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Funding sources

Countries. Alphabetical order

Canada

International Development Research Centre, Ottawa, Canada
http://web.idrc.ca/en/ev-1-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html
IDRC is a public corporation created by the Parliament of Canada to help developing countries use science and technology to find practical, long-term solutions to the social, economic, and environmental problems they face. IDRC funds research activities that are designed to provide direct benefits to developing countries and their citizens.

Germany
Alexander von Humboldt Foundation
http://www.humboldt-foundation.de/en/
The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (AvH) aims at strengthening regional and interdisciplinary networking between the scientists and scholars sponsored by the foundation, at supporting worldwide contacts and at introducing young scientists to the work of the Humboldt Foundation and to research in Germany. The program each year enables 500 young highly qualified scholars resident outside Germany who hold doctorates to carry out research projects of their own choice in Germany (age limit: 40 years).
Submission Deadline: Anytime

German Academic Exchange Service
http://www.daad.de/en/index.html
Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst supports and promotes all areas relating to science, research, language, teaching and very much more. The 200 and more programmes range from short-term exchanges for research or teaching purposes through to doctoral scholarships lasting several years for graduates from developing countries, from information visits by delegations of foreign university vicechancellors through to the long-term regional programmes conceived to establish efficient higher education systems in the Third World.

Gottlieb Daimler- and Karl Benz-Foundation
http://www.daimler-benz-stiftung.de/home/fellowship/en/start.html
The purpose of Gottlieb Daimler- and Karl Benz-Foundation is to promote science and research focussed on the interrelationship between humanity, environment and technology, and particularly to support interdisciplinary approaches to these issues.

Heinrich Böll Foundation
http://www.boell.de/asp/frameset_en.html
The Heinrich Böll Foundation, is a legally autonomous and intellectually open political foundation. Its foremost task is political education in Germany and abroad with the aim of promoting informed democratic opinion, socio-political commitment and mutual understanding.

Rosa Luxemburg Foundation
http://www.rosalux.de/engl/home.htm
The Rosa-Luxemburg Foundation is particularly active in adult and youth political educational in the Federal Republic of Germany and has developed into a nationwide institution in this field. The Foundation has, the possiblity to offer financial assistance to advanced students, post-graduates and scholars from other countries.

Volkswagen Foundation
http://www.volkswagenstiftung.de/english.html
The Volkswagen Foundation provides financial support for academic research in all fields in Germany as well as other countries. The main thrust is to stimulate new interdisciplinary developments, to help create highly qualified research capacities, and to establish novel path-breaking fields of research.
Submission Deadline: Anytime

Greece

Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation
Foreigners' Fellowship Programme
http://www.onassis.gr
Annual programme of research grants and educational scholarships which is addressed to non Greeks, full members of National Academies, University Professors of all levels (PhD holders), postdoctoral researchers, post-graduate students and PhD candidates.

Israel

Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities
http://www.academy.ac.il/
A major role of the Israel Academy is to promote and coordinate scholarly contacts between Israel and the international community, partly on the basis of international agreements for scientific cooperation, and partly by representing Israel in international scientific organizations. The Academy is the signatory to over thirty international agreements providing for reciprocal visits by Israeli and foreign scholars and joint scientific workshops.
Submission Deadline: Anytime
Israel Science Foundation
http://www.isf.org.il
The Israel Science Foundation (ISF) is Israel's major research funding organization. Set up by the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, the ISF supports academic research in all fields.
Japan

Asahi Glass Foundation
http://www.af-info.or.jp/eng/subsidy/grant.html
The Asahi Glass Foundation supports research in leading-edge scientific and technological fields and recognizes individual and organizational efforts to solve issues of concern to people around the world. Human and social sciences research assistance is awarded for projects that endeavour to find solutions to serious problems that have arisen as a result of rapid social change.

Canon Foundation in Europe
http://www.canonfoundation.org/pages/main.htm
The Canon Foundation in Europe is a philanthropic, grant-making institution, active in the promotion of international cultural and scientific relations between Europe and Japan. Annually, it grants up to 15 fellowships to young, highly qualified, Master's or Doctor's degree European and Japanese researchers, not older than 40 years. The fellowships are awarded regardless of disciplines and existing employment positions.

Toshiba International Foundation
http://www.toshiba.co.jp/about/tifo/english/doc05/index.htm
The Foundation strives to contribute to the development of international understanding by promoting exchange activities, including the organization and sponsorship of symposia and seminars that further worldwide understanding of Japan. The Foundation also participates in programs designed to support development of international communities.

Toyota Foundation
http://www.toyotafound.or.jp/e_guide/eken.htm
The Toyota Foundation is a grant-making organization dedicated to the goals of realizing greater human fulfilment and contributing to the development of a human-oriented society. In general grants are awarded to individuals or to individuals on behalf of a group, and not to organizations. Activities supported may include individual or group research projects, conferences or public seminars, publications, or other modalities.

Nehterlands

International Institute for Asian Studies
http://www.iias.nl/iias/fellowships.html
The International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS) is a postdoctoral research centre. Its main objective is to encourage the study of Asia and to promote national and international cooperation in this field. The institute focuses on the humanities and the social sciences and, where relevant, on their interaction with other sciences.

The Netherlands Fellowship Programmes (NFP)
http://www.nuffic.nl/nfp/
The Netherlands Fellowship Programmes (NFP) are demand-oriented fellowship programmes designed to foster institutional development. The overall aim of the NFP is to help alleviate qualitative and quantitative shortages of skilled manpower and to do so within the framework of sustainable capacity-building directed towards reducing poverty in developing countries.
Available to nationals of 57 selected countries.
The NFP offers fellowships for master's degree programmes, for PhD studies, for short courses, tailor-made training, refresher courses.

Portugal

Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia
http://www.fct.mces.pt/
Financial support for post-doctoral fellowships in Portugal is available to all citizens of the European Union.
Spain

Fundación Caja Madrid
http://www.fundacioncajamadrid.org/Fundacion/fun_inicio
La Fundación Caja Madrid mantiene un amplio Programa de Becas, para licenciados y titulados superiores en España, destinadas a la ampliación de estudios de postgrado en el extranjero en economía, sociología, ciencias políticas, derecho político y constitucional.

Fundación Carolina
http://www.fundacioncarolina.es/
La Fundación Carolina, con sede en la Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional, ofrece un programa de becas dirigidas a jóvenes titulados superiores, profesionales e investigadores de los países que integran la Comunidad Iberoamericana de Naciones.

Jaume Bofill Foundation
http://www.fbofill.org/
The Jaume Bofill Foundation is concerned with promoting initiatives conducive to achieving a better understanding of society in Catalonia (Spain). Supports research projects in social sciences falling within its general program.

Fundación La Caixa
http://www.estudis.lacaixa.comunicacions.com/webes/estudis.nsf/wurl/bqbshomecos_esp
It offers post-graduate scholarships for young Spanish graduate students in universities and research centres in Europe and USA.

Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores
http://www.becasmae.es/
El Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores y de Cooperación de España y la Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional, ofrecen becas para extranjeros para estudios de postgrado en universidades y centros superiores públicos y privados en España.

Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia
http://wwwn.mec.es/univ/
1- Programa de becas postdoctorales en España y extranjero, para la realización de trabajos de investigación.
2- Becas predoctorales y postdoctorales en universidades y centros de investigación de Estados Unidos.

Switzerland

Swiss Foundation for Research in Social Sciences
http://www.fors.unil.ch
The Swiss Foundation for Research in Social Sciences FORS was created in accordance to the law on research of the Federal Government. Its purpose is to provide services, to conduct research and to publish and disseminate research findings in the social sciences. The Foundation's activities specifically comprise the following:
- preparing, documenting and providing data of all kinds, such as are needed to conduct studies in the social sciences;
- advising researchers and other interested parties on the collection and use of data;
- developing methods and procedures for collecting and analysing data;
- promoting the application of the findings obtained.

World Society Foundation
http://www.uzh.ch/wsf/
The World Society Foundation is designed to encourage and support research on world society-its structure, historical development, and current transformation. Research proposals eligible for grants should focus on the various processes of social integration within world-wide systems (world culture, world economy, world politics and intergovernmental systems). These processes and their consequences may be studied from different levels of analysis, focusing on units such as individuals, sub-national regions, nations, transnational social networks etc.

United Kingdom

Aga Khan Foundation
http://www.akdn.org/
The mission of the Aga Khan Foundation is to develop and promote creative solutions to problems that impede social development, primarily in Asia and East Africa. It provides a limited number of scholarships each year for postgraduate studies.

Economic and Social Research Council
http://www.esrc.ac.uk/index.asp
The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) is the UK's leading research funding and training agency addressing economic and social concerns. It aims to provide high quality research on issues of importance to business, the public sector and government. The issues considered include economic competitiveness, the effectiveness of public services and policy, and quality of life. The Small Grants Scheme is part of the ESRC e-Social Science Initiative. The scheme aims to encourage applications that are particularly novel or experimental, or based around the theme of social shaping or the socio?economic impact of e-science. See the ESRC website for details, guidance notes and an application form.

Leverhulme Trust
http://www.leverhulme.org.uk/grants_awards/
The Leverhulme Trust makes awards for the support of research and education. The Trust emphasises individuals and encompasses all subject areas; its financial support is organised into grants and awards which vary in size, purpose and application procedure.

Newton International Fellowship
http://www.newtonfellowships.org/
Are you at the beginning of your research career - with the potential to be world-class?
Is your research in the natural or social sciences, engineering or humanities?
Do you want to build and maintain links with leading researchers in the UK?
Then apply now for a Newton International Fellowship

USA

Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies
http://www.ushmm.org/research/center/fellowship/
The Center awards fellowships to support significant research and writing about the Holocaust. Awards are granted on a competitive basis. The Center welcomes proposals from scholars in all relevant disciplines including history, political science, literature, Jewish studies, philosophy, religion, psychology, comparative genocide studies, law and others.

