Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
- Discipline
-
- Asian Studies (33)
- International and Area Studies (33)
- Arts and Humanities (11)
- Psychology (10)
- Public Affairs, Public Policy and Public Administration (10)
-
- Urban Studies (10)
- Business (5)
- Communication (5)
- Geography (5)
- Human Geography (5)
- Multicultural Psychology (5)
- Music (5)
- Social Psychology (5)
- Place and Environment (4)
- Family, Life Course, and Society (3)
- Agribusiness (2)
- Applied Behavior Analysis (2)
- Education (2)
- Gender and Sexuality (2)
- Politics and Social Change (2)
- Rural Sociology (2)
- Arts Management (1)
- Bilingual, Multilingual, and Multicultural Education (1)
- Broadcast and Video Studies (1)
- Cultural History (1)
- Developmental Psychology (1)
- Digital Humanities (1)
- Keyword
-
- Singapore (19)
- China (7)
- Culture (7)
- Cultural policy (5)
- Cosmopolitanism (4)
-
- Popular music (4)
- Creative economy (3)
- Asia (2)
- Cross-cultural media consumption (2)
- Cultural differences (2)
- Cultural economy (2)
- Cultural geography (2)
- Dancehall (2)
- Globalization (2)
- Help-seeking tendencies (2)
- Hong Kong (2)
- Identity (2)
- Independent culture (2)
- Interdependent culture (2)
- Music (2)
- National identity (2)
- Norms (2)
- Social networks (2)
- Subjective well-being (2)
- Sustainability (2)
- Television (2)
- Values (2)
- (un)tethered masculinities (1)
- ASEAN (1)
- ASEAN Arts and Culture (1)
Articles 1 - 30 of 62
Full-Text Articles in Sociology of Culture
Why Do Farmers’ Cooperatives Fail In A Market Economy? Rediscovering Chayanov With The Chinese Experience, Zhanping Hu, Qian Forrest Zhang, John A. Donaldson
Why Do Farmers’ Cooperatives Fail In A Market Economy? Rediscovering Chayanov With The Chinese Experience, Zhanping Hu, Qian Forrest Zhang, John A. Donaldson
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
In The Theory of Peasant Cooperatives, Chayanov develops the theories of differential optima and vertical integration, which stress the vulnerability of peasant farming in capitalist markets, and argues that cooperatives can support smallholders only if they operate as ‘a cooperative movement’, are buttressed by a strong ‘cooperative culture’, and achieve ‘vertical integration’. Based on extensive fieldwork in China, we identify six major obstacles that explain the failure of most cooperatives. Chayanov’s arguments caution us to not only the vital importance of cooperatives to the resilience of peasant farming, but also the apparently insurmountable obstacles that cooperatives face in market economies.
"Sissy That Walk”: The Queer Kinaesthetics Of Mobility-Through-Difference, Orlando Woods
"Sissy That Walk”: The Queer Kinaesthetics Of Mobility-Through-Difference, Orlando Woods
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This article advances the idea of ‘queer kinaesthetics’ to show how moving through difference can enable disaggregated individuals to realize a new sense of becoming. Doing so involves rejecting the categories of identity that lead to disaggregation in the first place, and reorienting the self by developing a distinctly and radically (dis) embodied subject position. I illustrate these ideas by exploring the queer kinaesthetics of drag. Drag is most commonly associated with queer, cisgender males embodying otherness in order to come to terms with the disaggregation that many experience in heteronormative society, and through the heterological norms of representation. By …
Elucidating Evolutionary Principles With The Traditional Mosuo: Adaptive Benefits And Origins Of Matriliny And “Walking Marriages”, Jose C. Yong, Norman P. Li
Elucidating Evolutionary Principles With The Traditional Mosuo: Adaptive Benefits And Origins Of Matriliny And “Walking Marriages”, Jose C. Yong, Norman P. Li
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
The Mosuo, arguably the last surviving matrilineal society in China, offers interesting insights into kinship practices that support reproduction. In particular, the modes of courtship and reproduction of the traditional Mosuo revolve around a practice known as walking marriages, which involves no contract or obligations, where the men do not use social status or resources to court women, women do not expect commitment from men, and multiple sexual relationships are permitted for both sexes and seldom incite conflict. Children borne from walking marriages are cared for not so much by fathers but rather their mothers' brothers, and wealth and property …
Looking Beyond The 'Middle Class' For Other Chinas, Qian Forrest Zhang
Looking Beyond The 'Middle Class' For Other Chinas, Qian Forrest Zhang
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
There are high hopes for China’s middle class. Thanks to their rising disposable income, this group of Chinese is expected to unleash a consumer revolution in the domestic market. However, I argue that the ‘middle class’ as a concept provides at best a partial understanding of the Chinese consumer population; at worst, it can even provide a misleading perspective that brings us to erroneous conclusions about its profile and size. Instead, I propose the notion of ‘three Chinas’ as an alternative way to make sense of China’s consumers. ‘First China’ comprises residents in medium and large-sized cities, ‘Second China’ consists …
