Pub Date : 2020-04-01DOI: 10.1177/2057150X20912157
Airan Liu, Wangyang Li, Yu Xie
Nearly all past studies on educational inequality have examined the relationship between family and children’s educational achievement in western countries. Very few have examined this question in other social contexts, such as China. This article investigates differences in factors that influence children’s development between China and western countries. Capitalizing on recent national representative data, we extend previous studies by using more recent data and considering different measurements of educational outcomes. Our findings show that structural forces, such as hukou and residence, are more important than family and individual characteristics in China for influencing children’s educational outcomes; and that family non-monetary resources such as expectations and parenting practices are more important than family monetary resources such as income, for children’s educational achievement.
{"title":"Social inequality in child educational development in China","authors":"Airan Liu, Wangyang Li, Yu Xie","doi":"10.1177/2057150X20912157","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2057150X20912157","url":null,"abstract":"Nearly all past studies on educational inequality have examined the relationship between family and children’s educational achievement in western countries. Very few have examined this question in other social contexts, such as China. This article investigates differences in factors that influence children’s development between China and western countries. Capitalizing on recent national representative data, we extend previous studies by using more recent data and considering different measurements of educational outcomes. Our findings show that structural forces, such as hukou and residence, are more important than family and individual characteristics in China for influencing children’s educational outcomes; and that family non-monetary resources such as expectations and parenting practices are more important than family monetary resources such as income, for children’s educational achievement.","PeriodicalId":37302,"journal":{"name":"社会","volume":"6 1","pages":"219 - 238"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2020-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/2057150X20912157","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47665325","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-04-01DOI: 10.1177/2057150X20911871
Ryosuke Nakamura, Jun Yamashita, Hideo Akabayashi, Teruyuki Tamura, Yang Zhou
Various forms of empirical evidence suggest that parental socioeconomic status (SES) is strongly related to educational outcomes and many countries attempt to close achievement gaps among children. Parenting practice is one important mechanism through which educational inequality emerges across families with different SES. In this paper, we show that the class gap in children’s time use and academic achievements reflects parenting styles and parental practices stratified by parental SES by comparatively investigating the cases of China, Japan, and the USA, drawing on three sets of nationally representative longitudinal data. We find that for children aged 10–15 in China, parental SES has a strong impact on children's homework time and academic performance. Similar patterns are found in the results of 10–15-year-old children in Japan; however, homework time more weakly relates to the parents' education level. Moreover, restricting the samples to 14-year-old children and comparing the three countries, we find that the test score gap among parental SES is the largest in the USA; to fill the gap in math test scores between the first and fourth income quartiles, a sizable number of additional hours spent on homework are needed in the USA, compared to China and Japan.
{"title":"A comparative analysis of children’s time use and educational achievement: Assessing evidence from China, Japan and the United States","authors":"Ryosuke Nakamura, Jun Yamashita, Hideo Akabayashi, Teruyuki Tamura, Yang Zhou","doi":"10.1177/2057150X20911871","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2057150X20911871","url":null,"abstract":"Various forms of empirical evidence suggest that parental socioeconomic status (SES) is strongly related to educational outcomes and many countries attempt to close achievement gaps among children. Parenting practice is one important mechanism through which educational inequality emerges across families with different SES. In this paper, we show that the class gap in children’s time use and academic achievements reflects parenting styles and parental practices stratified by parental SES by comparatively investigating the cases of China, Japan, and the USA, drawing on three sets of nationally representative longitudinal data. We find that for children aged 10–15 in China, parental SES has a strong impact on children's homework time and academic performance. Similar patterns are found in the results of 10–15-year-old children in Japan; however, homework time more weakly relates to the parents' education level. Moreover, restricting the samples to 14-year-old children and comparing the three countries, we find that the test score gap among parental SES is the largest in the USA; to fill the gap in math test scores between the first and fourth income quartiles, a sizable number of additional hours spent on homework are needed in the USA, compared to China and Japan.","PeriodicalId":37302,"journal":{"name":"社会","volume":"6 1","pages":"257 - 285"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2020-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/2057150X20911871","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41474871","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-04-01DOI: 10.1177/2057150X20916011
Hyunjoon Park, Youngshin Lim
