The lack of a proper building care culture has led to serious problems of urban decay in most developed cities, threatening community health and safety. To arrest urban decay, redevelopment is a ...commonly adopted approach for regenerating rundown areas. Redevelopment often results in negative outcomes such as disturbances to existing social networks and burgeoning construction and demolition waste. On the other hand, building rehabilitation is a more socially and environmentally friendly alternative to redevelopment, but its success depends much on residents’ active participation. With a view towards a sustainable strategy for urban renewal, it is necessary to balance the interests of different stakeholders regarding the choice between these two mainstream approaches to renewal. Although economic and physical issues are important decision making considerations, this study explores the aspirations and preferences of local residents in relation to the two options through a structured survey. The findings are conducive to the development of a balanced and socially sustainable strategy of urban renewal.
Most East Asian countries have policies to promote digital inclusion, especially among the children of low-income families and persons with disabilities, for the purposes of social development. ...However, such efforts and their impact among older people have been rather limited. In Hong Kong, only 7 % of those aged 65 or above were Internet users in 2008, compared with 66.7 % of the general public. Providing computer and Internet training programmes to older people is thus crucial in promoting digital inclusion. This paper discusses the experience and results of training older people to use both a computer and the Internet. Based on findings from an earlier qualitative study, we hypothesise that acquiring knowledge of computers and Internet use will have an empowering effect for older people in terms of increasing self-efficacy and enhancing communication with friends and family members. This paper presents two studies of such empowerment among older people in two non-governmental organisations (NGOs). While older people with little computer knowledge showed some effects of empowerment, at the same time, they also became more aware of the marginalisation and exclusion effects of their limited knowledge of computer and Internet usage. However, among users with some prior experience of using a computer, further training failed to show additional positive empowerment results. The results of the two studies call for a re-examination of the training process and experience of older people as well as integration of such training with other strategies to achieve better results in promoting their social inclusion in the information society.
Pomanjkanje prave kulture skrbi za stavbe je v večini razvitih mest pripeljalo do resnih težav zaradi propadanja mestnih predelov, in to ogroža zdravje in varnost mestnih skupnosti. Sanacija je ...pristop, s katerim navadno ustavimo propadanje in obnovimo propadajoča območja. Pogosto pa ima tudi negativne posledice; zmoti lahko delovanje obstoječih socialnih mrež in pretirano poveča količino odpadkov, ki nastanejo pri gradnji in rušenju zgradb. Po drugi strani je obnova stavb socialno in okolju prijaznejša izbira v primerjavi s prenovo, vendar je njen uspeh kar najbolj odvisen od sodelovanja stanovalcev. Če želimo doseči trajnostno strategijo urbane prenove, moramo najti ravnotežje med interesi različnih déležnikov za enega od obeh glavnih pristopov k prenovi. Čeprav je pomembno, da pri sprejemanju odločitev upoštevamo ekonomska in fizična vprašanja, se v tej raziskavi s strukturirano anketo preučujejo želje in preference lokalnih prebivalcev glede teh dveh možnosti. Ugotovitve prispevajo k razvoju uravnotežene in socialno trajnostne strategije urbane prenove.
The cost of caring for an aging population is a growing concern in many societies. Although information and communication technologies (ICTs) like computers and the Internet are seen as new tools ...which offer some potential to help, unfortunately older adults are generally the age group with the lowest level of skill and utilization of these technologies. Although nongovernmental organizations have attempted to address this digital gap, limited staff resources are a concern. One approach for generating additional staff to provide more technology training to older adults is a "peer-tutor" model. This study examined the perspectives of 101 technology peer tutors for older adults in a nonprofit program in Hong Kong. Topics included preparation and training, perceived benefits and challenges, side effects on their lives, the perceived value of their work as tutors, and suggestions for personal and program improvement. The influence of demographic factors was examined. Results show which tutors felt prepared for their roles, perceived considerably more benefits than challenges, saw value in their tutor work, and overwhelming plan to continue as volunteer tutors in this program. There were few differences linked with demographic variables. Implications for practice and for future research are considered.
Tackling the Digital Divide Wong, Yu Cheung; Fung, John Yat Chu; Law, Chi Kwong ...
