Mark King

Contact Reduces Transprejudice: A Study on Attitudes towards Transgenderism and Transgender Civil Rights in Hong Kong

ABSTRACT This paper examines the relationship between Hong Kong Chinese peoples contact with transgender/transsexual (TG/TS) people and attitudes toward transgenderism and transgender civil rights, based on Allports Contact Hypothesis. The term transprejudice is introduced to refer to the negative valuing, stereotyping and discriminatory treatment of TG/TS people. Data are presented from a population-based survey with a random sample of 856 Hong Kong Chinese persons aged between 15 and 64, using the Chinese Attitudes towards Transgenderism and Transgender Civil Rights Scale (CATTCRS). Attitudes, assessed on both personal and institutional dimensions, are examined in relation to participants’ gender, age, educational level, religiosity, and previous contact with transpeople. Results suggest that previous contact with transpeople was significantly associated with attitudes reflected in the scale; decreased social distance, decreased social discrimination, and decreased transprejudice, increased awareness of discrimination against transpeople, increased support for equal opportunities, increased support for post-operative transsexual civil rights, and increased support for anti-discrimination legislation. Our findings support the contact hypothesis, that contact has a positive effect on attitudes towards TG/TS persons. We discuss the implications of these findings for public education interventions and public policy, as well as for research.

Abnormal grey matter in victims of rape with PTSD in Mainland China: a voxel-based morphometry study

Sui SG, Wu MX, King ME, Zhang Y, Ling L, Xu JM, Weng XC, Duan L, Shan BC, Li LJ. Abnormal grey matter in victims of rape with PTSD in Mainland China: a voxel-based morphometry study. Objective: This study examined changes in brain grey matter in victims of rape (VoR) with and without post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Previous research has focused on PTSD caused by various traumatic events, such as war and disaster, among others. Although considerable research has focused on rape-related PTSD, limited studies have been carried out in the context of Mainland China. Methods: The study included 11 VoR with PTSD, 8 VoR without PTSD and 12 healthy comparison (HC) subjects. We used voxel-based morphometry to explore changes in brain grey-matter density (GMD) by applying statistical parametric mapping to high-resolution magnetic resonance images. Results: Compared with HC, VoR with PTSD showed significant GMD reductions in the bilateral medial frontal cortex, left middle frontal cortex, middle temporal gyrus and fusiform cortex and significant GMD increases in the right posterior cingulate cortex, postcentral cortex, bilateral precentral cortex and inferior parietal lobule. Compared to VoR without PTSD, VoR with PTSD showed significant GMD reductions in the right uncus, left middle temporal gyrus, and the fusiform cortex, and increases in the left precentral cortex, inferior parietal lobule and right post-central cortex. Conclusion: The findings of abnormal GMD in VoR with PTSD support the hypothesis that PTSD is associated with widespread anatomical changes in the brain. The medial frontal cortex, precentral cortex, posterior cingulate cortex, post-central cortex and inferior parietal lobule may play important roles in the neuropathology of PTSD.

‘Outsiderness’ and ‘insiderness’ in a Confucian society: complexity of contexts

This paper addresses the influence of CHC on how the insider/outsider distinction is drawn and what consequences follow for the conduct of research. The paper outlines the methodological complexities faced by us whilst conducting our respective research projects in Hong Kong. In the studies reported in this paper we, the researchers, were insiders at one level as both of us have a degree of familiarity with Hong Kong being residents of the city. We were also insiders on a professional level in the contexts under study. However being ethnically non-Chinese positioned us as outsiders. Additionally, our Western-trained research selves accepted certain normative paradigms, whilst our own personal ethno-centricities tended to question these self-same paradigms. In sum, the research context for us assumed hues in accordance with the lens that we were using for viewing our data concurrently and concomitantly and this we argue has much to do with the research methodologies that we used in the studies.

Non-Chinese researchers conducting research in Chinese cultures: critical reflections

This paper addresses some fundamental methodological and ethical issues confronting non-Chinese researchers undertaking research in Hong Kong Chinese society. Among other things, it considers problems pertaining to data collection, the challenges of data interpretation, and the implication that this has for research. Whilst the issues are by no means unique to Hong Kong, there are a number of matters related to outsider research that require special attention in the Hong Kong Chinese context, even when the researchers may be acquainted with both the context and the participants. Understanding the context of research, including the socio-cultural context of which the research participants are a part leads to an enhanced understanding of the issues at hand. This paper intends to serve as an overview that may guide future research in Hong Kong. Issues raised in this paper will need re-theorizing in order to provide a more realistic and comprehensive view of the need to re-examine the paradigms that guide research methodology in Confucian societies.