Private supplementary education, which refers to private lessons and learning outside of formal schooling purchased by families, has been widely practiced in East Asia. Its demand has grown even beyond East Asia, however, as educational competition for social mobility has intensified in many parts of the world. This global trend makes it important to determine who has greater access to private supplementary education and address the implications of the differential access for educational inequality. The current study compares how family socioeconomic status (SES) and students’ prior academic performance are related to their participation in private supplementary education in three East Asian societies—Japan, Korea, and Shanghai (China)—and the USA. Private supplementary education has existed on a substantial scale in Japan and Korea. The public and scholars have increased their concerns regarding the growing prevalence of private supplementary education in China. Although it has not been a major educational strategy, the demand for private supplementary education is rising in the USA as well, which can offer a useful insight into the global application of private supplementary education in contemporary educational systems. The focused comparisons across a small number of societies allow analyses of detailed patterns in each society in comparative perspective, thus moving beyond both single-country research and large-scale cross-national studies. The data for the current study come from 15-year-old students who participated in an international survey of student achievement, Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2012. With a clearly defined measure of private supplementary education, PISA 2012 provides an exceptional opportunity for comparison. Drawing on data for 15-year-old students in four societies from PISA 2012, the linear probability models highlight heterogeneity among three East Asian societies. Japan is distinctive from Korea and Shanghai in terms of the influences of family SES on student participation in private supplementary education. Once school-fixed effects are taken into account, the strength of the relationship between family SES and private supplementary education in Japan is similar to the strength in the USA, which is weaker than the strength in Korea and Shanghai. Japan and the USA are also similar in that family structure is not significantly associated with private supplementary education, while students in non-two-parent families are significantly less likely to receive private supplementary education in Korea and Shanghai. The school-fixed-effects models also show that the within-school relationship between students’ prior academic performance and their participation in private supplementary education is generally negative. Japan, Shanghai, and the USA show a significantly negative relationship, while only Korea shows no significant relationship. Future research directions are suggested in the conclusion.
{"title":"Student participation in private supplementary education: A comparative analysis of Japan, Korea, Shanghai, and the USA","authors":"Hyunjoon Park, Youngshin Lim","doi":"10.1177/2057150X20916011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2057150X20916011","url":null,"abstract":"Private supplementary education, which refers to private lessons and learning outside of formal schooling purchased by families, has been widely practiced in East Asia. Its demand has grown even beyond East Asia, however, as educational competition for social mobility has intensified in many parts of the world. This global trend makes it important to determine who has greater access to private supplementary education and address the implications of the differential access for educational inequality. The current study compares how family socioeconomic status (SES) and students’ prior academic performance are related to their participation in private supplementary education in three East Asian societies—Japan, Korea, and Shanghai (China)—and the USA. Private supplementary education has existed on a substantial scale in Japan and Korea. The public and scholars have increased their concerns regarding the growing prevalence of private supplementary education in China. Although it has not been a major educational strategy, the demand for private supplementary education is rising in the USA as well, which can offer a useful insight into the global application of private supplementary education in contemporary educational systems. The focused comparisons across a small number of societies allow analyses of detailed patterns in each society in comparative perspective, thus moving beyond both single-country research and large-scale cross-national studies. The data for the current study come from 15-year-old students who participated in an international survey of student achievement, Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2012. With a clearly defined measure of private supplementary education, PISA 2012 provides an exceptional opportunity for comparison. Drawing on data for 15-year-old students in four societies from PISA 2012, the linear probability models highlight heterogeneity among three East Asian societies. Japan is distinctive from Korea and Shanghai in terms of the influences of family SES on student participation in private supplementary education. Once school-fixed effects are taken into account, the strength of the relationship between family SES and private supplementary education in Japan is similar to the strength in the USA, which is weaker than the strength in Korea and Shanghai. Japan and the USA are also similar in that family structure is not significantly associated with private supplementary education, while students in non-two-parent families are significantly less likely to receive private supplementary education in Korea and Shanghai. The school-fixed-effects models also show that the within-school relationship between students’ prior academic performance and their participation in private supplementary education is generally negative. Japan, Shanghai, and the USA show a significantly negative relationship, while only Korea shows no significant relationship. Future research directions are suggested in the conclusion.","PeriodicalId":37302,"journal":{"name":"社会","volume":"6 1","pages":"239 - 256"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2020-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/2057150X20916011","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41735286","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-03-03DOI: 10.1177/2057150X20908093
James M. Raymo, Hao Dong
The papers in this special issue use newly available panel data and data from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) to examine linkages between parental resources and children’s outcomes in China, Japan, and Korea. Specific foci of the papers include regional differences, non-monetary resources, shadow education, gender differences, and the proximity of grandparents. Results demonstrate that, as in western societies, parental education and income are positively associated with child well-being and development in East Asia, but distinctive contextual features contribute to variation in these relationships. It is also clear from the findings that relationships between parental resources and child outcomes are more complicated than suggested by simple emphases on economic inequality and the relative success of children from rich and poor families. Together, these papers contribute a much needed geographic extension to the large cross-national literature on parental resources and children’s well-being. The findings provide a valuable empirical basis for assessing the role of context and understanding similarities and differences within East Asia and between the East and West.
