This paper attempts to trace the origins of Max Weber's concept of "disenchantment"(Entzauberung) and its associated narrative through a combination of etymological analysis and and intellectual genealogy. It identifies two primary sources: German Romanticism represented by Schiller, and the 17th-century Dutch theologian Balthasar Bekker. In his work The Gods of Greece, Schiller introduced the concept of "de-deification" (Entgötterung), which was not merely a nostalgic or anti-Enlightenment gesture, but an attempt to improve humanity through the divine. German Romantics placed significant emphasis on "witchcraft" or "magic" (Zauber), proposing monism and aesthetics as pathways to overcome the shortcomings of a mechanistic worldview; Meanwhile Bekker's anti-witchcraft stance, drawing upon Cartesian dualism, argues for the ineffectiveness of witchcraft in defense of faith. Both approaches left their own unresolved issues: German Romanticism's aesthetic solution remained accessible only to a small intellectual elite, failing to address society as a whole, while its anthropomorphic theology proved unrealistic. Bekker's anti-witchcraft position, on the other hand, encountered two formidable challenges: the relationship between magic and religion, and the universal history of human religion. Weber's writings during World War I synthesised insights from both sources, addressing their respective unresolved problems to complete a "closure" of critical inquiry. On one hand, he recognized the void of meaning in modern civilization, advocating for "vocation"(Beruf) to combat the existential weariness; on the other, he proposed a historical schema of religious development, where the "disenchantment of religion" spilling over into the "disenchantment of the world", which in turn created room for discussions of "re-enchantment" against the backdrop of the "clash of the gods".
Using the primary and secondary education system as a case study, this paper examines the impact mechanism of public opinion in the digital age on grassroots governance. Departing from previous risk governance research that treats information transmission as an exogenous parameter, this article constructs an analytical framework of "information transmission transformation + governance structure transition + risk constraint reshaping", and introduces two concepts of "public visibility" and "superior visibility". This framework reveals the triple mechanism through which public opinion reshapes grassroots governance. At the level of information transmission, the traditional closed and hierarchical information control model is replaced by a two-way feedback mechanism. Horizontally, the public transforms from passive recipients of information to active producers, significantly enhancing information visibility through digital media and other channels. Vertically, information transcends hierarchical barriers, achieving direct access to higher levels of government, thereby weakening the original information advantage of the grassroots government. At the level of governance structure, public opinion promotes a transition from fragmented governance to collaborative governance. The public directly participates in the governance process through the expression of public opinion, shifting from external monitors to internal participants. Higher-level governments, leveraging digital monitoring tools, oversee local affairs much more closely, breaking down traditional boundaries of territorial administration and forming a horizontally and vertically coordinated governance network. At the level of risk constraints, the enhanced dual visibility of information subjects the grassroots governments to the dual pressures of public scrutiny and higher-level supervision, transforming grassroots risk constraints from elastic to rigid, and significantly compressing the risk avoidance space. The governance transformation driven by public opinion also spawns new structural contradictions: an inversion of governance capacity and responsibility risk, and a conflict between governance logic and the governance environment, leaving the grassroots facing unprecedented governance dilemmas. This paper provides a novel theoretical perspective for understanding governance transformation in the digital age.
