Current Progress in Arts and Social Studies Research Vol. 3

The Chinese authorities took a major step by developing a new law ‘to standardise and guide the activities of overseas non-governmental organisations’ in line with the objective of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) ‘to comprehensively promote the rule of law and to build a socialist country under the rule of law’. The Law of the People’s Republic of China on Administration of Activities of Overseas Non-governmental Organisations in the Mainland of China (Overseas NGO Law), adopted at the 20th Meeting of the 12th Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress on 28 April 2016, came into force on 1 January 2017. The Chinese authorities explained that this new law is a major step “to standardise and guide the activities of overseas non-governmental organisations” in line with the objective of the Chinese Communist Party “to comprehensively promote the rule of law and to build a socialist country under the rule of law”. However, foreign NGOs in China have reacted to the new law with grave concern and anxiety. This article provides an analysis of the main features of the Law and assesses its intention, impact and consequences. The new law has serious consequences for foreign NGOs in China. Six months after the new law took effect, only 82 foreign NGOs had completed the registration as required by the new law, accounting for about 1% of the 7000 foreign NGOs believed to be operating in mainland China. Overseas NGOs as well as domestic NGOs in China need new laws for protection rather than regulations for further restriction and punishment. It is unfortunate that the Overseas NGOs Law, which places the registration and supervision of overseas NGOs and their activities in China directly under the Ministry of Public Security instead of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, is a mechanism of state control rather than protection and facilitation for foreign NGOs.

Background and Objective: Recently, the co-parenting system, which involves the father, mother, and child as a unique subsystem within the family system, has garnered significant attention. With the social changes, a growing number of women have joined the workforce, leading to a shift in the traditional roles of child-rearing. There has been a growing focus on the significance of fathers’ roles in child development, particularly the influence of fathers on children's problematic behaviors, making it an increasingly prominent issue. However, there is limited understanding regarding the potential mechanisms through which fathers may exert influence on children’s problem behaviors. To address this gap, this study sought to investigate the link between paternal co-parenting and preschool children’s problem behaviors, and the mediating effects of maternal parenting burnout and psychological aggression.

Methods: This is a cross-sectional study and data were collected using the convenience sampling method. This study used the Personal Information Form and four scales to administer questionnaires to 1164 mothers of preschool children (M_age = 4.26 ± 0.85) in Guangdong Province, China. The collected data underwent processing and analysis using SPSS 22.0.

Results: All data in this study were obtained through self-reported questionnaires, potentially leading to common method biases influencing the results. The result revealed that paternal co-parenting has a significant influence on the problem behaviors among preschool children. The contribution of paternal co-parenting on children’s problem behaviors was mediated by maternal parenting burnout, maternal psychological aggression, and the combined effect of maternal parenting burnout and psychological aggression.

Conclusion: Maternal parenting burnout and maternal psychological aggression play a sequential mediating role between paternal co-parenting and problem behaviors among preschool children. This study revealed the internal mechanism through which paternal co-parenting influenced problem behaviors exhibited by children. It provides some evidence to support the important role of fathers in child development and provides a reference for policymakers and educators to develop interventions for children’s problem behaviors. For a more comprehensive description of the effects of family factors on children’s problem behaviors, future studies can include other family factors for analysis, such as parental psychological control, physical aggression, and other factors.

The book chapter explores mineral resource development strategies for community empowerment, poverty reduction and infrastructure development in Zimbabwe's mining areas. Using descriptive survey data, the authors present a proposal on how the Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Act can be used as a vehicle for mineral resource development. Despite abundant mineral resources, the majority of Zimbabwean indigenous communities living close to the mines have limited access to directly or indirectly benefit from the mineral resources. The chapter argues that pro-poor mining policies that ensure the harnessing of mineral resources for community empowerment, poverty reduction and infrastructure development are paramount. The chapter further argues that the Indigenous and Economic Empowerment Act needs to be harmonised with other sector legislation in the country. The book chapter concludes that the development of infrastructure and provision of public utilities such as electricity, and water, establishing micro-credit to small and medium enterprises and implementing broad-based indigenisation policies are some of the strategies for improving rural livelihoods. Similarly, direct and indirect linkages between the mining sector and the local economy could be enhanced through the provision of food supply to the mine, manufacture of mining inputs, provision of security services and supply of labour by the local community. The harnessing of mineral resources in any country has been a contested terrain. Of late in Zimbabwe, the government has embarked on a massive indigenisation drive that has seen large-scale mines compelled by law to seed at least 10% of their mineral revenue to CSOTS. The authors recommend the harmonisation of legislation that affects harnessing of mineral resources by local communities will ensure community empowerment, poverty reduction and infrastructure development in mining districts in southern Zimbabwe.