{"title":"Parental resources and child well-being in East Asia: An overview","authors":"James M. Raymo, Hao Dong","doi":"10.1177/2057150X20908093","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2057150X20908093","url":null,"abstract":"The papers in this special issue use newly available panel data and data from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) to examine linkages between parental resources and children’s outcomes in China, Japan, and Korea. Specific foci of the papers include regional differences, non-monetary resources, shadow education, gender differences, and the proximity of grandparents. Results demonstrate that, as in western societies, parental education and income are positively associated with child well-being and development in East Asia, but distinctive contextual features contribute to variation in these relationships. It is also clear from the findings that relationships between parental resources and child outcomes are more complicated than suggested by simple emphases on economic inequality and the relative success of children from rich and poor families. Together, these papers contribute a much needed geographic extension to the large cross-national literature on parental resources and children’s well-being. The findings provide a valuable empirical basis for assessing the role of context and understanding similarities and differences within East Asia and between the East and West.","PeriodicalId":37302,"journal":{"name":"社会","volume":"6 1","pages":"197 - 218"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2020-03-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/2057150X20908093","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44808485","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-03-02DOI: 10.1177/2057150X20907165
Jia Wang, James M. Raymo
In this study, we examined whether and how the income gradient in child well-being may vary by grandparental coresidence and proximate residence in Japan, a country characterized by a high prevalence of intergenerational proximity and intensive family investment in children’s development. Using data from the Japan Child Panel Survey, we first demonstrated that household income is positively associated with multiple dimensions of children’s well-being, a relationship that was particularly strong for cognitive skills. We also found that children from lower-income families were more likely to coreside with grandparents than their counterparts from middle- and higher-income families, and that children from both lower- and higher-income families had similar likelihoods of living near their grandparents. However, children in lower- and higher-income families who coresided with grandparents had lower math and Japanese test scores than those living at a distance. These relationships resulted in smaller income gradients in test scores for children coresiding with grandparents and near their grandparents, relative to those whose grandparents lived farther away. International comparisons showed that the income gradient in children’s academic performance is largest in the US and smallest in urban China, with Japan being in the middle, and that multigenerational coresidence is generally associated with worse cognitive outcomes for children in both lower- and higher-income families across these three very different contexts. These findings provide new insights into the complex ways in which intergenerational proximity is related to economic disparities in children’s well-being.