Coca-Cola Foundation, Inc.
http://www2.coca-cola.com/citizenship/foundation_coke.html
Primary support for education including higher education, science and engineering. Funds organizations outside the US that promote higher education. Guidelines and application form are posted on the foundation's web site.

Earhart Foundation
The Fellowship Research Grants Program is open to individuals who have established themselves professionally and who are affiliated with educational or research institutions. Areas of interest include economics, the environment, social and economic policy. Individuals or organizations interested in this foundation should submit a letter requesting the application guidelines.
The Earhart Foundation, David Kennedy, President, 2200 Green Road, Suite H, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48105, USA

Ford Foundation
http://www.fordfound.org/
Asset Building and Community Management Program: Grant making aims to help low-income people and communities build the financial, human, social and natural resource assets they need to overcome poverty and injustice. Categories are Economic Development and Work-Force Development: Support given to organizations that help improve the ways low-income people develop marketable job skills and acquire and retain reliable employment that provides livable wages
Community & Resource Development Program: Environment and Development sub-program gives grants helping people and groups acquire, protect and improve land, water, forests, wildlife and other natural assets in ways that help reduce poverty and injustice.
Applications are considered throughout the year.

Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation
http://www.hfg.org/rg/guidelines.htm
The Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation places a priority on the study of urgent problems of violence and aggression in the modern world and also encourages related research projects in neuroscience, genetics, animal behaviour, the social sciences, history, criminology, and the humanities which illuminate modern human problems. In addition to the program of support for postdoctoral research, ten or more dissertation fellowships are awarded each year to individuals who will complete the writing of the dissertation within the award year

Horowitz Foundation for Social Policy
http://www.horowitz-foundation.org/
Research grants in the social sciences

Grantlink
http://www.grantlink.org/
GrantLink is a comprehensive source of information on grant support for social science and public policy researches. GrantLink covers all social science and public policy disciplines, including but not necessarily limited to, anthropology, business, economics, demography, geography, health sciences, history, international affairs, law, management and decision sciences, political science, psychology, public administration, public finance, sociology, and statistics.

J. Paul Getty Trust
http://www.getty.edu/grants/research/scholars/index.html
The Getty Research Institute is dedicated to advanced scholarship in the arts and humanities. It offers public programs and a residential program for international scholars and provides non residential grants to support scholars throughout the world

John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
http://www.gf.org/
The John Simon Guggenheim Foundation offers Fellowships to further the development of scholars and artists by assisting them to engage in research in any field of knowledge and creation in any of the arts, except the performing arts, under the freest possible conditions and irrespective of race, colour, or creed. Fellowships are not available for students. Fellowships are awarded through two annual competitions: one open to citizens and permanent residents of the United States and Canada, and the other open to citizens and permanent residents of Latin America and the Caribbean.

Lindbergh Foundation
http://www.lindberghfoundation.org
Yearly, the Lindbergh Foundation provides grants to men and women whose individual initiative and work in a wide spectrum of disciplines furthers the vision of a balance between the advance of technology and the preservation of the natural/human environment. Application guidelines and procedures are posted on the foundation's website.

National Endowment for Democracy
http://www.ned.org/
The National Endowment for Democracy is a private, nonprofit organization created to strengthen democratic institutions around the world through nongovernmental efforts. It makes hundreds of grants each year to support prodemocracy groups in Africa, Asia, Central and Eastern Europe, Eurasia, Latin America, and the Middle East.

RGK Foundation
http://www.rgkfoundation.org
The foundation commits funding worldwide to support medical research, educational research and community development. In these areas, the foundation supports programs and conferences that promote academic excellence in universities and colleges that raise literacy levels and that support the health and well being of children.

Russel Sage Foundation
http://www.russellsage.org/
The Russel Sage Foundation is the principal American Foundation devoted exclusively to research in the social sciences. Located in New York City, it is a research center, a funding source for studies by scholars at other academic and research institutions, and an active member of the nation's social science community. The foundation also publishes, under its own inprint, the books that derive from the work of its grantees and Visiting Scholars.

Social Science Research Council
http://www.ssrc.org
Founded in 1923, the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) is an independent non-profit organization with ongoing research projects on every continent, most of which are designed to encourage innovation and to help social scientists engage broader constituencies. Fellowship and dissertation funding opportunities available.

Spencer Foundation
http://www.spencer.org/programs/index.htm
The Foundation's research programs provide funding for investigations that promise to yield new knowledge about education in the United States or abroad. Research projects vary widely, ranging from medium-sized studies that can be completed within a year by an individual researcher to more extensive collaborative studies that last several years.

William T. Grant Foundation
http://wtgrantfoundation.org
The William T. Grant Foundation works to improve the lives of young people by investing in high quality research on how contexts such as family and programs affect youth, how these contexts can be improved, and how scientific evidence affects influential adults. Major grants are available for research encompassing: evaluations (of systems, policies, etc ), policy analysis, communication , capacity building
Submission Deadline: Anytime

Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
http://www.wilsoncenter.org/fellowships
The Center offers residential Fellowships in the Social Sciences and Humanities for the entire U.S. academic year (September through May), or for a minimum of four months during the academic year, to individuals in the social sciences and humanities who submit outstanding project proposals on a broad range of national and/or international issues. Fellows are selected through a multi-level peer review process. Proposed topics should intersect with questions of public policy or provide the historical and/or cultural framework to illumine policy issues of contemporary importance.

Funding sources

Countries. Alphabetical order

Canada

International Development Research Centre, Ottawa, Canada
http://web.idrc.ca/en/ev-1-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html
IDRC is a public corporation created by the Parliament of Canada to help developing countries use science and technology to find practical, long-term solutions to the social, economic, and environmental problems they face. IDRC funds research activities that are designed to provide direct benefits to developing countries and their citizens.

Germany
Alexander von Humboldt Foundation
http://www.humboldt-foundation.de/en/
The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (AvH) aims at strengthening regional and interdisciplinary networking between the scientists and scholars sponsored by the foundation, at supporting worldwide contacts and at introducing young scientists to the work of the Humboldt Foundation and to research in Germany. The program each year enables 500 young highly qualified scholars resident outside Germany who hold doctorates to carry out research projects of their own choice in Germany (age limit: 40 years).
Submission Deadline: Anytime

German Academic Exchange Service
http://www.daad.de/en/index.html
Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst supports and promotes all areas relating to science, research, language, teaching and very much more. The 200 and more programmes range from short-term exchanges for research or teaching purposes through to doctoral scholarships lasting several years for graduates from developing countries, from information visits by delegations of foreign university vicechancellors through to the long-term regional programmes conceived to establish efficient higher education systems in the Third World.

Gottlieb Daimler- and Karl Benz-Foundation
http://www.daimler-benz-stiftung.de/home/fellowship/en/start.html
The purpose of Gottlieb Daimler- and Karl Benz-Foundation is to promote science and research focussed on the interrelationship between humanity, environment and technology, and particularly to support interdisciplinary approaches to these issues.

Heinrich Böll Foundation
http://www.boell.de/asp/frameset_en.html
The Heinrich Böll Foundation, is a legally autonomous and intellectually open political foundation. Its foremost task is political education in Germany and abroad with the aim of promoting informed democratic opinion, socio-political commitment and mutual understanding.

Rosa Luxemburg Foundation
http://www.rosalux.de/engl/home.htm
The Rosa-Luxemburg Foundation is particularly active in adult and youth political educational in the Federal Republic of Germany and has developed into a nationwide institution in this field. The Foundation has, the possiblity to offer financial assistance to advanced students, post-graduates and scholars from other countries.

Volkswagen Foundation
http://www.volkswagenstiftung.de/english.html
The Volkswagen Foundation provides financial support for academic research in all fields in Germany as well as other countries. The main thrust is to stimulate new interdisciplinary developments, to help create highly qualified research capacities, and to establish novel path-breaking fields of research.
Submission Deadline: Anytime

Greece

Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation
Foreigners' Fellowship Programme
http://www.onassis.gr
Annual programme of research grants and educational scholarships which is addressed to non Greeks, full members of National Academies, University Professors of all levels (PhD holders), postdoctoral researchers, post-graduate students and PhD candidates.

Israel

Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities
http://www.academy.ac.il/
A major role of the Israel Academy is to promote and coordinate scholarly contacts between Israel and the international community, partly on the basis of international agreements for scientific cooperation, and partly by representing Israel in international scientific organizations. The Academy is the signatory to over thirty international agreements providing for reciprocal visits by Israeli and foreign scholars and joint scientific workshops.
Submission Deadline: Anytime
Israel Science Foundation
http://www.isf.org.il
The Israel Science Foundation (ISF) is Israel's major research funding organization. Set up by the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, the ISF supports academic research in all fields.
Japan

Asahi Glass Foundation
http://www.af-info.or.jp/eng/subsidy/grant.html
The Asahi Glass Foundation supports research in leading-edge scientific and technological fields and recognizes individual and organizational efforts to solve issues of concern to people around the world. Human and social sciences research assistance is awarded for projects that endeavour to find solutions to serious problems that have arisen as a result of rapid social change.

Canon Foundation in Europe
http://www.canonfoundation.org/pages/main.htm
The Canon Foundation in Europe is a philanthropic, grant-making institution, active in the promotion of international cultural and scientific relations between Europe and Japan. Annually, it grants up to 15 fellowships to young, highly qualified, Master's or Doctor's degree European and Japanese researchers, not older than 40 years. The fellowships are awarded regardless of disciplines and existing employment positions.

Toshiba International Foundation
http://www.toshiba.co.jp/about/tifo/english/doc05/index.htm
The Foundation strives to contribute to the development of international understanding by promoting exchange activities, including the organization and sponsorship of symposia and seminars that further worldwide understanding of Japan. The Foundation also participates in programs designed to support development of international communities.