Property In Whose Name? Intrahousehold Bargaining Over Homeownership In China, Jia Yu, Cheng Cheng
Property In Whose Name? Intrahousehold Bargaining Over Homeownership In China, Jia Yu, Cheng Cheng
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Previous research typically examined homeownership inequality across individuals or households, overlooking the intrahousehold allocation of homeownership. Using couple-level data of the 2016 China Family Panel Studies, our study addresses the gap by examining the bargaining over homeownership between husbands and wives in China. Descriptive results reveal a large gender gap in homeownership: only about one-quarter of couples listed the wife as an owner on the Housing Ownership Certificate, whereas about 92% listed the husband. The gender gap in ownership, however, has narrowed among couples married after 2000. Multivariate analyses show that economic autonomy, relative resources, housing purchase conditions, and modernization …
Helping-Seeking Tendencies And Subjective Well-Being: A Cross-Cultural Comparison Of The United States And Japan, Verity Yu Qing Lua, Nadyannam N. Majeed, Andree Hartanto, Angela K. Y. Leung
Helping-Seeking Tendencies And Subjective Well-Being: A Cross-Cultural Comparison Of The United States And Japan, Verity Yu Qing Lua, Nadyannam N. Majeed, Andree Hartanto, Angela K. Y. Leung
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Help-seeking is commonly conceived as an instrumental behavior that improves people’s subjective well-being. However, most findings supporting a positive association between help-seeking and subjective well-being are observed in independence-preferring countries. Drawing from research demonstrating that the pathways to subjective well-being are culturally divergent, we posit that help-seeking tendencies may be detrimental to subjective well-being for members in interdependence-preferring countries where norms for preserving relational harmony and face concerns are prevalent. This study tested the moderating role of country in the relationship between help-seeking tendencies and subjective well-being using data from 5,068 American and Japanese participants. Results revealed that although help-seeking …
Help-Seeking Tendencies And Subjective Well-Being: A Cross-Cultural Comparison Of The United States And Japan, Verity Yu Qing Lua, Nadyanna Binte Mohamed Majeed, Andree Hartanto, Angela K. Y. Leung
Help-Seeking Tendencies And Subjective Well-Being: A Cross-Cultural Comparison Of The United States And Japan, Verity Yu Qing Lua, Nadyanna Binte Mohamed Majeed, Andree Hartanto, Angela K. Y. Leung
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Help-seeking is commonly conceived as an instrumental behavior that improves people’s subjective well-being. However, most findings supporting a positive association between help-seeking and subjective well-being are observed in independence-preferring countries. Drawing from research demonstrating that the pathways to subjective well-being are culturally divergent, we posit that help-seeking tendencies may be detrimental to subjective well-being for members in interdependence-preferring countries where norms for preserving relational harmony and face concerns are prevalent. This study tested the moderating role of country in the relationship between help-seeking tendencies and subjective well-being using data from 5,068 American and Japanese participants. Results revealed that although help-seeking …
Cultural Diplomacy And Co-Operation In Asean: The Role Of Arts And Culture Festivals, David Ocon
Cultural Diplomacy And Co-Operation In Asean: The Role Of Arts And Culture Festivals, David Ocon
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Beyond their traditional role as entertainment, form of expression and meeting spaces within local communities, arts and culture festivals can perform various functions. They can serve as showcases of artistic pride, signal openness towards cultural diversity, support the local economy, contribute to reducing political tension and provide grounds to consolidate international relationships. On occasion, such festivals function as tools to support the vision of a multilateral co-operation institution, as is the case of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Through a comprehensive review of the arts and culture festivals curated in ASEAN, this article investigates the festivals’ ulterior motivations. …
(Un)Tethered Masculinities, (Mis)Placed Modernities: Queering Futurity In Contemporary Singapore, Orlando Woods
(Un)Tethered Masculinities, (Mis)Placed Modernities: Queering Futurity In Contemporary Singapore, Orlando Woods
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This paper considers how socio-political prescriptions can bring about the queering of futurity in Singapore. In Singapore, state-sponsored narratives of progress view futurity in terms that are bound to place, and reproduced through the heteronormative family unit. These factors have caused constructions of masculinity to be tethered to the family, and placed within public housing. Recently, this narrative has become an increasingly inflexible and marginalizing construct that can cause straight males to be queered by their prescribed futures. In contrast, gay males are more likely to be untethered from their families, and thus occupy “unplaced” positions in Singapore’s social structure.