{"title":"Household income and child well-being in Japan: The role of grandparental coresidence and residential proximity","authors":"Jia Wang, James M. Raymo","doi":"10.1177/2057150X20907165","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2057150X20907165","url":null,"abstract":"In this study, we examined whether and how the income gradient in child well-being may vary by grandparental coresidence and proximate residence in Japan, a country characterized by a high prevalence of intergenerational proximity and intensive family investment in children’s development. Using data from the Japan Child Panel Survey, we first demonstrated that household income is positively associated with multiple dimensions of children’s well-being, a relationship that was particularly strong for cognitive skills. We also found that children from lower-income families were more likely to coreside with grandparents than their counterparts from middle- and higher-income families, and that children from both lower- and higher-income families had similar likelihoods of living near their grandparents. However, children in lower- and higher-income families who coresided with grandparents had lower math and Japanese test scores than those living at a distance. These relationships resulted in smaller income gradients in test scores for children coresiding with grandparents and near their grandparents, relative to those whose grandparents lived farther away. International comparisons showed that the income gradient in children’s academic performance is largest in the US and smallest in urban China, with Japan being in the middle, and that multigenerational coresidence is generally associated with worse cognitive outcomes for children in both lower- and higher-income families across these three very different contexts. These findings provide new insights into the complex ways in which intergenerational proximity is related to economic disparities in children’s well-being.","PeriodicalId":37302,"journal":{"name":"社会","volume":"6 1","pages":"286 - 314"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2020-03-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/2057150X20907165","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42312081","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-01-01DOI: 10.1177/2057150X19892895
Yaping Peng
The logic of technical governance goes as follows: the knowledge of society can be obtained by the state via technology, and thus social problems are identified and solutions are found. Questions have been raised about whether technical governance would ever work. For many the answer is negative and doubtful. However, one defense remains: technical governance fails not because the idea is inherently flawed but because the technology is not good. Would technical governance succeed with better methodology and more technical rigor? In order to challenge this defense, this paper examines the operation of opinion polls—a form of technical governance supported by rigorous quantitative social research methodology—run by a sub-district government in the city ‘S’. In particular, this paper asks whether it is possible for a government-run poll to reflect manipulated public opinion, despite the strictest compliance with quantitative polling methodology. The finding of this paper gives an affirmative answer. It argues that on the surface, polls are statistical surveys, but in actuality they are a political process controlled by the government despite their compliance with all statistical requirements. The power structure of the local government determines the questionnaire items, their multiple-choice answers (the screening, compressing, and quantifying of social scenarios), and the final make-up of the public opinion index. The rigorousness of methodology does not guarantee the authenticity of ‘public opinion’ in final poll figures. More likely, the outcome is controlled by those who organize polls. Hence, quantifiable technical governance presents a contradiction: the state manufactures biased public opinions precisely when it is looking for unbiased public opinions. In the end, the government constructs an image of society that is its own reflection.
{"title":"The paradox of technical governance: A public opinion survey’s political process and its results","authors":"Yaping Peng","doi":"10.1177/2057150X19892895","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2057150X19892895","url":null,"abstract":"The logic of technical governance goes as follows: the knowledge of society can be obtained by the state via technology, and thus social problems are identified and solutions are found. Questions have been raised about whether technical governance would ever work. For many the answer is negative and doubtful. However, one defense remains: technical governance fails not because the idea is inherently flawed but because the technology is not good. Would technical governance succeed with better methodology and more technical rigor? In order to challenge this defense, this paper examines the operation of opinion polls—a form of technical governance supported by rigorous quantitative social research methodology—run by a sub-district government in the city ‘S’. In particular, this paper asks whether it is possible for a government-run poll to reflect manipulated public opinion, despite the strictest compliance with quantitative polling methodology. The finding of this paper gives an affirmative answer. It argues that on the surface, polls are statistical surveys, but in actuality they are a political process controlled by the government despite their compliance with all statistical requirements. The power structure of the local government determines the questionnaire items, their multiple-choice answers (the screening, compressing, and quantifying of social scenarios), and the final make-up of the public opinion index. The rigorousness of methodology does not guarantee the authenticity of ‘public opinion’ in final poll figures. More likely, the outcome is controlled by those who organize polls. Hence, quantifiable technical governance presents a contradiction: the state manufactures biased public opinions precisely when it is looking for unbiased public opinions. In the end, the government constructs an image of society that is its own reflection.","PeriodicalId":37302,"journal":{"name":"社会","volume":"6 1","pages":"102 - 139"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2020-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/2057150X19892895","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43678032","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-01-01DOI: 10.1177/2057150X19876875
S. Niu, Yajun Zheng, Fei Yang
Scholars debate whether and how higher education and elite education experiences break or reinforce the link between social origins and status attainment in meritocratic societies. We contribute to these debates focusing on post-college outcomes of elite university students in contemporary China. Using a longitudinal survey of the 2014 freshmen cohort from an elite Chinese university and a sequential logit modeling technique, we find that meritocracy is seemingly at play between the trajectories of graduate study and employment. However, within each trajectory, students’ hukou (urban/rural registration status) and regional backgrounds significantly constrain their post-college options, partly through differential participation in high-impact educational practices. Furthermore, social origins leave marks on students’ motives for graduate study.