Toyota Foundation
http://www.toyotafound.or.jp/e_guide/eken.htm
The Toyota Foundation is a grant-making organization dedicated to the goals of realizing greater human fulfilment and contributing to the development of a human-oriented society. In general grants are awarded to individuals or to individuals on behalf of a group, and not to organizations. Activities supported may include individual or group research projects, conferences or public seminars, publications, or other modalities.

Nehterlands

International Institute for Asian Studies
http://www.iias.nl/iias/fellowships.html
The International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS) is a postdoctoral research centre. Its main objective is to encourage the study of Asia and to promote national and international cooperation in this field. The institute focuses on the humanities and the social sciences and, where relevant, on their interaction with other sciences.

The Netherlands Fellowship Programmes (NFP)
http://www.nuffic.nl/nfp/
The Netherlands Fellowship Programmes (NFP) are demand-oriented fellowship programmes designed to foster institutional development. The overall aim of the NFP is to help alleviate qualitative and quantitative shortages of skilled manpower and to do so within the framework of sustainable capacity-building directed towards reducing poverty in developing countries.
Available to nationals of 57 selected countries.
The NFP offers fellowships for master's degree programmes, for PhD studies, for short courses, tailor-made training, refresher courses.

Portugal

Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia
http://www.fct.mces.pt/
Financial support for post-doctoral fellowships in Portugal is available to all citizens of the European Union.
Spain

Fundación Caja Madrid
http://www.fundacioncajamadrid.org/Fundacion/fun_inicio
La Fundación Caja Madrid mantiene un amplio Programa de Becas, para licenciados y titulados superiores en España, destinadas a la ampliación de estudios de postgrado en el extranjero en economía, sociología, ciencias políticas, derecho político y constitucional.

Fundación Carolina
http://www.fundacioncarolina.es/
La Fundación Carolina, con sede en la Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional, ofrece un programa de becas dirigidas a jóvenes titulados superiores, profesionales e investigadores de los países que integran la Comunidad Iberoamericana de Naciones.

Jaume Bofill Foundation
http://www.fbofill.org/
The Jaume Bofill Foundation is concerned with promoting initiatives conducive to achieving a better understanding of society in Catalonia (Spain). Supports research projects in social sciences falling within its general program.

Fundación La Caixa
http://www.estudis.lacaixa.comunicacions.com/webes/estudis.nsf/wurl/bqbshomecos_esp
It offers post-graduate scholarships for young Spanish graduate students in universities and research centres in Europe and USA.

Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores
http://www.becasmae.es/
El Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores y de Cooperación de España y la Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional, ofrecen becas para extranjeros para estudios de postgrado en universidades y centros superiores públicos y privados en España.

Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia
http://wwwn.mec.es/univ/
1- Programa de becas postdoctorales en España y extranjero, para la realización de trabajos de investigación.
2- Becas predoctorales y postdoctorales en universidades y centros de investigación de Estados Unidos.

Switzerland

Swiss Foundation for Research in Social Sciences
http://www.fors.unil.ch
The Swiss Foundation for Research in Social Sciences FORS was created in accordance to the law on research of the Federal Government. Its purpose is to provide services, to conduct research and to publish and disseminate research findings in the social sciences. The Foundation's activities specifically comprise the following:
- preparing, documenting and providing data of all kinds, such as are needed to conduct studies in the social sciences;
- advising researchers and other interested parties on the collection and use of data;
- developing methods and procedures for collecting and analysing data;
- promoting the application of the findings obtained.

World Society Foundation
http://www.uzh.ch/wsf/
The World Society Foundation is designed to encourage and support research on world society-its structure, historical development, and current transformation. Research proposals eligible for grants should focus on the various processes of social integration within world-wide systems (world culture, world economy, world politics and intergovernmental systems). These processes and their consequences may be studied from different levels of analysis, focusing on units such as individuals, sub-national regions, nations, transnational social networks etc.

United Kingdom

Aga Khan Foundation
http://www.akdn.org/
The mission of the Aga Khan Foundation is to develop and promote creative solutions to problems that impede social development, primarily in Asia and East Africa. It provides a limited number of scholarships each year for postgraduate studies.

Economic and Social Research Council
http://www.esrc.ac.uk/index.asp
The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) is the UK's leading research funding and training agency addressing economic and social concerns. It aims to provide high quality research on issues of importance to business, the public sector and government. The issues considered include economic competitiveness, the effectiveness of public services and policy, and quality of life. The Small Grants Scheme is part of the ESRC e-Social Science Initiative. The scheme aims to encourage applications that are particularly novel or experimental, or based around the theme of social shaping or the socio?economic impact of e-science. See the ESRC website for details, guidance notes and an application form.

Leverhulme Trust
http://www.leverhulme.org.uk/grants_awards/
The Leverhulme Trust makes awards for the support of research and education. The Trust emphasises individuals and encompasses all subject areas; its financial support is organised into grants and awards which vary in size, purpose and application procedure.

Newton International Fellowship
http://www.newtonfellowships.org/
Are you at the beginning of your research career - with the potential to be world-class?
Is your research in the natural or social sciences, engineering or humanities?
Do you want to build and maintain links with leading researchers in the UK?
Then apply now for a Newton International Fellowship

USA

Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies
http://www.ushmm.org/research/center/fellowship/
The Center awards fellowships to support significant research and writing about the Holocaust. Awards are granted on a competitive basis. The Center welcomes proposals from scholars in all relevant disciplines including history, political science, literature, Jewish studies, philosophy, religion, psychology, comparative genocide studies, law and others.

Coca-Cola Foundation, Inc.
http://www2.coca-cola.com/citizenship/foundation_coke.html
Primary support for education including higher education, science and engineering. Funds organizations outside the US that promote higher education. Guidelines and application form are posted on the foundation's web site.

Earhart Foundation
The Fellowship Research Grants Program is open to individuals who have established themselves professionally and who are affiliated with educational or research institutions. Areas of interest include economics, the environment, social and economic policy. Individuals or organizations interested in this foundation should submit a letter requesting the application guidelines.
The Earhart Foundation, David Kennedy, President, 2200 Green Road, Suite H, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48105, USA

Ford Foundation
http://www.fordfound.org/
Asset Building and Community Management Program: Grant making aims to help low-income people and communities build the financial, human, social and natural resource assets they need to overcome poverty and injustice. Categories are Economic Development and Work-Force Development: Support given to organizations that help improve the ways low-income people develop marketable job skills and acquire and retain reliable employment that provides livable wages
Community & Resource Development Program: Environment and Development sub-program gives grants helping people and groups acquire, protect and improve land, water, forests, wildlife and other natural assets in ways that help reduce poverty and injustice.
Applications are considered throughout the year.

Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation
http://www.hfg.org/rg/guidelines.htm
The Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation places a priority on the study of urgent problems of violence and aggression in the modern world and also encourages related research projects in neuroscience, genetics, animal behaviour, the social sciences, history, criminology, and the humanities which illuminate modern human problems. In addition to the program of support for postdoctoral research, ten or more dissertation fellowships are awarded each year to individuals who will complete the writing of the dissertation within the award year

Horowitz Foundation for Social Policy
http://www.horowitz-foundation.org/
Research grants in the social sciences

Grantlink
http://www.grantlink.org/
GrantLink is a comprehensive source of information on grant support for social science and public policy researches. GrantLink covers all social science and public policy disciplines, including but not necessarily limited to, anthropology, business, economics, demography, geography, health sciences, history, international affairs, law, management and decision sciences, political science, psychology, public administration, public finance, sociology, and statistics.

J. Paul Getty Trust
http://www.getty.edu/grants/research/scholars/index.html
The Getty Research Institute is dedicated to advanced scholarship in the arts and humanities. It offers public programs and a residential program for international scholars and provides non residential grants to support scholars throughout the world

John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
http://www.gf.org/
The John Simon Guggenheim Foundation offers Fellowships to further the development of scholars and artists by assisting them to engage in research in any field of knowledge and creation in any of the arts, except the performing arts, under the freest possible conditions and irrespective of race, colour, or creed. Fellowships are not available for students. Fellowships are awarded through two annual competitions: one open to citizens and permanent residents of the United States and Canada, and the other open to citizens and permanent residents of Latin America and the Caribbean.

Lindbergh Foundation
http://www.lindberghfoundation.org
Yearly, the Lindbergh Foundation provides grants to men and women whose individual initiative and work in a wide spectrum of disciplines furthers the vision of a balance between the advance of technology and the preservation of the natural/human environment. Application guidelines and procedures are posted on the foundation's website.

National Endowment for Democracy
http://www.ned.org/
The National Endowment for Democracy is a private, nonprofit organization created to strengthen democratic institutions around the world through nongovernmental efforts. It makes hundreds of grants each year to support prodemocracy groups in Africa, Asia, Central and Eastern Europe, Eurasia, Latin America, and the Middle East.

RGK Foundation
http://www.rgkfoundation.org
The foundation commits funding worldwide to support medical research, educational research and community development. In these areas, the foundation supports programs and conferences that promote academic excellence in universities and colleges that raise literacy levels and that support the health and well being of children.

Russel Sage Foundation
http://www.russellsage.org/
The Russel Sage Foundation is the principal American Foundation devoted exclusively to research in the social sciences. Located in New York City, it is a research center, a funding source for studies by scholars at other academic and research institutions, and an active member of the nation's social science community. The foundation also publishes, under its own inprint, the books that derive from the work of its grantees and Visiting Scholars.

Social Science Research Council
http://www.ssrc.org
Founded in 1923, the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) is an independent non-profit organization with ongoing research projects on every continent, most of which are designed to encourage innovation and to help social scientists engage broader constituencies. Fellowship and dissertation funding opportunities available.

Spencer Foundation
http://www.spencer.org/programs/index.htm
The Foundation's research programs provide funding for investigations that promise to yield new knowledge about education in the United States or abroad. Research projects vary widely, ranging from medium-sized studies that can be completed within a year by an individual researcher to more extensive collaborative studies that last several years.

