Gendering the ‘responsible risk taker’: citizenship relationships with gender-neutral social assistance policy

This paper explores the gendered relationships among reforms to social assistance policy, concurrent transformations in citizenship rights to benefits, and low-income parents' experiences of these changes in the Canadian provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, and Saskatchewan. Policy discourse in all three provinces increasingly constructs mothers and fathers as ‘responsible risk takers’ who are entitled to income support conditional on their employability efforts (for example, attendance in welfare-to-work programmes) or market citizenship. Qualitative interviews with 41 mothers and five fathers illustrate how this ‘gender-neutral worker-citizen’ model can be gendered in application and is contradicted by parents' gendered identities and everyday realities when living on social assistance. Using the theoretical perspective of gender as a social structure, the paper draws upon these findings to provide empirical support for a dominant theoretical argument in feminist scholarship – that gender-neutral policy is gendered and has deeply gendered consequences.     

Preferred learning style： Gender influence on preferred learning style among business students

Past studies indicate that there was a correlation between gender and students＇ preferred styles of learning. Thus, the purpose of this study is to determine the influence of gender on the learning style preferences of business students based on the VARK （Fleming, 2002b） learning style survey, consisting of the V（isual）, A（ural）, R（ead-Write） and K（inesthefic） learning styles. The sampling design used for this study was non-probability sampling and the sampling technique conducted was convenient sampling on 207 male students and 199 female students from the business school. The study found that gender only influences the V（isual） and A（ural） learning styles of business students. In addition to that, even though both male and female students exhibited a similar response towards both these learning styles, female students were found to demonstrate slightly higher preference for the V（isual） and A（ural） learning styles as compared to the male students. The findings draw attention to facets of learning that may exist in pre-university and tertiary classrooms with a combination of female and male students, which could have an impact on teaching and managing these students.     

新时期大学生感恩教育的缺失与对策研究

营造感恩气氛,培养感恩意识,学会感恩,并不是要做付出与所得的价值交换,而是要更懂得尊重和珍惜。深化感恩的层次,强化感恩意识。①教会学生识恩、知恩。②教会学生知恩图报。③教会学生施恩不图报。拓宽感恩途径,实践感恩。感恩教育不仅要让学生识恩、知恩,更重要的是要学生报恩、施恩,养成感恩的品德和行为习惯。     

公安院校大学生心理健康教育新探

公安院校是培养警察的摇篮,公安院校大学毕业生是警察的主要来源,因此,公安院校大学生的素质直接影响到警察队伍的整体素质.心理健康对公安院校大学生成才具有重要意义,警察职业的特殊性要求公安院校大学生必须具有健康的心理.但是当前,公安院校大学生的心理健康状况并不令人乐观.因此,全面提高公安院校大学生的心理素质,加强心理健康教育,努力提高公安院校大学生的心理健康水平,已成为我国公安院校刻不容缓的重要任务.     

对高校学生党建工作的一点思考

在新形势下,作为高校党建工作重要组成部分的学生党建工作在取得成绩的同时,也面l临着一些新的变化和情况。针对新时期高校学生党建工作中存在的问题,从开展理想信念教育、入党积极分子培养方式、严把党员入口关、加大预备期考察力度、增强党支部凝聚力、党支部书记加强学习等方面进行了深入地分析,提出完善和规范高校学生党建工作的对策。     

Taiwan: An Internal Affair! How China’s Domestic Politics and Foreign Policy Interact on the Taiwan Issue?

Taiwan may be an internal affair but the domestic public opinion is not invited to participate very much in a debate and a decision-making process that have remained confined to the Chinese Communist Party and the military top leadership and, on purpose, involves a very small number of officials and experts. Conservative and nationalist forces do constrain Beijing’s Taiwan policy. And some leaders are tempted to use the Taiwan issue for unrelated domestic or foreign policy purpose. Nevertheless, what is striking is the potential for flexibility in China’s Taiwan policy. While Chinese local governments and companies’ increasing interests in business-as-usual in the Strait and the unbearable cost of any armed conflict tend to narrow the government’s options, concentration of power and the efficiency of the propaganda machine allow it to rather smoothly manage, in particular vis-à-vis the elites’ conservative opinion group as well as its own public opinion, this flexibility.     

