In recent decades, much of youth research in Chinese societies has sought to understand the transformation of the younger generation and their social environment in the context of globalization, deindustrialization and economic insecurity. The epochal events of the global economic transformation and financial crisis, along with long-term Chinese social trends such as rising unemployment, income disparity, and migration, are in the process of creating new structural relations between young people and related social actors. Accordingly, this book charts the current conditions of youth services and policies in Chinese societies by examining case studies in Beijing, Jinan, Shanghai, Tianjin, and Hong Kong. The chapters address the related issues stemming from unemployment, volunteering, internal migration, economic disadvantages, school social work, and leadership training. Through comparative analyses of the aforementioned issues, the collection highlights contemporary issues in Chinese youth policies and services, including work commitment, social inclusion, social support from family and teachers, volunteering, and leadership training. The book argues that the strengthening of empowerment and social inclusion in Chinese youth services offers a solution to problems of alienation, powerlessness, and underclass status. The quest for social inclusion therefore merits renewed attention in the youth policies and services of Chinese societies. This was originally published as a special issue of the International Journal of Adolescence and Youth.

Fraser M. Ottanelli examines the history of the Communist Party of the United States (CPUSA) from the stock market crash to the reconstitution of the Party in 1945. He explains the appeal of the CPUSA and its emergence as the foremost vehicle of left-wing radicalism during these years. Most studies of the CPUSA have focused on either the grass-roots activities of the Party's members or the Party's relations with the Communist International in Moscow. For the first time, Ottanelli explores in depth the subtle and intricate interaction between these two levels. During the '30s and '40s, the policies of the CPUSA were influenced as much by the Party's involvement in national social and labor struggles as they were by Moscow. Party leaders attempted to set policy that would be relevant to American society. Ottanelli looks at the Party's domestic policies and activities concerning labor, race, youth, the unemployed, as well as the Party's changing attitude toward FDR and the New Deal, its policies in foreign affairs, and war-time activities. For most of the period under study, Communists increased in strength, influence, relative acceptance, and their ability to make significant contributions to labor and social struggles. Ottanelli attributes these accomplishments to the Party's search for policies, language, and organizational forms that would adapt radicalism to the unique political, social, and cultural environment of the United States.