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Scholars suggest that hostile media perception (HMP) and third-person perception (TPP) can motivate people to take political action to counteract the unwarranted influence of slanted media. Little research has been undertaken, however, regarding how HMP and TPP relate to political participation in partisan media settings in which news media hold specific partisan or ideological inclinations. This study explored HMP and TPP of partisan media and their associations with political participation in South Korea, which has a strongly partisan media system. Findings indicate that partisans tend to have strong HMP and TPP of antagonistic partisan media. Interestingly, progressives' HMP and TPP of hostile conservative media were stronger than conservatives' HMP and TPP of progressive media. Accordingly, HMP and TPP of conservative media were more strongly associated with political participation than HMP and TPP of progressive media. The political and media contexts of a specific country that might shape the relationships among HMP, TPP, and political participation are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the ways in which the idol industry portrays male and female bodies through the comparison of idol groups and the dominant ways in which they are marketed to the public. A key difference is the absence or presence of agency. Whereas boy group content may market towards the female gaze, their content is crafted by a largely male creative staff or the idols themselves, affording the idols agency over their choices or placing them in power holding positions. Contrasted, girl groups are marketed towards the male gaze, by a largely male creative staff and with less idols participating. The most dominant feature of their content is the women's lack of agency, be it in lyrics, body movements or public interaction. Thus, it is important to highlight the need for women to gain agency over their occupation as many of their male counterparts are afforded. There are positive examples of women with agency in their creative processes, but girl group idols typically do not have the chance to portray lived female experiences or stories. This discrimination happens when the market is feminized, and employers feel they can justify their actions with incorrect arguments such as that women's labor is casual and thus not as serious as man's. This labor market is divided based on the gender roles Korean society assigns to either sex, giving men more freedom to operate in society whereas women are restricted to systemic patriarchal standards. In the idol industry, this appears through the infantilization of women in order to appeal to the male gaze. To de-age them to an age when they are sexually available and attractive makes them a desirable commodity to consumers. This is evident when girl group idols age or experience other life events as they exit the workforce. Contrasted, male idols are expected to continue their career, even as they age. This paper seeks to shed light on the discrimination that exists in a market currently emerging in the world outside Korea and the Korean diaspora, highlighting the need for a conversation in feminist academia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the 1960s, urban South Korea has seen a series of real estate booms characterised by a huge surge in the construction of apartment complexes and skyrocketing housing prices. In this environment, many South Koreans have begun to view their homes as a source of profit-making. Through in-depth interviews, I examine how women in South Korea have emerged as agents of this urban transformation by engaging in 'speculative homemaking', an activity that merges the domestic work of household management with the work of real estate speculation. This article investigates how South Korean women's gendered practices are embedded in the larger landscape of women's work for class mobility and reproduction, highlighting class-divergent pathways to homeownership that are propelled by distinct affect – fear, anxiety and ease. Demonstrating how speculative logic pervades the domestic and the everyday, this article foregrounds the significance of gendered labour and affect for the study of urban processes and class formation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the configuration of female intersubjectivity demonstrated in the film Poetry (Si , 2010) by Lee Chang-dong (Yi Ch'angdong), as well as the power of poetry to conjure the dead and provide space and voice for marginalized and silenced women. The focus of the film is Mija, a woman in her mid-sixties who works as a caregiver to a disabled man while raising a grandson on her own. Just as Mija discovers that her grandson has been implicated in a sex crime that led to a girl's death, she learns that she herself is in the first stage of Alzheimer's disease. It is through poetry that Mija mourns her own impending death and also that of the young girl, who is otherwise consigned to oblivion under the phallocentric order of South Korean society. Lee Chang-dong's film, this article argues, shows that despite the impossibility of poetry in the face of tragedy, lyric imagination offers women the power to escape the patriarchal imposition of silence and preserve a story of their own. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates postcolonial South Korea's prostitution policy as a focal point of sexual politics in the undertaking of nation building under US military occupation (1945–1948). It clarifies that the discourse on prostitution served as a forum for competing visions of a new nation: socialism versus nationalism, and women's liberation versus national purification. It analyzes the paradoxical process by which the women's campaign to abolish one colonial legacy of prostitution ('Authorization-Regulation') eventually resulted in retaining another legacy ('Toleration-Regulation') in a new guise. It conceptualizes the postcolonial prostitution policy that combined regulation and prohibition as a 'Toleration-Regulation Regime,' arguing that it was a compromise between the US military government and South Korean elites. Finally, this article demonstrates that building the nation was also a process of making female subalterns, prostitutes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: Despite extensive literature describing the associations between key life transitions from adolescence to adulthood and attitudes toward the gender division of labor, little research has been conducted to examine these associations among East Asian women who transition to adulthood in their unique context. Guided by interest-based and exposure-based explanations, we examined how transitions in adulthood are associated with young women's attitudes toward the gender division of labor in South Korea. We also investigated whether the influence of employment transition strengthens or weakens when combined with marital and parenthood transitions. Methods: Our sample drawn from the 2007–2014 Korean Longitudinal Survey of Women and Families consisted of 870 women aged 19–28 years in 2007 (3,498 person-waves observations). The data were modeled using fixed effects logistic regression models. Results: Entering the labor market (OR = 1.40) and being continuously employed (OR = 1.61) were associated with increased support for egalitarian attitudes toward the gender division of labor. These liberalizing effects were further augmented when women remained married (OR = 1.98), were about to marry (OR = 4.29), or were mothers of one or more children (OR = 2.08). Conclusions: Young Korean women develop egalitarian attitudes toward the gender division of labor when they encounter situations that strongly resonate with egalitarian ideals or benefit from gains through employment. This study advances how women's attitudes toward the gender division of labor are understood by revealing both the singular influences of distinct transitions and the interactive influences of combined transitions in the South Korean context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study expands a currently limited body of knowledge on South Korean women married to migrant husbands from developing countries living in South Korea. It presents the findings obtained from a series of semi-structured interviews in order to see how marriage to a migrant husband from a developing country impacts a woman's sense of belonging over the course of her married life. These women experienced a significant change in status within their own ethnic community, which eventually impacted their hope that their children will forge a sense of transnational belonging or find a sense of belonging within a religious community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: While the prevalence of obesity in Asian women has remained stagnant, studies of socioeconomic inequalities in obesity among Asian women are scarce. This study aimed to examine the recent prevalence of obesity in Korean women aged between 19 years and 79 years and to analyze socioeconomic inequalities in obesity.Methods: Data were derived from the 2016 Korean Study of Women's Health-Related Issues. The chi-square test and logistic regression analysis were used to analyze the associations between socioeconomic factors and obesity using Asian standard body mass index (BMI) categories: low (<18.5 kg/m2 ), normal (18.5-22.9 kg/m2 ), overweight (23.0-24.9 kg/m2 ), and obese (≥25.0 kg/ m2 ). As inequality-specific indicators, the slope index of inequality (SII) and relative index of inequality (RII) were calculated, with adjustment for age and self-reported health status.Results: Korean women were classified into the following BMI categories: underweight (5.3%), normal weight (59.1%), overweight (21.2%), and obese (14.4%). The SII and RII revealed substantial inequalities in obesity in favor of more urbanized women (SII, 4.5; RII, 1.4) and against of women who were highly educated (SII, -16.7; RII, 0.3). Subgroup analysis revealed inequalities in obesity according to household income among younger women and according to urbanization among women aged 65-79 years.Conclusions: Clear educational inequalities in obesity existed in Korean women. Reverse inequalities in urbanization were also apparent in older women. Developing strategies to address the multiple observed inequalities in obesity among Korean women may prove essential for effectively reducing the burden of this disease. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: The current "Dad Craze" trend has changed the South Korean father figure and has increased the number of fathers participating in children's education. South Korean parents are known for placing a particularly high value on child education. Despite a significant body of research on fathers' involvement with their children, no research has investigated the factors affecting fathers' school involvement in South Korea. This study established an empirical framework for fathers' school involvement based on the Lamb-Pleck four factor model and explored factors that influence Korean fathers' school involvement.Methods: Using data derived from an internet survey of South Korean fathers with school-aged children (N  =  500), descriptive statistics analysis and a regression analysis were conducted to examine the level of fathers' school involvement and its determinants.Results: Regression analysis showed that fathers' parent efficacy (B  =  .367, p  =  .006) as a skill factor, wife's support (B  =  .430, p  <  .000) as a social support factor, and working flexibility (B  =  .280, p  =  .001) as an institutional factor had a statistically significant effect on father school involvement.Conclusions: This study