Search

Under the influence of international trade, labor flow not only exists in the waves of international labor migration but is also embodied in international products and services. This paper focused on members of the China–Africa Cooperation Forum (FOCAC). We computed and analyzed the sectoral embodied labor transfer between China and Africa from 2000 to 2015 based on the Multiregional Input-Output Method. Our results are as follows: (1) Both China and Africa play roles as labor suppliers in the global supply chain. By ameliorating the trade structure, both China and Africa can better utilize their labor surplus. (2) China and Africa share complementarity in sectoral labor allocation. In short, the embodied labor transfer via international trade between China and Africa has, to some extent, relieved the labor shortage on both sides. (3) Africa has transformed into a net exporter of industrial labor since 2011. By analyzing the embodied labor flow from the global perspective, this paper beats a new path in depicting the effect of international trade on labor allocation, enriches the evaluation of embodied labor transfer between China and Africa, and also provides a beneficial supplement to Multiregional Input-Output analysis in the field of factor flows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International collaboration is one of the effective ways to enhance the impact of scientific research papers. In this research, international research collaboration papers published by world-class universities in the field of humanities and social sciences from 2015 to 2019 were selected as the research object, and the effective enhancement of the impact of international research collaboration papers was found to not be dependent on expanding the scale of international research collaboration, but rather on selecting researchers with different international backgrounds and from high-level institutions for collaboration. It was also discovered that, in the field of humanities and social sciences, despite a relatively low proportion of international research collaboration papers being led by Chinese scholars, the Chinese research is characterized by a higher impact compared with the research led by non-Chinese scholars. In light of this, a series of proactive measures should be taken by China's world-class universities, such as actively participating in and initiating international collaboration, selecting high-level research collaborators, and attracting scholars from different countries to engage in research collaboration in the field of humanities and social sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines housework reallocation during China's stringent pandemic lockdowns in 2020, where individuals were homebound and job-free while employment status remained unchanged. Utilizing a mixed-method approach, it analyzes 1669 surveys and 100 interviews to understand changes in domestic labor patterns and the underlying reasons. The findings indicate that men increased their participation in grocery shopping but decreased in cooking, cleaning, and laundry during the lockdown. This gender-task pattern was mirrored in multi-generational households, where younger family members often took on these tasks. The reasons articulated for these shifts predominantly converged around the 'doing gender' theory. Women, particularly those working full-time, had more time to engage in household chores. Men, while also having more available time, predominantly focused on grocery shopping, a task that gained masculine connotations during the lockdown. Factors such as perceived differences in household labor quality, difficulty delegating housework, and reduced workload led to women's increased involvement and specialization in domestic tasks. The study challenges the notion that economic factors are the primary drivers of gender-based division of housework. Instead, it suggests that ingrained gender norms continue to dictate domestic roles, as evidenced during the lockdown period devoid of usual economic and time pressures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper investigates China's effort to create an eldercare market to shed light on how China's economic reform entailed the creation of new institutions (e.g., eldercare market including eldercare labour market) and the reconfiguration of existing institutions (e.g., governance and regulation, the family, and the community). All this was needed for the market to flourish while maintaining and strengthening the regime. An urban eldercare market, including an eldercare labour market, was created by local governments (i.e., municipalities, districts, counties, and towns) with central government policy directives, in order to address China's demographic aging and care crisis. However, once enough demand and supply were created, local governments turned to New Public Management (NPM) to operate publicly funded eldercare institutions. The paper argues that NPM has different rationalities in China than in liberal democracies; in China, they strengthen the Party and contribute to the durability of the authoritarian rule, rather than "shrink the state". However, in China as in the West, bureaucratic logic hampers the implementation of NPM and the governance of the eldercare sector. The implication of bureaucratic logic driving the regulation of the eldercare sector is that care is not at the centre of eldercare. The paper also argues that the commodification and privatization of eldercare, in line with the global trend, was a deliberate government policy aimed at creating a positive condition for the market economy to flourish, but at the expense of social reproduction/care. Unlike many Western transitions to market provision, this one entailed the decline in the extended family as the main eldercare institution of the immediate past. However, the commodification and privatization of social reproduction have been incomplete and met with resistance, prompting the state to invest more in the sector to maintain social stability. Data for this paper derive from personal interviews with key informants and eldercare workers, official document analysis, and secondary literature analysis from Chinese scholars in mainland China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the author investigates rural Chinese