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This article examines how lesbians and gay men imagine and build their 'intimate networks of care' and negotiate moral expectations towards intergenerational family care as they age. To date, little is known about the strength and complexities of different intimate ties or the role of intergenerational dynamics in shaping ageing sexual minority people's care needs and choices. Based on narrative interviews with ageing Chinese lesbians and gay men, the findings reveal their experiences of constantly juggling their ties with families of origin, moral values around intergenerational care and the urge to receive support from and offer support to chosen networks of people. Participants exercised agency in expanding their networks of care by building friendship and (online and offline) community networks for mutual care and support in later life. Nevertheless, as evidenced by the centrality of ageing with(out) children, and the moral obligation of caring for parents in participants' narratives, participants experienced tensions between enacting what was considered morally right/wrong and developing networks of care that were perceived as emotionally intimate. Linking relational sociology with the sociology of morality, we discuss the conceptual utility of 'intimate networks of care' for sociological theorising of the linkages between sexuality, care and relational lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

The indigenization of sociology has been an issue of considerable controversy in China. Rather than taking a side in the debate itself, this article intends to make sense of different perspectives in the debate. Utilizing Bourdieu's field theory, it links a sociologist's view on indigenization with the sociologist's position within China's sociological field. This article traces the history of the indigenization debate in China and proposes a theoretical model based on Bourdieu's insight. It then analyzes how the different combinations of academic and political capital shape the different positions on indigenization and how such a debate can be viewed as a symbolic struggle in the intellectual field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The plight of left‐behind children affected by parental migration has aroused widespread public concern in China. However, limited research has been conducted on the positive aspects of the development (e.g., subjective well‐being) among left‐behind children. Recently, a new means to investigating the mechanisms of positive development in left‐behind children emerged from the positive youth development (PYD) approach. Grounded in the framework of PYD, this study was designed to examine how ecological assets (i.e., neighbourhood social cohesion and trusting relationships with caregivers) and individual strength (i.e., resilience) predict subjective well‐being among left‐behind children. Methods: Altogether, 1,449 left‐behind children (50.70% boys; Mage = 12.11 years, SD = 1.84) were recruited to complete questionnaires designed to assess perceived neighbourhood social cohesion, trusting relationships with caregivers, resilience, and subjective well‐being. Results: The results show that neighbourhood social cohesion and trusting relationships with caregivers positively predicted left‐behind children's subjective well‐being. Moreover, structural equation modelling results reveal that resilience partially mediated the effect of neighbourhood social cohesion and trusting relationships with caregivers on subjective well‐being. Conclusions: In this research, we identified key contextual and personal enablers for subjective well‐being among left‐behind children. The results provide some important implications regarding the manner in which subjective well‐being can be promoted among left‐behind children by increasing neighbourhood and family ecological assets and enhancing resilience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Power has long been linked to the stigma of corruption. Three studies indicated that different power concepts have different implications for corruption behavior and perception. The personalized power concept relates to using power to pursue self-centered goals for one's own benefit, whereas the socialized power concept relates to using power to pursue other-focused goals for benefiting and helping others. Three studies were conducted to explore the effect of these two types of power concepts on corrupt intention or practice. The power concepts were measured in Study 1, primed through previous experience in Study 2, and utilized within a specific context in Study 3, respectively. Taken together, the three studies indicate that the personalized (vs. socialized) power concept increases (vs. decreases) self-interested behavior and tolerance towards others' (especially high-position others') corrupt practices. [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]

Leaving the parental home is increasingly treated as an essential stepping-stone toward adulthood in the modern world. The authors argue that this is a cultural process regulated by social norms and institutional settings that vary from place to place. Hong Kong provides an excellent scenario in which Chinese traditions coexist with rapid economic development. Rather than looking at leaving the parental home as a developmental process, Chinese tradition tends to link it with filial obligations and gender status. On the basis of life history data collected in Hong Kong, the authors establish that leaving home has neither gained substantial popularity nor become a unique life stage among Chinese; it continues to be closely associated with the marriage transition and practical considerations such as housing, childcare needs, and the availability of elderly care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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 Religion of China is an overlooked but pivotal key to understanding Weher's life work. A careful reading of this work shows thai Weber's analysis or the rise of rational capitalism in the West and its absence in China is intrinsically contradictory. While Weber's official position is that the ultimate cause of the absence of capitalism ill China (and inversely, its presence in the Occident) was to be found in religion, his political analysis indicates that the politico--legal conditions alone were sufficient to prevent the rise of rational capitalism in China. Moreover, he finds that the Chinese religion, which was unfavorable to the rise of rational capitalism, wag to a significant extent the product of Chinese political conditions. This contradiction reflects the tension, never resolved, between Weber's institutional and religious explanations of the Occidental development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on family and family research in China. In the early stages of Chinese sociological development during the 1930s, family research flourished and some famous works on rural family research were published in Chinese and English. Later, the Sino-Japanese War and Anti-Guomingdang War interrupted research. Since 1969, political reforms have been carried out one after another. University teachers and students in the social sciences are often invited to conduct investigations and research work either in cities or in the countryside. In 1979 the Chinese Sociological Research Association (changed to the Chinese Sociological Association, CSA, in 1982) was established. It marks the restoration of sociology as a scientific discipline and the rehabilitation of former sociologists. In 1980 the Sociological Research Institute at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences began to function. Since then, following the wide dissemination of local sociological associations and institutes, marriage and family research associations and institutions have sprung up throughout the country.

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China is trying hard to uplift the condition of her people and to take her place in the international family of nations in the modern world. Reconstruction is a way to reach that end, and the rural area is the major territory in which to apply the means. This study then, focuses on the rural reconstruction in pre-communist China. To popularize education is the prerequisite for any kind of rural reconstruction. Since education in China is available only to a few million inhabitants, the government seeks to make education available to the general population. Educators started a rural education movement upon realizing that educated persons should go back to the people to help educate the majority. Four problems of rural education are identified: financial difficulty; lack of awareness of need; old-style or clan school; and half-hearted teachers. Universities began to extend their interests to the country, too. For instance, the College of Agriculture of the National Central University has an extension department which undertook developmental work in rural areas. Both government and private agencies support the rural reconstruction program. Nevertheless, the program is not always accepted by local people because it is somewhat different from other social institutions. Though it produces some beneficial results, the program was suspended when the Communists took over in China.

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.

Population: Chinese. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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.

This section presents the text of a speech by Peng Peiyun, Minister in Charge of the State Family Planning Commission of the People's Republic of China in October 1997, which relates to China's population policy. Through the last 40 years, China has witnessed a considerable progress in its social and economic development. However, no fundamental changes have taken place with the fact that China is still a country with a large population size, inadequate development base, a relative scarcity of resources, an uneven regional development and an underdeveloped productivity. China is a developing country with the largest population in the world. It has a high proportion of agricultural population and a considerable proportion of illiterate, semi-illiterate and impoverished population. These basic characteristics determine the long-term, arduous and complicated nature of addressing China's population problem. It is a fact that China's fertility has been reduced to a relatively low level. However, the large population base and annual net increase still remain a pressure upon China's economic development, the resources and the environment. China must adopt the strategy of sustainable development, promote further its family planning program and provide quality reproductive health service to the eligible couples.