Getting to hear the voices of the unwed mothers: their decisions to keep their babies for lone motherhood

Author(s):  
Siu-Wai Lit

Abstract Drawing upon interview data from a study investigating the experiences of 20 unwed mothers in Hong Kong, this article explores the narratives of the participants, especially their decisions in keeping their babies and to taking up the responsibilities of lone motherhood. Specific focus is given to the importance of their narratives so that their voices are heard – how they positioned themselves in relation to dominant cultural scripts surrounding lone motherhood. Their voices have relevance for helping professionals working with young people who play a useful role in facilitating and supporting unwed mothers within their locality, as well as for the general public who play an important role in “breaking” the labels and isolations of unwed mothers.

2020 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 207-232
Author(s):  
Barry Sautman ◽  
Xinyi Xie

Many in Hong Kong voice concerns about the fate of Cantonese, including nativists (“localists”) and the general public. Guangzhou is seen as a harbinger of diminishing Cantonese in Hong Kong. News and commentaries paint a gloomy picture of Cantonese in Guangzhou. Yet rarely do we read about surveys on the range of Cantonese use and identity in Guangzhou. Neither do we see analyses on how the social context differences between Hong Kong and Guangzhou may have contributed to the two cities’ unique language situations. Our study delineates the Guangzhou and Hong Kong language situations, comparing mother tongues, ordinary languages, and language attitudes. Cantonese is unrivalled in Hong Kong and remains vital in Guangzhou. We put the two cities’ different use frequency and proficiency of Cantonese and Putonghua (“Mandarin”) in the sociocultural context of motivation and migration. We conclude that some claims of diminishing Cantonese are unsupported. We also address how likely it is that Cantonese will diminish or even be replaced in Hong Kong.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (6) ◽  
pp. 5055-5073
Author(s):  
Dong Yile

In recent years, more and more young people from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan have come to universities in Chinese Mainland for higher education. However, due to the differences in political, economic and cultural environment between Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan regions and Chinese Mainland, these young people have encountered psychological problems such as examination anxiety, interpersonal loneliness and lack of sense of meaning in life due to the related learning and life difficulties in Chinese mainland universities, which affect their growth and success. Many of the students originally thought that smoking was used in a more secluded environment to relieve stress, psychological counseling and energy recovery, but in fact smoking brings more harm. In the creation of a smoke-free campus, a variety of measures are adopted to give full play to the positive emotions of students to promote their mental health, which will help to achieve the creation of a smoke-free campus and share a healthy life on the campus. Based on the survey of a total of 658 undergraduates from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan in H University on their positive affect and mental health, the following conclusions are drawn through data analysis: undergraduates from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan in Chinese Mainland have positive affect at the upper-middle level, negative affect and overall affect at the lower-middle level; some undergraduates from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan in Chinese mainland universities have middle-level mental health status and significant differences in grade and family relationship satisfaction; family relationship satisfaction has an important impact on students' emotional and mental health; the negative emotional performance and mental health of senior students, science students and students with low family relationship satisfaction need more attention from educators. Correlation analysis shows that positive affect is positively correlated with health concerns, energy status, satisfaction and interest in life, mood status, control of emotions and behaviors, relaxation and tension, and total score of mental health (P < 0.01). Regression analysis shows that positive affect has significant positive predictive effects on six factors in mental health, such as "health concerns", "satisfaction and interest in life", "energy", "mental state", "control of emotions and behaviors", "relaxation and tension" and mental health. The enlightenment of this study lies in the suggestions that actions should be taken from the two levels of school education and home-school combination to strengthen the cultivation of positive affect of Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan undergraduates in Chinese mainland universities, so as to improve their mental health level.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ka-Huen Yip

Abstract Objective To explore insights of young people’s experiences and motivations in Pokémon GO in Hong Kong. The perspectives of young people through qualitative focus group interviews. Results Eight focus group discussions with young people (n=45; age from 18-25 years old) recruited in Hong Kong. We analysed the discussions using a thematic approach. Five theme categories emerged from data analysis: missing out or self-regulation, childhood memories of Pokémon, extending virtual-reality exploration, spending more time outdoors for walking and exercise, gathering together and socially interacting with others. This study sets the way for a deeper analysis of motivation factors to young people that indicate the increasing playing location-based game (LBG) via smartphones worldwide among all cohorts of society. This relatively new phenomenon of LBG may impact players’ movement, social activity, and behaviour to gain a common goal into the preferences and effects of playing LBG for young people.