Chinese American Adolescents’ Perceptions of the Language Brokering Experience as a Sense of Burden and Sense of Efficacy

Children of immigrants who do translations and who interpret for others using their heritage language and English are known as language brokers. Although prior research suggests that children of immigrants’ perceptions of the language brokering experience vary greatly—from feeling a sense of efficacy to feeling a sense of burden—what remains unanswered in the literature is identification of the antecedents and processes that help to explain the varying psychological experience of language brokers. Using data from a two-wave prospective longitudinal study of 256 Chinese American adolescents, the present study tested potential mechanisms that may be responsible for adolescents’ perceptions of the language brokering experience as a sense or burden or sense of efficacy. The results demonstrate that adolescents’ Chinese orientation sets in motion a family process that is linked to variations in the perceptions of adolescents’ language brokering experience. Adolescents who are more Chinese oriented have a stronger sense of familial obligation, and these adolescents are more likely to perceive that they matter to their parents. Adolescents’ perceived sense of mattering to parents, in turn, is associated positively with a sense efficacy, and negatively with a sense of burden as language brokers. Those adolescents who are less Chinese oriented have a weaker sense of familial obligation, and these adolescents are more likely to feel a sense of alienation from their parents. Adolescents’ sense of perceived alienation from parents, in turn, is associated with a sense of burden as language brokers. Implications for developing interventions for children who act as language brokers for their parents are discussed.

Look at Detroit: The United Auto Workers and the Battle to Organize Volkswagen in Chattanooga

ABSTRACT

On February 14, 2014, workers at Volkswagen’s new plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, voted 712 to 626 against being represented by the United Automobile Workers of America (UAW). The result capped one of the most high-profile organizing campaigns of recent years, with most media accounts anticipating a UAW victory, especially as VW had declared that it would not oppose the union. The VW election is also now attracting scholarly interest, with accounts stressing the role of external opposition – especially from conservative politicians and lobby groups – along with the UAW’s over-reliance on partnerships with German actors. Providing a detailed analysis of the campaign, this article recognizes the importance of these factors, but also argues that an important role was played by the UAW’s strong association with the domestic automakers, and especially with Detroit, their historic base. Citing the fact that foreign automakers had expanded since the 1980s while the domestics had contracted, opponents effectively linked the UAW with economic decline. These arguments swayed many workers. Placing the VW story within the broader struggle of the UAW to organize a foreign-owned auto plant, the article also stresses structural obstacles, especially the location of Greenfield plants in areas of low union density.     

普通高校体育教师职业认同的对策研究——以吉林省普通高校体育教师职业认同状况为例

教师职业认同是当前教育领域研究的重点内容之一.以吉林省普通高校体育教师职业认同为研究对象,分析体育教师职业认同的影响因素,即社会地位与经济地位、学生及家长的满意度、学校对于教师的评价、职业与事业的理解.就改善普通高校体育教师职业认同进行的相应的对策,发现通过加强高校管理体制的人文化创新与高校管理体制的人文化创新的建设,能够从外因的改变促进体育教师内因的变化,进而有效的改善体育教师职业认同的现状.     

就业困难大学生群体的特征、成因及对策研究——基于对上海某高校2010-2011届毕业生就业状况的调研

本文以上海某高校2010-2011届毕业生的就业调查数据和历年访谈资料为基础,以就业不困难大学生群体为对照组,以就业困难大学生群体为实验组,从就业目标、就业准备和就业能力等方面分析就业困难大学生群体的特征,从劳动力市场机制、教育体制、家庭教育方式以及学生个体特征等方面分析其成因,进而提出相应的对策建议.