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    20 November 2017, Volume 37 Issue 6
    After Sacred Society:Commemorate the 100th Anniversary of the Death of Émile Durkheim
    QU Jingdong
    2017, 37(6):  1-32. 
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    The era that Durkheim lived in was the climax of the development of Western civilization as well as a time of profound crises. This paper begins with exploring the internal root of modernity in the state of anomie as discussed by Durkheim, and follows by an analysis of the social causes of the prevalence of individualism, nationalism and the imperialism of absolute state power. This is to demonstrate that the core theoretical task of Durkheim is to reconstruct multiple solidarity between all the key elements of modern society and therefore to place people in a concrete society and politics in a real social implementation. To fully reveal the inherent connection between groups and the state, professions and democracy, morality and politics, and to overcome the non-temporal limitation of moral statistics method, Durkheim demonstrated the concreteness of social facts through four normative categories:corporation, state, property and contract. Furthermore, Durkheim's historical analysis dealt with the soul world based on norms, and his religious studies established a social being from the four aspects of ontology, realism, theory of knowledge and ethics. According to Durkheim, this was the only path to finally resolve the problem of norms and order. Lastly, this paper shows that, as an educator, Durkheim was concerned about the crisis of modernity and discussed in-depth the core issues of education such as by what kind of educational approaches, and what kind of sacred existence values people should be taught, how the transmission of knowledge achieves cohesion of morality and the inherent spirit of civilization and so on. In conclusion, this paper gives a systematic account of Durkheim's intellectual heritage in four aspects:crisis, history, religion and education, commemorating the centenary of the death of this great master of thought.

    Durkheim's Moral Principle and Modern Currents through His Four Types of Suicide
    WANG Nan
    2017, 37(6):  33-70. 
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    Le Suicide is commonly regarded as a "scientifically" positive work through the application of statistical analysis. However, this paper proposes that Durkheim's suicide study is also a systematic analysis of the pathology of modern society. By examining the pathology of the types of suicide, along with Durkheim's writings on moral education and primitive religion, the study tries to uncover his thoughts on the morality of human beings and society. The four types of suicide are the manifestation of social moral illnesses. Egoistic and anomie suicides are typical maladies of modern society. The former stems from the absence of group attachment, the latter from the loss of social norms and discipline. Acute altruism and fatalistic suicide are extreme reactions to egoistic suicide and anomie suicide. The former turns the lack of group attachment into excessive fantasy and fanaticism. The latter moves from anomie to zealous commitment on norms and discipline. The paper also touches Durkheim's thoughts on the origin and evolution of Western European modern society by looking into his discussions on French middle school education and French political and legal history. In his view, the morbid condition of French society at the time was the result of its inability to meet the challenge of social structural change of the Middle Age. For not being able to create a reasonable balanced social structure under the new historical conditions, the French society faced the dangerous development of modern social currents. Durkheim suggested the three blocks of moral education, corporate bodies and civic morality as a means of social science for building a new balanced structure for future society.

    The Conflict between Sociology and Ethics:A Perspective on Durkheim's Science of Morality
    CHEN Tao
    2017, 37(6):  71-104. 
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    In order to grasp the fundamental questions of sociology and to justify or reflect on its basic ways of thinking,we need to relocate it in the traditional disciplines from which sociology once strived to break away. More precisely,we must regard Sociology as a response to the fundamental propositions of modern ethics. This paper examines the two critiques towards philosophical ethics made by Durkheim's and Lévy-Bruhl's science of morality. Firstly,classical ethics regards itself as a legislative or normal science whose task is to regulate ordinary people's behaviors by constructing a set of moral laws with logical coherence. In contrast,sociology argues that valid norms can only be achieved after a positive study of moral facts in society. Secondly,anthropocentrism regards the purpose of morality as the realization of human nature,whereas sociologists emphasize the social nature of people and make the social function as the basis of morality. Therefore,the purpose of morality is to serve the existence of society itself. This conflict between sociology and ethics demonstrates that sociology challenges the dominance of the classical humanism tradition in Western thought and practice by providing a rationality inherent in history and reality,especially in non-western religions and societies. However,sociology cannot alone provide social norms by just studying contemporary society or other ethnic groups or by analyzing their social functions,social laws and social structures. The fundamental question remains what kind of people we want to be and how we should live. This should not only be the focus of ethicists but also the starting point of sociologists.