William T. Grant Foundation
http://wtgrantfoundation.org
The William T. Grant Foundation works to improve the lives of young people by investing in high quality research on how contexts such as family and programs affect youth, how these contexts can be improved, and how scientific evidence affects influential adults. Major grants are available for research encompassing: evaluations (of systems, policies, etc ), policy analysis, communication , capacity building
Submission Deadline: Anytime

Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
http://www.wilsoncenter.org/fellowships
The Center offers residential Fellowships in the Social Sciences and Humanities for the entire U.S. academic year (September through May), or for a minimum of four months during the academic year, to individuals in the social sciences and humanities who submit outstanding project proposals on a broad range of national and/or international issues. Fellows are selected through a multi-level peer review process. Proposed topics should intersect with questions of public policy or provide the historical and/or cultural framework to illumine policy issues of contemporary importance.

Wednesday

Survey Errors and Survey Costs

Survey Errors and Survey Costs

Copyright © 1989 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Survey Errors and Survey Costs

Author(s): Robert M. Groves

Published Online: 28 JAN 2005

Print ISBN: 9780471611714

Online ISBN: 9780471725275

DOI: 10.1002/0471725277

Book Series: Wiley Series in Probability and Statistics

About this Book

The Wiley-Interscience Paperback Series consists of selected books that have been made more accessible to consumers in an effort to increase global appeal and general circulation. With these new unabridged softcover volumes, Wiley hopes to extend the lives of these works by making them available to future generations of statisticians, mathematicians, and scientists.

"Survey Errors and Survey Costs is a well-written, well-presented, and highly readable text that should be on every error-conscious statistician's bookshelf. Any courses that cover the theory and design of surveys should certainly have Survey Errors and Survey Costs on their reading lists."
-Phil Edwards
MEL, Aston University Science Park, UK
Review in The Statistician, Vol. 40, No. 3, 1991

"This volume is an extremely valuable contribution to survey methodology. It has many virtues: First, it provides a framework in which survey errors can be segregated by sources. Second, Groves has skillfully synthesized existing knowledge, bringing together in an easily accessible form empirical knowledge from a variety of sources. Third, he has managed to integrate into a common framework the contributions of several disciplines. For example, the work of psychometricians and cognitive psychologists is made relevant to the research of econometricians as well as the field experience of sociologists. Finally, but not least, Groves has managed to present all this in a style that is accessible to a wide variety of readers ranging from survey specialists to policymakers."
-Peter H. Rossi
University of Massachusetts at Amherst
Review in Journal of Official Statistics, January 1991

More about this book summary

Table of contents

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    1. You have free access to this content

      Frontmatter (pages i–xxiii)

    2. You have full text access to this content

      An Introduction to Survey Errors (pages 1–47)

    3. You have full text access to this content

      An Introduction to Survey Costs (pages 49–80)

    4. You have full text access to this content

      Costs and Errors of Covering the Population (pages 81–132)

    5. You have full text access to this content

      Nonresponse in Sample Surveys (pages 133–183)

    6. You have full text access to this content

      Probing the Causes of Nonresponse and Efforts to Reduce Nonresponse (pages 185–238)

    7. You have full text access to this content

      Costs and Errors Arising from Sampling (pages 239–294)

    8. You have full text access to this content

      Empirical Estimation of Survey Measurement Error (pages 295–355)

    9. You have full text access to this content

      The Interviewer as a Source of Survey Measurement Error (pages 357–406)

    10. You have full text access to this content

      The Respondent as a Source of Survey Measurement Error (pages 407–448)

    11. You have full text access to this content

      Measurement Errors Associated with the Questionnaire (pages 449–499)

    12. You have full text access to this content

      Response Effects of the Mode of Data Collection (pages 501–552)

    13. You have free access to this content

      References (pages 553–579)

    14. You have free access to this content

      Index (pages 581–590)

Tuesday

LITERATURE ON NGO–STATE RELATIONS IN ASIA

(Kerkvliet 1995, Malarney 1996, Ma 2002, Hsu 2008, Marshall 2009, Gainsborough 2010, Heurlin 2010, Hsu 2010)

Gainsborough, M. (2010). "Present but not Powerful: Neoliberalism, the State, and Development in Vietnam." Globalizations 7(4): 475-488.

Through a case study of Vietnam, this paper explores what happens to neoliberal ideas about development when they encounter the very different political and cultural context of a developing country. The paper argues that although much scholarship tends implicitly or explicitly to emphasise the very great power of neoliberal institutions in our world today, an analysis of continuity and change in Vietnam during two decades of extensive engagement with neoliberal actors suggests that the influence of neoliberalism on the working of the Vietnamese state has been relatively small. The paper seeks both to document and explain this through an account which is attentive to both structure and agency and which in turn sheds new light on the nature of power in our world.

Heurlin, C. (2010). "Governing Civil Society: The Political Logic of NGO-State Relations Under Dictatorship." Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations 21(2): 220-239.

This paper attempts to take the first steps toward developing a theory of non-governmental organizations (NGO)-state relations under dictatorship. Drawing on evidence from East Asia, the author argues that dictatorships typically employ one of two strategies in attempting to govern NGOs. First, some dictatorships follow a corporatist strategy, in which business associations, development, and social welfare organizations are co-opted into the state and controlled through a variety of strategies. Second, other dictatorships pursue an exclusionary strategy in which NGOs are marginalized and replaced with state institutions. Variation in the strategy chosen may be explained by differing levels of elite competition and the type of development strategy. Single-party states tend to regulate elite conflicts better and thus often choose corporatist strategies. In personalist regimes dictators tend to fear the organizational and mobilizational potential of NGOs and thus tend to pursue exclusionary strategies. This choice, however, is conditioned by the development strategy employed, as socialist development strategies reduce the incentives to allow NGOs.

Hsu, C. (2010). "Beyond Civil Society: An Organizational Perspective on State–NGO Relations in the People's Republic of China." Journal of Civil Society 6(3): 259-277.

In the last two decades, the People's Republic of China has witnessed an explosion of NGOs. What will the implications be for state?society relations? This article, drawing upon research conducted at seven Chinese NGOs, critiques two approaches to analysing this problem: the civil society framework and the privatization perspective. It then proffers a third way: an approach based on organizational analysis. Both the civil society and privatization perspectives assume a zero-sum game between a monolithic state and NGOs/citizens. Yet empirical evidence reveals that Chinese NGOs are often much more interested in building alliances with state agencies and actors than in autonomy from the government. From an organizational perspective, this makes sense. As organizations, both NGOs and state agencies need to ensure a constant supply of necessary resources for the firm to survive, and their strategies for achieving this goal will be constrained by their actors' own institutional experiences and the cultural frameworks extant in their society. Alliances between Chinese NGOs and state agencies can help both types of organizations secure necessary resources and gain legitimacy.

Hsu, C. L. (2008). "‘Rehabilitating Charity’ in China: The Case of Project Hope and the Rise of Non-Profit Organizations." Journal of Civil Society 4(2): 81-96.

Beginning in the 1990s, the People's Republic of China has experienced explosive growth in the number of non-governmental organizations. This article examines one of the earliest and most influential Chinese NGOs, Project Hope, a charitable organization which solicits donations to help poor rural children stay in school. The success of Project Hope and the subsequent growth of the non-profit sector are surprising given that China arguably has no history of an organizational form like the Western donative-style charity. As such, this case offers a rare opportunity to examine the rise of a new organizational form. New institutionalist and social capital theoretical approaches will be used to analyse the social mechanisms underlying practice of donative-style charity. Chinese cultural practices of giving to the needy in the premodern era and under Mao Zedong's socialist state (1949?1978) will be explicated to reveal the resources and constraints emerging Chinese charities faced in the post-socialist era. This article focuses on one problem that China's first Western-style charities had to address: how to establish the practice of voluntary giving to non-governmental organizations. It examines two of Project Hope's strategies and their consequences: (1) blurring the distinction between charitable organizations and the state and (2) building personal relationships between donors and recipients.

Kerkvliet, B. J. T. (1995). "Village-State Relations in Vietnam: The Effect of Everyday Politics on Decollectivization." The Journal of Asian Studies 54(2): 396-418.

Why, since 1988, has the Vietnamese government reversed its commitment to collective farming and permitted the revival of family farming? BENEDICT KERKVLIET rejects the obvious explanation-that reversal followed naturally from the post-1986 policy of reform (d oi-moi) or that it merely mimicked Chinese policies. He proposes, as an alternative, that the Vietnamese government has responded with various kinds of accommodations since the mid-1970s to growing popular discontent with its agricultural policies. Borrowing a concept from Brantly Womack, Kerkvliet suggests that Communist parties must be "mass-regarding" both to establish their rule and to maintain it. He links this idea with James Scott's emphasis on the power of everyday peasant resistance to conclude that the Vietnamese Communist Party was responding to popular pressure from below. Thus, Kerkvliet finds that standard characterizations that represent the current regime in Vietnam as a "dominating state" or one that rules through "mobilization authoritarianism" overlook the existence of strong local social pressures that have the capacity for low-level resistance to government policy. Moreover, such characterizations also do not take into account that the Vietnamese state has displayed a long-term concern with ensuring that its policies are acceptable among the peasantry.

Ma, Q. (2002). "The Governance of NGOs in China since 1978: How Much Autonomy?" Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly 31(3): 305-328.

Does the surge of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in China indicate a shift in power away from the party-state and the emergence of a civil society? In an attempt to shed light on the relationship between the state and the NGOs, this article examines the aims of official NGO policy and its influence on the growth patterns of NGOs. The discussion is divided into three sections. The first section analyzes the NGO concept in China and the features of official policy. The second and third sections address two models of Chinese NGOs. The study concludes that even as the Chinese government remains the most decisive component in the development of NGOs, the state is withdrawing from responsibilities toward society. The interactive and mutually dependent relations between the government and NGOs indicate the continuing power of the party-state as well as the decline in its capacity to control the growth of organizations.

