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Experiences Of First-Generation Students In A Large Public University In Ghana : A Phenomenological Study, Jacob Oppong Nkansah

Lingnan Theses and Dissertations (Doctoral degree)

In this study, first-generation students (FGS) experiences in the higher education system of Ghana were explored. Only a few studies in Africa, notably Ghana, have focused on the concept of FGS. FGS are conceptualized as learners whose parents didn’t complete or attend university and are the first in their nuclear families to seek for higher education. This research looked into FGS experiences at the University of Education Winneba, which is a large public university viewed as a haven for FGS in Ghana because of its mandate to train teachers for immediate employment. The study explored FGS motivations for pursuing higher …

From Academic Burden Reduction To Quality Education : A Case Study Of Students' And Parents' Perceptions And Experiences Under The Double-Reduction Policy In China, Tao Xu

Lingnan Theses and Dissertations (Doctoral degree)

Research confirms the debilitating effect of academic stress on Chinese students. Excessive academic stress not only causes physical and mental problems for students but also affects the overall development of their abilities and literacy. This form of stress also exacerbates social problems, such as increased educational involution and deteriorating parent–child relationships. Therefore, the Chinese government has introduced the Double-Reduction Policy in 2021 to reduce the academic burden and out-of-school trainings for students in compulsory education. This study aims to explore high school students’ perceptions and experiences related to this policy and provide implications for its improvement. To this end, this …

A Qualitative Study Of Approaches To Implementing Basic Education Internationalization In Shenzhen, Xue Cao

Lingnan Theses and Dissertations (Doctoral degree)

The Chinese government’s Education Modernization 2035 plan puts forward goals for China to achieve education modernization and become an education powerhouse by 2035. As a cornerstone of education development, basic education internationalization is an essential part of the country’s educational reforms. In 2019, the Outline for the Development of the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area explicitly called for building an internationalization education demonstration zone. However, in one of the cities in the Greater Bay Area, Shenzhen, the implementation of basic education internationalization has not been completely successful. The problem facing Shenzhen is that the traditional approach to internationalization, which is …

Critical Review Of The Enactment Of The Minimum Wage On Poverty Alleviation In Hong Kong Since 2011, Man Yu Ngan

Lingnan Theses and Dissertations (Doctoral degree)

The academic discussion on the minimum wage law's effect is controversial and continuous. Given that Hong Kong is one of the free economies worldwide with the most competitive labour market, it is one of the best natural laboratories for testing how minimum wage law influences the labour market.

This study aims to answer four important research questions:1.What are the effects of statutory minimum wage legislation and its adjustment level?2.Which groups of employees will mostly benefit or suffer, and to what extent?3.Can Hong Kong’s minimum wage law achieve its policy goal of reducing poverty?4.How could Hong Kong’s minimum wage policy re-enter …

The Cultivation Of Social Consciousness In Chinese Urban Communities From The Perspective Of Community Governance : Taking The Community In Shandong As An Example, Li Jie Wang

Lingnan Theses and Dissertations (Doctoral degree)

The social consciousness of residents has been changing since China's reform and opening up. The grassroots governance of the society has also become more and more difficult. In the last decade, the Chinese government has been improving the level of social community governance, and since COVID-19 pandemic, the government has been strengthening democratic social governance. It has become very possible to cultivate social consciousness and democratic consciousness among the residents in the community. I conducted two rounds of questionnaires and three rounds of interviews in several communities in Shandong province.

I interviewed over 30 residents, visited a dozen communities, and …

Inclusive Development For Social Integration : A Capability Approach To Youth-Oriented Active Labour Market Policies (Almps), Paul Ogwang Tulibaleka

Lingnan Theses and Dissertations (MPhil & PhD)

Sub-Saharan Africa is currently experiencing a youth bulge that is expected to continue growing for a few decades. Uganda, one of the countries with the highest youth population uses an approach that emphasises education and skills development (human capital approach) alongside promoting self-employment and youth entrepreneurship in response to the labour market and employment challenges experienced by the youth. In Uganda, vocational education and training (VET), youth entrepreneurship funds, job search assistance and career guidance address unemployment and the lack of required labour market skills. However, this approach emphasises education and skills, yet the youth are treated as a homogenous …

