城市贫困人口心理和社会稳定

由于社会转型,产业结构的调整以及个人等方面原因产生了下岗职工、农村进城务工人员和贫困大学生等大量的城市贫困人口。笔者从城市贫困者的个人社会等级评定、对贫富分化现状的态度以及分化程度的容忍度上分析城市贫困者心理差异对社会稳定的影响。     

The After-School Needs and Resources of a Low-Income Urban Community: Surveying Youth and Parents for Community Change

Using a collaborative research approach, this project describes a partnership between community residents and university researchers to develop a comprehensive survey of the after-school needs of a low-income urban community in a large Midwestern city. Surveying parents and children was considered particularly important because the current literature on after-school does not include much input from them, the key stakeholders in programming. By surveying pre- and young adolescent youth (N = 416) and parents (N = 225) in the community, information was gathered to document the need for after-school programming, tap program preferences, and uncover barriers to participation and enrollment. Survey findings revealed significant differences between youth and parent perspectives. Disagreements between youth and parent survey responses suggest that after-school programs in the community should offer a balance of academic, recreational, and social activities, as well as a tutoring or homework component. Further, in order to increase participation and attendance rates, community after-school programs need to address the following barriers to participation: safety, transportation, family responsibilities (e.g., care for siblings, household chores), and access to information about available programs. These findings guided the planning of future after-school programs. The survey results and comparisons between youth and parent data will be presented.     

The changing influences on commuting mode choice in urban England under Peak Car: A discrete choice modelling approach

The phenomenon of Peak Car has been defined over the past eight years as a plateau or fall in the level of car use in urban areas. Although Peak Car research to date has relied on population-level data, such macro-level trends can be disaggregated into many individual travel decisions. This research uses English survey data collected by the Department for Transport (DfT) in 2009 to test a range of variables influencing choice of commuting mode in residents of urban England. The variables tested are subdivided into spatial, demographic, level of service, and attitudinal. Multinomial logistic regression is used to test these variables individually and then in combination, producing a multivariate discrete choice model of commuting mode choice. The choice between commuting modes is fourfold: car, bus, train, and active modes. The results suggest that the relationship between income and car use is changing, as higher incomes are found to be associated with increased odds of choosing to commute by train or active modes rather than the car when other factors are controlled for. Attitudes to buses and active modes are also found to be influential.     

The im-materiality of urban religion: towards an ethnography of urban religious aspirations

In recent years, scholars from a wide variety of disciplines have engaged in the study of urban religion. Taken together, these studies form a paradigm that intertwines (1) the politics of belonging, (2) regimes of space and territoriality, (3) materiality and sensorial power and (4) visibility. We argue that while scholars have conceptualised these aspects in very nuanced ways, there is a need to address in a more rigorous way immaterial dimensions of urban religion. We encapsulate these immaterial dimensions in the notion of ‘urban religious aspirations’, meaning the multiple ideational sources that underpin people’s religious investments in urban life. We illustrate the relevance of studying aspirations with an ethnographic example of two Hong Kong Christian women and their involvement in the Umbrella Movement. Exploring their narratives demonstrates the need to take immaterial aspects of religious life into account when researching urban religion, especially in contexts where the distinction between the religious and the secular is less clearly defined.     

Driver behaviour and traffic accident involvement among professional urban bus drivers in China

The present research aimed to investigate specific behaviors of professional urban bus drivers in China with the revised Driver Behavior Questionnaire (DBQ), and to define the relationships among various driving behaviors (errors, positives, inattention errors, violations), background information (age, years of driving experience, mobility, etc.), self-assessment, and traffic accident. To achieve such goals, the present research designed a four-dimensional DBQ with 20 items for professional urban bus drivers in China. The KMO coefficient of the whole scale was 0.835, and Bartlett’s test was statistically significant (p < 0.000), which demonstrated strong validity of the scale and should be suitable for factor analysis. The four loading factors accounted for 58.991%. In addition, the reliability and effectiveness of the present 20-item scales were measured. The coefficient of internal consistency-Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was 0.881 and the Cronbach’s Alpha Based on Standardized Items was 0.911. This showed that driving behavior scale of professional bus drivers in China was of high reliability and validity. The analysis showed that among the four factors, positive driving behaviors were significantly associated with errors, inattention errors and violations, respectively. Errors, inattention errors and violations correlated positively with each other. This verified that the correlation coefficient of each factor was medium and high, which indicated that the scale had good difference validity. The test content of the total scale was also highly consistent with the test content of each factor, which indicated that the revised scale had good standard related validity. According to the accident prediction model, the variables that significantly affected the occurrence of traffic accidents were daily driving time, positive driving behavior, SE2 (Driving safety), SE3 (Aberrant driver behaviors). The results showed that professional bus drivers often working overtime were most likely to have accidents. The probability of traffic accidents decreased by 53% for every unit of positive driving behavior frequency of professional bus drivers. The more they felt that they had the tendency of aberrant driving behavior, the more likely they were to have traffic accidents. To summary, the present research contributed to validating and improving the DBQ for professional urban drivers in China.     