Malarney, S. K. (1996). "The Limits of "State Functionalism" and the Reconstruction of Funerary Ritual in Contemporary Northern Vietnam." American Ethnologist 23(3): 540-560.

In this article I examine the history and consequences of the Vietnamese Communist Party's attempt to reform funerary rituals in the post-1954 period. By examining the mixed results of the campaign, I argue that "state functionalism," a phenomenon defined as the use of ritual by state officials to advance official objectives and ideology, cannot succeed in controlling all meanings and values mobilized in ritual. Official ideology, however, does not remain divorced from the values and ideals participants bring to reformed ritual practices. Instead, it enters into a transformative dialogue with its historical antecedents, producing a set of rituals, and ideas about ritual, different from what the cadres intended and what they replaced. [funerary ritual, Vietnam, ritual change, culture and ideology, socialist ritual]

Marshall, V.-N. (2009). "Tools of Empire? Vietnamese Catholics in South Vietnam." from http://id.erudit.org/iderudit/044402ar.

This article examines the social and political activities of Vietnamese Roman Catholics in South Vietnam in the period from the 1950s to the 1970s. The Catholics participation in the public sphere, ranging from joining humanitarian organizations to organizing street protests, suggests that they were highly organized and proactive in trying to change their social and political environment. While Catholics held some political views and goals in common with the South Vietnamese and the United States governments, they pursued their own objectives, engaged in local and national politics, critiqued government policy, and maintained an important degree of independence from state power and influence.

LITERATURE ON CHARITY IN VIETNAM

LITERATURE ON CHARITY IN VIETNAM

Barzin, Y. (2012). "The role of NGOs in rural Vietnam: a case study and critique." from http://www.biomedcentral.com/1753-6561/6/S4/P54.

No abstract available.

Bui, T. H. (2013). "The development of civil society and dynamics of governance in Vietnam's one party rule." Global Change, Peace & Security 25(1): 77-93.

Civil society has been in operation under one-party rule in Vietnam in the years since the Doi Moi (renewal) in 1986. Despite the continued monopoly of political power by the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV), civil society has been gradually expanded and developed. The paper reviews recent arguments in the political science and area studies literature on the emergence of civil society in Vietnam's Doi Moi period over the past two decades, to comment on the dynamics of the relationship between civil society and the party-state, problematizing the development of civil society in the context of a one-party-dominated state. At a certain level, civil society has been ?tolerated?, ?endorsed?, or recognized by the party state to fill a gap in the governance network. In practice, it has never been an easy project for civil society to make its way into Vietnamese society given the party-state's Gramscian concession to maintain the existing hegemony.

Center for Community Development (2012). Memorandum: Fundraising activities by Not-for-profit organisations under Vietnamese law. Ho Chi Minh City, Centre of community development.

Center for Community Development (2012). Philanthropic attitudes & sentiments in Vietnam today. Ho Chi Minh City, LIN - Center for Community Development.

Dalton, R. J. and N.-N. T. Ong (2005). "Civil society and social capital in Vietnam." Modernization and Social Change in Vietnam. Hamburg, Institut für Asienkunde.

Gillespie, J. and N. Penelope (2005). Asian socialism & legal change : the dynamics of Vietnamese and Chinese reform. Canberra ACT, Australian National University E Press : Asia Pacific Press.

Goodkind, D. (1996). "State Agendas, Local Sentiments: Vietnamese Wedding Practices amidst Socialist Transformations." Social Forces 75(2): 717-742.

This article examines how Vietnamese citizens responded to state exhortations to devalue and simplify marital exchanges. Such exhortations reflected Engels' belief ([1884] 1972) that the success of revolutionary socialism was contingent upon a transformation of marital institutions. Vietnam, a "weak" state with an otherwise home-grown socialist revolution, announced decrees to this end in the North after national partition in 1954 and in the South following political reunification in 1975. This article employs data from the author's 1993 field survey in a Northern and Southern province to track temporal changes in a variety of Vietnamese wedding practices. The results suggest that the socialist marriage pattern took hold in the Northern province only. Findings are linked to historical events, modernization, state-society bargaining processes, as well as the more general successes and failures of revolutionary socialism in Vietnam.

Gray, M. L. (1999). "Creating civil society? : the emergence of NGOs in Vietnam." Development and change. 304: 693-713.

Hamm, B. (2012). "Corporate Social Responsibility in Vietnam: Integration or mere adaptation?" Pacific News 38(July/August).

Heurlin, C. (2010). "Governing Civil Society: The Political Logic of NGO-State Relations Under Dictatorship." Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations 21(2): 220-239.

This paper attempts to take the first steps toward developing a theory of non-governmental organizations (NGO)-state relations under dictatorship. Drawing on evidence from East Asia, the author argues that dictatorships typically employ one of two strategies in attempting to govern NGOs. First, some dictatorships follow a corporatist strategy, in which business associations, development, and social welfare organizations are co-opted into the state and controlled through a variety of strategies. Second, other dictatorships pursue an exclusionary strategy in which NGOs are marginalized and replaced with state institutions. Variation in the strategy chosen may be explained by differing levels of elite competition and the type of development strategy. Single-party states tend to regulate elite conflicts better and thus often choose corporatist strategies. In personalist regimes dictators tend to fear the organizational and mobilizational potential of NGOs and thus tend to pursue exclusionary strategies. This choice, however, is conditioned by the development strategy employed, as socialist development strategies reduce the incentives to allow NGOs.

Hugman, R., et al. (2009). "Developing Social Work in Vietnam: Issues in Professional Education." Social Work Education 28(2): 177-189.

The growth of professional social work in Vietnam took a major step forward in 2004, with the approval of a new national curriculum for universities to teach degrees in social work. This article briefly examines the history of social work in Vietnam to provide background to these developments and then examines key questions facing Vietnamese social work education. These include issues of how professional education for social work is structured and integrated within universities, how social work educators are appropriately trained and how practicum opportunities are developed in a context where a formal profession of social work is still emerging. It is argued that while Vietnamese social work education must be understood as part of the global range of approaches to professional training, it is also vital for Vietnam to engage with the process of developing an authentic Vietnamese approach.

Kauffman, C. J. (2005). "Politics, Programs, and Protests: Catholic Relief Services in Vietnam, 1954-1975." The Catholic Historical Review The Catholic Historical Review 91(2): vi, 223-250.

Marshall, V.-N. (2009). "Tools of Empire? Vietnamese Catholics in South Vietnam." from http://id.erudit.org/iderudit/044402ar.

This article examines the social and political activities of Vietnamese Roman Catholics in South Vietnam in the period from the 1950s to the 1970s. The Catholics participation in the public sphere, ranging from joining humanitarian organizations to organizing street protests, suggests that they were highly organized and proactive in trying to change their social and political environment. While Catholics held some political views and goals in common with the South Vietnamese and the United States governments, they pursued their own objectives, engaged in local and national politics, critiqued government policy, and maintained an important degree of independence from state power and influence.

Nguyen Vo Thuc Quyen (2013). Corporate Social Responsibility Implementation by Vietnamese Enterprises : case: Vinamilk Corp. & Kinh Do Corp. International Business. Lahti, Lahden ammattikorkeakoulu. Bachelor: 63.

While the application of corporate social responsibility (CSR) into business for sustainable development is becoming a popular trend in developed countries, this issue is considered relatively new to developing countries, particularly in Vietnam. In addition, CSR studies conducted in Vietnam remain very scarce. Most of the enterprises do not have adequate understandings of CSRs aspects, but the meaning of philanthropy. Hence, the thesis aims at examining the current understandings and implementation of CSR by Vietnamese enterprise. The theoretical framework provides readers an overview of CSR issue, including definition, three CSR models, and followed by an analysis of CSR in developing countries. The empirical part covers two large-listed company case studies as Vinamilk Corp. and Kinh Do Corp.The case studies present several CSR practices in four recent years, from 2009-2012, and reveal the achieved results.Using the inductive reasoning, together with the Qualitative research method, the thesis focuses on content analysis based on companies reports, websites, personal observation, and half-structured interviews with staff from two companies. In conclusion, the collected data from case studies are compared and collated to research question answers. The study findings state that Vietnamese enterprises have a greater perception of sustainable development in implementing corporate social responsibility practices.

Oanh, N. T. (2002). "Historical development and characteristics of social work in today's Vietnam." International Journal of Social Welfare 11(1): 84-91.

Sidel, M. (1997). "The emergence of a voluntary sector and philanthropy in Vietnam: functions, legal regulation and prospects for the future." Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations 8(3): 283-302.

A significant number and wide range of Vietnamese non-profit and voluntary organisations have developed since Vietnam embarked on a programme of economic reform in late 1986. Philanthropy has begun to grow as well, albeit more slowly. The non-profit and voluntary sector and the state, each face important challenges as development of the sector accelerates. The state has sought both to encourage growth of non-profit, voluntary and philanthropic institutions, but also to control the pace and directions of that growth. Those dual aims are reflected in the state's regulation of the sector since the mid-1980s. This article provides detailed information on the development of the non-profit sector in Vietnam. It examines some common problems many of the new non-profits and voluntary organisations face and discusses the rapidly changing environment for philanthropy in Vietnam. The article also reviews the developing legal environment for non-profits and philanthropy, compares the situation in Vietnam to other countries in transition, and situates the functions of the non-profit sector in Vietnam in the context of the emerging scholarly literature on functions and models of the non-profit sector and government/non-profit relations.

Sidel, M. (2007). Vietnamese-American Diaspora Philanthropy to Vietnam. Harvard, The Philanthropic Initiative, Inc & The Global Equity Inititative, Harvard University.

Analyzes giving by the Vietnamese diaspora in the United States back to Vietnam. Outlines the 1986-2006 evolution of Vietnamese-American philanthropy from individual to organized efforts; challenges; and recommendations for expanding scale and impact.