{"title":"Students’ social origins, educational process and post-college outcomes: The case of an elite Chinese university","authors":"S. Niu, Yajun Zheng, Fei Yang","doi":"10.1177/2057150X19876875","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2057150X19876875","url":null,"abstract":"Scholars debate whether and how higher education and elite education experiences break or reinforce the link between social origins and status attainment in meritocratic societies. We contribute to these debates focusing on post-college outcomes of elite university students in contemporary China. Using a longitudinal survey of the 2014 freshmen cohort from an elite Chinese university and a sequential logit modeling technique, we find that meritocracy is seemingly at play between the trajectories of graduate study and employment. However, within each trajectory, students’ hukou (urban/rural registration status) and regional backgrounds significantly constrain their post-college options, partly through differential participation in high-impact educational practices. Furthermore, social origins leave marks on students’ motives for graduate study.","PeriodicalId":37302,"journal":{"name":"社会","volume":"6 1","pages":"35 - 66"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2020-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/2057150X19876875","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45220064","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-01-01DOI: 10.1177/2057150X19897450
Xiaoling Shu, G. Barnett, Robert W. Faris
Scholars have posed different hypotheses on the impact of global telecommunications on value orientations. We analyze and characterize the global telecommunication network and test a series of hypotheses on the relationship between gender values and three types of telephone connections: ties with the global society, ties with Western nations, and ties within groups of nations sharing similar cultural, religious, political, or geographical traits. We use multilevel models and data on two levels, between-country telecommunications network data from TeleGeography, and individual-level data (N = 70,225) on people living in 47 countries from the World Value Survey, waves III and IV. Countries with high degrees of communication insulation, measured as a high percentage of within-group ties of all global telephone links, hold less egalitarian attitudes toward gender equality. This negative effect of group insulation depresses the egalitarian effects of younger birth cohort, college education, and higher income. Embeddedness in a localized information diffusion network and isolated from global communication is associated with less egalitarian attitude toward gender equality. But neither global ties nor ties with Western countries are linked with gender attitudes.
{"title":"Telecommunication ties and gender ideologies in the age of globalization: International telephone networks and gender attitudes in 47 countries","authors":"Xiaoling Shu, G. Barnett, Robert W. Faris","doi":"10.1177/2057150X19897450","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2057150X19897450","url":null,"abstract":"Scholars have posed different hypotheses on the impact of global telecommunications on value orientations. We analyze and characterize the global telecommunication network and test a series of hypotheses on the relationship between gender values and three types of telephone connections: ties with the global society, ties with Western nations, and ties within groups of nations sharing similar cultural, religious, political, or geographical traits. We use multilevel models and data on two levels, between-country telecommunications network data from TeleGeography, and individual-level data (N = 70,225) on people living in 47 countries from the World Value Survey, waves III and IV. Countries with high degrees of communication insulation, measured as a high percentage of within-group ties of all global telephone links, hold less egalitarian attitudes toward gender equality. This negative effect of group insulation depresses the egalitarian effects of younger birth cohort, college education, and higher income. Embeddedness in a localized information diffusion network and isolated from global communication is associated with less egalitarian attitude toward gender equality. But neither global ties nor ties with Western countries are linked with gender attitudes.","PeriodicalId":37302,"journal":{"name":"社会","volume":"6 1","pages":"3 - 34"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2020-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/2057150X19897450","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48822657","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-01-01DOI: 10.1177/2057150X19896537
Yong Gui, Ronggui Huang, Yi Ding
Left-leaning social thoughts are not a unitary and coherent theoretical system, and leftists can be divided into divergent groups. Based on inductive qualitative observations, this article proposes a theoretical typology of two dimensions of theoretical resources and position orientations to describe left-wing social thoughts communicated in online space. Empirically, we used a mixed approach, an integration of case observations and big-data analyses of Weibo tweets, to investigate three types of left-leaning social thoughts. The identified left-leaning social thoughts include state-centered leftism, populist leftism, and liberal leftism, which are consistent with the proposed theoretical typology. State-centered leftism features strong support of the state and the current regime and a negative attitude toward the West, populist leftism is characterized by unequivocal affirmation of the revolutionary legacy and support for disadvantaged grassroots, and liberal leftism harbors a grassroots position and a decided affirmation of individual rights. In addition, we used supervised machine learning and social network analysis techniques to identify online communities that harbor the afore-mentioned left-leaning social thoughts and analyzed the interaction patterns within and across communities as well as the evolutions of community structures. We found that during the study period of 2012–2014, the liberal leftists gradually declined and the corresponding communities dissolved; the interactions between populist leftists and state-centered leftists intensified, and the ideational cleavage between these two camps increased the online confrontations. This article demonstrates that the mixed method approach of integrating traditional methods with big-data analytics has enormous potential in the sub-discipline of digital sociology.