Framework for Designing Mobile Learning Environments

In this chapter the RASE learning design framework is proposed as a key strategy for utilizing multiple affordances of mobile learning technology. This learning design framework is based on the premise that an effective learning environment must include and integrate at least four core components, namely: Resources, Activity, Support and Evaluation. The activity component is the most important, requiring students to engage with intellectual and knowledge-based developments. Mobile technology offers a number of affordances that support learning, including: Resources, Connectivity, Collaboration, Capture, Representation, Analytical and Administration tools. Effective use of mobile technology includes deployment of these affordances in the learning design in a way that supports different components of the RASE framework and achievement of set learning outcomes. This chapter presents and discusses concepts, arguments, and a discussion of an example of an app that integrates multiple affordances, supported by all components of the RASE learning design framework.

Sexuality education in China: the conflict between reality and ideology

The December 2008 release of Chinas new Guidelines for health education in primary and secondary schools by the Ministry of Education addressed many of the concerns arising from the academic and popular discourse on Chinese adolescent sexuality and sexuality education. The focus of this reform, common with similar reforms elsewhere in Asia and the West, aims at promoting adolescent sexual health and countering the associated social and public health problems. However, unlike adolescents in other countries, Chinese adolescents are constructing their sexuality in a unique socio-economic context with strong influences from deeply rooted puritan Confucian norms and values. Situating adolescent sexuality construction and the new guidelines within such multiple discourses, this article examines the changes in the new guidelines, with particular attention to the distinctive Chinese characteristics of sexuality construction. Based on a large sample empirical study, the paper concurrently explores how Chinese adolescents negotiate the development of their sexuality by investigating sexuality-related attitudes, behaviours, and sources of sexuality-related information. It reveals that though the incidence of Chinese adolescents engaging in sexual behaviours is low compared to their Western counterparts, their attitudes toward sexuality are becoming increasingly liberal. It also indicates that this abstinence-based policy may be deemed justifiable according to the low incidence of sexual intercourse at the moment, but may be viewed as problematic if it has the potential to disempower adolescents from protecting themselves from other health-compromising risks. Thus, for future policy development, the authorities should consider ways they could empower adolescents to address these challenges.

Conducting research in Confucian Heritage Cultures: an overview of methodological issues

The aim of this Special Issue of Comparative Education is to contribute to the research methodology literature in the field of comparative education, with a special emphasis on fundamental theoretical, methodological and ethical issues confronting researchers undertaking studies in contexts that are strongly influenced by Confucian frameworks of understanding. The argument that we explore here is that research methodology is not neutral with respect to the enterprise of comparison. Rather, the adoption of a comparative perspective, with its emphasis on the importance of context, also applies to the very tools of inquiry that researchers may wish to employ. Thus, we argue that just as substantive theoretical perspectives, philosophical practices and policy prescriptions may fail to transfer to, or from Confucian Heritage Cultures (CHCs), because of unique and individual contextual qualities, so too may matters of inquiry and inference fail to cross such contextual boundaries.

Educational Apps Ontology

This chapter provides an overview of educational mobile apps as well as different models of classification. It also sheds light on the complex mobile app ecosystem from four perspectives: the learner, the teacher, the developer and the distributor. It highlights the contradictions that arise from the different goals and expectations from each perspective. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of the motivational aspects of games and their current role for educational mobile apps as well as the future development of apps.

Interactivity, Values and the Microgenesis of Learning in a Tertiary Setting

Student learning is a hot topic in tertiary education circles these days. However, it is not always clear what words like ‘learning’ and ‘learner’ mean. It is important for educationalists to understand learning as it actually occurs in real-time learning situations. We build on Hutchins’ theory of distributed cognition and Gibson’s ecological psychology to show how human learning is an interactive process. We propose Multimodal Event Analysis as a tool for analyzing a University tutorial in which students attempt to solve a problem of regression analysis. We investigate how participants’ multimodal interactivity with the changing affordance arrays of the learning situation is the driver and shaper of learning. Moreover, learning is an unfolding microgenetic construction process. Theories of microgenesis (e.g., Brown, Werner) are a fertile starting point for developing new understandings of human learning as an always embodied and culturally-saturated form of values-realizing interactivity.

Posttraumatic stress disorder among female victims of sexual assault in China: prevalence and psychosocial factors

Sexual assault is one of the most traumatic stressors one may experience in life. Although studies have investigated the prevalence of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and associated psychosocial factors on victims of sexual assault internationally, such studies in Mainland China are limited.