The British journal of social work,
06/2009, Letnik:
39, Številka:
4
Journal Article
Recenzirano
The emergence of an information society has created new social exclusions and aggravated old ones by creating digital exclusion. Many countries have explicit policies about turning themselves into ...the leaders of such transformations or about catching up with the changes made in other countries. Nevertheless, little is known about their efforts to bridge the gap between the digital 'haves' and the digital 'have-nots'. Governments in East Asia are good examples of those who work on improving their society's digital capabilities. They top most of the related international comparison tables. It is, however, not clear what they have done to bridge the new digital exclusion gap or what the effects of such efforts have been. This paper reviews the digital inclusion strategies put in place by several East Asian countries and discusses a framework for tackling the digital divide, and examines pertinent policies, using Hong Kong as an example. This paper argues that while improvement in information communication technology (ICT) accessibility and knowledge is important, the promotion of community-based ICT user networks for certain disadvantaged groups is crucial to enhance their participation in the information society.
Parenthood and life satisfaction Lee, Mo-Yee; Law, Chi-Kwong; Tam, Kwok-Kwan
International social work,
04/1999, Letnik:
42, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
This article examines the relationship between parenthood and life satisfaction in a Chinese population according to a strain perspective. Chinese single parents in Hong Kong were found to have lower ...life satisfaction, less time to fulfill child-care tasks, lower income, and perceived child care as more difficult than those in dual-parent families. Findings of the path analysis further indicated a direct relationship between single parenthood and lower life satisfaction, after controlling for time sufficiency of child-care responsibilities and perceived difficulties in child care.
This article presents a study that measures the degree of digital exclusion-or, conversely, the degree of digital inclusion-in Hong Kong, a developed city in East Asia. Governments in the region are ...among the most active in the developed world in pushing ahead in developing knowledge economies and information societies. The major concern is to improve/maintain their competitiveness in the new knowledge economy created by the process of globalization and the advancement in information technology. Many countries in the region have established themselves in the top ranks of a number of indexes and measurements comparing digital readiness, digital access, information and communication technology penetration, and others. However, not all the citizens in the region share the benefits and promises of the information society. People who are traditionally disadvantaged, such as the elderly and those on a low income, are further excluded from the information society. Such exclusion affects other social groups as well. This study creates a new digital inclusion index to measures the degree of inclusion of various disadvantaged groups in an information society. Data regarding seven disadvantaged groups were collected through a household survey (N = 2,312). The index captures information about access, knowledge, usage, and affordability ininformation and communication technology of the disadvantaged in comparison with mainstream society (N = 284).
The computer and Internet technologies have fundamentally changed the way the economy develops and the way people live in various countries. Asian countries have been performing very well in adopting ...these new technologies and developing themselves into information societies. However, at the same time, we are also witnessing a growing gap, a new form of divide, gradually separating those who can derive many benefits from the information society and those who are not able to. Such a divide, referred to as the digital divide, manifests itself at international, national (across regions) as well as societal levels. At the societal level, digital divide has grave implications for social development because it limits social mobility, creates barriers to employment and aggravates social exclusion for the low income, older people and other disadvantaged groups. The first step to tackle digital divide is to have a comprehensive measurement of the state of divide. This article discusses the issue of digital divide and the implication for social development, as well as describes the attempts made by South Korea and Hong Kong in measuring the digital divide within their society. It also discusses how the information obtained can inform policy decisions to address the divide and promote social development.
The increasing trend of single parenthood in Hong Kong is not parallel with increased understanding of its specific family processes and dynamics. Instead, most of the understanding is based on ...western experiences through their literatures and researches. This study was an attempt to understand the child care pattern of single parent families in Hong Kong through a citywise survey based on a representative sample. Findings in the study confirmed the hypotheses that single parents in Hong Kong had less time in engaging various child care and homemaking activities and perceived child care as more difficult in comparing to two-parent families. The findings were highly consistent with many other findings as based on North American samples. Cultural differences were explored as well as the implications for work policy and day care policy.
The history of social work evaluation & research studies in Hong Kong is reviewed. Service evaluation, both formative & summative, is conducted to justify if government subsidy should be provided, ...continued, or deployed. Evaluation as a means to monitor social service is limited to the assessment of input, output, & quality standards; outcome measures are quite rare. To develop social work knowledge, survey methodology has been quite heavily used; case studies & experiments are relatively less frequent. With the growing demand on accountability, we would expect growth in valuation studies focused on outcome. With the development of doctoral education & the increased demand in research publications among academics, we would expect rapid growth in research activities in general. 34 References. Adapted from the source document.
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