revealed that skill (fathers' parental efficacy), social support (wife's support for fathering), and institutional factor (working flexibility) were key predictors of fathers' involvement in their children's schools. Father's gender role attitude did not have a significant effect on the fathers' school involvement. This study provides empirical evidence regarding determinants of fathers' school involvement in South Korea and suggests policy implications in order to promote fathers' school involvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This study aimed to examine the effects of an empowerment program on empowerment, quality of life, and recognition of human rights of people with mental illness residing in a community in South Korea. Design and Methods: A repeated‐measures design (before, immediately after, and 4 weeks after the intervention) with a control group was used. The experimental group received an eight‐session empowerment program over 8 weeks. Findings: The empowerment program significantly increased empowerment and quality of life, but not recognition of human rights. Practice Implications: Nursing interventions should be developed to enhance the recognition of human rights for people with mental illness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Korea has experienced an increase in the number of immigrants in accordance with accelerated globalization. In particular, the rapid surge in international marriages and multicultural families has created social adaptation or inclusion problems for these families in Korean society. This paper examines how information services or technological education programs affect the social integration of marriage migrant women in Korea. Using survey data on international marriage migrant women, we conducted multiple and logistic regression models to examine the relationship between information and technology services and life satisfaction and employment status. The results show that the experience of using social services tends to have positive effects on life satisfaction. Having experiences of information services or technological education improves marriage migrant women's chances of employment and increases their willingness to work or start a business. This indicates the importance of information services or technological educational training and social services in improving social adaptation and integration of marriage migrant women in Korea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the Korean cultural phenomenon known as muk-bang, which involves live broadcasting of a person eating while interacting with viewers. Topics include the relation of muk-bang to feminine beauty ideals of thinness, the relation of the phenomenon to cultural shaming, and videos featuring Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR).

This study examines the recent phenomenon of “cross-border marriage” in South Korea: foreign brides migrating into Korea to get married to Korean bachelors. Using data from the National Survey of Multicultural Families 2009, one of the biggest data sets on marriage migrants, we analyze how the difference in migrants’ initial methods of entry affects the level of their life satisfaction. The findings show greater life satisfaction for those who used personal social networks, when compared with those who used commercial brokers as a method of entry. The analyses also reveal the importance of current social networks and their role in moderating the effect of the initial methods of entry after a prolonged period of residence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study reviewed current literature on generational issues in Korea, specifically in relation to the workplace. Based on the results, this study concluded that distinct generations of workers exist in Korea. While there are similar generational characteristics between Korea and the United States because of the unique societal, historical, and cultural factors in each country, there are noticeable differences such as the existence of Generation 386 in Korea. Due to rapid industrialization and social transformation during the past few decades, Korean society seems to exhibit wider gaps between older and younger generations than the United States. The roles of Generation 386 and Generation Y in organizations should be considered for the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper illustrates how a culture of violence is perpetuated and reproduced in South Korea through schooling and argues that peace education could help transform a culture of violence to a culture of peace. Critical ethnographic methods and a framework of peace education were applied to a sample of secondary schools in South Korea to argue that a disturbing culture of violence and learned helplessness were present; this comprises themes of direct and indirect violence through iljin (a group of students who are considered key perpetrators of school violence); a colonized false ideology and resistance to social justice. More positively, findings are also used to generate possibilities for pedagogical change based on peace education - an approach that proves useful both as an analytical frame for examining peace-violence relations in education and society and as an essential pedagogy for progressing towards peace in South Korean schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To help inform the debate over whether social media is related to political polarization, we investigated the effects of social media use on changes in political view using panel data collected in South Korea (N = 6411) between 2012 and 2016. We found that, although there were no direct effects of social media use, social media indirectly contributed to polarization through increased political engagement. Those who actively used social network sites were more likely to engage in political