Shanghai housing reform. Program a burden on foreign investors

This document contains a summary of the Housing Reform Program created in Shanghai, China, in 1991, which requires monthly contributions of all employers and employees in Shanghai to a "Collective Reserve Fund." The program also applies to foreign investment enterprises and must be followed by all enterprises, regardless of any previous housing benefits that an enterprise may be providing its employees. Employers must deduct 5% from each employee's salary (with a minimum) monthly and must match that amount. The total is paid into an account in the employer's name with the People's Construction Bank of China. The total amount collected and matched for an employee is considered the property of the employee, but the account is administered by the employer as a collective trust account. Each employee's balance may be withdrawn upon retirement, leaving the area, or purchasing a home and leaving state-owned housing. Foreign investment enterprises contribute a reduced amount in recognition of the fact that they pay salaries that are higher than those of state enterprises. The Housing Reform Program also requires employers to contribute to doubled rent subsidies for public housing, requires workers to purchase housing construction bonds in order to be eligible for newly allocated public housing, calles for housing to be sold at favorable prices, and creates a system whereby mortgages can be obtained from the Collective Reserve Fund.     

The relationship of abuse and witnessing violence on the Child Abuse Potential Inventory with black adolescents

A number of social and psychological factors present in most adolescent parents place them at high risk for abusive behavior toward their children. However, current child abuse potential measures do not include adolescent samples as part of the psychometric data base. Consequently, the purpose of this study was twofold: (1) to investigate whether a Black adolescent sample would perform differently than an adult nonabusing sample on the Child Abuse Potential Inventory (CAP), and (2) to examine the relationship between history of abuse or witnessing violence to scores on the CAP. Results revealed that Black adolescents scored significantly higher than the adult normative sample on the CAP; consequently, cutoff scores need to be empirically established for adolescents. Additional analyses indicated that a history of abuse, as well as a history of witnessing violence, are associated with a high potential for abuse.     

Attitudes of Canadians toward affirmative action: Opposition,value pluralism,and nonattitudes

Set against a backdrop of current public policy and case law, this study investigates Canadian attitudes toward affirmative action among both citizens and decision makers. We find low levels of support for such programs across a variety of contexts and intended beneficiaries, but we also discover that opinion on both sides of the issue is rather soft, for large portions of those taking positions on the matter are willing to reconsider their views when prompted. We interpret this finding as an indication of what Philip Converse has called nonattitudes. Thus, a substantial portion of Canadians appear to hold no genuine attitudes on the question of affirmative action and are relatively open to persuasion. In contrast, the preferences of those with stable attitudes are rooted in the tradeoff between values of equality and merit. Implications for policy activists in this issue area are discussed.The research reported here is part of a large project supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (Grant No. 411-85-001). The Centre of Criminology at the University of Toronto has provided a home, and indispensable support, for the Charter Project. This research was also facilitated by a contribution from the Solicitor General of Canada to the Centre of Criminology, University of Toronto. Our thanks also go to Robert Vipond for his help in clarifying our concepts.     

Anarchism, Internationalism and Nationalism in Europe, 1860–1939

This article is part of a broader project on the social history or histories of anarchism. The standard accounts of anarchism (Nettlau, Joll, Woodcock, Marshall etc.) have been combinations of the histories of ideas and political/social movements. A larger project I am engaged in uses another methodology and is reliant upon the vast outpouring of published and unpublished academic writing on social history that has been produced since the 1960s. I will cover only several interconnected themes here: anarchism, internationalism and nationalism in Europe. This article will give a synoptic overview of the internationalism of the European anarchist and syndicalist movements during the “classical” period of anarchism (1860–1939). It focuses on the First and Second Internationals and the birth of the Third. It examines the ideology and culture of Internationalism, which was the nursery of the modern anarchist movement. The linkage between federalist and regionalist republicanism is stressed and the legacy of the Paris Commune of 1871 is highlighted. The desire to secure a global level playing field in labour markets promoted labour internationalism during the First International and a revival of this strategy by anarchists and syndicalists during the era of the Second International. The mismatch of industrial development and union density between industrialised Britain or Germany and artisanal and industrialising France and southern Europe limited internationalism in the 1860s and the 1900s. Equally the patriotic legacy of the Commune of Paris undermined the internationalism of anarchists and syndicalists when war broke out in 1914. In 1917–1918 anarchist and syndicalist internationalism seemed to be revived as Europe entered a period of revolutionary discontent. But very quickly the Bolsheviks and the Soviet Union channelled this wave into the Third International and ultimately the interests of the newly born Soviet State. Anarchist and syndicalist internationalism had little effect on the fortunes of the anarchists in the Spanish Civil War in a world of nation‐states and state‐centric political parties and movements.     

Adolescents' Perceptions of the Relevance of Domains of Identity Formation: A South African Cross-Cultural Study

This study investigated South African Afrikaans-, English-, and Xhosa-speaking secondary school adolescents' (N = 1217) perceptions of the relative importance of identity-related domains. For this purpose a structured questionnaire consisting of 14 domain-specific items was used. Most of the domains were regarded as very important or fairly important by a significant majority of participants. Four domains were regarded as very important by more than 70% of the total research group, namely, future career, moral values, family relationships, and religious matters. Political and sexual matters were regarded as of least importance. Intercultural differences were evident in most domains. Significant gender differences were also found. Relatively more females than males reported a high priority to domains such as future career, moral values, friendships with same sex peers, gender role, and community matters. The male participants regarded relationships with the opposite sex and sexual matters as more important than the females did. The findings of this study emphasize the importance of carefully considering the domains included in future research on identity formation, depending on variables such as socioeconomic and sociocultural characteristics of the specific research groups to be included in the investigation.