The present study is an analysis of teacher aspirants’ perception of the extent of social and emotional competencies possessed by them and to identify the challenges and concerns in practicing social-emotional skills. Teacher has a significant role in the educational system of a nation. Imparting and maintaining the standards of education is decided through the quality of teachers. Teachers are social engineers who modify, refine and redefine the society for social reconstruction. Teacher competencies in curriculum transaction are a major factor in student achievement. The affective outcomes of learning are regulated through teacher interventions and interactions in the classroom. Aspiring teachers receive a variety of training methods in college and school-based practicals, but in order to teach effectively, their social and emotional abilities must be developed. Education must guarantee the social and emotional growth of the learner. The study reveals that though the teacher candidates possess a satisfactory level of understanding related to social and emotional competencies they fail in applying those skills in classroom contexts due to various personal and social barriers. The teacher education curriculum needs to be revamped with more tools and strategies that equip prospective teachers to excel with social and emotional competencies. More powerful interventions are required to enable them to acquire the skills and develop the social and emotional learning skills of school students.

Transnational orientation is extremely essential, particularly in how people perceive the transnational world and the social distance between countries and regions. The term "transnational" can also refer to social networks that exist between communities and countries. This research examines the connection of the two countries' relationship, which is constrained by sea crossings, to see if there is a transnational understanding between them. This study proposes to conduct a transnational inventory between the two countries of Indonesia and Singapore, namely between Singapore and Batam, using quantitative and qualitative approaches as a multidisciplinary study. Furthermore, the two countries with a transnational background share border closeness.

The gender gap is significantly greater in Japan than in any other advanced OECD countries. A country’s competitiveness depends on its human talent—the skills, education and productivity of its workforce. This research is unique because it presents empirical evidence testing whether increasing gender diversity is associated with improved firm performance for Japanese listed companies, which have different cultural backgrounds from Western companies, after controlling for size and firm age. A number of researchers have proposed various mechanisms that would imply a positive relationship between workforce diversity and firm performance. As Worthley et al. [1] point out, the growing importance of the Japanese female workforce under global competition requires a better understanding of gender-related issues in organizational management which is undergoing a transformation from their rooted traditional managerial habits, such as seniority-based promotion, lifetime employment, paternalism, or prioritizing corporate harmony, which favor men. We find statistically significant positive relationships between managerial gender diversity and one measure of firm performance, Tobin’s q, without a long time lag required for it to be realized. We find, similarly to Siegel and Kodama [2], that manufacturing firms benefit significantly and sensitively to a greater extent from increasing managerial gender diversity as compared to those in the service industries, and moreover the curvature of this relationship is significantly greater for manufacturers. Furthermore, firms that demand fewer hours of overtime from their employees also experience this performance boost with increases in management gender diversity, with the same concave shape, and the more OT is reduced the more pronounced the effect. Having established a committee for diversity promotion by 2006 did not show any impact on firm performance per se, even by 2012, but it did magnify the effect of gender diversity on Tobin’s q, providing support for Pless and Maak’s [3] conjecture that a culture of inclusiveness is required for the benefits accruing from gender diversity to truly be realized. Finally, it is concluded that gender diversity could revitalize Japanese firms by providing an immediately accessible but underutilized source of competitive advantage.

Aims:  To analyze the linguistic features of Oicha toponym with the prefix “ma”. In addition, the study aims to awaken the conscience of the younger generation toward discovering the cultural richness found in the Oicha toponyms that can rebuild the roots of their cultural values. 

Study Design: This study is corpus-driven research based on a qualitative approach; it was carried out in the Department of Education from 2017 to 2023.

Methodology: The present study is more inductive and it adopted ethnographic interviews in order to learn about the semantics of the toponyms with the prefix “ma”. It focuses, therefore, on three elements: explicit purpose, ethnographic explanation, and ethnographic questions. The first element of explicit purpose helped in the interview process for sharing the reason behind this research with informants, which is to unveil the linguistic background of some Oicha toponyms that are made up of the prefix “ma” and what “ma” stands for. With the second element of ethnographic explanation, I shared the goal of the study and the third and last element of ethnographic questions helped to examine the reason why the elders decided to name the different villages so and so, moreover, to discover why some toponyms are undergoing some changes.

Results: This study discusses the morphological and semantic analysis of Oicha toponyms with the prefix “ma”. The morphological analysis has revealed that the Oicha toponyms with the prefix “ma” are found under the simple form with the structure ma+ substantive theme. The semantics of Oicha toponyms with the prefix “ma” relate to ecology, environment, and tradition. It also brings back the souvenir of people who first lived in the area. The names, in addition, were given to areas in memory of circumstances, experiences, and events that could occur to the inhabitants of that area.

Conclusion: From this study, we learn that the Oicha toponyms with the prefix “ma” were not taken by chance, but rather they conveyed a structured message related to ecology and environment in order to pass the message from one generation to another and perpetuate their passage and souvenirs. These toponyms reflect culture, heritage, source of knowledge, and conservation of people’s memories. They represent the Oicha historical background and provide information about natural and cultural conditions.