Security Imperative Of The Belt And Road Initiative : A Comparative Study Of Malaysia And Pakistan, Mateena Hammad

Lingnan Theses and Dissertations (MPhil & PhD)

There is a misconception that the Belt and Road Initiative is a grand economic scheme meant to expand Beijing’s influence in the region by attracting smaller states into the Initiative with abundant financial investment, but ultimately overwhelming them in a “debt trap”. Much attention has been given to China’s geopolitical gains and motives as the chief stakeholder of the Initiative, but there is a significant gap in the understanding of the member countries as stakeholders with their own objectives and strategies, instead assumed to be vulnerable to Beijing’s plans and only hopeful for economic development. This dissertation aims to explain …

Predictors Of Aberrant Driving Behaviours And Accident Involvement : Quantitative Objective And Subjective Evidence From Chinese And Pakistani Drivers, Rayna Sadia

Lingnan Theses and Dissertations (MPhil & PhD)

Traffic safety has emerged as a primary issue for governments, policymakers, and researchers globally since the surge of automobiles. Outcomes of minimal adherence to traffic safety (road traffic accidents, injuries, and fatalities) are detrimental to the socio-economic growth of any country. Human factors, by far, provide efficient opportunities to improve traffic safety than environmental and engineering factors. Among human factors, driving behaviours have higher potential to harm traffic safety than driving performance. Western empirical findings using self-reported measures have established the predictive role of driving behaviours in crash involvement. Due to cultural differences in the traffic environment and lack of …

Pathways Toward Adolscents's Wellbeing In Ghana : The Role Of Socioeconomic Status And Social Capital, Evelyn Aboagye Addae

Lingnan Theses and Dissertations (MPhil & PhD)

Social capital has been found to be protective of adolescents’ well-being against effects of low socioeconomic status (SES). However, this protective role of social capital has been less explored in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). This study hence aims to disentangle this complex relationship while exploring the potential for social capital to be a protective health asset for especially, poor Ghanaian adolescents. Multistage stratified cluster cross-sectional survey data of adolescents (13-18yrs), (N =2,068) was employed in logistic regression and bootstrapping mediation analyses. In the regression analyses: high SES significantly predicted high life satisfaction (LS) but could not predict high happiness. …

Ageing, Health And Health-Seeking Behaviour In Ghana, Razak Mohammed Gyasi

Lingnan Theses and Dissertations (MPhil & PhD)

Rapid ageing of populations globally following reductions in fertility and mortality rates has become one of the most significant demographic features in recent decades. As a low- and middle-income country, Ghana has one of the largest and fastest growing older populations in sub-Saharan Africa, where ageing often occurs ahead of socioeconomic development and provision of health and social care services. Older persons in these contexts often face greater health challenges and various life circumstances including role loss, retirement, irregular incomes and widowhood, which can increase their demand for both formal and informal support. This thesis addresses the effects of the …

Arab Authoritarianism And Us Foreign Policy, Ki Chun Luk

Bachelor of Social Sciences – Senior Theses

This qualitative research aims to examine the nature and reasons for America support for Arab authoritarian regimes in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Yemen, and to provide further details by examining the inferiority of liberal cultures and superiority of realist approach and continuation/discontinuation of this existing approach after/during the Arab Spring by case studies. In order to have a systematic analysis, alternative theoretical models, including a revised national interest model, the neoclassical realist US grand strategy model (Dueck ,2008),the international conditions analysis by Petras (2011),and US domestic politics model will be examined. Currently, the issue under study suffers from little systematic …

How Does The Hong Kong Current Refugee Policy Affect The Life Of Protection Claimants?, Kwan Ki Man

Bachelor of Social Sciences – Senior Theses

About 6,000 refugees, asylum seekers and torture claimants (collectively “protection claimants”) are struggling to survive in Hong Kong. It is undoubted that they are an underprivileged and marginalized group in Hong Kong. Since Hong Kong is not the signatory of the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, protection claimants do not enjoy legal status or formal rights to welfare services in Hong Kong. Without the right to work, protection claimants must survive on $1,500 a month for accommodation and bags of food equivalent to $1,200, or they may risk to work illegally in Hong Kong. This thesis examines …