Existing research on Chinese apprenticeship system has primarily focused on its characteristics as a form of wage labor, while failing to address the underlying ethics of action-specifically, the distinctive "patriarchal" features inherent to the system. From the perspective of behavioural ethics, the possibility of establishing a master-apprentice relationship lies in the tendency to integrate new social relationships outside the family into existing ethical frameworks. Pre-Qin Confucian literatures encapsulate the ethical essence of master-apprentice bonds as "between affection(En) and righteousness(Yi)": the character-building objectives of their interactions define the ethical dimension of "Yi"; while their shared daily life and moral exchanges grounded in shared values define the ethical dimension of "En". This ethical relationship manifested in mourning rituals through the practice of three-year period of "mourning with the heart".The master-apprentice relationship exhibits remarkable flexibility in China's historical records: on the one hand, while quasi-familial phenomena were commonplace in Chinese society, written norms lacked explicit standards for such a relationship, rendering it exceptionally adaptable compared to other social relations. On the other hand, the master-apprentice relation had appeared intermittently throughout historical records, with its visibility generally correlating with the prominence of Confucian thought movements outside official institutions. This flexibility stem from the subjectivity with which actors perceive bonds of obligation and gratitude. Unlike foundational Confucian relationships such as father-son or monarch-subject, the master-apprentice relationship lacked objectively defined criteria. It was not anchored in clear blood ties or contractual agreements, consequently, the ritual system was incapable of imposing rigid and one-size-fits-all rules. Instead, it preserved a foundation of basic etiquette while allowing actors to express sentiments based on subjective emotions. This dual-dimensional perception of affection(En) and righteousness(Yi) continues to shape contemporary Chinese interpersonal interactions.
Karl Marx pioneered one of classical traditions in historical sociology. In order to explore the uniqueness of Karl Marx's historical sociology, it is essential to delve into its methodological foundations. This study traces the formation and evolution of the methodological basis of Marx's historical sociology through his four distinct understandings of "history". In his critique of German historicism, particularly Hegel's philosophy of history, Marx developed the first relatively complete methodological framework for historical sociology: the historical deduction of production. This approach employs historical deduction, taking production as its logical starting point of historical analysis to deduce the formation of human society, thereby achieving a conclusion of social history over extended periods. In The Communist Manifesto, Marx refined this methodology through his historical analysis of "class". By critiquing Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Marx began to consider how to apply dialectics to political economy. Thus, Marx developed a more refined methodological framework for his historical sociology—"Dialectics of Phenomena in History"—whereby any existence is historically generated, and entities in the process of generation can only approximate the factuality of existence through continuous "sublation"("Aufhebung") within the historical process. When confronting different analytical objectives, one must first establish distinct historical phenomena according to dialectical logic. When confronting historical phenomena serving different cognitive purposes, one must select distinct causal analysis strategies. In response to the critique of Capital, Marx made further, albeit unfinished, reflections on the conditionality and non-necessity of generative history. Rethinking the methodological foundations of Karl Marx's historical sociology also provides insights for historical sociology research oriented towards social theory.
The relationship between expertise and organizational structures has long been marked by both interdependence and tension, a dynamic particularly evident in technology collaboration between hospitals at different hierarchical tiers. Existing studies on healthcare resource integration have predominantly focused on institutional barriers while overlooking the complex mechanisms underlying the operation of knowledge. This paper, based on an organizational-professional interaction framework, presents a case study of a county-level hospital integrating into a "medical consortium" system and receiving technical support from a higher-level hospital. The study conceptualizes the knowledge practice dilemma triggered by institutional integration as "knowledge misalignment", wherein the relationships between hospitals, physicians, and medical technologies are reconstructed during consolidation, leading to inefficient knowledge operations in circulation, application, and interaction. This misalignment result in unintended consequences such as upward migration and concentration of patients and functional overlap, thereby deviating from the policy objectives of the "tiered healthcare delivery system". Specifically, in terms of knowledge flow, physicians are constrained by organizational boundaries and career development incentives, leading to the short-term and inefficient nature of cross-institutional practice; in knowledge application, the mismatch between advanced technologies and primary healthcare settings increases medical risks; and in knowledge interaction, the unequal relationship between senior and junior doctors reinforces the dominance of specialized expertise, further marginalizing primary care. These mechanisms reveal the deep-seated challenges in healthcare resource integration. This study expands the sociological perspective on cross-level healthcare integration and critically reflects on the institutional tensions in China's pursuit of healthcare equity: professional knowledge systems are not merely passive objects controlled by administrative power, but rather closely intertwined with organizational conditions, constituting an integral element within the hierarchical structure of healthcare.