citizens' encounters of structural and institutional inequalities and social (im)mobility. The author addresses social (im)mobility from a holistic perspective (i.e., in institutional, occupational, social, educational, cultural and political dimensions). In this regard, the author explores if a range of parental disadvantages serve as significant hindrances to the acquisition of social mobilising opportunities among the next generations in rural Chinese contexts. Here a holistic presentation helps understand the nuanced relationship between institutional barriers (i.e., rural hukou status) and alternative obstacles to social mobility; and explore, in part, how parental inheritance of rural hukou status would bar individuals' from socially mobilising and result in some forms of unsustainability. Previous research on China restrictively measures social (im)mobility from limited perspectives, failing to fully and accurately reflect the extent of social (im)mobility Chinese populations face. This paper is a comprehensive literature review where relevant Chinese literature, exclusively found in the e-library system of the University of Cambridge, is included and thoroughly discussed. Articles that include the keywords of "hukou", "China", "social mobility" and (a) "economic", (b) "social", (c) "cultural", (d) "linguistic" or (e) "political" are extensively studied, in a hope to understand the existing scholarship on multifaceted social (im)mobility in Chinese contexts. The author argues that, despite the 2014 hukou reform, further loosening the requirements for rural-to-urban hukou conversion should be prioritised by the Central Government of China in order to ensure the rural-urban divide and structural and institutional inequalities rural hukou holders face can curtain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research paper investigates the evolving defense cooperation between India and Japan in the context of the strategic landscape in the Indo-Pacific region, particularly considering China's rise. The existing literature recognizes China's increasing influence as a significant factor in India-Japanese security cooperation, but tends to overlook the dynamics behind India's shifting stance. The study reveals that India initially hesitated to actively engage in anti-China security cooperation with Japan until the mid-2010s, but later adopted a more proactive partnership. An analysis of policy documents, political speeches, and government records attributes India's initial reluctance to its commitment to non-alignment and strategic autonomy, its desire to balance relations with both China and Japan, and its domestic political priorities favoring economic development over military expansion or strategic alliances. However, growing concerns over China's assertiveness, military modernization, a change in political leadership, and the Quad's development as a regional security platform have prompted India's attitude shift. The research's recommendations not only offer a roadmap for India, Japan, and other Indo-Pacific countries with deep economic ties to China, but also help combat China's military threats to contribute to regional stability and security, address common challenges, and foster a peaceful and prosperous Indo-Pacific region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As China continues to intensify its judicial reform efforts, there are multiple factors that influence the prohibition and prevention of torture in China. This issue leads to the main research question of the article: what factors influence the protection of human rights in China to achieve the prohibition and prevention of torture? This paper uses fuzzy set (fs)/qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) to explore how the configurations of multiple factors influence the establishment of a strong human rights protection system, to achieve effective torture prevention and prohibition in China. This article will focus on the cases of torture that have been made public (1998–2021). When considering how to build a strong human rights protection system to achieve the prohibition and prevention of torture, it is necessary to identify the most effective combination of cooperation with international monitoring bodies, transparency, legislation and judicial practice, attention allocation on torture cases and independent monitoring bodies for torture prevention. The analysis concludes that: (1) there are three ways of configuration to establish effective torture prevention and prohibition, (2) active engagement with international monitoring bodies is key to establishing a high level of human rights protection, particularly concerning China's current mechanisms, and (3) the three types of configurations also provide solutions for future policy and decision-makers in China. This study contributes to demonstrates the benefits of fs/QCA in testing the complementarity of judicial practice and provides conceptual and empirical evidence for previously understudied factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of the impact of the post-COVID-19 pandemic on families, this study explores the impact of individual social capital and psychological resilience on the mental health of family caregivers of kindergarten children in mainland China. This study included a sample of 331 family caregivers from Zhaoqing City, Guangdong Province, and the researchers applied the Personal Social Capital Scale (PSCS-16), Connor–Davidson Resilience Scale (CD-RISC-10), and Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS) to assess social capital, psychological resilience, and mental health. Findings indicate a positive relationship between bridging social capital and mental health, while psychological resilience is negatively associated with depression, anxiety, and stress. Psychological resilience is identified as a mediator between social capital and mental health outcomes in this study. These insights highlight the importance of enhancing social capital and psychological resilience to improve family caregivers' mental health and the need for targeted interventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mass media are a key source of public news, significantly influencing the accessibility of certain issues through media coverage. While media coverage of rival nations is known to