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Decades of developments in inclusive education have seen the waning of deficit discourse towards children with special needs, but exclusion has not yet left the scene. In response to this persistent problem, the Special Issue 'Destroying the Trojan Horse of "lazy inclusivism"' collects the wit of Chinese children, parents, and educators to promote inclusion. In this concluding paper, I engage with some sociological analyses of exclusion and inclusion followed by some sociological rethinkings of the notions of agency and resilience. My intention here is not to portray a panorama of the Special Issue or provide a summary of the knowledge built and lessons learnt throughout the articles included in the Special Issue. As these articles are empirically complex and contextually rich, it would be presumptuous to reduce those profound ideas to this concluding article. The concluding article therefore aims to question the perennial, conservative reproduction of structural problems that have long perturbed inclusive education; propose some sociological reworkings to force structural problems to retreat; and spark some debates and critiques among sociologists of education and colleagues of inclusive education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The burden of support for the elderly, intergenerational relationships and value realization constitute three vital factors that will shape China's sustainable development in the future. These three issues translate themselves into the problem of “fewer producers and more consumers” in the field of economics, or intergenerational conflicts over distribution of resources and power and the issue of old people's value realization in the field of sociology. From the perspective of demography, old persons who are vulnerable as a result of family planning occupy an ever increasing proportion of the population, and China can expect to see a large number of “elderly people affected by family planning.” This concept has been formulated to draw the attention of government and government departments at all levels to the public benefit and welfare character of public services in population and family planning. Aging poses long-term and diverse challenges to a China that is getting old before it gets rich. In response to such challenges, this paper proposes a strategy of “successful aging” that foresees an old age of health, activity, harmony and happiness. In responding to population aging and the challenges it poses, Chinese society has developed a unique approach that combines tradition with modern elements. This approach may be summarized as being based on old age support by families, work units (collectives) and self-help, supplemented by the community, social welfare and philanthropy. The paper concludes with a brief review of the contributions in this special issue within the framework of “China's problem and China's choices.” [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The society of Hong Kong objected strongly when the government instructed schools to change their medium of instruction from English to Chinese at the junior secondary level soon after Hong Kong was reunited with the People's Republic of China in 1997. This paper tries to make sense of the objection to this piece of politically correct and pedagogically sound policy. It analyses the situation from Bourdieu's ideas of habitus and various types of capitals. The paper argues that the government's effort to persuade Hong Kong society to accept mother-tongue education on pedagogical grounds alone was to no avail because the English language has not only become a habitus of society; it also serves to distinguish Hong Kong people from mainland Chinese. The failure of the government was partly due to its insensitivity to the nature and social functions of language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper summarizes papers given at the 8th International Family Research Seminar in Oslo, Norway, 1963, which describe and explain differential frequencies of those decisions to marry which result in teenage marriage. Sociological analysis of marriage usually points out that age at marriage varies with the type of society and, therefore, reflects the stage of industrialization and urbanization. The lowest ages at marriage are generally found in peasant agricultural countries, such as India and China. During the rapid growth phase of urban industrial nations, age at marriage apparently rises, but later the age at marriage once again turns downward, though not rapidly. One way of viewing trends of teenage marriage is in terms of the percentage of males and females under 20 years of age involved in marriages contracted. During 1961, in 6% of all marriages contracted in Yugoslavia one or both spouses were under the age of 18. However, in such marriages the wife was under 18 years of age in 91 % of the cases, the husband in only 9 %. From 1953-1961 there was a gradual decrease in the percentage married under 18 years from 6.6 % to 6.0 %.

This paper deals with Chinglish as Chinese-English translations found on public bilingual signage in the People's Republic of China. After a short review of the existing literature, this study attempts to establish a typology of Chinglish with corpus-based research. Additionally, the corpus serves for geographical and statistical analysis. This study finds that the majority of errors are over-literal translations with grammatical mistakes. Only a few signs feature irrelevant wording, Pinyin or typos. Very few signs feature Gibberish with completely unintelligible word fragments or a random set of characters. The problem does not lie with the sign producer, since most of the time the words appear to be correctly copied and stenciled onto a sign surface, the problem lies with the translator. The number of Propaganda Chinglish signs is very low, given the commercial nature of more than 90% of the corpus. Noticeably, more than 80% of the signs carrying non-commercial information or guidance or warnings do not feature the institution, official bureaus or authorities that issued the signs. Tourism is a major contributor of the corpus with about one fourth of the total number of signs. Further research is needed to elaborate on the decorative use of English in the commercial realm, where the existence of non-Chinese lettering is used to establish an appearance of cosmopolitanism or the status of an international brand. The anonymous nature of the communication between the issuing institution and the general public is another striking feature of the present research results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many factors have been identified as determinants of increasing health inequalities in China. Health research has focused mostly on individual- and family-level determinants, whereas the effects of social environment are largely left unexplored. This paper suggests the aspects of social environment to be studied in relation to health in the context of China. In addition, an integrated life course and ecological perspective is proposed to address some conceptual and methodological challenges identified in the current research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the formation of the concept of science in modern Chinese thought from four perspectives. The first aspect concentrates on the Japanese origin of the concept of science, analyzing this concept through the formation of the late Qing branches of learning, fenke zhixue, and the knowledge system of positivism. The second aspect takes gezhi (investigating things and extending knowledge), qiongli (exhaustion of principle) and other concepts as clues and analyzes the relationship between the concepts of modern science and the study of the school of principle lixue to show the breakdown and connection between scientific concepts fused in the three aspects of nature, morality and politics and the Confucian world view. The third aspect takes as its focus the systematization of scientific research, analyzing the agencies of science, scientific publications and the scientific community's formation and the influence of these elements on society and culture. The fourth aspect takes the May Fourth debate on East-West notions of civilization and the debate on science and metaphysics as its focus, discussing scientific language, the debate between civilizations and the formation of the fields of humanities and social sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The magnitude and speed of social work's development in mainland China is unprecedented in human history. This inevitably gives rise to multiple perspectives on its nature and future development, particularly as part of the international social work discourse. Some of these perspectives are based on unexamined assumptions about China. In the present paper, we examine three of these assumptions, namely the homogeneity of Chinese culture, the global-indigenous dichotomy, and social work as an academic discipline and practice profession. We argue that in order to understand the development of social work in China we need to locate our discussion at the discursive intersection among different competitive articulations in both local and international arenas. Based on this critical examination, a brief discussion on the future development of social work in mainland China is offered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper begins with a review of the Chinese government's reforms on the personnel system in the public health care sector since 1978. These policies were designed to give greater economic autonomy to the public health facilities and public doctors in order to stimulate productivity, but failed to satisfy the medical workers. As public employees whose professional knowledge and skills have long been considered as public property, Chinese doctors have been engaged in 'unofficial conduct' to increase income. This 'conduct', which includes taking 'red packets', 'drug kickbacks' and 'moonlighting', is argued to be an unofficial form of the privatisation of professional knowledge and skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the use and impact of the Internet by disabled people in China, informed by the social model of disability. Based on survey data from 122 disabled individuals across 25 provinces in China, study findings suggest that there is an emerging digital divide in the use of Internet amongst the disability community in China. Internet users in our study do not appear to be representative of most disabled people in China. For the minority of disabled people who do have access to the Internet, however, its use can lead to significantly improved frequency and quality of social interaction. Study findings further suggest that the Internet significantly reduced existing social barriers in the physical and social environment for disabled people. Implications for future research, and strategies for increasing reducing the digital divide between the minority of Internet users and the majority of disabled people in China are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]