2012 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-26 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angela Dwyer

Using interview data on LGBT young people’s policing experiences, I argue policing and security works as a program of government (Dean 1999; Foucault 1991; Rose 1999) that constrains the visibilities of diverse sexuality and gender in public spaces. While young people narrated police actions as discriminatory, the interactions were complex and multi-faceted with police and security working to subtly constrain the public visibilities of ‘queerness’. Same sex affection, for instance, was visibly yet unverifiably (Mason 2002) regulated by police as a method of governing the boundaries of proper gender and sexuality in public. The paper concludes by noting how the visibility of police interactions with LGBT young people demonstrates to the public that public spaces are, and should remain, heterosexual spaces.


2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 801-817
Author(s):  
Mary Tien Wei Leung Ling ◽  
Hui Fang Chen ◽  
Kace Chun Ning Chiu

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (7) ◽  
pp. 1227-1244
Author(s):  
Mark Wong

The complexities and changing experiences of human connections have long been debated. In the digital age, technology becomes an increasingly crucial dimension of sociality. This article critically discusses the sociality of ‘hidden’ young people who shut themselves in the bedroom and are typically assumed to be socially withdrawn. This article challenges this reclusive depiction and presents qualitative evidence from the first study of this phenomenon in the UK/Scottish context, while studying this comparatively across two sites. Thirty-two interviews were conducted with Hong Kong and Scottish youth ‘withdrawn’ in the bedroom for 3 to 48 months; hidden youth’s sociality was found to be more nuanced and interconnected than previously assumed. This article argues that young people can become especially attached to online communities to seek solace and solidarity as they experience social marginalisation. Technology and online networks play an important role in enabling marginalised young people to feel connected in the digital age.


2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 319-336
Author(s):  
Hsin-Huang Michael Hsiao ◽  
Kevin Wong ◽  
Po-san Wan ◽  
Victor Zheng

This article, which is based on a comparative telephone survey conducted in 2016, examines the relationship between social mobility experience and the life satisfaction of people aged 18 to 35 in Taiwan and Hong Kong. Using both objective and subjective measures of social mobility, we found that young people’s perceptions of their own social mobility and that of the entire youth population correlated positively with life satisfaction. However, the objective upward experiences of intragenerational and intergenerational mobility did not have a significant effect on life satisfaction. In addition, the objective upward experiences of individuals were found to be uncorrelated with the perceptions of their own social mobility and that of the entire youth population. These findings suggest that young people will not become more satisfied even if they themselves have actually experienced upward mobility, because their positive perception of social mobility depends on whether they can move upward to their desired status. It is the expected social mobility and the competence to achieve rather than the actual past mobility experience that could affect the life satisfaction of the young generation in Taiwan and Hong Kong.


2006 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 2254-2263 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel T.L. Shek ◽  
Tak Yan Lee ◽  
Andrew Siu ◽  
Ching Man Lam

Qualitative evaluation was carried out to understand the perceptions of the students participating in the Tier 1 Program of the P.A.T.H.S. Project. Five focus groups based on 43 students recruited from four schools were conducted to generate qualitative data to evaluate the program. With specific focus on how the informants described the program, results showed that the descriptors used were mainly positive in nature. When the informants were invited to name three metaphors that could stand for the program, the related metaphors were basically positive in nature. Finally, the program participants perceived many beneficial effects of the program in different psychosocial domains. Intra- and inter-rater reliability analyses revealed that the coding of the positive or negative nature of the responses was reliable. The present study provides qualitative support for the effectiveness of the Tier 1 Program of the Project P.A.T.H.S. in promoting holistic development in Chinese adolescents in Hong Kong.


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