Sexual violence against women and children in Chinese societies

This article provides a comprehensive overview of the reported patterns of sexual violence against women and children in China. It reviews the prevalence of and risk factors for various types of sexual violence and discusses community knowledge and perceptions of these violent acts. It also critically examines three major problems of sexual violence research in China. First, the diversity of findings and study methods reported by surveys and criminal reports reflects the problems in obtaining accurate figures on the scope of the problem. Second, precautions must be taken in reading studies on Chinese culture-specific risk factors for domestic violence. Third, the study of culture-specific factors should not focus solely on cultural factors in a vacuum but rather, should examine traditional culture in the context of modern societies and consensus international standards of human rights. Recommendations for future research are also discussed. © 2009 Sage Publications.postprin

Learning Korean language in China: motivations and strategies of non-Koreans

The ethnographic research reported in this article documents how a group of non-Korean families, whose children are participating in a Korean bilingual school in Northeast China, construct their motivations and strategies of learning Korean language. The main motivation of expectancy of further education opportunities and success in future career and strategies mainly in establishing Korean sociocultural context for Korean language acquisition are described. The positive attitude of non-Korean families toward Korean language studies highlights the functional importance of Korean language as a means of acquiring a larger benefit from China's economic marketization, especially increasing business contacts with South Korea. With the challenges of Korean language studies, this article argues that the increasing significance of trilingualism or even multilingualism in China's reform period implies the necessity of relevant policy initiations for the increasing needs of language acquisition.postprin