Beliefs And Social Norms As Precursors Of Environmental Support: The Joint Influence Of Collectivism And Socioeconomic Status, David K. Sherman, John A. Updegraff, Michelle S. Handy, Kimin Eom, Heejung S. Sim
Beliefs And Social Norms As Precursors Of Environmental Support: The Joint Influence Of Collectivism And Socioeconomic Status, David K. Sherman, John A. Updegraff, Michelle S. Handy, Kimin Eom, Heejung S. Sim
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
The present research investigates how the cultural value of collectivism interacts with socioeconomic status (SES) to influence the basis of action. Using a U.S. national sample (N = 2,538), the research examines how these sociocultural factors jointly moderate the strength of two precursors of environmental support: beliefs about climate change and perceived descriptive norms. SES and collectivism interacted with climate change beliefs such that beliefs predicted environmental support (i.e., proenvironmental behaviors and policy support) more strongly for those who were high in SES and low in collectivism than for all other groups. This interaction was explained, in part, by sense …
Haptic Heritage And The Paradox Of Provenance Within Singapore's Cottage Food Businesses, Orlando Woods, John A. Donaldson
Haptic Heritage And The Paradox Of Provenance Within Singapore's Cottage Food Businesses, Orlando Woods, John A. Donaldson
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This paper offers a “more-than-representational” understanding of how heritage value is reproduced by cottage food businesses in Singapore. It advances the notion of haptic heritage to highlight the importance of touch and feel in inculcating food with a sense of heritage value. Haptic heritage is reproduced through the physical handling of ingredients in ways that contribute to more “authentic” products. However, it also foregrounds food production processes that are more tactile, time-consuming and thus unscalable than their automated counterparts. Accordingly, the reproduction of haptic heritage is becoming increasingly unviable in Singapore’s competitive economic landscape. These ideas are explored through a …
Affective Cosmopolitanisms In Singapore: Dancehall And The Decolonisation Of The Self, Orlando Woods
Affective Cosmopolitanisms In Singapore: Dancehall And The Decolonisation Of The Self, Orlando Woods
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This paper advances a new understanding of cosmopolitanism; one that is rooted in the affective potential of the body. It argues that whilst the self is often projected onto the body, so too can the body play an important role in (re)imagining the self. As such, the body can decolonise the self from the mind, from the expectations of society and culture, and from the normative epistemological underpinnings of academic knowledge production. I validate these theoretical arguments through an empirical focus on the practice of dancehall in Singapore. Dancehall is an emancipatory cultural movement that emerged in Jamaica in the …
Clashing Cyphers, Contagious Content: The Digital Geopolitics Of Grime, Orlando Woods
Clashing Cyphers, Contagious Content: The Digital Geopolitics Of Grime, Orlando Woods
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This paper seeks to expand popular geopolitics in line with the digital worlds in which many of us now live. By interpreting geopolitics as a method of cultural (re)production, it becomes a creative tool that can be used to shape and elevate the affective appeal of content. Digital technologies are centrally implicated in the production of such content. By decoupling space and time from their physical anchors in the real world, digital technologies imbue them with a creative latency that can be deployed in both agentic and affective ways. Specifically, decoupling creates spatio‐temporal openings that offer new opportunities for content …
Place-Making/Management: The Policy And Practice Of Arts-Centred Spatial Interventions In Singapore, Su Fern Hoe
Place-Making/Management: The Policy And Practice Of Arts-Centred Spatial Interventions In Singapore, Su Fern Hoe
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Singapore has won numerous accolades and garnered global attention for its physical infrastructure and iconic architecture. Despite these achievements, its government has recognized that certain parts of the city still lack a certain human vitality and buzz. Additionally, like other post-industrial cities, the production of a positive urban experience has been identified as that critical competitive advantage that would differentiate Singapore from other cities. Consequently, the Singapore government adopted a strategy called ‘place management’ in 2008 to inject ‘heart and soul’ into the city, and deliver a liveable, globally competitive and amenity-rich urban environment for its increasingly educated and upper …
Free Bodies, Segmented Selves: Paradoxical Spaces Of Dancehall Culture In Singapore, Orlando Woods
Free Bodies, Segmented Selves: Paradoxical Spaces Of Dancehall Culture In Singapore, Orlando Woods
