charging decisions by the police during child maltreatment investigations. An estimated 4,808 substantiated child maltreatment investigations that involved police were obtained from the 2008 Ontario Incidence Study of Reported Child Abuse and Neglect. Of the 4,808 cases examined, police laid charges in about one-third of the cases. Controlling for all other factors, police were 1.6 times more likely to lay charges in physical abuse cases and 2.5 times more likely to lay charges in sexual abuse cases. Other factors associated with police charging decisions include: older victim, cases with multiple types of maltreatment, cases opened for ongoing services, and cases of the child living in a house known to have drugs or household hazards. The article discusses the results and their implications for child welfare policy and practice.     

“I was prepared for the worst I guess”: stayers’ and leavers’ perceptions of their Title IV-E education

ABSTRACT

Child welfare workforces across the nation are experiencing high turnover and have for decades. The chronic cost of turnover makes efforts to increase retention crucial. The Title IV-E education stipend program is one way that many states employ to improve their child welfare worker tenure. Through qualitative interviews, this study examines Title IV-E graduates’ experiences and perceptions of preparedness for working in child welfare agencies. Examining how the responses of stayers and leavers differ and assessing similarities collectively can inform educational and agency enhancements to improve services, as well as worker competence and retention.     

Exploratory Factor Analysis and Reliability of the Child Welfare Trauma-Informed Individual Assessment Tool

This article presents the development and psychometric analysis of the Child Welfare Trauma-Informed Individual Assessment Tool, an instrument designed to measure the extent to which child welfare service providers employ trauma-informed practices with the children and families that they serve. Using the responses of 213 front-line child welfare workers, exploratory factor analysis was used on a seventeen-item scale, resulting in a four-factor model. Based on the results of this analysis, implications for potential uses of the instrument are discussed, and specifications for additional evaluation of the measure's validity are outlined.