This study investigates the emergence of meritocratic professionalism among Chinese musicians in Germany. The Chinese and German societies differ in terms of both culture and institutions, which results in differences in the meaning, construction, and social consequences of interpersonal relationships. In Chinese Society, the guanxi-oriented concept is one of the most important guiding principles for handling all aspects of social life. The organizational structure of Chinese society is characterized by the chaxugeju, in which people distinguish insiders from outsiders in a self-centered, gradational way. In such a system, guanxi are often built on (quasi-)ascribed ties such as kinship. In contrast, the German classical music field exhibits a typical community-oriented logic of relationship building, which emphasizes achieved community formation based on individual interests or affinities. In the German classical music field, the general trajectory of professional socialization leads musicians to gradually internalize the significance of both social relationships and professional skills, fostering an integrated professionalism that values both dimensions. However, influenced by the guanxi ethic embedded in the chaxugeju pattern, Chinese musicians often cannot fully perceive and understand the local logic of social embeddedness grounded in professional communities, resulting in an overwhelming emphasis on skill embeddedness and the development of meritocratic professionalism. By displaying the concrete process through how new professional values emerge among Chinese migrants, this study moves a step forward from prevailing accounts that conceptualize cross-cultural adaptation as a process of selectively adopting or combining pre-existing cultures. It demonstrates that such new values may not derive directly from the migrants' culture of origin nor fully align with the host culture, but instead take shape as novel cultural forms constructed through the tensions between the two which shaped by the interplay of multiple dimensions of embeddedness.
Niklas Luhmann's social systems theory contains an implicit orientation toward a sociological enlightenment aimed at observing and describing functionally differentiated society through the theories and methods of sociology. This paper, taking Luhmann's 1967 Inaugural Lecture(Soziologische Aufklärung) as its guiding thread, systematically examines his program of sociological enlightenment. The importance of this manuscript lies in its establishment of the tone and direction for Luhmann's later development of social systems theory. It marks not only his declaration of a shift from empirical research to theoretical exploration but also provides a key to understanding his social systems theory. Firstly, the 1967 Inaugural Lecture outlines Luhmann's exploration of replacing subject-oriented rationality with system-oriented rationality in sociological enlightenment. It serves not only as a "manifesto" for social systems theory but also demonstrates Luhmann's ambition to construct a grand theory of society based on social systems. Secondly, to overcome the limitations of traditional functionalist systems theory, Luhmann transforms Parsons' structure-function system theory by employing a functional-structural system model. Epistemologically, this shift replaces the whole/part system paradigm with the system/environment paradigm, addressing the issue of societal complexity as a theoretical concern. Methodologically, it seeks to maximize the abstract potential of different system categories and extends system comparison to encompass as diverse a range of systems as possible. This paradigm seeks a new starting point for sociological self-understanding. Finally, the theoretical ambition of sociological enlightenment is not only a reflection on practical relevance but also a comprehensive theoretical reflection on social systems, which demands that social theory possesses the capacity for interdisciplinary connections and the ability to reflect on the theories of other functional areas in society. This provides an alternative perspective for understanding functionally differentiated societies and the positioning of sociological theory.
The concept of guanxi differs between Chinese and Western contexts. As an indigenous Chinese concept, guanxi embodies the feature of "universal particularism". This paper aims to explore this characteristic and attempt to construct an indigenous paradigm for the study of guanxi. Specifically, "particularism" is manifested in the fact that the understanding of all relationships is inseparable from specific actors and their contextual settings, nor can it be fully explained by existing structural indicators. "Universality", on the other hand, is reflected in the fact that all relational practices adhere to the ethical principles of a"differential mode of association", proposed by Fei Xiaotong, meaning that actors inevitably define relationships through an internal moral compass of"putting oneself in others' shoes". This makes "particularity" a universal logic that permeates different contexts.This paper argues that the core of understanding guanxi lies in grasping the "attitude" based on the actor's perspective. This attitude is a comprehensive consideration of objective factors such as identity foundations, degrees of closeness, and reciprocity, as well as subjective factors including interaction history, current circumstances, and the actor's mindset. It represents the actor's integrated internal judgment when faced with a specific individual. This research paradigm has achieved a dual theoretical shift in guanxi studies: first, it moves away from "instrumental rationality" towards an "ethical foundation", rejecting the simplification of guanxi as utilitarian tools for the exchange of interests. Instead, it first places relationships within the ethical framework of the "differential mode of association", emphasizing how moral practices such as"putting oneself in others' shoes" and "empathy" profoundly shape the dynamics of relationship; Second, it shifts from "structural analysis" to an "actor's perspective", transcending the binary division between formal and informal relationships, and focusing on how actors' subjective "attitudes" dynamically construct the overall nature of relationships.