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This paper contributes to the ongoing expansion of the geographies of encounter by considering how cultural encounters can lead to the realisation, and the segmentation, of the self. As much as cultural differences can be manifested, negotiated and managed externally, so too can these differences be internal states that are realised through engagements with the embodied self. Accordingly, segmented selves are an outcome of the desire for individuals to compartmentalise diverse and disaggregated lives, and to retain a sense of cohesion and harmony within the various socio-cultural communities to which they belong. I bring these ideas to life through an …
Empirical Correlates Of Cosmopolitan Orientation: Etiology And Functions In A Worldwide Representative Sample, James H. Liu, Robert Jiqi Zhang, Angela K. Y. Leung, Homero Gil De Zúñiga, Cecilia Gastardo-Conac, Vadym Vasiutynskyi, Larissa Kus-Harbord
Empirical Correlates Of Cosmopolitan Orientation: Etiology And Functions In A Worldwide Representative Sample, James H. Liu, Robert Jiqi Zhang, Angela K. Y. Leung, Homero Gil De Zúñiga, Cecilia Gastardo-Conac, Vadym Vasiutynskyi, Larissa Kus-Harbord
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Psychology has begun contributing to social theory by providing empirical measures of actually existing cosmopolitanism that complements more purely theoretical conceptions of the construct common in philosophy and sociology. Drawing from two waves of research on representative adult samples from 19 countries (N = 8740), metric invariance was found for the three factors of cosmopolitan orientation (COS): cultural openness (CO), global prosociality (GP), and respect for cultural diversity (RCD). In terms of etiology, among Wave 1 measures, the personality factor of agreeableness was the best predictor of the cosmopolitan factors of GP and RCD at Wave 2, whereas openness …
Fractured Lives, Newfound Freedoms? The Dialectics Of Religious Seekership Among Chinese Migrants In Singapore, Orlando Woods, Lily Kong
Fractured Lives, Newfound Freedoms? The Dialectics Of Religious Seekership Among Chinese Migrants In Singapore, Orlando Woods, Lily Kong
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This paper explores the negotiations involved in the process of Chinesemigrants converting to Christianity in Singapore. For many Chinesepeople, migration involves being exposed to religion for the first time,and for some, it involves them converting to Christianity. In Singapore,the conversion of Chinese migrants to Christianity occurs in a context of‘shared’ Chinese ethnicity, which can provide both bridges and barriersto the formation of Chinese Christian identities and communities. This‘shared’ ethnicity causes many Christian groups in Singapore to targetChinese migrants in their evangelisation efforts, which can result inmigrant and non-migrant Chinese communities being formed andfractured through religion. Drawing on qualitative data, four …
Effects Of Cultural Tightness-Looseness And Social Network Density On Expression Of Positive And Negative Emotions: A Large-Scale Study Of Impression Management By Facebook Users, Pan Liu, David Chan, Lin Qiu, William Tov, Victor Joo Chuan Tong
Effects Of Cultural Tightness-Looseness And Social Network Density On Expression Of Positive And Negative Emotions: A Large-Scale Study Of Impression Management By Facebook Users, Pan Liu, David Chan, Lin Qiu, William Tov, Victor Joo Chuan Tong
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Using data from 13,789 Facebook users across U.S. states, this study examined the main effects of societal-level cultural tightness–looseness and its interaction effects with individuals’ social network density on impression management (IM) in terms of online emotional expression. Results showed that individuals from culturally tight (vs. loose) states were more likely to express positive emotions and less likely to express negative emotions. Meanwhile, for positive emotional expression, there was a tightness–looseness by social network density interaction effect. In culturally tight states, individuals with dense (vs. sparse) networks were more likely to express positive emotions, while in culturally loose states this …
Mobile Bodies, (Im)Mobile Beliefs? Religious Accord And Discord As Migratory Outcomes, Lily Kong, Orlando Woods
Mobile Bodies, (Im)Mobile Beliefs? Religious Accord And Discord As Migratory Outcomes, Lily Kong, Orlando Woods
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This article advances a new understanding of the outcomes that arise from the movement and settlement of religion. These outcomes can range from religious accord to discord; or, from the full integration of migrant religions to inter-religious conflict. It identifies two axes that determine such outcomes. The first relates to the interplay between transnational religious agency and the strength of local religious structures. Harder structures are more likely to require migrant religious groups to make greater compromises to bring about situations of religious accord, while softer structures are less likely to do so. The second relates to the interplay between …