{"title":"Three faces of the online leftists: An exploratory study based on case observations and big-data analysis","authors":"Yong Gui, Ronggui Huang, Yi Ding","doi":"10.1177/2057150X19896537","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2057150X19896537","url":null,"abstract":"Left-leaning social thoughts are not a unitary and coherent theoretical system, and leftists can be divided into divergent groups. Based on inductive qualitative observations, this article proposes a theoretical typology of two dimensions of theoretical resources and position orientations to describe left-wing social thoughts communicated in online space. Empirically, we used a mixed approach, an integration of case observations and big-data analyses of Weibo tweets, to investigate three types of left-leaning social thoughts. The identified left-leaning social thoughts include state-centered leftism, populist leftism, and liberal leftism, which are consistent with the proposed theoretical typology. State-centered leftism features strong support of the state and the current regime and a negative attitude toward the West, populist leftism is characterized by unequivocal affirmation of the revolutionary legacy and support for disadvantaged grassroots, and liberal leftism harbors a grassroots position and a decided affirmation of individual rights. In addition, we used supervised machine learning and social network analysis techniques to identify online communities that harbor the afore-mentioned left-leaning social thoughts and analyzed the interaction patterns within and across communities as well as the evolutions of community structures. We found that during the study period of 2012–2014, the liberal leftists gradually declined and the corresponding communities dissolved; the interactions between populist leftists and state-centered leftists intensified, and the ideational cleavage between these two camps increased the online confrontations. This article demonstrates that the mixed method approach of integrating traditional methods with big-data analytics has enormous potential in the sub-discipline of digital sociology.","PeriodicalId":37302,"journal":{"name":"社会","volume":"6 1","pages":"101 - 67"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2020-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/2057150X19896537","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44787671","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-01-01DOI: 10.1177/2057150X19898132
G. Qiang
As the main achievement of Tibetan modernization in the 1970s, the promotion of winter wheat enabled wheat, which had rarely been planted in Tibet, to become the second-largest crop in the region. Surprisingly, Tibetan peasants, who at first had strongly resisted winter wheat, became active participants in just two or three years. During this process, how did the state change peasants’ attitudes? How did the national government negate their resistance? Based on documents and oral history materials, this research study shows that political movement played a crucial role. First, the class struggle consisted of a crackdown on the resistance to new technologies and also promoting rural community differentiation so that mutual supervision among peasants neutralized ‘weapons of the weak’. Second, the function of political movement in remolding belief and arousing affection inspired people’s enthusiasm for growing wheat and their sense of political identity by portraying wheat as a symbol of emancipation. However, this movement also had certain side effects on production, and the whole project in the late 1970s was driven astray by blind political worship and neglect of realities.
{"title":"How do political elements affect agricultural technological change?—A case study from China","authors":"G. Qiang","doi":"10.1177/2057150X19898132","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/2057150X19898132","url":null,"abstract":"As the main achievement of Tibetan modernization in the 1970s, the promotion of winter wheat enabled wheat, which had rarely been planted in Tibet, to become the second-largest crop in the region. Surprisingly, Tibetan peasants, who at first had strongly resisted winter wheat, became active participants in just two or three years. During this process, how did the state change peasants’ attitudes? How did the national government negate their resistance? Based on documents and oral history materials, this research study shows that political movement played a crucial role. First, the class struggle consisted of a crackdown on the resistance to new technologies and also promoting rural community differentiation so that mutual supervision among peasants neutralized ‘weapons of the weak’. Second, the function of political movement in remolding belief and arousing affection inspired people’s enthusiasm for growing wheat and their sense of political identity by portraying wheat as a symbol of emancipation. However, this movement also had certain side effects on production, and the whole project in the late 1970s was driven astray by blind political worship and neglect of realities.","PeriodicalId":37302,"journal":{"name":"社会","volume":"6 1","pages":"166 - 194"},"PeriodicalIF":0.9,"publicationDate":"2020-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1177/2057150X19898132","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49554992","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}