In recent years, technological innovations represented by automation and generative artificial intelligence have accelerated the reshaping of labor markets. Against this backdrop, China's labor market has been simultaneously shaped by both traditional stratification structures and the growing skill premium, resulting in a more complex and dynamic landscape. Drawing on large-scale online recruitment as well as survey data, this study systematically examines the skill-based segmentation of China's labor market and how it interacts with traditional institutional divides. Key findings reveal that skill disparities have emerged as a critical dimension of labor market differentiation in China. Workers engaged in occupations requiring higher levels of abstract cognitive skills enjoy significant advantages over other skill groups in terms of employment risks, income levels, working conditions, and social security benefits. These advantages persist even after accounting for differences in human capital and institutional segmentation. Furthermore, skill stratification interacts heterogeneously with traditional institutional segmentation: institutional protections in the public sector mitigate market consequences of skill disparities- particularly in employment risks and earnings-whereas the hukou system fails to exhibit such buffering effects. Notably, wage gaps driven by skill differences are even more pronounced among urban hukou holders. Overall, the findings support our hypothesis that skills constitute a key dimension of labor market segmentation in contemporary China. The market has become increasingly differentiated along the axis of skill competitiveness, with workers possessing higher-level abstract cognitive skills occupying more advantageous positions in terms of market returns. At the same time, technology-driven skill premiums and pre-existing institutional logics jointly shape hierarchical orders, underscoring the complexity of "layered transitions" within China's modernization process.
Why can the project system be implemented in a stable, widespread and highly pervasive manner, and what operational logic does it demonstrate in specific governance practices?This paper distinguishes between two levels: the observational perspective and the analytical dimension. The former encompasses the relationship between the central and local governments, as well as that between the state and society; the latter includes the essential intent of the system, and the interactive practices of multiple subjects. Based on these two levels, this paper identifies four typical mechanisms: externality, principal-agent, legitimacy, and embeddedness, thereby providing a holistic interpretive framework for project-based governance. The externality mechanism addresses the spatial and temporal spillovers of project costs and benefits, while the ambiguous division of rights and responsibilities between central and local authorities leads to significant tensions. Moreover, it emphasizes the logic of public goods while failing to adequately capture the logic of modernization and development. The principal-agent mechanism focuses on analyzing the organizational transmission between central and local authorities, especially the multi-tasking problem, as well as the information asymmetry and ambiguity arising from different directions of specialised and localized knowledge. It also helps explain the bundling practices of economic development and social welfare, and the emerging phenomena of hybrid governance and project package contracting. The legitimacy mechanism explores how performance, procedural, and moral legitimacy are isomorphically and heterogeneously intertwined in complex project governance practices, and how are they manifested in grass-roots project operations. The embeddedness mechanism aims to clarify the "dual-track" politics and how it influences project operation modes and effectiveness.It also helps analyze the heterogeneity of project system, as well as the institutional changes of state governance. In addition to focusing on each mechanism separately, this paper also provides certain prospects from the perspectives of multi-dimensional and comprehensive interactions between multiple mechanisms.
