Suchergebnisse

Intro -- TABLE OF CONTENTS -- Acknowledgments -- 1. Introduction -- Description of the Study -- Main Findings -- Policy Implications -- 2. Sources of Income-An Overview -- Public and Private Formal Transfers -- Formal Private Social Flows -- Formal Private Organizations -- Informal Income -- 3. Informal Inter-household Flows -- Informal Inter-household Flows by Category -- Maps of Inter-household Transfers -- 4. Who Participates in Informal Transactions? -- Household Welfare -- Household Characteristics -- Social Capital -- Inter-household Flows: Multivariate Tests -- 5. Social Capital, Local Governance, and Empowerment of the Poor -- Social Capital and Access to Resources-The Case of Triple Exclusion? -- Social Capital, Local Governance, and Public Assistance -- Social Capital and Quality of Public Service Delivery -- Decentralization and Local Government Efficacy -- 6. Policy Implications -- Appendices -- A -- B -- C -- References.

Placed at the bottom of China's urban governance system, residents' committees led by street offices are not only responsible for welfare provision but also imposing sociopolitical control on residents at grassroots society. With a large number of floating population flooding into Beijing in recent years, the demographic structure of its neighborhoods becomes increasingly diversified, which is likely to cause some latent social instabilities. Consequently, more and more residents' committees are authorized to establish community work stations to underpin the function of grassroots governance and shift administrative responsibilities from superior governments. Since urban neighborhoods in China are actually an acquaintance society in the "differential mode of association (差序格局)", the self-enforcement and self-governance of community work station depends on acquaintanceship and interaction between local residents, residents' committees and community work stations. This article intends to explore the operation of grassroots self-governance by a case of Panjiayuan Neighborhood in Chaoyang District of Beijing. The empirical study based on mixed methods of qualitative interview and quantitative survey has revealed that community work stations led by resident's committees is an arena of self-governance and its operational mechanism is driven by social capital under the mediator of community network, within which social capital will be accumulated and proliferated in the neighborhood, and resident's motivation for voluntary cooperation will be intensified as well.

The compartmentalisation of university study means students do not engage with the learning community beyond the completion of the subject. This dominant practice is counter to the aims of service learning and the benefits of wider professional experiences, hence the need for a third learning space that is not owned by the university but is co-constructed. As learning tool this third space can complement and disseminate the rich face-to face experiences to other cohorts in order to use peer experiences as learning resources. As service tool a third space can facilitate information sharing, coordination of service learning, research projects and other authentic learning opportunities. Over successive offerings of Service Learning for Sustainable Futures an increasing network of community organisations have become involved with service learning. The use of service learning in higher education implies shifts from more traditional transmission pedagogies and exhibits sustainability pedagogies identified by Sterling (2004): learning through discovery, learner-centred, collaborative, praxis oriented, focus on self-regulation and real issues, cognitive, affective and skills objectives, learning with staff and with and from outsiders. Sustainability frameworks underpin the curriculum aims. Sustainability brings together multidisciplinary organizations that may be working with the same groups of people to educate them and provide access to more sustainable environmental, social, political or economic outcomes. However these community networks could be sustained beyond the experience in order to strengthen the capacities of organisations and the capacities of graduates as engaged civic professionals. Particularly for education students, wider professional experiences are crucial in developing professionals who are engaged with the communities in which they will teach (Salter, Hill, Navin & Knight, 2013). This paper discusses the development, communicative practices and outcomes of an online forum involving community organisations, university students and staff. The project used an action research methodology to involve teacher educators, pre-service and practicing teachers and community organisation representatives. Surveys and focus groups were used to capture participant perceptions and feedback in the development of a web portal as a third learning space. The paper uses civic engagement literature and spatial theory to critically reflect on the web portal and the experiential learning and serving it supports. In a policy context that increasingly positions higher education as a private good, such bridging spaces and sustainability aims work towards the public good.

In this article, we construct a framework for distinguishing various types of computer‐mediated communities. Once that is done, we move on to the analysis of "community networks." Community networks are systems that electronically connect individuals who also share common geographic space. Considering data gathered from 1994 to 1995, we suggest some problems concerning community networks as a locus of computer‐mediated interaction. In addition, we propose research directions that may enhance future sociological inquiries into the social understanding of community networks as well as other computer‐mediated associations.