Public Sector Reforms In Hong Kong In The 1990s, Kwun Hong Chan

Bachelor of Social Sciences – Senior Theses

1989 was the year Hong Kong echoed to the public-sector reform or New Public Management Reform (NPM-reforms) trend among the Western developed countries. (Cheung 1996a: 31, Lee 2001: 55) Since then, public sector had been injected the ingredient of the private sector management. Citizens started to be treated as paying customers for quality services rather than receiving “one size fits all” services. (Sankey 2001: 3) “Value for money” had been emphasized in this financial management reform launched by the Finance Branch of the Hong Kong Government.

Unlike the above reform, the public sector reform in 1992 had been more fundamental, …

Beyond Public Health : The Cultural Politics Of Tobacco Control In Hong Kong, Wai Yin Chan

Theses & Dissertations

This work provides cultural and political explanations on how and why cigarette smoking has increasingly become an object of intolerance and control in Hong Kong. Since the 1980s, the smoking population has been falling. Smoking behavior, sales and promotion of cigarette products have been under close surveillance by the government, medical experts and society at large. Cigarette smoking, as well as smokers, has increasingly been rejected and demonized in the public discourse. What are the conditions that make the growing intolerant discourses and practices against cigarette smoking possible and dominant? Why and how has the tobacco control campaign become prevalent …

Cultivating Identities And Differences : A Case Study Of The Hong Kong Junior Secondary Economic And Public Affairs Curriculum, Yuen Fun, Muriel Law

Theses & Dissertations

This thesis studies the junior secondary EPA curriculum and the complex cultural process of teaching and learning of the curriculum. It draws on theoretical frameworks developed in the field of cultural studies and critical pedagogy, particularly works by Michel Foucault, Stuart Hall, Lawrence Grossberg and Paulo Freire. It investigates how the EPA curricular texts attempt to produce the identity characteristic of "rational, sensitive and active citizens" in contemporary Hong Kong through constructing differences that negate the Other. Through analyzing classroom discursive practices, the thesis examines how the curricular knowledge "interpellates" teachers into subject position to talk about the "rational, sensitive …

Lifelong Learning For Older Persons In Hong Kong, Sze Sze, Stephanie Hui

Theses & Dissertations

Lifelong learning (LL) has been widely regarded as one of the activities that can enhance well-being of the society and benefit older persons in terms of psychological, physical, mental, and cognitive well-being. In foreign countries like the Unites States of America, the United Kingdom, Finland, France, Australia, and also China, LL among older persons had been developed successfully. Hong Kong, in contrast, has no systematic planning for the development of LL even though the aged population is increasing rapidly. This research aims at constructing a LL model for older persons in Hong Kong. The theoretical framework of study focused on …

Traces Of Desire And Fantasy : The Government-Generated Discourse On Technology In Post-Handover Hong Kong, Sze Chung Chow

Theses & Dissertations

Information technology almost became the savior for Hong Kong in the process of recovering from the Asian financial crisis immediately after the Handover. The claims to establish and further the development of information technology were made against a certain perception of Hong Kong, in which the place in past decades had indulged in the wrong direction of labour-intensive, cut-throat production in the manufacturing industries and bubble-like speculation in the real-estate sector, and against a certain vision of the future, with more and more competition in the age of globalization, neo-liberal economies, and so on.

This thesis demonstrates, firstly, how the …

The Concept Of Healthy Ageing In Hong Kong, Mei Lan, Mandy Chiu

Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to explore the concept of ‘Healthy Ageing’ in Hong Kong. The research attempts to explore the historical base from which ‘Healthy Ageing’ has been conceptualized in both Western and Chinese societies. This study also tries to provide an overview of literature that relevant to the ‘Healthy Ageing’ concept, and to provide an initial theoretical framework of ‘Healthy Ageing’ in a Hong Kong Chinese context.

This study mainly adopts a qualitative approach in exploring the meaning of the concept. Since that ‘Healthy Ageing’ is likely to be conceptualized from the concept of health and ageing, …