This article takes Ang Lee's Father Trilogy as a case study to examine the root causes of conflict and the mechanisms of reconfiguration in contemporary Chinese father-son relations. It argues that the tensions between fathers and sons depicted in the films do not stem solely from the clash between traditional and modern values, but are rooted in the structural repression of qing (affection) by the normative force of li (ritual/propriety) in Confucian ethics. When fathers, in the name of "it's for your own good", stubbornly uphold ritual demands such as patrilineal continuity and stern paternal authority, sons are caught in a constant tug-of-war between fulfilling filial obligations and pursuing self-realization. Building on the Confucian dialectic of qing and li, the article introduces the phenomenological notion of the halo of time, and shows that the repair of father-son relations is not a zero-sum game of unilateral concession. Rather, reconciliation emerges through shared memories and overlapping temporal experiences, in which the intertwining of retention, primal impression, and protention reactivates an original sense of kinship (qinqin zhi qing), thereby driving context-specific adjustments in ritual practice. However, even when fathers temporarily suspend their fixation on li and sons, through affective recognition, reconstruct their practice of filial piety, the deeper structural tension does not disappear. This is because male offspring are more tightly embedded in the pressure chain of family responsibility and thus confronted with a structural double bind in which paternal love always entails expectation, while the pursuit of freedom almost inevitably implies betraying that love. In sum, the article constructs an integrated analytical framework of qing-li-time, arguing that under conditions of loosening authority and family transformation, an affect-centered ethical logic still plays a crucial stabilizing and mediating role amid conflict. This study not only clarifies the dynamics of change in Chinese father-son relations but also provides a broadly applicable framework for understanding the emotional dynamics of kinship in cross-cultural contexts.
Divine and sacred kingship has long been a central topic in social anthropology. However, previous studies have tended to focus on kingship in small-scale societies, emphasizing the internal dilemmas posed by the pursuit of divinity and sacredness, while paying less attention to kingship systems in large-scale and highly stratified polities. In contemporary Chinese sociology, a major concern lies in exploring the foundations of classical Chinese order through the analytical lens of jia (family/kinship/home) in order to construct an ontology situated within Chinese civilization. Yet such an approach often overlooks the entanglement between kinship and other social facts in concrete historical contexts. Similarly, existing scholarship on Late Shang society and kingship generally treats kinship as a self-evident social fact and regards kingship as a derivative construction emerging upon it.To address these gaps, this paper adopts the Durkheimian concept of "collective representations of death" to unveil the divine foundations of Late Shang kingship, thereby extending the scope of kingship theory and reflecting on the methodological limits of the jia-centered approach. It argues that, in the particular historical formation of the Late Shang, kinship --through which kingship was manifested and represented --was organized around the collective representation of death, and was, in turn, shaped by the logic of kingship itself.Specifically, the paper argues that: (1) rites of passage transformed the deceased into transcendent beings inhabiting different realms, forming the basis for social exchange between the living and the dead; (2) the living frequently commemorated significant ancestors to obtain blessings while gradually forget others, forming complex gift exchange systems between the living and the dead. The supernatural capacities of the dead, as well as the qualifications of the living to communicate with them, were highly unequal: only the king, through the mediation of exalted ancestors, could indirectly commune with the supreme deity; (3) human sacrifice served as an important offering in royal commemoration of the dead. As a "non-normative" form of death, it symbolized the annihilation of the humanity of members belonging to rival polities.Thus, the core structure of Late Shang kingship consisted of an ancestral sequence ascending from the reigning king to the supreme deity, while its boundary was defined by the denial of humanity to those outside the political order of the kingdom. In both its vertical and horizontal dimensions, this configuration resolved the dilemmas of regicide and externality that have long troubled anthropological theories of divine and sacred kingship. The vertical construction of kinship order was, in fact, closely linked to the royal pursuit of the sublime; its highly developed form was parasitic upon that pursuit. That is to say, the entanglement between death, kinship, and kingship yields theoretical significance no less profound than that of jia/kinship itself.The Late Shang emphasis on death and ancestry laid the foundation for the dynastic orders of later periods. Yet its hierarchical, utilitarian, and exclusionary characteristics were precisely what the Western Zhou ideal sought to overcome. The dialectical relationship between the Shang and the Zhou thus constitutes a deep-lying structure in the development of Chinese civilization.