influence public perceptions, its potential impact on citizens' attitudes toward their own country is less explored. This study addresses this gap by investigating Chinese respondents' reactions to U.S. news stories related to food safety issues. The research reveals that exposure to negative news stories about a rival nation's food safety scandal can lead to a more favorable assessment of one's own government when the domestic government is perceived to be handling a similar issue better. Conversely, positive news about the rival nation's food safety issues or slightly negative news about a less severe issue diminishes government satisfaction. The findings suggest that the impact of international news coverage on citizens' views is shaped by comparisons between nations' performances. These findings shed light on the complex dynamics of international news and its influence on domestic perceptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hollywood will encounter some cultural policies when its films are imported to the Chinese film market on a revenue-sharing basis. These include a quota system, a censorship system and an uncertain release schedule. However, China has been the fastest growing film market since 2008 and the second largest film market in the world since 2012 (yet the current film industries worldwide are recovering from the impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic). Despite the restrictive cultural policies, Hollywood, attracted by the promising profitability, have incorporated more Chinese roles and more plots about China to please the Chinese film regulators and audiences in order to gain access to the lucrative Chinese film market. Furthermore, the depiction of China has become more positive and diverse in recent Hollywood blockbusters compared with the Orientalist stereotypical images in the past. The author intends to examine the reasons behind the phenomenon through analysing the positively changing images of China from early Hollywood films to the recent Hollywood blockbusters. In fact, the positively changing depiction of China illustrates China and the US negotiating the dynamic process of cross-cultural exchange in economic and political terms through compromise, competition and collaboration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Political participation has become an important topic in contemporary political thinking. Western scholars' views that reflect experiences in Western societies have become predominant theoretical articulations on political participation. This study offers a critical review of the conceptual frameworks of political participation in democratic and non-democratic societies. Drawing on previous research, it has developed a new definition and typology of political participation in China. It eschews voluntarism in the Western definition of political activities and participation to creatively propose a well-developed definition of political participation in China for which it constructs a ladder model. This study summarises Chinese political participation according to four categories: non-participation, tokenism, active participation, and radical participation. This study proposes a typology that motivates us to think of many issues, including online interactions. This study makes a much-needed contribution to the literature on the theoretical development of political participation in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study compares two articles that seek to explain why states participate in regional integration organizations and why they want to deepen their economic and political partnerships. The method of comparison is the systemist diagrammatic approach, which requires a deconstruction and mapping of ideas found in social science. The articles demonstrate common variables in their explanations, namely that power asymmetry and satisfaction with the status quo among regional partners are critical in determining why states integrate. The articles diverge in their explanations, with one emphasizing the similarities of institutionalized policies and the other the role a rising power, China, has in developing regional integration in the Western Hemisphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research Aims. This research project investigates what are the major benefits and risks of Chinese students using ChatGPT for academic activities. Also, the project assesses how, if applicable, should ChatGPT be regulated in Chinese academic settings in order to maintain academic integrity and ethical standards. Methodology. The collection of primary data from relevant newspaper articles serves as the foundation of this research project. Here, the content analysis is used for primary data collection. A combination of keywords ["ChatGPT" AND ("China" OR "Chinese") AND ("students" OR "student")] were typed on the Google news search engine on 12 April 2023. A sum of 40 newspaper articles were deemed eligible for data analysis. Both qualitative and quantitative data were extracted and analyzed. Findings. The opinion of using ChatGPT to fulfil academic responsibilities has been polarized in China. The conservative camps worry that students are using ChatGPT to commit academic cheating. However, some Chinese educators believe AI-powered technologies should be incorporated into academic learning as AI-enabled writing tools can help improve the quality of academic outputs. A major concern that Chinese educators hold, to date, is plagiarism violations by students as an act of academic cheating. Most newspaper articles presented the use of ChatGPT in Chinese academic settings neutrally. Newspaper articles published in March 2023 contained more positive and negative word(s) about the use of ChatGPT in academic learning. Conclusions. Given the benefits ChatGPT can provide and the near-infeasibility of massively ban the use of AI-powered software, more regulations should be set up in Chinese academia. Teachers have to guide students on how to fact-check the details provided by AI and add citations and references accordingly in their coursework. Moreover, teachers should guide students on how to ask AI-powered software questions systematically and creatively, in order to maximize the intellectual outputs generated from ChatGPT. