Search

This paper presents the theoretical rationale and research design of an ongoing study of social structure and personality in transitional urban China. The study is designed to be precisely comparable to recent studies in Poland and Ukraine during the early stages of their transformation from socialism to nascent capitalism, as well as to earlier studies of the United States, Poland when it was socialist, and Japan during more stable times. The paper also presents evidence that the dimensions of personality measured in the previous studies, and the questions used to measure those dimensions, are as appropriate for a study of urban China as they were to studies of the United States, Poland, Japan, and Ukraine, during times both of relative social stability and of radical social change; moreover, these measures of personality are essentially invariant for Chinese cities of differing degrees of wealth and privatization, and for both genders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates how the drastic educational reforms during the Communist period changed the effects of family background on education in China, in comparison to other nations. Data are from the Life Histories and Social Change in Contemporary China survey and the World Inequality Study; N=130,109 in 28 societies. Since World War 11, the mean number of years of education in China paralleled, at a lower level, the rises in Eastern European Communist countries and in Western market economies. Multi-level regression analysis shows that China's educational level is not higher than would be predicted on the basis of worldwide patterns linking education to g d p and family background. Overall, the drastic educational reforms of the Communist period do not seem to have raised educational attainments, contrary to the Rousseau/Marx understanding of the primacy of private property as a generator of social inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The educational attainments of Beijing's permanent ethnic minority population out perform or are on par with the dominant, local Hans. Yet, the Han demographic disproportionately dominates the high-wage, education-intensive employment sectors. What accounts for this paradox? What does this signify regarding the management of ethnic difference in the capital city? And how do we improve this situation? Drawing upon recent research, this paper will offer sociological explanations to answer these questions. Moreover, it will further suggest strategies for enhancing the development of ethnic minorities in Beijing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to enrich the literature on East Asian development by focusing on one critical difference between Hong Kong and the other NIEs – Hong Kong's rapid deindustrialization since the mid-1980s. We shall argue that while global restructuring gives rise to upgrading opportunities for various localities, it is the process of capability formation associated with the local business model that determines whether or not a locality is likely to benefit from these opportunities. We focus on the electronics industry as a crucial case and based on archival data and case interviews. We show that a strategic inertia associated with the "subcontractor model" locks Hong Kong firms in the OEM role within the buyer-driven global chain. Analyzing the evolution of local firms clearly illustrates the "imprinting" effect of the start-up environment on internal organizational structure and subsequent strategic choice. We conclude from this restructuring experience that sustainability [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]