The rural express delivery program serves as a crucial measure for rural revitalization and holds significant importance for the integrated development in urban and rural areas. This study examines rural residents' strategies for picking up the deliveries as a case study and analyzes the social contexts underlying the implementation of express delivery logistics in rural society. It finds that the interplay between market system and social relation is a key factor in the successful implementation of the rural express delivery program. Rural residents adopt diverse strategies for receiving deliveries. They may choose to pick up packages while going to Ganji (market days), or utilize acquaintances to collect parcels on their behalf, and or even pay Modi (motorcycle taxi drivers) to retreat packages. These three distinct delivery collection strategies reflect the close relationship between market system and social relation in rural communities, and their varying forms of interplay. Picking up packages while going to Ganji represents market behaviours within social relation. This economic trade is deeply embedded in the cyclical patterns and order of rural social life and is the result of the stabilization of rural social relation. Social relation imbues the market with its unique character, further facilitating its function as a provider of market resources for rural residents. Asking acquaintances to pick up packages is a relational action within the market system, instrumentally utilizing the relational networks within the grassroots market structures and effectively sustaining market operations. As a model of market-relational integration, the unique occupation of Modi relies on acquaintance social networks. While the relational structure of rural society provides the foundation for its survival, it also constitutes an integral part of the rural market system. This study contributes to a deeper understanding of the relationship between market system and social relation in rural China and its impact on the development of modern industry and market.
In response to sweeping critiques of bureaucracy in Western intellectual discourse, the neo-Weberian tradition has adopted a global perspective to examine how bureaucratic institutions take shape across diverse institutional and cultural contexts. Seeking to recover the constructive potential of bureaucracy, this body of work reconsiders Weber's canonical features and explores their pragmatic and normative adaptations. Within this framework, particular attention has been paid to two themes—personal ties and adaptive rule-bending—both of which hold significant relevance for governance practices in China. This article traces the historical origins of the neo-Weberian research, reviews representative empirical studies centered on these two elements, and excavates the theoretical assumptions and normative commitments that underpin them. I argue that the so-called "revival of bureaucracy" is, at its core, a search for how value rationality might be re-integrated into systems increasingly dominated by formal rationality. The use of personal ties or adaptive rule-bending is treated as a strategic means through which morally conscious bureaucrats might absorb, recalibrate, and ultimately incorporate anti-bureaucratic elements into a rationalized administrative order. Yet this technocratic vision of bureaucratic moral agency rests on a universalizing assumption: that commitment to the public sphere, distinct from private interests, constitutes the sole legitimate foundation of bureaucratic ethics. This assumption overlooks the plural moral orders embedded in distinct institutional and historical contexts and forecloses the possibility of alternative sources of organizational legitimacy beyond the bureaucratic form itself. While the neo-Weberian framework offers valuable reparative insights, it remains confined by the limits of its own theoretical imagination. For scholars of Chinese governance, this calls for a renewed effort to locate moral and institutional foundations for bureaucracy that are rooted in indigenous historical experience and ethical traditions.
Fei Xiaotong advocated and practiced a scholarly approach grounded in fieldwork and an emic perspective to study Chinese society. Since the reform and opening-up, his research evolved from longitudinal studies of rural communities in Wujiang, Jiangsu, to investigations of Wujiang's small towns, coastal regions, and border areas. He consistently engaged in "fieldwork and more fieldwork", urging scholars to "go to the villages and towns to observe and reflect". He introduced original concepts and viewpoints such as "rural industrialization", "aiming to enrich the people", the "Southern Jiangsu Model", "small towns, a major issue", "coordinated urban-rural development", "cultural consciousness", and "appreciating the beauty in others". His work, aimed at "scientifically studying Chinese society", "transforming society", "serving the people", and "serving humanity" embodies the modern values of industrialization, urbanization, prosperity for the people, and cultural self-awareness. Consequently, he has advanced the construction of an autonomous discourse system in Chinese sociology and made significant contributions to expanding the theoretical innovation of Chinese modernization.Learning from and carrying on Fei Xiaotong's academic innovation and its modern value must begin with investigative research and refining concepts that capture social phenomena from the practice of China's modernization, thereby enriching and developing the autonomous discourse system of Chinese modernization. It is essential to provide timely and scientific answers to the new questions of our era and combine the inheritance of traditional Chinese culture with the innovation of Chinese modernization theory by addressing practical problems and promoting practical development, and ultimately "writing academic papers on the soil of our homeland". In the face of external risks and challenges, it is crucial to broaden our global perspective, harness Chinese wisdom, and chart a course for global cooperative governance pathways with a proactive historical spirit, and build a beautiful world of "harmony without uniformity".