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While Chinese has been taught as a school subject outside of China for decades, there is little research on how Chinese subjects are taught in secondary schools outside of China's mainland with regard to the use of active learning and the impact of professional development events on teachers' professional growth in classroom Chinese teaching. This article explored Thai Chinese teachers' use of active learning methods at public and private secondary schools in the south of Thailand. It also examined the impact of a government-administered Chinese teaching seminar on their professional development. A sequential mixed-methods explanatory design was employed, involving focus group interviews and pre- and post-tests. The phenomenological approach with thematic analysis was used to analyze the qualitative data from the focus group interviews, while the Wilcoxon test was run to compare the pre- and post-test data. Findings revealed the application of active learning with discussion and role-playing activities involving audio-visual materials. The pedagogy of Thai Chinese secondary schools has shifted from knowledge transmission through lectures to knowledge generation and transformation via dynamic learning activities. After attending the seminar, teachers' comprehension of active learning methods increased considerably (Z = 3.740, p < 0.001). However, teachers expressed concerns over the lack of innovative teaching techniques for teaching Chinese characters and the problems encountered by both students and teachers during the teaching and learning process. This study recommends that Hanban and the Thai Ministry of Education plan their seminars and workshops in a way that allows Thai Chinese instructors to continuously address their students' and their own deficiencies while they are engaged in active learning activities, and it calls for additional research on the use of active CFL methods in secondary schools outside of China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The e-market is prosperous in China, but the factors that stimulate or deter its development remain unclear. This study focuses on designers (interaction, user interface, product, and user experience designers) in the Chinese e-marketplace to examine the relationship between creative self-efficacy (CSE), achievement motivation (including motivation to approach success [MS], and motivation to avoid failure [MF]), and job burnout. Eighty-two questionnaires and eight in-depth interviews were used to collect data. The designers were found to be experiencing intermediate levels of job burnout. However, their achievement motivation and CSE were relatively high, and achievement motivation acted as an overarching factor that triggered CSE. The study contributes to the field by providing theoretical evidence showing how achievement motivation and job burnout influence designers' CSE. We show the value of the need to increase employees' achievement motivation, which builds CSE naturally. To conclude, we suggest that achievement motivation may be more critical for firms, as employees will handle their work seriously with a higher sense of responsibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accurately assessing children's vulnerabilities and needs is important for child service delivery in social work. In China, different agencies (including international non-governmental organizations, government sectors and social organizations) utilize different tools for assessing children's needs. However, the advantages and disadvantages of these tools have been rarely discussed, leaving their quality and effectiveness unknown. As a result, it is difficult to realize the goal of improving the well-being of Chinese children. This paper contributes to existing knowledge through the use of semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders of different types of agencies, along with an in-depth exploration, analysis and comparison of their practical assessment tools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the turn of the 21st century, China has leveraged the international environment in its favour to achieve a spectacularly rapid rise, a success that Chinese strategic policymakers attribute in part to 'seizing the strategic window of opportunity'. How has China perceived the international environment and shaped the narrative of its macro-strategy? What impact has it had on China and the world? The article explores the evolution of the strategic narrative of the 'window of opportunity' in three stages since the 21st century and explores its impact in terms of quantity and keyword mapping by analysing the narrative texts of China's 'discourse coalition' (government, official media and intellectual elites). The study found that China's macro-strategic narrative is primarily driven by the official political and semi-official intellectual elites and places a premium on domestic political persuasion rather than external displays of strategic intent. It combines classical and modern philosophical thinking and methodology with the two core objectives of 'maintaining peace' and an 'economic priority'. Over 20 years, the trend of narrative production of the 'strategic opportunity period' has shown a concentrated emergence and fluctuating decline, and its narrative elements have been enriched, interlinked and aligned with the narrative of the CPC's core policies. The narrative of the 'strategic opportunity period' has been a powerful force in building domestic legitimacy, guaranteeing partial fulfilment of strategic objectives and offering lessons for other countries to learn from. Inevitably, the narrative faces a number of dilemmas and challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we use a qualitative reflexive approach to understand the dynamics of Chinese migrant perceptions of Africans upon arrival in Africa and the changes in their views upon returning to China. The research is based on in-depth, semi-structured field interviews with Chinese workers and managers in Mozambique and South Africa, as well as interviews with returning migrants to China, carried out in Beijing. Thus, we are able to gauge the learning experience that occurs and how the underlying Confucian philosophy that has been embraced by the Chinese polity manifests such changes in perception. The research suggests that