Revealed Traits: A Novel Method For Estimating Cross-Cultural Similarities And Differences In Personality, Cory Costello, Dustin Wood, William Tov
Revealed Traits: A Novel Method For Estimating Cross-Cultural Similarities And Differences In Personality, Cory Costello, Dustin Wood, William Tov
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Cross-cultural research on personality has often led to surprising and countertheoretical findings, which have led to concerns over the validity of country-level estimates of personality (e.g., Heine, Buchtel, & Norenzayan, 2008). The present study explores how cross-cultural differences can be indexed via revealed trait estimates, which index the personality traits of individuals or groups indirectly through their likelihood of responding in particular ways to particular situations. In two studies, we measure self-reports of personality, revealed traits, and revealed preferences for different expected effects (e.g., experiencing excitement) of two cultural groups (U.S. and Singaporean participants). We found typical East–West differences in …
Cultural Capital Schemes In Asia: Mirroring Europe Or Carving Out Their Own Concepts?, David Ocon
Cultural Capital Schemes In Asia: Mirroring Europe Or Carving Out Their Own Concepts?, David Ocon
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Despite bearing similar names and sharing certainaims, the implementation of the CulturalCity/Capital initiative in Europe and in the sub-regions of Southeast andNortheast Asia has been substantially dissimilar. In Europe, the annual EuropeanCity of Culture (ECOC) status commonly constitutes an opportunity toshowcase the best of the arts and culture of the host city, and counts on thesupport of sizable public funding. In Southeast Asia, the initiative scarcelyreceives any public or regional funds and the understanding of what thedesignation means varies widely from country to country. In Northeast Asia,regional diplomacy is one of the main motivations for initiating the scheme. This paper …
Farmers' Cooperatives In China: A Typology Of Fraud And Failure, Zhanping Hu, Qian Forrest Zhang, John A. Donaldson
Farmers' Cooperatives In China: A Typology Of Fraud And Failure, Zhanping Hu, Qian Forrest Zhang, John A. Donaldson
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Since the 1990s, agricultural cooperatives—particularly what China calls Farmers’ Specialized Cooperatives—have experienced rapid expansion in China. After more than two decades of growth and policy support, what is the overall performance of the ever-increasing numbers of these cooperatives? We visited 50 cooperatives across the country, most of which had officially been lauded as successful, to make a first-hand evaluation of their overall status and performance. We argue that, judging by either international or Chinese standards, the vast majority of these agricultural cooperatives are not authentic and fail to deliver expected benefits to smallholders. We categorize them into five types: genuine …
What Does Successful Aging Mean? Lay Perception Of Successful Aging Among Elderly Singaporeans, Qiushi Feng, Paulin Tay Straughan
What Does Successful Aging Mean? Lay Perception Of Successful Aging Among Elderly Singaporeans, Qiushi Feng, Paulin Tay Straughan
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Objectives: We explore the culturally specific meaning of successful aging in Singapore, an ethnically diverse city-state in Asia. We aim to investigate lay perceptions of successful aging among the elderly individuals in Singapore and further examine variations of these perceptions. Methods: We applied a mixed-method research design. Firstly, we conducted qualitative interviews with 49 elderly respondents, generating 12 main subjective components of successful aging. Next, we did a national survey with a sample of 1,540 local residents aged 50 to 69 years, in which respondents were asked to evaluate the importance of each subjective component of successful aging. We used …
Avoidance In Negative Ties: Inhibiting Closure, Reciprocity, And Homophily, Nicholas Harrigan, Janice Yap
Avoidance In Negative Ties: Inhibiting Closure, Reciprocity, And Homophily, Nicholas Harrigan, Janice Yap
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Theorising of negative ties has focused on simplex negative tie networks or multiplex signed tie networks. We examine the fundamental differences between positive and negative tie networks measured on the same set of actors. We test six mechanisms of tie formation on face-to-face positive (affect/esteem) and negative (dislike/disesteem) networks of 282 university students. While popularity, activity, and entrainment are present in both networks, closure, reciprocity, and homophily are largely absent from negative tie networks. We argue this arises because avoidance is inherent to negative sentiments. Avoidance reduces information transfer through negative ties and short-circuits cumulative causation. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. …
The Cultural Pragmatics Of Political Apology, Hiro Saito
The Cultural Pragmatics Of Political Apology, Hiro Saito
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
