The Acquistion of Opportunity of Shadow Education for Chinese Junior High School Student

The paper based on baseline data of China Education Panel Survey (CEPS2013-2014) to analyze the differences in the opportunities of acquiring shadow education between only child and non-only child in China.This study determined that the probability of an only child acquiring shadow education is higher than that of a non-only child. Shadow education activities among only child and non-only child feature “cultivating the elites” and “advancing the backwards.” Among them, an only child can maximize the effects of “advancing the backwards” of shadow education, whereas non-only child can maximize the effects of “advancing the backwards” of shadow education. Research results of non-only children show that the higher the number of children, the more unfavorable for students to participate in shadow education activities. Furthermore, the birth order of children affects the opportunity for non-only child to acquire shadow education, whereas first-born or last-born children can acquire better shadow education.

Reframing generations scholarship through the eyes of ordinary Chinese

Scholars studying China’s generations have shown keen interest in devising new generational labels to identify characteristics of particular age cohorts. This analysis, based on 41 interviews with Chinese participants, departs from this common research strategy, first, by positioning generational labels used by ordinary Chinese, rather than academic constructs developed in western democracies, at the centre of inquiry. Three successive forms of generational nomenclature are discussed in light of China’s socialist movement and modernization: generations as natural sites of continuity, generations of revolutionaries, and generations named after decades. Further, by treating generation as a fundamentally social construct, this analysis investigates how terms such as “my generation” are constantly reconstituted in contextually-specific discursive and conversational contexts. Often distinctively shaped by China’s unique path of modernization and uneasy relationship with the West, the generational discourses of everyday Chinese shed new light on what it could mean for generations scholarship to “think globally.”

Visualizing migration patterns in China (1949–2012)

This paper aims to visualize historical traces and patterns of migration flows in China, based on survey data ranging from 1949 to 2012. The software Circos, which has been applied in other subjects such as genomics, is utilized to visualize migration flows and explore migration patterns. According to the key political, societal and economic criteria, the data is divided into six historical periods in order to investigate specific styles of policies and regulations. According to geographical and economic considerations, all provinces are classified into nine clusters or economic zones to inspect interactions between each two economic zones. The data shows that migration patterns are mainly influenced by two pivotal factors, the political mechanism and economy spontaneity. For different periods, these two forces vary accordingly. Before 1979, the migration pattern was more affected by political factors such as national planning, specific policies and regulations, and social and political movements; the economy as well as resources and opportunities were governed and allocated by political considerations, and the mechanism of economy spontaneity was relatively weak. In contrast, intrinsic spontaneity is more and more obvious after 1980. The pattern of migration is more influenced by economic factors, as more migration is driven by economic differences between unbalanced areas. With less and less regulation and fewer restrictions, people spontaneously migrated to more developed areas or cities looking for better employment, education, and other resources.

Cross-national research on female working poor in Belgium and China

In general, the gendered trends in working poor are reshaping a new relationship between a processing globalized market and numbers of women, both in developed and developing nations. In this research, we draw up a socio-demographic picture of female working poor between Belgium and China. And within such a cross-national profile examination, we focus on the common and different ways that working poor women were experiencing life. In short, we found that in-work poverty shows a gendered tendency that has been a chronic condition, particularly among women with low income in both nations. Otherwise, in-work poverty focuses on different specific female working groups under varied socioeconomic national contexts.

Signposting invisibles

The overarching goal of this article is to sensitize the insensitive governments, institutions, and civil societies for homeless population in social sphere. Routes into homelessness are complex, multiple and interlinked. The complex triggers consist of biographical, structural and behavioural factors, when combined, increase people’s vulnerability to homelessness. Despite the high economic growth and double digit GDP growth that gives opportunity to celebrate the country’s achievement, the worsening condition of the homeless, underlaid by huge inequality, creates the huge contradiction for such celebrations. The problems and complexity associated with homelessness require several stages of prevention, intervention and system-based response for a solution. Thus, policy response requires the urgent need to move away from discussions on general welfare policies to context-specific policies; otherwise, the aspirations of sustainable development will be castles in the air.

Analyzing public opinions on death penalty abolishment

A meme consists of any words or images in a text that can be replicated across communicators in the exchange of information. This study tests the Multilevel Model of Meme Diffusion (M3D) in a case study in the digital electronic technology that captures the controversial opinions regarding death penalty abolishment in Nebraska. The objective is to demonstrate that an internet-based study using social media data can be used to analyze and predict social processes engaging with phenomena in real space. The authors utilize the meme death_penalty in Twitter texts to predict public perception of death penalty abolishment in Nebraska. The M3D theory integrates the fields of geography and computer-mediated communication technology to explain and predict public opinion on the death penalty.

The spatial distribution pattern of enterprises in Beijing and its influencing factors analysis based on POI data

Different urban elements may exhibit various aggregation patterns. It is of great significance to quantitatively investigate the disparity and connection among various aggregation patterns of urban elements for understanding the mechanism of urban development and supporting urban planning. In this paper, the point of interest (POI) of Beijing is taken as an example, and the distribution pattern and the level of agglomeration of POI in different industries are analyzed by kernel density estimation (KDE). The study found that the distribution density of POI in various industries in Beijing showed a trend of “higher in the eastern part and lower in the western part” and gradually decreased from the center to the outer. The aggregation of other industries’ POI, which is centered on enterprise POI, is analyzed by k-nearest method. The results show that the retail industry, bus station, and catering service industry are in a relatively concentrated distribution around the enterprise POI, and other urban elements are rarely distributing. In addition, this paper analyzes the kernel density chart by the vector analysis theory on landscape pattern, and how the spatial distribution pattern of enterprises is revealed by using the perspective of classical mechanics. It can be concluded that the formation of this kind of distribution comes from the centripetal force of the various industries and the axial traction of the northwest–southeast to the traffic trunk. Overall, the results of enterprise distribution analysis based on the POI data can explain part of the difference in business activities and economy distribution within urban areas. The study results of enterprise activities are also conducive to the strategy-making process of both governments and enterprises.

Multilevel model of meme diffusion of fracking through Twitter

The recent identification of potentially extensive shale-gas resources within the United States has generated mixed public and political responses. The purpose of this study is to apply the Multilevel Model of Meme Diffusion (M3D) in an empirical case study of the fracking controversy. This analysis supports the heuristic value of the M3D and the value of digital technologies as indexes of controversial opinions, showing the potential of monitoring and registering social opinion trends with geospatially sensitive methods. This study integrates the fields of geography and computer-mediated communication technology to account for social processes.