Public perception of autonomous vehicles: A qualitative study based on interviews after riding an autonomous shuttle

Autonomous vehicles (AVs) can potentially compensate for human error whilst driving. Thus, the number of accidents and the amount of congestion, emissions and fuel consumption could be reduced. For such reduction to occur, insights into public acceptance of AVs must be considered because they are a crucial factor for the successful implementation of AVs in existing traffic systems.PurposeThis study aims to explore (1) the mobility behaviour of current passengers, (2) the perception of the public of how AVs can be applied, (3) the perceived challenges of AVs in terms of integration into existing traffic systems, (4) the general attitude of the public towards AVs and (5) the perceived safety of passengers after riding an autonomous shuttle with a maximum SAE level of 3 in the setting of mixed traffic.MethodThis qualitative study was conducted in Carinthia (Austria) in September 2018. Interviews were conducted with 19 participants aged between 20 and 75 years. The participants were recruited through purposeful sampling, and data were collected through in-depth, semistructured interviews which were recorded, transcribed, organised and analysed using systematic, qualitative content analysis.ResultsResults show that transport mobility plays an important role in social life. In rural areas, AVs can shift transportation modes from private cars to public transportation. The respondents perceive AVs as an alternative more than as a substitute for existing means of transportation. With the integration of AVs into existing traffic systems, the transportation of goods and people could be improved despite related uncertainties. This study explores different aspects of societal, technical, legal and economic challenges. Overall, the respondents feel positive about AVs. Responses regarding safety show that experience with AVs and speed are key factors.Originality/ValueThis study is one of the first to explain qualitatively public perceptions of AVs after an actual ride in an AV under real-life conditions. The results, which help understand AVs from the public’s perspective, may also provide guidelines for the successful integration of AVs in Austria.     

The urban environment and child pedestrian and bicycle injuries: Interaction of ecological and personality characteristics

It is argued that the study of injuries to child pedestrians and cyclists in urban contexts must involve the study of complex elements interacting within a total environment. This complexity, and the need for further research, is illustrated from a study of 400 child victims in an urban, ecological study, and of 67 individually studied child victims and controls. It is argued that the individual vulnerability of some children puts them at high risk when they live in certain types of urban neighbourhoods.     

Religion and social action in a city of posts

This article explores the ramifications of religious engagement in social action initiatives in ethnically and religiously plural urban environments in the UK. In particular, it explores this engagement through a series of inter-related analytical frames, which explain the trajectory and political significance of religiously inflected social action in different ways, before examining specific initiatives in localised context. Behind this approach is the recognition of the need to situate religion in complex contexts, resisting its cross-cultural and trans-historical claims, and of the ways in which religion is deployed as a specific mode of both domination and resistance. The author argues that the pluralism of the contemporary city has critical implications for understanding contemporary religion and social action, both in terms of the range of organisations involved and in terms of the negotiation of difference which is an everyday facet of multicultural urban living. The spaces of engagement opened up by these contemporary contexts allow for the development of new ways of conceptualising religion and new potentialities for the role of religion in the developing politics of living in the city.     

The Tablighi Jama‘at in Southwestern Ontario: making Muslim identities and networks in Canadian urban spaces

This ethnographic paper builds on previous research on the Tablighi Jama‘at by delving deeper into the ways in which the movement creates identity and community among Muslims living in modern/post-modern urban spaces. The paper is grounded in the theoretical framework provided by Robert Orsi in his introduction to Gods of the City (1999). In his lengthy introduction, Orsi describes contemporary urban cultural theory. This theory posits metropolitan regions as comprising “complex networks of “pathways” that city people travel in” (51). Along these “pathways” city dwellers create networks of association that in turn become ways of life and communities. Orsi notes that, “urban religious idioms have responded to the spatial dilemmas created by the circumstances of diaspora and dislocation” (51). These urban religious idioms often involve intra-communal outreach that seeks to inculcate community members with a cognitive “map” of the surrounding urban spaces, marking off both desirable and forbidden places. I argue that this is precisely what the Tablighi Jama‘at seeks to engender in urban spaces such as Southwestern Ontario, and this study is undertaken to better understand this process of identity construction and community creation.