"New Northeast Literature" has revealed the profound dimension of historical experience and transitional memory underlying the so-called "Northeast problem", emerging as a vital cultural lens for understanding knowledge production during China's transitional era. This paper explores the social implications of New Northeast Literature from a sociology of literature perspective, uncovering its connection to the subjective world of individuals navigating social transition. It argues that the representation of class experiences constitutes the core through which this literary phenomenon transcends its regional origins and evokes broad social resonance. Such representations go beyond the restoration of dignity of the "father's generation" by the "son's generation" within working-class families. Rather, they re-articulate and re-perceive class experience within the shifting discourse of class, sparking intergenerational affective resonance around themes of class mobility, anxiety, and uncertainty. Drawing on their own life upbringing experience, the writers born in the 1980s translate familial memories of class experience into tangible literary language, transforming personal trauma into an embrace of working-class ethics and a nostalgic yet distanced reminiscence of the revolutionary idealism. As contemporary youth confront the anxiety arising from class solidification and unstable class identity, they find an implicit yet pervasive emotional resonance with the "class faller" figures depicted in New Northeast Literature—a resonance deeply rooted in their lived experience of accelerated social transformation and the loosening of identity hierarchies. Ultimately, the paper reveals literature's role as a medium of collective memory and public reflection in times of social transition, underscoring the multifaceted ways individuals navigate self-worth and identity amid structural uncertainty.
This study employs the "symbolic boundaries" theory from cultural sociology as its framework. Based on interviews with 20 florists holding bachelor's degrees, it explores how educated youth leverage cultural enchantment to elevate the status of skilled occupations. The research focuses on two core issues: empirically, how highly educated youth transform their professional image through specific practices; and theoretically how skilled professions achieve status elevation with the aid of cultural enchantment. The term "cultural enchantment" as defined in this study does not refer to a profession gaining elevated status due to changes in its intrinsic cultural attributes. Instead, it denotes a scenario where enchantment occurs under new evaluative dimensions created by the reconstruction of symbolic boundaries. The driving mechanism does not stem from the cultural accumulation of the profession itself but arises from updates in the social classification system. The study argues that, distinct from the power determinism and social closure theories associated with traditional professional status, skilled professions characterized by non-standardization—due to the diversity of their operational skills and product evaluation criteria—provide space for innovating evaluation models through the reconstruction of symbolic boundaries, thereby achieving professional status enhancement via cultural enchantment. Specifically, florists reshape the value evaluation system of skilled labor through the reconstruction of symbolic boundaries in three dimensions: the transformation of products into artworks (from floral material transactions to aesthetic creations), the elitization of identity (from flower arrangers to florists), and the theatricalization of scenarios (from shelf-style transactions to professional displays). Ultimately, this enables florists to break away from the traditional trajectory of the blue-collar class and achieve professional status transformation. By revealing the mechanism through which cultural enchantment drives the elevation of professional status, this study offers a new pathway to address the structural employment dilemma caused by the mismatch between youth employment aspirations and existing job supply, and to establish a more diverse professional evaluation model.