processes, which led them to develop more extreme political attitudes over time than those who did not use social network sites. In particular, we observed a clear trend toward a more liberal direction among both politically neutral users and moderately liberal users. In this study, we highlight the role of social media in activating political participation, which eventually pushes the users toward the ideological poles. The implications of these findings are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This article seeks to contribute to understandings of South Korea's approach to marriage migration. Situating our analysis of marriage migration policy specifically within the recent emergence of a social investment approach to welfare, we bring together two bodies of literature that due to the methodological nationalism of much welfare state scholarship are usually treated separately. Through an examination of the policy framework governing marriage migration ‐ so‐called ‘multicultural family policies’ ‐ we find that successive Korean governments have actively sought female marriage migrants to perform various social reproductive roles as a means to secure the reproductive capacity of the nation, just as feminist scholars have argued the care work of citizen‐mothers can be understood. Our analysis also suggests that marriage migration policy in Korea constitutes a distinctly transnational dimension to its overall social investment approach, which is strongly motivated by concerns to reproduce the next generation of human capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

These multiple case studies show what in divorced mother-headed families of South Korea, mothers experience with regard to parenting their children aged 6 to 12 years. Data were collected from participant observations and semi-structured interviews with the participants, including mothers and their children in four divorced mother-headed families in South Korea, for a span of 11 months. Each case shows how divorced mothers’ parenting experiences are mobilized through their financial status and post-divorce coparenting patterns. The findings of this study are as follows. First, the mothers’ relationships with their children were formed by their current relationships with the ex-spouse. Secondly, mothers showed low expectations of children’s academic achievement and future career. Thirdly, mothers had ambivalent feelings towards their children due to financial difficulties and cumulative stress with the added strain of single parenting. Financial stability as well as cooperative parenting with ex-spouses after divorce helped lighten the mothers’ burdens of raising children in a divorced family and thereby reduced psychological vulnerability. Fourthly, mothers’ different communication styles differently played out in their relationships with children, which further affected interactive occasions in children’s in-home experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The 2015 Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) outbreak in South Korea gave rise to chaos caused by psychological anxiety, and it has been assumed that people shared rumors about hospital lists through social media. Sharing rumors is a common form of public perception and risk communication among individuals during an outbreak. Social media analysis offers an important window into the spatiotemporal patterns of public perception and risk communication about disease outbreaks. Such processes of socially mediated risk communication are a process of meme diffusion. This article aims to investigate the role of social media meme diffusion and its spatiotemporal patterns in public perception and risk communication. To do so, we applied analytical methods including the daily number of tweets for metropolitan cities and geovisualization with the weighted mean centers. The spatiotemporal patterns shown by Twitter users' interests in specific places, triggered by real space events, demonstrate the spatial interactions among places in public perception and risk communication. Public perception and risk communication about places are relevant to both social networks and spatial proximity to where Twitter users live and are interpreted in reference to both Zipf's law and Tobler's law. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gender disparities in academic performance may be driven in part by the interaction of teacher and student gender, but systematic sorting of students into classrooms makes it difficult to identify causal effects. We use the random assignment of students to Korean middle school classrooms and show that the female students perform substantially better on standardized tests when assigned to female teachers; there is little effect on male students. We find evidence that teacher behavior drives the increase in female students' achievement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Struggles for peace, self-determination and demilitarization are common near military installations around the world. Increasingly, these struggles have become linked in globe-spanning assemblages of activism. Based on interviews in South Korea, Okinawa, Puerto Rico, Hawai’i, and Guåhan (Guam) this paper analyzes how activists in these locales develop a sense of shared oppression that serves as a basis for connecting geographically distant activist communities. Through visiting each other’s places – and participating in activities such as direct action protests, eating together and dancing – activists develop a recognition of shared circumstance not only through intellectual discussion, but also through the production of shared visceral and emotional states. This shared feeling of mutual oppression then serves as a basis for solidarity and mutual aid among social movements that protest militarization and challenge traditional conceptualizations