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This paper examines urban China's socio-political control crisis under the impact of economic reforms as an epitome of a more general social crisis. The traditional urban institutional form of socio-political control in the People's Republic of China (PRC), the work unit form of control, is a variant of age-old forms. The latter's reproduction in variant form in the former was premised upon the fact that the PRC's industrialization was carried out by a peasant-based party creating a new working class of rural migrants engaged in non-market production and exchange. The persistence of non-market economic relations ensured this form of control's continued reproduction. Post-1978 market-oriented reforms have undermined this form. As the emergence of new forms has been slow, a socio-political control crisis has arisen, at a time when millions of urban employees are being thrown out of work. In dealing with the crisis, the official trade union, an organic constituent institution of the work unit form of control, plays a prominent part, in being given the tasks of sustaining this decaying form, and preventing and defusing potential social explosion. Yet, the very economic reform programme that has undermined the work unit form of control, is also gravely weakening the union. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study of Asian societies has not yet had its share of attention within the framework of comparative sociology as a whole. As one step towards remedying this situation, a one-day conference, called by the British Sociological Association, was held in London, England, at the School of Oriental and African Studies on December 2, 1961, to discuss the position of sociology in Asia. Papers dealing with India, China, Japan, Malaysia, Thailand and Indo-China and Burma were presented at the conference. Coverage was thus fairly comprehensive, though certain areas, including the whole of the Middle East, were left out on this occasion. The aim of speakers present at the conference was to assess the present state of knowledge about societies they were considering, with special reference firstly to sociologists of Asian nationality and secondly to the current contribution of British scholarship. Papers that were presented, while they showed wide variation in the state of sociology in different countries, also showed for Asia as a whole a volume of work being done which western sociologists could ill afford to ignore. Some criticism arose in the discussion of the idea of regional research entrees and of inter-disciplinary teams assembled for area studies. There was discussion also of the alleged problem of translating sociological concepts into Chinese or Japanese.

Academic dependency theory has attracted increasing attention in academia in the last two decades, especially during the last decade. Syed Farid Alatas, a Singapore‐Malaysia based sociologist, has contributed significantly to the popularization of the idea of academic dependency through theorizing and foregrounding the conditions of dependency in Western‐dominated knowledge production and the global division of academic labor. The growing importance of this idea as applied in Asian contexts is however inseparable from the reconfiguration of the world‐systems in which Asia and especially China have achieved great advancement economically and otherwise. In line with this transformation, we have seen an enhanced effort in Asia and the Global South towards decolonization and indigenization in educational and academic domains. We have therefore organized this special issue to engage critically with Alatas's theory and to rethink the status quo of dependency, decolonization and indigenization in Asia, particularly East Asia, in response to a new development in global and local higher education and research. To close our discussion, we call for an action‐based initiative to address and transform the circumstances of dependency and for more genuine global collaborations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives. Studies of Western settings, in general, argue that social capital, defined as a set of civic norms and social networks among ordinary citizens, nurtures democratic governance at various levels. Does such a social capital exist in a transitional society such as China? If so, what kind of role does social capital play in affecting individuals' attitudinal and behavioral orientations toward fledging grassroots self-government in that society? This study is intended to answer these questions, which are crucial for our understanding of China's sociopolitical development as well as for the application of social capital theories in non-Western societies. Methods. This study is based on the data collected from a representative survey conducted in an urban area in China in 2004. Results. The findings from this study indicate that social capital among urban residents was abundant, and it nurtured the grassroots self-government system through residents' attitudinal and behavioral orientations toward the system. Conclusions. These findings have strong implications for the future of local democratic governance and applicability of social capital theories in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The article presents a response to Frank Swetz's article "Science Education in the People's Republic of China: Observations and Impressions," which was published in the previous issue of "Science Education." The author states that Swetz did not elaborate his report on the sharp shift in educational policies in China in 1977. Swetz reported that debate on the country's education was stimulated by complaints of university officials and faculty that new students opposed the creation of a classless society.