Sidel, M. (2008). Law and the regulation of civil society: nonprofit organizations, philanthropy, grassroots organizations, and the state. Law and society in Vietnam: The transition from Socialism in Comparative Perspective. M. Sidel. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 141-165.

A unique analysis of the struggle to build a rule of law in one of the world's most dynamic and vibrant nations - a socialist state that is seeking to build a market economy while struggling to pursue an ethos of social equality and opportunity. It addresses constitutional change, the assertion of constitutional claims by citizens, the formation of a strong civil society and non-profit sector, the emergence of economic law and the battles over who is benefited by the new economic regulation, labour law and the protection of migrant and export labour, the rise of lawyers and public interest law, and other key topics. Alongside other countries, comparisons are made to parallel developments in another transforming socialist state, the People's Republic of China.

The Asia Foundation (2011). Đóng góp từ thiện tại Việt Nam. Hà Nội, Vietnam Asia Pacìic Center & The Asia Foundation.

UNDP (2007). Khỏa lấp sự cách biệt: Xã hội dân sự mới nổi ở Việt Nam. Hà Nội, UNDP, VUSTA, SNV.

Friday

Learning to react to ‘deviant’ labels and defending self image

Now we all agree that deviance is neither an inborn characteristic nor a sin. It is socially learnt. In alcohol research, the view that alcoholism is a learnt practice has rarely been addressed. Even rarer is the emphasis on how ‘deviants’ react to the label imposed upon them. One important suggestion comes from the well-known article by Sykes and Matza (1957) who described 'techniques of neutralizations', or ways of explaining ‘deviant behaviours’ in socially acceptable manner. Certainly, people learn these techniques in the socialisation process. The authors said: 'Unfortunately, the specific content of what is learnt - as opposed to the process by which it is learnt - has received relatively little attention in either theory and research'. Importantly, these techniques much be described by the people who are researched rather the researcher.
 

Wednesday

Văn hóa từ thiện ở Việt Nam và tác động của nó tới các sáng kiến quyên góp (Vietnamese Charity Culture and its implications to donation initiatives)

 

Full report is available in Vietnamese. The English version will be made available soon. Here are the main contents:

Lời cảm ơn/A thankful note                            page 3

Bối cảnh nghiên cứu/ Research context         page 4

Mục tiêu nghiên cứu/ Research aims              page 6

Phương pháp nghiên cứu / Research methods  page 6

Các kết quả nghiên cứu / Research findings      page 9

Sự khó khăn chính đáng / Legitimate difficulty  page 10

Chuẩn mực về sự giúp đỡ qua lại /The rule of reciprocity page 14

Quản lý danh tiếng / Reputation management    page 18

Niềm tin và sự hành chính hóa/Trust and the bureaucratization of charitable acts   page 21

Sự sẵn sàng đóng góp cho các tổ chức phi chính phủ/ Willingness to donate to NGOs   page 24

Kết luận và khuyến nghị/Conclusion and recommendations   page 27

Tài liệu tham khảo/References                     page 29

Contact: vhphong (at) isee.org.vn

Book Review: Substance Use and Abuse: Sociological Perspectives by Victor N. Shaw (2002)

Substance Use and Abuse: Sociological PerspectivesSubstance Use and Abuse: Sociological Perspectives by Victor N. Shaw
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Not a bad one but it appears that only few people have read this book. Each chapter discusses a major sociological approach to substance use and abuse (alcohol, heroin, etc). Each chapter also offers ways of applying each theoretical perspective in research and practice. However, as a whole, the book lacks a sense of critique and that may not attract people who like discussing sociological theories.

View all my reviews

Monday

10 data analysis techniques that social researchers must know

1. Exploratory factor analysis

2. Confirmatory factor analysis

3. Adapting a scale

4. Thematic analysis

5. Logistic regression

6. Case studies

7. Longitudinal analysis

8. Multi-level analysis

9. Ordinal regression

10. Social network analysis

11. Discourse analysis

12. Grounded theory

Wednesday

Sample size calculation: comparing two proportions

We can use the following formula for the sample size n:

n = (Zα/2+Zβ)2 * (p1(1-p1)+p2(1-p2)) / (p1-p2)2,

where Zα/2 is the critical value of the Normal distribution at α/2 (e.g. for a confidence level of 95%, α is 0.05 and the critical value is 1.96), Zβ is the critical value of the Normal distribution at β (e.g. for a power of 80%, β is 0.2 and the critical value is 0.84) and p1 and p2 are the expected sample proportions of the two groups.

Tuesday

A workshop on charitable giving in Vietnam

IMG_0175

IMG_0172

write me if you like to read the report.

Robert Merton’s guideline to study deviance

Robert Merton is one of the founders of functionalism (Emile Durkheim and Talcott Parsons are the other two). In the book Social theory and social structure (1957, New York: Free Press), he provided five general guidelines for the study of deviance:

1-describe the specific form of deviance being studied

2-identify the range and type of alternatives excluded by the dominant pattern of deviance

3-assess the meaning of the deviant activity for those involved

4-discern the motives for conforming to or deviating from a particular dominant interaction pattern

5-describe patterns not recognised by participants but that appear to have consequences for the particular individuals involved and /or other patterns or regularities in the wider social context.

Mate swinging

 

Mate swinging is a topic researched by researchers who prefer functionalist perspective. According to them, mate swinging helps sustain sentimental bonds of marriage by providing participants an opportunity to release their sexual fantasies for an evening or weekend.

Classical studies:

Walshak, M. L. 1971. “The emergence of middle-class deviance subcultures: the case of swingers”. Social Problems 18: 488-495

Denfield, D. and M. Gordon 1970. ‘'The sociology of mate swapping”: Or the family that swing together clings together” Journal of Sex Research 6: 85-100

Monday

Understanding Public Health

There is an increasing global awareness of the inevitable limits of individual health care and of the need to complement such services with effective public health strategies. Understanding Public Health is an innovative series of twenty books, published by Open University Press in collaboration with the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. It provides self-directed learning covering the major issues in public health affecting low, middle and high income countries.

The series is aimed at those studying public health, either by distance learning or more traditional methods, as well as public health practitioners and policy makers.

Series Editor(s)
Nick Black
Rosalind Raine

  • Conflict and Health
    ISBN: 0335243797 - By: HOWARD
    Edition: 01 - Pub Date: 01-OCT-12
    Price: $49 US
    - Format: Paperback
  • Sexual Health: A Public Health Perspective
    ISBN: 0335244815 - By: WELLINGS
    Edition: 01 - Pub Date: 01-OCT-12
    Price: $49 US
    - Format: Paperback
  • Making Health Policy
    ISBN: 0335246346 - By: BUSE
    Edition: 02 - Pub Date: 01-JUL-12
    Price: $49 US
    - Format: Paperback
  • Public Health in History
    ISBN: 0335242642 - By: BERRIDGE
    Edition: 01 - Pub Date: 01-OCT-11
    Price: $45 US
    - Format: Paperback
  • Issues in Public Health
    ISBN: 033524422X - By: SIM
    Edition: 02 - Pub Date: 01-OCT-11
    Price: $49 US
    - Format: Paperback
  • Introduction to Epidemiology
    ISBN: 0335244610 - By: CARNEIRO
    Edition: 02 - Pub Date: 01-OCT-11
    Price: $49 US
    - Format: Paperback
  • Introduction to Health Economics
    ISBN: 0335243568 - By: GUINNESS
    Edition: 02 - Pub Date: 01-OCT-11
    Price: $49 US
    - Format: Paperback
  • Environmental Health Policy
    ISBN: 0335218431 - By: BALL
    Edition: 01 - Pub Date: 01-DEC-06
    Price: $60 US
    - Format: Paperback
  • Health Promotion Practice
    ISBN: 0335218407 - By: MACDOWALL
    Edition: 01 - Pub Date: 01-NOV-06
    Price: $60 US
    - Format: Paperback
  • Controlling Communicable Disease
    ISBN: 033521844X - By: NOAH
    Edition: 01 - Pub Date: 01-JUN-06
    Price: $60 US
    - Format: Paperback
  • Environment, Health and Sustainable Development
    ISBN: 0335218415 - By: LANDON
    Edition: 01 - Pub Date: 01-MAR-06
    Price: $49 US
    - Format: Paperback
  • Environmental Epidemiology
    ISBN: 0335218423 - By: WILKINSON
    Edition: 01 - Pub Date: 01-MAR-06
    Price: $60 US
    - Format: Paperback
  • Analytical Models for Decision-Making with CD
    ISBN: 0335218458 - By: SANDERSON
    Edition: 01 - Pub Date: 01-MAR-06
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    - Format: Soft back with CD
  • Health Promotion Theory
    ISBN: 0335218377 - By: DAVIES
    Edition: 01 - Pub Date: 01-DEC-05
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  • Managing Health Services
    ISBN: 0335218520 - By: GOODWIN
    Edition: 01 - Pub Date: 01-DEC-05
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  • Global Change and Health
    ISBN: 0335218482 - By: LEE
    Edition: 01 - Pub Date: 01-NOV-05
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  • Health Care Evaluation
    ISBN: 0335218490 - By: SMITH
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  • Economic Evaluation
    ISBN: 0335218474 - By: FOX-RUSHBY
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  • Financial Management in Health Services
    ISBN: 0335218512 - By: GRUEN
    Edition: 01 - Pub Date: 01-SEP-05
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  • Medical Anthropology
    ISBN: 0335218504 - By: POOL
    Edition: 01 - Pub Date: 01-SEP-05
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  • Introduction to Epidemiology
    ISBN: 0335218334 - By: BAILEY
    Edition: 01 - Pub Date: 01-SEP-05
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  • Economic Analysis for Management and Policy
    ISBN: 0335218466 - By: JAN
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  • Understanding Health Services
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  • Principles of Social Research
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  • Thursday

    Is Vietnam ready for a new aggression from the North?