of security in international relations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A significant amount of prior research has focused on the deterrent effects of punishment on the likelihood of recidivism. More recent research has also begun to examine the influence of target hardening strategies for deterring criminal behavior as well. Having said this, the lion's share of this research has been conducted in Western societies and has evaluated the relevance of these factors separately. In recognition of the limitation, the current study relies on interview data from 163 incarcerated burglars in South Korea to assess the nature of the relationship between the elements of deterrence (for example, severity, certainty and celerity) and target hardening strategies (for example, window sills, secured door locks, CCTV and private security company monitoring) on burglars' future expectations toward recidivating upon release. The results from a series of multinomial logistic regression models indicate that, while the majority of deterrence and target hardening strategies are ineffective at deterring future re-offending, the certainty of arrest and the presence of window sills and secured door locks do exhibit some deterrent effects. However, personal criminal experiences such as confidence toward criminal skills, and internal shame from criminal activity are also notably relevant. Study limitations and directions for future research are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Jeju April 3rd Incident of 1948, which resulted in the largest number of casualties in modern Korean history other than in war, was a national tragedy. The complexity of the incident and its importance in Korean history explain the failure to discuss it publicly until the late 1980s. For this reason, existing studies have largely focused on uncovering the truth about this incident. Even though national reconciliation is an important topic in South Korea, a more structured study from a transitional justice perspective has not been undertaken of this violent event that led to a divided country. Thus, this study provides a theoretical framework for the conditioning of the institutionalisation, national narratives and psychological healing that are required to establish national reconciliation. The paper, then, applies this framework to the Jeju April 3rd Incident. Finally, it evaluates the limitations and challenges of national reconciliation in South Korea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Korean sociologist Chang Kyung-Sup coined the terms "compressed modernity" and "individualization without individualism" to describe the special path to modernisation in South Korea. The word "compressed" here denotes and emphasizes the contradictory coexistence of a collectivistic culture offamilism and family formations that are simultaneously individualizing and varying. Because South Korean women have initiated the individualization of family forms, Chang and Song characterize them as "stranded individualizers under compressed modernity," by which they mean that Korean women are culturally still collectivistic but at the same time appear individualistic in their (non-)marriage behaviour. This study argues against the theory of "compressed modernity" in Korea, according to which the individualization of families is nothing but a risk-averse variant offamilism. Instead, this study argues that the real dynamic of individualization in Korea is found in the emergence of individualism and its vulnerability to institutions offamilism. This study labels such a dynamic "compressed individualization.". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few tests of General Strain Theory (GST) have examined the relative effects of objective and subjective strains on delinquency and the mediating effects of situational-based negative emotions linking strains to delinquency. With a sample of approximately 800 Korean adolescents, the present study tests a model that includes five key objective and the corresponding subjective strains identified as most predictive of delinquency, and situational-based anger and depression in response to each strain. Regardless of whether conceptualized as objective or subjective, three strains (teachers’ punishment, gender discrimination, and criminal victimization) have positive effects on delinquent behaviors. No indicators of situational-based anger and depression (except anger in response to victimization in a negative direction) have direct effects on delinquency or have mediating effects linking strains to delinquency. The results provide limited support for GST’s specification of the relatively greater effects of subjective than objective strains on delinquency and mediating effects of situational-based negative emotions. Theoretical implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2006, marriage migrants and their so-called multicultural families have been the recipients of considerable public resources and attention in the Republic of Korea. Thus, it could be said that marriage migrants constitute a relatively privileged group of migrants in South Korea. Yet significant human rights abuses, including domestic and sexual violence, widespread discrimination, and poverty, indicate that marriage migrants continue to face various forms of legal, social, and institutional precarity. By evaluating the specific trajectories by which human rights activists and organizations mobilize in the name of migrant rights, this paper argues that human rights-based activism has not been an effective means of mobilizing resistance to migrant precarity because of its failure to address precarity as a multi-layered and multi-sited reality. In consequence, marriage migrants in South Korea have turned to alternative methods for mobilizing resistance to precarity. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The US political debate over LGBT rights and religious liberty is shaping a similar contest in South Korea (Korea). Stories of American Christians criminally fined for refusing to service same-sex weddings, or university students and faculty punished for expressing their conservative beliefs, are widely shared in Korea's evangelical media. The victim narrative, prominent among American evangelicals, teaches their Korean brethren that the expansion of LGBT legal rights and social acceptance endangers religious liberties. The conclusion is that that they must politically mobilize to oppose LGBT demands in Korea, even though the local movement is nascent and weak. There is, however, a second, more complex narrative emerging from the United States. This is one of Christian empathy, including stories of gay Christians wrestling with their twin identities, and of heterosexual Christians providing love and support, rather than condemnation. The empathy narrative has limited visibility in current political debates, but it encourages personal dialogues between gays and non-gay Christians and is a consequential step to understanding and tolerance. Drawing on learning and emulation theories, and conducting an empirical study of evangelical media and gay/heterosexual evangelicals in Korea, we consider the effects of these two American narratives in Korea. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyzed the coverage by two partisan South Korean newspapers of the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) pandemic, examining differences in their use of news frames and cited sources. A content analysis revealed that Hankyoreh, the left-wing newspaper, placed more emphasis on attributing responsibility to the government and society. In contrast, Chosun Ilbo, the right-wing newspaper, placed more emphasis on attributing responsibility to the individual. Severity/uncertainty, economic consequences, and statistical data frame were utilized more in Hankyoreh than the expected frequency. On the other hand, human interest and reassurance frame were utilized more in Chosun Ilbo than the expected frequency. Regarding the sources used in news stories, Hankyoreh used significantly more sources from local governments than did Chosun Ilbo. On the other hand, Chosun Ilbo used significantly more sources from medical agencies and experts than did Hankyoreh. This study advances previous research on the framing of a pandemic in the media by exploring how the partisan leanings of newspapers influence the framing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper looks at how place-making at a historic site via collective memory provokes and embraces issues of memory and representativeness. It examines how the power of place-making knowledge and the power of collective memory compete and negotiate in the city of Gwangju, South Korea. Through the analysis, primarily, of archives and in-depth interviews, the research investigates the case of conflicts surrounding the construction of the Asian Culture Complex in Gwangju. The construction included the demolition of the Byeolgwan, where ordinary protesters were killed in the 18 May democratic uprising of 1980. During public consultations and the consensus-making process, victims developed an adaptive preference and agreed to changes proposed without realising what exactly would happen. The controversy that emerged after they expressed their belated criticism clarified the collective memory of 18 May. Intellectuals challenged the power of the 5.18 organisations, bearing professional knowledge and appropriate manners in debates. The conflict contributed to the re-arrangement of power relations in the city and to the clarification of issues that had not been openly discussed before. The power of mourning and symbolising tragedy, usually located with the victims of such tragedy, is challenged by the power of place-making for the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The topic of local and community governance has garnered increasing attention from researchers in recent years, with the resulting assessments generally identifying both the advantages and obstacles. On the positive side, collaborative community governance is often viewed as a new participatory space facilitating democratic practices with favourable social and relational outcomes. Conversely, the issues of power imbalances and the continued hierarchical influence of the central government are often cited as obstacles to genuine public engagement and horizontal collaboration among diverse actors. In particular, numerous studies argue that the governance structure and initial motivation exert significant influence over the governance processes and outcomes due to the different prioritisation of goals and strategies. Such considerations demonstrate the need for additional comparative studies in diverse contexts. In addition to addressing the limitation of the existing process-focused evaluations, this study proposes an analytic framework of collaborative community governance that identifies the multiple relationships between institutional setting, governance process and outcomes, and examines two community-building initiatives in Korea. The findings demonstrate that collaborative community governance worked as an experiential incubator for individual transformation, social and relational resource building and political empowerment. The comparative analysis of two different collaborative forms reveals that differences in structure and the mode of communication resulted in building different types of relational capital (bonding vs bridging). The lack of preliminary discussions and arrangement for institutional design is highlighted as a source of problems such as excessive dependency on particular communication modes, opaque system of representation and asymmetrical development of