The article examines the impact of witchcraft accusations on women's empowerment in rural areas of Sierra Leone, with Makeni Township being a case study. Witchcraft accusations, once a shared burden for both men and women, have increasingly targeted women and children in recent times. This alarming trend calls for a deeper understanding and heightened concern.

The study employs a survey method, which includes the administration of questionnaires, focus group discussions, formal interviews, and reviewing related literature. Witches are known to hold meetings at night, and in these meetings, they wear nothing except masks, sit around corpses, and sometimes have intercourse with dead women. Results indicate that older women are more prone to witchcraft accusations, and men who are often witch hunters mostly make these accusations. The paper also shows that older women are targeted mainly because of traditional or cultural conceptualizations, which direct witchcraft accusations to women only because that is how it is, poverty, and terminal illnesses. This study also shows that Witchcraft has a less positive impact on women and affects their chances of being empowered. Women who are accused of practicing witchcraft endure a great deal of cruel treatment, which includes social marginalization, public mockery, public shaming, and condemnation, and occasionally even death. It is noteworthy that charges of witchcraft are both a cause and an effect of the lack of economic empowerment for women in this region of the world, as the paper concludes that women's accusations of witchcraft practices are closely associated with their low socioeconomic standing. This underscores the urgent need for gender equality and eliminating such harmful practices. The paper proposes several solutions to address this issue, including community education and awareness campaigns, legal reforms to protect the rights of accused women, and economic empowerment programs for women in rural areas.

Background: Campus bullying has become a common social problem and has attracted widespread attention from the Chinese government and various sectors of society in the past decade, but it has not been effectively resolved. The reason behind this is that people (including the general public and academia) have a vague understanding of campus bullying and there are many misunderstandings.

Objective: To explore the incidence, characteristics, causes, and risk factors from macro, meso, and micro levels, in order to provide reference opinions for preventing and intervening in campus bullying.

Methods: This article searched for relevant literature at home and abroad under the themes of "Middle School Students" AND "Campus Bullying", "Primary School Students" AND "Campus Bullying", selected 70 papers for analysis, presented the incidence and trend of campus bullying, elaborated on the concept, characteristics, hazards, and difficulties in handling campus bullying.

Results: The results of this article indicate the following 4 points. First, the incidence rates of Campus Bullying in Primary and Secondary Schools in various regions range from 20.45% to 35.3%, with bullying rates ranging from 8.9% to 45.1% and being bullied rates ranging from 10.7% to 43.4%. Second, the Characteristics of campus bullying in primary and secondary schools are as follows: (1) intentionally done, with significant contrast in strength and weakness; (2) aggressive and highly harmful; (3) concealed places; (4) repeated occurrence and difficulty in obtaining evidence. Third, campus bullying poses a serious threat to the physical and mental health of both the bullies and the victims, especially causing immediate and far-reaching psychological impacts on both parties. Finally, there are many difficulties in the governance of campus bullying, as the influencing factors of campus bullying are extremely complex, including demographics, psychological and behavioral characteristics, lack of family education and insufficient emotional support, mainstream peer alienation, and support from deviant peers, inadequate school supervision and lack of disciplinary power for teachers, and Lack of legal system and lack of disciplinary basis.

Conclusion: Campus bullying is a pervasive problem affecting the physical and mental health of students, school management, and societal stability.

This study analyses the factors that influence healthcare delivery among rural women in Cross River State, Nigeria, focusing on factors such as cultural norms and practices, and socioeconomic status. Rural women often face unique challenges in accessing and utilizing healthcare services, including limited access to healthcare resources, geographic isolation, and cultural and social barriers. To better understand the factors that influence healthcare delivery among rural women in Cross River State, Nigeria, this theoretical literature draws on social determinants that affect our choices of healthcare types and roots our understanding of these choices, using the social exchange theories. The significance of social and economic determinants of health, such as housing, education, and money, in influencing health outcomes is highlighted by social determinants of health. Conversely, social exchange theory highlights how social interactions and interpersonal relationships influence behavior and decision-making. Using these frameworks, we argue that healthcare utilization among rural women in Cross River State is influenced by a complex interplay of factors, including cultural beliefs about health and healthcare, socioeconomic status, gender roles, and access to healthcare resources. Our discussion, however, highlights the importance of social support networks and trust in healthcare providers in facilitating healthcare utilization among rural women. These factors can help mitigate the negative effects of geographic isolation and limited healthcare resources. Access to transportation is also critical in overcoming geographic barriers to healthcare utilization. Finally, we identify gender roles and cultural beliefs around healthcare as key barriers to access and utilization. To address these barriers and improve healthcare delivery for rural women, interventions may include community-based outreach programs, education on cultural competency for healthcare providers, and policies to address transportation barriers and other social determinants of health. By highlighting the significance of addressing social determinants of health and enhancing healthcare infrastructure to improve health outcomes for rural women, this paper adds to our understanding of the factors influencing healthcare delivery in rural areas. However, this report has consequences for researchers, social workers, politicians, and healthcare professionals who are trying to create interventions and policies that will effectively address healthcare disparities in rural regions.