For Chinese people, the choice between traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) and Western medicine is a common decision faced when seeking treatment or maintaining health. Although previous studies have explored the mechanisms underlying the "educational gradient in health" from individual, family, and social perspectives, findings based on the Western medical paradigm have largely overlooked the potential influence of TCM preferences in healthcare behavior. Using data from the Chinese General Social Survey and an ordered chain mediation model, this study finds that the behavior of "seeking TCM" (i.e., a stronger preference for TCM over Western medicine) can serve as a mediating variable between educational attainment and self-rated health. This result remains robust after conducting both robustness and endogeneity tests. Regarding the explanatory mechanisms, the self-assessed perception of health among Chinese people, coupled with the increasingly sensitive physical awareness associated with higher education levels, makes highly educated individuals more prone to perceive themselves as unhealthy and to engage in healthcare-seeking behaviors. Compared to Western medicine, TCM's philosophy of "preventing illness before it occurs" and its relational model of collaborative patient-doctor care can more effectively address self-assessed health concerns. Therefore, individuals with higher levels of education are more likely to choose TCM, and ultimately experience an improvement in their self-rated health due to the effective response to self-diagnosis. The research results provide empirical support for the formulation of health policies tailored to China's context to promote high quality national health.
The mechanism of Model Construction(dianxing chuangjian典型创建) has served as one of the pivotal governance strategies for the CPC since the revolutionary era. Relevant academic research has generally approached the topic in three categories. Identifying and nurturing exemplary models has become a key approach for governments at all levels to advance rural revitalization and enhance the effectiveness of grassroots governance. However, the models at the grassroots level, which serve to attract the resources and attentions from local governments, now face the dilemma characterised by lack of the replicability, weakened capacity for experiential exploration, and"suspension" of knowledge production. This paper proposes a framework based on the relationship between"resources and workload". Using the rural revitalisation initiative in County L as a case study, it analyses the logic of model creation and the mechanisms leading to the difficulties in current grassroots governance practices. This analysis is grounded in the field investigation and in-depth interviews with participants in the government. Under the logic of resource allocation, exemplary models have become a crucial foundation for local governments to secure project fundings and attentions from higher level authorities. However, the selective allocation of governance resources has failed to substantially enhance the task capacity of grassroots organizations, resulting in short in representation. Moreover, the shortage of high quality human resources is another challenge that grassroots units struggle to overcome through model construction. Under the organizational task logic, being an exemplary model often brings new role tensions, significant increase of derivative tasks, particularly the burden of information production. The mismatch between resource allocation and organizational task-bearing capacity resulting from the convergence of these two logics led to the formation of the aforementioned model construction dilemma.
This paper analyzes and discusses Dewey's curriculum reform to specifically reveal the substantive content and empirical basis underlying the iconic concept of "social control" in American social theory. In his dialogues with progressive educators, Dewey explicitly opposed the notion of "individual freedom without social control" and advocated instead for "individual freedom within social control". This viewpoint was concretely manifested through the curriculum reform of the Laboratory School. In the field of education, social control refers to teachers guiding students to immerse themselves in the "situations" presented by the curriculum through the implementation of curriculum plans and the use of teaching materials, so that students can perceive the guidance and control of social forces in terms of their behaviors, ideas and emotions. Applying an analytical framework that examines the interaction between "action" and "environment" further illuminates the theoretical implications of social control. On the one hand, Dewey engaged with Rousseau's theory of natural education, arguing that individual actions are inevitably controlled by the social environment, and the traditions of civilization hold indelible educational significance. On the other hand, he opposed Durkheimian social education, maintaining that social control that truly fulfills its educational function cannot be separated from individuals' internal responses, and arguing that activating individuals' behavioral states through the "stimulus-response" mechanism constitutes a more important educational end. Overall, Dewey sought to use the concept of social control to describe a state of life where individuals wholeheartedly "act" in an "environment" with inherent meaning, and on this basis, to reconceptualize the relationship between individual freedom and civilizations. Dewey's concept of social control shaped the problem awareness of early American social theory and is intrinsically consistent with the connotation of "the pedagogical power"(教化权力) as expounded by Hsiao-Tung Fei. Clarifying this connection will help us reflect on the complex relationship between individual freedom and civilized traditions, and inspires actions based on sound judgment.
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