    Communist China is ready to a new war against East Asia. Nobody can be certain about how much its Vietnamese ‘friends’ have prepared themselves for a new invasion from the north. In the last one thousand years, Vietnam has successfully resisted five large attempts of invasion from China. The last one happened in February 1979 when Chinese Army killed 60,000 Vietnamese civilians and soldiers but failed to conquer its communist ‘brothers’ . Will this time be another success for Vietnam? This clip, made by an online newspaper who gets support from Vietnam’s People’s Army, shows armed units who are responsible for defending the country’s northern border. This is a rare product shown to the public as normally Vietnam is hesitant to officially express its uneasy feelings with China.

    Bánh chưng: một tìm hiểu về cội nguồn dân tộc Việt

    Hà Văn Thùy – Đỗ Ngọc Thành

    Nghìn vạn năm nay chúng sinh Việt vẫn làm, vẫn ăn bánh chưng hàng năm thậm chí hàng ngày. Cả ao mực đã đổ ra để tán để bình về món ăn quốc hồn quốc túy. Ai cũng nghĩ mình đã hiểu và không còn điều gì đáng nói về chiếc bánh xưa như Trái đất! Thử tìm hiểu về chiếc bánh chưng vuông của tác giả Nguyễn Trung Thuần xuất hiện trước Tết quả đã mở rộng tầm mắt cho bạn đọc. Rất cảm ơn tác giả, nhưng thấy bài viết chưa “đã”, chúng tôi mạo muội bàn thêm.

    Muốn hiểu tới tận cùng về chiếc bánh chưng không thể không trả lời hai câu hỏi: 1. Chủ nhân chiếc bánh chưng là ai? Và 2. Chiếc bánh chưng được sáng tạo như thế nào?

    I. Ai là chủ nhân của bánh chưng?

    Trước hết, cần hiểu rõ, thế nào là bánh chưng? Nhờ bài viết của ông Nguyễn Trung Thuần, ta biết cái tên khai sinh được viết trên giấy đầu tiên của bánh chưng là 裹蒸. Từ điển phiên là “quả chưng”, “lõa, khỏa chưng” và được giải nghĩa là loại bánh được gói dùng cho lễ tế chưng, lễ tế mùa đông. Như vậy, bánh chưng theo văn tự được ghi sớm nhất là loại bánh dùng lá cây, gói gạo nếp, đậu và thịt lợn đem luộc lên làm vật cúng trong lễ tế mùa đông, là thứ bánh để cúng trong dịp Tết. Tuy nhiên, đấy chỉ là chữ nghĩa trong từ điển. Mà từ thì sinh ra trước khi có điển nên những từ không được điển chế đã gây khó cho những ai chỉ biết từ điển! Nếu lục tìm trong tiếng Việt cổ thì quả cũng từng có nghĩa là bánh. Dân gian Việt quen nóibánh trái. Đó là từ xưa, nay thường được hiểu là bánh và trái cây. Nhưng nghĩa nguyên thủy của từ ghép bánh trái cho thấy: bánh cũng từng được gọi là trái, là quả! Câu ca dao Tay cầm bầu rượu quả nem là một chứng cứ. Quả nem là chiếc nem hình bánh ú, cũng có nghĩa là bánh nem. Từ cái gốc gác xa xưa ấy, ta khám phá ra điều bí mật vô cùng thú vị: quả chưng chính là bánh chưng tiếng Việt! Điều này có nghĩa là, người Việt cổ trên đất Trung Hoa làm ra thứ bánh gọi là bánh chưng. Nhưng rồi đất Việt bị chiếm, người Việt trở thành người Tàu, biết bao tài sản Việt biến thành của Tàu. Tuy nhiên, cái tên cúng cơm của chiếc bánh vẫn được giữ nguyên. Không chỉ giữ nguyên từ Việt cổ: quả là bánh mà còn giữ nguyên văn phạm Việt theo lối nói chính trước phụ sau! Vậy là dù cho hàng nghìn năm ra sức đồng hóa thì các thày Tàu cũng không thể biến chiếc bánh chưng tiếng Việt thànhchưng bính Tàu!

    Với ý nghĩa như vậy thì loại bánh hình bánh ú của dân Triệu Hưng, bánh đòn, bánh tày, bánh tét, Tapeng arua của người Arem và bánh vuông của người Kinh đều làbánh chưng. Từ “chưng” ở đây không phải động từ chưng cất mà là lễ tế cuối năm, tức cúng tế trong dịp Tết. Từ Tét là do đọc trại của Tết, càng chứng tỏ loại bánh làm vào dịp Tết. Một thực tế là, không chỉ người Kinh, người Triệu Khánh Quảng Đông, người Arem làm bánh chưng, mà trên Hoa lục, từ miền đất của nước Sở, nước Ngô, nước Việt xưa tận Sơn Đông, Động Đình Hồ xuống phương Nam, Quảng Đông, Phúc Kiến, Vân Nam, Ba Thục… đâu đâu cũng có bánh chưng.

    Bánh chưng có từ bao giờ? Khó biết đích xác nhưng sách còn ghi, khi Khuất Nguyên gieo mình xuống sông Mịch La (năm 278 TCN), người nước Sở thương tiếc bằng cách thả bánh chưng xuống sông để cá ăn bánh mà đừng rỉa xác ông! Sau này, hàng năm vào dịp giỗ ông, người ta thả bánh xuống ao xuống giếng để tưởng niệm. Như vậy, chiếc bánh chưng có từ xa xưa và quen thuộc với phần lớn dân cư sống trên đất Trung Quốc.

    Một câu hỏi: dân Trung Quốc là ai? Trong bài viết của mình, tác giả Nguyễn Trung Thuần dẫn tư liệu: “Ở huyện Khai Phong của Triệu Khánh từng phát hiện được một hóa thạch răng người cách nay 14,8 vạn năm, được giới khảo cổ cho là tổ tiên sớm nhất của người Lĩnh Nam.” Đấy là một trong những sai lầm chết người của khoa học thế kỷ trước, khi cho rằng người Vượn Bắc Kinh Homo erectus pekinensis sống 600.000 năm trước ở Chu Khẩu Điếm là tổ tiên người Trung Hoa. Sang thế kỷ này, di truyền học phát hiện, người Bắc Kinh thuộc loài tiền nhiệm của chúng ta, biến mất khỏi châu Á 250.000 năm trước. Chúng ta hôm nay là Người Khôn ngoan Homo sapiens, tổ tiên xuất hiện ở châu Phi 180.000 năm trước và 70.000 năm cách nay đã men theo bờ biển Ấn Độ Dương đặt bước chân đầu tiên trên đất Việt Nam của lục địa Đông Á. Sau đó, từ Việt Nam, con người đông dần và 40.000 năm trước tiến lên khai phá vùng đất mênh mông phía bắc. 4000 năm TCN, trên đất Đông Á, người Việt chiếm khoảng 65% nhân số thế giới và xây dựng nền văn minh nông nghiệp rực rỡ, trong đó có văn hóa bánh chưng.

    image001

           Một cặp bánh chưng Việt Nam

    image003

        Bánh chưng Triệu Khánh

    image005

    Bánh chưng Quảng Đông (广东裹蒸粽)

    II. Bánh chưng được sáng tạo ra sao?

    Có lẽ, chiếc bánh đầu tiên mà người Việt làm ra là bánh… đất! Điều này được ghi lại trong Hậu Hán thư: “Dân Giao Chỉ lấy đất sét làm bánh đem phơi khô, coi là vật quý, dùng trong cưới hỏi.” Vài ba chục năm trước, nhiều phiên chợ ở Phú Thọ còn bán bánh đất. Cũng thời đó, ở Thái Bình, nhiều bà già lấy những viên ngói nung non lửa cho con dâu ốm nghén ăn, gọi là “ăn rở.” Sau này khoa học khám phá ra đó là việc làm cực kỳ khôn ngoan vì bổ sung nguyên tố vi lượng, khoáng chất cho thai nhi.

    Không ai biết chắc chiếc bánh chưng được làm từ khi nào. Chúng tôi đồ rằng, tiền thân của nó là những thỏi cơm lam được nấu trong ống tre. Người Việt trồng lúa trước hết ở trên cạn, gọi là lúa nương, lúa lốc mà phần nhiều là lúa nếp. Gạo bỏ vào ống tre, cho nước vừa đủ rồi nướng trong lửa than. Khi cơm chín, chẻ ống tre ra, được những thỏi cơm lam thơm ngon.

    Một ngày đẹp trời, có ai đó nảy sáng kiến cho thêm hạt đậu, hạt lạc rồi thịt lợn vào ống tre cùng với gạo. Lúc này sản phẩm thu được không còn là đòn cơm lam bình thường mà là một món ăn kỳ diệu. Có lẽ từ lúc này, thay cho từ cơm lam, người ta gọi là bánh! Khi phát minh ra đồ gốm để đun nấu, con người nảy sáng kiến dùng lá gói gạo (đã ngâm nước) với đậu, thịt lợn thành đòn dài như hình chiếc ống tre, cho vào nồi nấu. Chiếc bánh hình khúc tre ra đời! Loại thức ăn trân quý như vậy không dễ có hằng ngày nên chỉ có thể làm vào dịp lễ lớn nhất trong năm là lễ tế mùa đông, tế chưng, còn gọi là Tết. Do vậy, chiếc bánh được gọi là bánh chưng và cũng có tên là bánh tét, do đọc trại của từ “Tết”.

    Chiếc bánh hình trụ của ống tre gợi lên hình tượng sinh thực khí nam, một vật thờ linh thiêng của người Việt cổ. Lúc này người ta nhận ra, chỉ có sinh thực khí nam thì chưa đủ! Và do bánh được gói bằng lá, không còn bị hạn chế bởi khuôn khổ chiếc ống tre nên người ta gói những chiếc bánh hình vú tượng trưng cho sinh thực khí nữ. Và trên bàn thờ là cặp bánh ú (vú, bú) với đòn bánh tét nằm giữa, vừa là biểu trưng sự sung túc của nghề nông vừa thể hiện tín ngưỡng phồn thực!