there is a positive learning process which occurs through the migrants' experience and underlying racial stereotypes of Chinese regarding Africans are eroded. Confucian framing of China's role in Africa is also mitigated towards a more hybridized view of African cultures and societies that reflects to adaptive propensities of contemporary Chinese society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Chinese social credit system (SCS) is a digital sociotechnical credit system that rewards and sanctions the economic and social behaviors of individuals and companies. This article uses classic social-control theories—the shaming theory and the labeling theory—to analyze the SCS, thereby contributing to a better understanding of the Chinese social-control approach to the digital transformation of society. Our research relies not only on government documents and media reports, but also on first-hand data collected from in-depth interviews conducted in China. We found that the perceived effectiveness of the shaming and labeling mechanisms is enhanced by the design of the SCS framework and the assistance of digital technology but weakened by a lack of transparency and questionable justification criteria, as well as privacy and fairness concerns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims to show how the globalized securities market in general and a transnational legal business structure named variable interest entity (VIE) in particular has challenged our conventional understanding of "foreignness" as a geographical concept in cross-border capital flow and ushers in a new type of foreign investment which I call "offshore domesticated foreign finance" (ODFF). By performing a case study on Alibaba—one of the world's leading VIE-structured Internet companies—and mapping out the company's fund-raising history and personnel appointment mechanism with the help of company releases and news reports, this article shows how ODFF makes a company de jure foreign-incorporated and -owned but de facto China-based and Chinese-controlled. This article also demonstrates that ODFF's primary function is to allow China-based Internet firms to tap into international financial markets while helping Chinese entrepreneurs and managers—despite their minority shareholdings—to control the company. These findings shed light on how financial globalization has transformed the cross-border capital movement and corporate governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Chinese authorities have formulated a vision for the global future that it terms 'ecological civilization' (shengtai wenming 生态文明). It was introduced into Communist Party ideology in 2007 and endorsed by Xi Jinping in 2013 as a major framework for the country's environmental policies. During the 2000s, the government set in motion many stricter environmental regulations and targets in line with this vision, including opening up some new room for bottom-up, volunteer-driven initiatives mostly on waste collection, recycling, education, and sustainable agriculture. At the same time, it calls for more participation of women in environmental governance at grassroots levels. Surveys in different parts of the world, including China, have suggested that women tend to be more concerned with environmental issues than men, but we have few qualitative studies in China of this topic. This article details three case studies in which women have initiated environmental projects in their local communities. They have mobilized other women (and some men) to engage in collective action, and they have generated financial and symbolic resources for their projects. We analyse these cases and argue that by raising the status of environmental issues such as waste collection and recycling, previously often downplayed as "women's affairs", China's environmental turn has helped expand the space available for female subjectivities and participation in public activities. However, this expanding role has not translated into better representation or participation of women at higher levels of political authority beyond the village level, and the emerging female environmental subjectivities remain firmly based in existing political hierarchies and male-dominated structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In June 2016, China promulgated the “Opinions of the State Council on Strengthening the Work of Rescuing Children in Difficulty”, which broadened the coverage of child welfare in China. The document clearly encourages and supports the participation of nonprofit charitable organizations in improving and complementing the public support system for children living in difficulty. This paper reports an assessment study of the relief program for children with congenital heart disease, which was launched by the Red Cross in L Province. Semi-structured face-to-face interviews with six Red Cross employees and 10 parents of stricken families, and telephone interviews with 66 recipient families, were carried out. Additionally, a review of a large number of background documents was analyzed to assess interventions by social organizations in the rescue of children in difficulty. The project was shown to reduce poverty and improve medical treatment for children with congenital heart disease. The role of nonprofit charitable organizations in relation to the child protection system can be characterized as “leak-filling”. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates how Western science established itself through disciplinarized institutionalization in China as the country entered the modern era, delineating China's science and technology (S&T) enterprises evolving within the social settings primarily decided by Confucianism doctrines including Scholar-bureaucrat virtue. Although the perspective of this study is mainly historical, I also adopt a sociological approach to scientific knowledge production in order to argue that, the socialization of Western science during the 'Treaty Century' (1842-1943) has shaped and channeled the growth of modern S&T as well as its governance in contemporary China in a normative manner. It is this sociological interpretation of the history of modern science in China that sheds new light on our understanding of scientific knowledge as a component element of belief system that crosses countries, social structures, and civilizations. The main findings also include the premises on which the S&T governance issues are explored in China's case, in particular, the increased social mobility at the intrusion of the Western. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this essay is to present my experience attempting to practice some ideas of decolonial thinking within a doctoral research project. In 2010, I lived in a Williche Community in Chiloé/Buta Wapi Chilwe. As a retribution for the possibility of conducting my research there, I fulfilled several tasks defined by the Community's Health Team. A project revolving around expressive creation with children and teenagers arose: The Weche Folil. After presenting some key features of my personal trajectory and those of the regional context in which Weche Folil is grounded; I propose to think of this project as a practice that points toward the subversion of ways of thinking, feeling and being which express the colonial dimension. I understand coloniality as a key dimension of our collective existence featured by inequality, arrogance, and pain. Love, time, dedication and caring are at the hearth of this decolonizing doing. Ambivalences, contradictions and paradoxes are also part of it. This personal account may be of interest for researchers who are planning to work among indigenous peoples, especially in rural settings and in Chiloé. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many disaster studies in the social sciences have so far pointed out that contemporary urbanization catalyzes the transformation of actual and potential risks into disasters. Compared with the greater attention paid to the losses of disasters, there is inadequate recognition of the roles of deep-seated social factors in addressing environmental changes and risks. In addition, very few discussions about social vulnerabilities have paid attention to China, even though they focus on developing countries. In the past four decades, China's rapid urbanization, urban expansions, and large-scale rural-urban migration have led to increasing difficulties in urban management, generating a large number of marginalized populations and spaces that are often called urban villages. The current marginalization problems are connected with economic poverty, sustained exclusion, and social inequality under state-managed urbanization. This study aims to provide a valuable discussion on the relationship between rapid urbanization and urban marginalization to identify the underlying causes of social vulnerability from the perspectives of institution, space, and urban governance, reviewing the experiences of China's urbanization. This study concludes that urbanization-induced marginalization has adverse impacts on structural resistance to external pressures such as natural disasters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Existing studies argue life chances are, in part, vertically reproduced. Such a statement is applicable to the Chinese contexts as, but not limited to, parental hukou status, to some extent, determines the life chances their children receive. In this essay, the author would like to introduce human capital theory (HCT) and educational signalling theory (EST), and assess how the applications of each of these two models can enrich the understanding of vertical reproduction of individuals' social mobility opportunities. The author would also present the limitations of each of these two models when addressing relevant Chinese contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Leveraging data from a nationally representative school-based adolescent survey, the current study aimed to provide a comprehensive assessment of how family income is associated with multiple cognitive and educational outcomes in China and examine the underlying material and psychosocial mechanisms. We found robust associations of family income with school grades, cognitive ability, and study attitude, but not with homework engagement. Moreover, we found that home amenities, i.e., measuring home-based material resources, played the largest mediating role in explaining family income effects on cognitive ability and study attitude. Among the non-monetary or intangible intervening factors, children's own and peers' educational aspirations along with mother-child communication were the most important mechanisms. To a lesser extent, family income effects were also attributable to harmonious parent-child and between-parent relationships. The key take-home message is that home environments constitute a prominent setting outside of school exerting powerful influences shaping school outcomes for Chinese adolescents. Our study contributes to a better understanding of how family economic resources are transmitted to children's cognitive and educational advantages via home material resources, family non-monetary features, children's agency, and peer influence. Policy implications and future research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Staff from a Western University annually travel to China to teach social work students at a Chinese University, providing a rich opportunity to share ideas and knowledge about values and practices in social work. One common point of tension that arises each year is how to teach critical reflection whilst considering differences between Eastern and Western ways of knowing and doing. This article is based on email conversations between one Australian lecturer and one Chinese student, containing their discussions on not just critical reflection but also of various key social work topics in China such as social worker's salary, social work as a profession and using empathy. The student questioned social work in an authentic and practical manner; while the lecturer responded with examples and reflections as a role model of critical reflective thinking and practice in the Chinese context. While such letters of exchange only reflect the particular points of view of the lecturer and the student, much can still be learned about current issues and debates in both countries. The insights given raise many questions about the implications and benefits for sensitively teaching social work across East/West contexts whilst trying to develop anti-colonial social work educational approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]