Center for Aging Science Seminar: Co-producing Trust between Young People and the Government in Hong Kong

HKUST Center for Aging Science X HKU Department of Sociology X Society for Hong Kong Studies Seminar

Title: Co-producing Trust between Young People and the Government in Hong Kong
Speaker: Dr Angel Lai (CUHK)

Date: Friday 19th Feb 2021
Time: 2:30-4 PM
Venue: Via Zoom (meeting ID and passcode will be sent upon successful registration)
REGISTER NOW

Abstract:
After the social movement in 2019, over 60% of Hong Kong citizens expressed their distrust towards the HKSAR government, and around 40% of local youth had low general trust to the community (HK PORI, 2019; Lai, et al., 2019). Restoring trust in young people is identified as one of ways to move our society forward by different sectors. Yet, how can trust be build, especially between young people and the government? With reference to the co-production principle, this study aimed to: (1) Identify key factors constituting to trust in government among young people (2) Identify strategies to build government trust among young people. Methods. We adopted a mixed methods research, which consists of a qualitative and quantitative strand. Quantitative data was collected via an online survey (n=250). The team also gathered qualitative data by conducting interviews with social workers, secondary school teachers, principals, funders, government representatives, district council members and students (24 in-depth interviews with stakeholders and 7 focus groups with students). Logistic regression was used to analyses the quantitative data, and the template analysis was used to guide qualitative data collection and analysis. Findings. Research result indicated that near 90% of the youth expressed not feeling confident in the government. Quantitative findings policy participation as a key predictor of trust in government. Qualitative findings expanded on the quantitative strand. Young people also sought to participate meaningfully in the design and delivery of public services. Meaningful participation is understood as participation opportunity that allowed young people to create impact to the society, that treated them as equal contributors of the society, and saw them as a contributor of public services but not a problem that needs to be "fixed". Implications. We recommend a youth program featuring the co-production principles to facilitate young people to contribute to Hong Kong meaningfully, so that trust can be co-produced in Hong Kong.

About the speaker:
Dr. Angel Lai is a developmental psychologist who joined the JC School of Public Health and Primary Care as an Assistant Professor in June 2020. She received her doctoral training in social work at the George Warren Brown School of Social Work, Washington University in St Louis in the US in 2014. As a social work and developmental psychology researcher, Angel is interested in identifying ways to improve young people's positive development on the macro level, namely, via the mobilization of community/school resources, multidisciplinary collaboration, and co-production of social and health services in the community. She specializes in mixed methods research, structural equation modeling, modeling of longitudinal data and ecological analysis.

For more information, please visit our website.