relational resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This exploratory qualitative study examines the potential of Korean Protestant churches in preventing and intervening in domestic violence against women through the views of Korean Protestant female leaders. The study explores participants' understanding of their religious teachings on domestic violence, as well as how they view the role of Korean churches in addressing domestic violence against women in the Korean community. Participants considered domestic violence as something for which a marriage could rightfully be dissolved, considered abusers as sick people who need help, and advocated for domestic violence primary prevention targeting the whole community; however, they expected Korean churches to engage in preventing domestic violence instead of intervening in domestic violence cases. Based on outcomes of the study, potential avenues for change in practice, policy, and future research are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective:Clinical neuropsychology in South Korea, albeit its relatively short history, has advanced dramatically. We review a brief history and current status of clinical neuropsychology in South Korea.Method:The history, the educational pathway, the training pathway, the certification process, and careers in clinical neuropsychology in South Korea are reviewed.Results:We have reviewed the neuropsychological services, including assessment and treatment, research on neurological and psychiatric populations, and neuropsychology education and the requirements related to education, training, and board examinations of those providing neuropsychological services in South Korea. We also describe how the Korean Society for Neuropsychology Research, the first and only meeting for neuropsychologists in the country established in 1999, has played a major role in how clinical neuropsychology is practiced and developed as a professional field in South Korea.Conclusions:Clinical neuropsychology in South Korea has achieved major progress over just a quarter of a century, and its future is promising in light of the increasing demand for neuropsychological services and advances in neuroscience in the country. Challenges that the community of clinical neuropsychologists are currently facing in South Korea, including formalizing neuropsychological curriculum and training programs and developing advanced credentialing procedures, are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Given the economic implications of a low-fertility rate, many countries have implemented paid maternity leave to promote births. However, the efficacy of this policy is mostly unknown. We examined whether paid maternity leave in South Korea, which has a fertility rate among the lowest in the world, is directly related to infant development and employed mothers' second-birth intentions, and indirectly associated with these outcomes via parenting stress. Participants included 315 married and employed Korean mothers in the months after giving birth to their first child. Paid maternity leave was beneficial for infant development but was not a solution for promoting second-birth intentions among employed mothers in Korea. Parenting stress adversely affected both infant development and employed mothers' second-birth intentions, and it may therefore need to be considered as work-family policies, fertility issues, and infant development in families are addressed. Implications considering cultural and familial contexts are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One important phenomenon to be observed in the world today is the rapid growth of the middle classes in emerging economies, especially in Asia. This development called for a new concept, the global middle class. The purpose of this paper is twofold: one is to examine the ways this term is currently used and clarify its meaning, and the other is to examine one empirical case of South Korea and highlight important processes involved in the making of a global middle class. The term global middle class has 2 meanings: (1) all the middle classes that exist in the world or (2) the affluent and globally oriented segments of the middle classes in developing countries. These 2 different conceptions serve different purposes and address different aspects of globalization's effect on the affected economy and society. While the expansion of the middle classes around the world is an unquestionably welcome phenomenon, the rise of the affluent global middle classes in developing countries represents a more complex and problematic phenomenon. The Korean case demonstrates that the emergence of the global middle class is associated with growing internal division within the middle class and intense processes of class distinction and educational pursuits in the global education market. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study investigates the collaborative pairing patterns of the library and information science (LIS) field in South Korea at both intra- and inter-institutional levels. It is necessary to examine this timely topic considering the recent increasing trend of research collaboration in Korea. The network comes from the articles published in eight Korean LIS journals from 2008 to 2012. The network consists of one large component, nine small components with more than two nodes, and five isolated nodes having intra-institutional co-authorship. The largest component is a small world network but the density is low due to many low degree nodes. Central institutions were analysed using the centrality measure of social network analysis and tended to have co-authorship with various institutions and collaborative partnerships with other institutions in the network. It can be concluded that the distribution of intra- and interinstitutional co-authorship, institution type, regional