In recent decades, research on ‘political apology’, wherein the state apologizes to victims of its past wrongs, has multiplied, as redress movements based on human rights have proliferated around the world. Since most of this research has been conducted by political philosophers, however, analyses of political apologies tend to adopt formal and normative perspectives. To propose an alternative, empirically-grounded approach, in this paper, I develop the ‘cultural pragmatics’ of political apology. To this end, I first conceptualize political apology as a social performance aimed to ‘re-fuse’ an impaired relationship between the perpetrator state and the victim individual. This conceptual move …
Inventing The ‘Authentic’ Self: American Television And Chinese Audiences In Global Beijing, Yang Gao
Inventing The ‘Authentic’ Self: American Television And Chinese Audiences In Global Beijing, Yang Gao
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
This article examines the ways educated urban Chinese youths engage American television fiction as part of their identity work. Drawing on theories of modern reflexive identity, and based on 29 interviews with US TV fans among university students in Beijing, I found these youths are drawn to this television primarily because they perceive the American way of life portrayed on it as more ‘authentic’. This perception of authenticity must be examined within the socio-cultural milieu these students inhabit. Specifically, torn between China’s ingrained collectivist culture and its recent neoliberal emphasis on the individual self, my respondents glean from US TV …
Cultural Variability In The Link Between Environmental Concern And Support For Environmental Action, Kimin Eom, Heejung S. Kim, David K. Sherman, Keiko Ishii
Cultural Variability In The Link Between Environmental Concern And Support For Environmental Action, Kimin Eom, Heejung S. Kim, David K. Sherman, Keiko Ishii
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
Research on sustainability behaviors has been based on the assumption that increasing personal concerns about the environment will increase proenvironmental action. We tested whether this assumption is more applicable to individualistic cultures than to collectivistic cultures. In Study 1, we compared 47 countries (N = 57,268) and found that they varied considerably in the degree to which environmental concern predicted support for proenvironmental action. National-level individualism explained the between-nation variability above and beyond the effects of other cultural values and independently of person-level individualism. In Study 2, we compared individualistic and collectivistic nations (United States vs. Japan; N = 251) …
Mimicking Religion As Coping Strategy: The Emergence Of The Bell-Curve God In Singapore, Lily Kong
Mimicking Religion As Coping Strategy: The Emergence Of The Bell-Curve God In Singapore, Lily Kong
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
The importance placed on education and, relatedly, examinations, in many Asian societies is well known. The means adopted to cope with the stresses that come along with such intensity are myriad. It is in such contexts that the emergence of a “Bell Curve God” in Singapore must be understood.
Gangs, Clubs, And Alcohol: The Effect Of Organizational Membership On Adolescent Drinking Behavior, Chan S. Suh, Matthew E. Brashears, Michael Genkin
Gangs, Clubs, And Alcohol: The Effect Of Organizational Membership On Adolescent Drinking Behavior, Chan S. Suh, Matthew E. Brashears, Michael Genkin
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
How does adolescent organizational membership in general, and simultaneous membership in distinct types of organizations in particular, impact drinking behavior? While past studies have focused either on the learning effect of involvement with gangs or on the constraining influence of conventional organizations on adolescent problem behavior, we explore the possibility that conventional school clubs can serve as socializing opportunities for existing gang members to engage in drinking behavior with non-gang club members. Using the Add Health data, we show that gang members drink more often, and engage in more binge drinking, than non-members. More importantly, individuals who are members of …
Fiction As Reality: Chinese Youths Watching American Television, Yang Gao
Fiction As Reality: Chinese Youths Watching American Television, Yang Gao
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
American television fiction is gaining traction among educated urban Chinese youths. Drawing on 29 interviews with fans among college students in Beijing, this article examines a shared perception among these youths that American television is ‘‘real.’’ This perceived realism, which is essential to their viewing pleasure, has two sources: American programming’s textual quality and the Chinese context in which it is consumed. First, US television appeals to Chinese youths because they perceive its topical content and complex characterization as true to life. This perception can be explained by the higher transnational cultural capital of these youths, which renders US programming …