Home ownership has been recognized by many academic researchers as the preferable tenure compared with renting. As extolled by many policy decision makers, the benefits of home owning against renting received substantial benefits which has tangible constructive profitable impacts such as capital appreciation and intangible benefits such as life contentment, social stability, security of tenure, raised self-esteem, sense of belongings, civic participation, improved physical health and better child outcomes. In fact, few studies havebeen conducted in a Chinese society whether these perceived benefits are also confessed by home owners or potential buyers. Given the strong empirical studies in Western countries, it gives particular interest to explore further and undertake research pertaining to social benefits of home ownership in Hong Kong to ascertain the benefits derived. In Hong Kong, home ownership was promoted by the government since the Long Term Housing Strategy in 1987. However, government had re-positioned its home ownership policy after the Asian Financial Crisisin 1997.Government clarified that the housing objectives would focus on provision of public rental housing to low income group and at the same time minimize its intervention in the private property market by maintaining adequate land supply to sustain an unprejudiced and steady operating atmosphere in the private property market. In fact, the housing policy was shifted from public-led to market-led approach. The Secretary for Housing, Planning and Lands released a Statement on Housing Policy with nine measures were introduced to stablilize the housing market including suspension of production and sale of HOS flats indefinitely and sale of government land can only be applied through the application list. As such, people’s aspiration for home ownership was destructed due to shortage of housing supply and the aggregate demand for home ownership had pushed up the housing price which falls outside most people’s affordability. This paper attempts to explore if social implications of home ownership would have impact on one’s willingness to become home owner by comparison between two target groups of respondents including home owner and renter. The result of the survey and individual interview indicate that home ownership not only brings individual benefits to home owners or potential buyers such as personal fulfillment, wealth accumulation and life satisfaction but also generates societal benefits of maintaining stability, supportive to government and strengthening sense of belonging to the society. It is worthwhile and justified for the Hong Kong Government to accord top priority to materialize people’s desire for home ownership of its spillover individual and social benefits. / published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

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This dissertation examines the role of television reform within twentieth century social movements in the United States. Typically, scholars have examined the relationship between activists and television through the lens of media representation: how the mass media have depicted and defined social movements, and how activists have negotiated with the media that publicize their goals. This dissertation, in contrast, examines the role of media reform within social movements themselves. By investigating the television reform campaigns of civil rights activists, feminists, conservatives, the progressive left, and educational groups, this dissertation reveals how American reform movements have responded to an increasingly mass-mediated culture and have tried to mold television to reflect their moral and political beliefs. This dissertation explores not only the myriad ways activists have approached television reform, but illustrates how these campaigns have responded to changes in the television industry, broadcasting policy, and American culture more broadly. This dissertation also charts the rhetorical strategies that the reformers have used to legitimate their stake in media policy and practices and to convince of the importance and power of the medium that they are trying to change. Television reform fights have been battles not only over television programming and policy, but over the meaning of television's role in American society. / text

The purpose of the study was to examine the influence of feedback regarding personal and group performance on children's views of (a) themselves (e.g., state selfesteem), (b) their ingroup and outgroup (e.g., trait stereotyping), and (c) novel tasks (e.g., task liking). In addition, moderating effects of age and individual difference variables (self-esteem, conformity orientation, and entity/incremental theory of personality) on the relation between self and group views were examined. Theorists have offered differing accounts of the causal mechanisms that underlie relations between views of the self and social groups. Self-verification theorists have argued that perceptions of the self drive individuals' views of, and attitudes toward, their groups. In contrast, self-categorization theorists argue that membership in groups causes individuals to perceive themselves in ways that are consistent with perceptions or stereotypes of the group. However, membership in many social groups (e.g., gender, racial, ethnic groups) is not freely chosen. What happens when individuals' views of themselves differ from their perceptions of their ingroups or the prevailing stereotypes about their ingroups? To address this question, children (N = 120, ages 7-12) attending a summer school program were randomly assigned a novel social group membership. As in other research (e.g., Bigler, Jones, & Lobliner, 1997), teachers used the groups to label children and organize the classroom. Over the course of several weeks, children completed three novel tasks and received feedback indicating that their performance was either excellent or mediocre and their ingroup's performance was either excellent or mediocre. Thus, there were four conditions: personal performance excellent, group performance excellent (positive verifying); personal performance excellent, group performance mediocre (overachieving); personal performance mediocre, group performance excellent (underachieving); and personal performance mediocre, group performance mediocre (negative verifying). Effects of condition on self-perceptions, views of the tasks, and intergroup attitudes were then assessed. Results indicated effects of personal and group feedback on children's task evaluations, ingroup identification, and intergroup attitudes. There was stronger evidence for main effects of feedback type than for interaction effects of feedback consistency versus inconsistency. Results are discussed in light of self-categorization, selfverification, and optimal distinctiveness theories.

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