features and core collaborative authors are influential factors in collaborative pairing. Institutions that have a high degree of centrality and betweenness centrality affect other institutions in their collaborative pairing. The result can be used to analyse co-authorship from diverse perspectives and facilitate active co-authorship at an institutional level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The perceptions and judgments of social workers who interview the child and family are especially significant factors in child abuse assessment process. The current study describes and compares child protection workers' assessment processes in Korea and the USA through the use of case vignettes and in-depth interview. The responses from social workers in these two countries were compared and discussed in the areas of: risk assessment; perception of the main problems; tolerance of corporal punishment; and judgments about appropriateness of interventions. Most revealing was that Korean social workers determined abuse based on their child abuse definition and the US Army FAP social workers determined abuse based on their definition, which was affected by legal standards and cultural differences. Korean social workers are more likely to remove a child from the home, even in mild cases, but US FAP social workers would recommend child removal from the home as a last option. The social workers that participated in this survey play a vital role in the safety of children in child protective services. Both countries can benefit from sharing information to improve the child protection services delivered. Social workers' professional judgment leads to objective and consistent outcomes and are less likely to compromise child safety in the decision making process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated a cultural portal measurement model as it relates to Korean user needs. With the conceptual framework that a Web portal is a complex Web service application that has the characteristics of both the information system and service agent, and additionally that users’ reactions to technology can have an impact on the service quality, a measurement model of cultural portal user needs was created by adapting data quality, service quality, and technology adoption models. The analyses indicated that the factor structure is the same regardless of users’ gender, educational background, role when using cultural portals, and experience with cultural portals. It was, however, found that the factor structure is not the same across age groups, providing evidence of generational differences and suggesting that additional efforts to create inclusive cultural portals are needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The digital divide between countries is a critical phenomenon separating the countries that ‘have’ (mostly developed countries) from the countries that ‘have not’ (mostly developing countries). It places developing countries in a disadvantaged position economically, politically, and socially that in turns affects the life and social well-being of the citizens. Current understanding of the digital divide is limited by usage of secondary data, which prompts scholars to call for more theoretically-based empirical research. Since the key to reducing the digital divide is to increase people’s access to ICT, this study developed and empirically tested a 3-tier ICT access model to determine the effect on ICT development of intention to participate in online activities among citizens in developed and developing countries. The model was founded on three existing research frameworks. In addition, this study theoretically clarified the relationship between four types of ICT access and how they contribute to intention to participate online. Survey data of university students from Korea and Cambodia was collected. The results confirm the effect of ICT development on citizens’ intention and isolate key factors that impact the two countries differently. Technological access was found to impact extrinsic motivational access and skills access. Social access influenced extrinsic and intrinsic motivational access and skills access. Implications for research and practice are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the study was to investigate relationships between cultural worldview (CW), cultural experiential dimensions, and satisfaction among international travelers who stayed at Hanok, a traditional house in South Korea. Findings of the study show that respondents' CW and experience were significantly different with respect to the respondents' origin of residence. Americans and Europeans shared a similar CW, whereas Japanese and Chinese expressed a similar view on CW. The strong and significant prediction on satisfaction by all experience dimensions warranted the importance of experiential qualities of tourism products and services in the cultural tourism context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

DRAWN FROM HOFSTEDE'S (2001) cultural dimension, this study aims to understand how culture plays a role in young children's views of their kindergarten experiences and communication styles in South Korea and the United States. Due to the large power distance between adults and children, children in Korea were hesitant to express critical views about kindergarten. They neutralised their dislikes and verbalised the expected group norms in order to be a 'good' child. Critiquing universal approaches to addressing child participation rights, we argue that being responsive to cultural differences in social relationships may enable children to more freely share their perspectives. It also discusses ways to improve the quality of children's lived experiences in kindergarten by listening to children's challenges and desires in each country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]