    Cũng phải rất lâu sau, giữa thế giới của bánh ú, bánh tày, bánh tét, tại kinh đô Việt Trì, theo truyền thuyết, chàng Lang Liêu sáng tạo ra chiếc bánh hình vuông. Vẫn là chiếc bánh chưng truyền thống trời che đất chở muôn vật bên trong nhưng chiếc bánh vuông là bước nhảy vọt không chỉ về thẩm mỹ mà còn về trí tuệ. Chiếc bánh chỉ nặng khoảng 500 – 600 gram và được buộc bằng bốn chiếc lạt: hai dọc hai ngang. Bốn chiếc lạt trên hình vuông như trang giấy xanh tạo thành chữ Tỉnh. Đấy là hình tượng nhắc lại thuở xa xưa khi tổ tiên mở cõi: dân chúng chung tay vỡ mảnh đất hình vuông rồi chia đều làm chín phần. Tám nhà cày cấy tám phần xung quanh và chung nhau chăm sóc phần ruộng ở giữa, lấy hoa lợi nộp vua. Cách chia đất này thể hiện triết lý bình sản của người Việt, đảm bảo tài sản đồng đều giữa các thành viên, cái nền bền vững của hạnh phúc cộng đồng. Sau này, việc chia ruộng chữ Tỉnh được chuyển hóa thành công điền. Công điền là ruộng của làng, vua không có quyền đụng tới, ba năm một lần chia cho người nghèo cày cấy.

    Bốn chiếc lạt còn chia bề mặt chiếc bánh thành Lạc thư, Cửu cung bát quái Càn, Khảm, Cấn, Chấn, Tốn, Ly, Khôn, Đoài và Trung ương, cội nguồn của kinh Dịch. Đó cũng là ma phương đồ bậc ba mà tổng các con số của các ô theo chiều ngang, dọc và chéo đều là 15: đúng bằng số bộ của nước Văn Lang thời Vua Hùng! Chắc chắn, từ đất tổ Việt Trì, chiếc bánh vuông lan tỏa ra nhiều vùng Lạc Việt khác, trong đó có Quảng Đông mà ngày nay người Hoa gốc Việt ở đây vẫn giữ được!

    image006

    Lạc thư

    image007

    Cửu cung & ma phương bậc ba trên bánh chưng

    Chiếc bánh vuông tượng trưng cho phái nam là sáng tạo mỹ mãn. Nhưng như vậy chưa đủ vì có nam mà không nữ chửa nên xuân! Thay cho bánh ú quen thuộc, chiếc bánh trắng như ngọc, dầy dầy sẵn đúc một tòa thiên nhiên ra đời… Cặp bánh chưng bánh dầy được dâng vua cha, cúng tổ tiên và trời đất, sang trọng hơn, thanh nhã hơn!

    Câu chuyện bánh chưng còn cho ta biết quá trình hình thành ngôn ngữ Trung Hoa. Người Việt từ xưa trên toàn Đông Á gọi chiếc lá để gói bánh chưng là lá dong. Khoảng 4000-5000 năm trước, khi sáng tạo chữ vuông, dựa theo âm “dong” tiếng Việt, người Quảng Đông gọi lá dong là diệp đông 叶冬. Nhưng từ thời Tần Hán, người phương Bắc xâm chiếm Nam Dương Tử, áp đặt dân Giang Nam nói theo cách nói phương Bắc, lá dong 叶冬 biến thành 冬叶 dong lá. Tới thời Đường, chuyển hóa theo tiếng nói của kinh đô Tràng An thành đông diệp. Nhưng sau này, tiếng Trung Quốc biến đổi thành tiếng Bắc Kinh pinyin là dongye

    Ở đây có vấn đề dễ gây lấn cấn: bánh chưng vuông tượng đất “địa phương 地方” là âm. Bánh dầy tượng trời “thiên viên 天圆” là dương! Nhưng trong truyền thống, người Việt quan niệm “nam văn, nữ thị.” Văn vốn là chữ “vuông”, trong giáp cốt văn lúc đầu được vẽ hình vuông. Sau cách điệu thành hai đường chéo tượng trưng cho hình vuông (文). Nhưng trong câu chuyện này, bánh chưng tượng trưng cho phái nam trở thành âm còn bánh dầy tượng trưng cho phái nữ lại là dương! Giải thích sao về sự trái ngược này? Không khó! Bởi lẽ đã có khi người xưa nói: “Ông giăng mà lấy bà giời!” Phải chăng đó cũng là cái “lý” của người Việt: không có cái gì tuyệt đối dương hoặc tuyệt đối âm! Cồng là bà. Lệnh là ông. Nhưng có lúc “lệnh ông không bằng cồng bà!” Cũng vậy, Trời là cha là dương nhưng có lúc lại trở thành âm. Còn Đất là mẹ, là âm nhưng có lúc lại thành dương?!

    Ông Nguyễn Trung Thuần dẫn lời Giáo sư trần Quốc Vượng cho rằng bánh chưng cổ xưa không phải hình vuông là chính xác. Nhưng Giáo sư của chúng ta đã sai khi nói:

    “Bánh chưng vuông tượng đất, bánh dày tròn tượng trời là một triết lý rất Trung Hoa nhưng triết lý ấy thực ra còn chưa có ở đời Hán (HVT tô đậm). Vậy, làm gì có chuyện “bánh chưng vuông tượng trời” ra đời ở Việt Nam vào thời Hùng Vương? Ở Cổ Loa, thủ đô của nước Âu Lạc, nơi chỉ cách trung tâm Hà Nội có 17 km mà bây giờ vẫn có rất ít bánh chưng vuông. Họ thường gói bánh chưng tròn, còn gọi là bánh tét hay là bánh tày”

    Sự thực, bánh chưng vuông tượng đất, bánh dầy tròn tượng trời không phải triết lý Trung Hoa mà là triết lý của tộc Việt từ xa xưa, trước cả thời Phục Hy 4800 năm TCN, trong thiên viên địa phương của kinh Dịch. Còn việc ở Cổ Loa ít gói bánh vuông chỉ là một thói quen: người dân ưa gắn bó với với tục xưa của mình!

    III. Đâu là trung tâm?

    Hàng nghìn năm nay, các học giả đại Hán cho rằng, Trung Nguyên Hoa Hạ là trung tâm, tỏa chiếu ánh sáng văn minh khai hóa các dân man di tứ cận! Sở dĩ nói như vậy vì họ không hiểu rằng, Trung Nguyên xưa chính là đất Trong Nguồn của người Dương Việt. Sau khi chiếm đất này, người Hoa Hạ đã chuyển chữ Trong thành Trung, Nguồn thành Nguyên để xóa dấu vết! Tuy tổ tiên Việt từ xa xưa di chúc cho con cháu: Công cha như núi Thái Sơn/ Nghĩa mẹ như nước Trong Nguồn chảy ra thì chỉ tới nay người Việt mới biết viết hoa chữ Trong Nguồn và nhận ra đó là đất cũ của tổ tiên!

    Tuy vậy kẻ ăn vụng không phải bao giờ cũng chùi được mép: theo văn phạm Trung Hoa thì địa danh ấy phải là Nguyên Trung mới đúng! Đằng này lại vẫn là Trung Nguyên –Trong Nguồn theo cách nói Việt! Không chỉ địa danh này mà hàng loạt địa danh khác cùng chung số phận, trái ngược cách nói Hoa: Sơn Đông, Sơn Tây, Hà Nam, Hà Bắc… Sở dĩ vậy vì lẽ đơn giản: đất lấy được nhưng tên đất đã ăn sâu trong lòng người thì không dễ đổi!

    Cũng ánh sáng khoa học thế kỷ mới cho thấy:

    1. Người Việt Nam có đa dạng di truyền cao nhất trong các sắc dân Đông Á, có nghĩa là người Việt là cội nguồn của dân cư Đông Á. Đất Việt Nam là nơi phát tích của các dân tộc Đông Á.

    2. Từ năm 1898, nhà ngữ học người Pháp H. Frey đã cho xuất bản cuốn sách L’annamite, mère des langues; communauté d’origine des races celtiques, sémitiques, soudanaises et de l’Indo-Chine; Tiếng Việt Nam là mẹ các ngữ; cộng đồng có nguồn gốc của các dân tộc Celtic, Do Thái, Sudan và Đông Dương.

    3. Từ khoảng 18.000 năm trước, người Việt sáng tạo công cụ đá mới Hòa Bình rồi mang theo bước chân thiên di ra khắp châu Á, tới đất Mông Cổ và tạo dựng văn hóa Ngưỡng Thiều, niềm tự hào của người Hoa Hạ.

    4. Người Việt thuần hóa cây kê và cây lúa rồi đưa lên lưu vực Dương Tử, Hoàng Hà.

    5. Đồ đồng được làm ra sớm nhất ở văn hóa Phùng Nguyên rồi lan tỏa ra khắp Hoa lục cùng Đông Nam Á. Trống đồng cũng được chế tác trên khắp giang sơn Việt tộc, từ địa bàn nước Sở cũ tới Quảng Đông, Quảng Tây, Vân Nam và vùng Caren của nước Mianmar hôm nay. Nhưng trống đồng Đông Sơn của người Lạc Việt, tộc người đa số, từng lãnh đạo dân cư Đông Á về xã hội và ngôn ngữ là tinh xảo nhất. Không chỉ đạt mức thẩm mỹ siêu tuyệt mà còn ký thác trong đó những biểu trưng sâu thẳm của minh triết Việt.

    6. Chỗ nào có người Việt, nơi ấy có bánh chưng. Tuy nhiên, chiếc bánh vuông Lạc Việt không chỉ đẹp về tạo hình mà còn mang những nét tiêu biểu nhất của minh triết Việt.

    Vậy đâu là trung tâm, xin quý độc giả suy ngẫm!