    The Social View of Moral Statistics:Reconsidering the Tarde-Durkheim Debate
    LI Yingfei
    2017, 37(6):  105-133. 
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    The debate between Gabriel Tarde and Émile Durkheim, the two leading French sociologists of the 19th century, has scarcely been studied. This paper is intended as an in-depth examination of the essence of the debate by means of the statistical method that both Tarde and Durkheim relied upon heavily, in order to reveal the different views between the two on society and the basis of social order. As presented in this study, Tarde attempts to capture the process of social order as a subjective variable in a way of objective probability, while Durkheim, adhering to Adolphe Quételet's tradition of moral statistics, attempts to capture a specific social structure and its normal state of function through purely objective statistical data. The investigation into the statistical method of the two sociologists shows that the disagreement between the two is attributed more to the difference between monadology and holism than that of individualism and holism, since both are critical to the predicaments and social problems caused by extreme individualism. Tarde attempts to transcend social ontology to capture the characteristics of modern society and the basis of its order by the way of monadology. For him, imitation constitutes an important basis of modern order. By contrast, Durkheim stresses social ontology in exploring the social basis of modern society, believing that a new moral system brought about by moral transition should only be understood through the inner structure and form of a society. As demonstrated in this study, it is beneficial to revisit these classical sociologists and explore the social view behind their moral statistics when we try to formulate our ideas about contemporary society.

    State and Patrie:Durkheim on the Two Aspects of Political Society
    WEI Wenyi
    2017, 37(6):  134-164. 
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    The 1905 French law on the Separation of the Churches and State defines the secular nature of the State and prohibits religious influence over politics and protects the liberty of conscience of the individual. The Act, however, contains a potential crisis:the tension between the liberty of conscience and the secular state. On the one hand, under its commitment to the general principle of freedom, the republican regime provides a legitimate way for individuals to seek political rights in the name of the liberty of conscience, and consequently, this action may challenge the authority of the State. As a result, the Republic and individuals gradually become estranged. Durkheim thinks that this crisis is rooted in French political tradition, especially "the principles of 1789". Different from the social contract theory and the doctrine of clericalism, Durkheim suggests that State and Patrie are the two aspects of political society with the paralleling ethics of individualism and patriotism, compatible to the characteristics of organic solidarity and mechanical solidarity. Personality cult is shared by the State and individuals. The State protects individual freedom but asserts its independence and authority. The State is the social brain. The metaphorical phrase of "the State the social brain" should not be understood literally in a physiological sense but as a way of classification. For Durkheim, patrie is the largest entity that ever exists. Patriotism is collective conscience and shared sentiment. People cannot fight their neighbors and compatriots for an invisible and abstract patrie. Patriotism should be rational and peaceful. It is concerned with domestic affairs, makes efforts to achieve social justice, and does not worship the power of the State. Finally, the relation between the Churches and State should be understood by taking into account of the development of individualism in the West. Even though religion continues its function, clericalism is no longer appropriate. After the separation, the State has full control of public schools, and thus provides an opportunity for secular moral education.

    The Impact of School Class on Junior High School Students' Educational Expectation
    ZHANG Yangyang, XIE Guihua
    2017, 37(6):  165-193. 
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    The classroom is the most elementary unit in the Chinese education system. From the viewpoint of school,the classroom is where education is carried out and all the rules and regulations are implemented. From the viewpoint of students,the classroom is also a place of socializing,interacting and grouping with their peers. In the process of education,the school classroom becomes a key stage of producing and regulating social differentiation. Drawing on data from the China Education Panel Survey(CEPS),this study applies the multi-level linear model to examine the impact of the school classroom on seventh grade students'educational expectation,including classroom organizational structure and classroom dynamics. It is aimed to uncover the effect and the mechanism of school classrooms as an organizational setting in reproducing social inequality.
    This study reveals that:(1)among multiple structural factors,head-teacher's educational background and teaching experience creates a significant impact on students' educational expectations,while teachers for specific subjects exercise no significant impact;(2)among the variables measuring classroom dynamics,students' educational expectations are influenced by the classroom's academic performance as a whole and the quality of student-teacher interaction;(3)once the variable of classroom dynamics is controlled,teachers' qualifications becomes insignificant.
    This study broadens research on educational expectation from a focus on individual,family and school to the effects of intra-school class environment. It demonstrates that the impact of school classrooms on individual educational expectations is not through the allocation of resources(teachers' qualification)in the classroom but through the good interaction between teachers and students and the healthy classroom rapport brought about by such a good relationship.

    Corruption Experience and Corruption Perceptions:Comparing Evidence from List Experiment and Direct Questioning
    LI Hui, MENG Tianguang
    2017, 37(6):  194-215. 
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    From 2012, Chinese government initiated a brand new anticorruption crackdown. This time, Chinese people witnessed a very different anticorruption campaign both from enforcement and institutional design. How does Chinese citizen evaluate this new anticorruption crackdown? In conventional wisdom, scholars mainly utilize two indirect factors to explain corruption perceptions and evaluation of anticorruption:information access and personal economic status. In this paper, we examine the perceptions and attitudes of Chinese citizens towards the government's effort to fight corruption. Specifically, we focus on the "corruption experience", defined as citizens' engagement of gift-giving toward government officials for private considering. We assume that, comparing to the respondents without any experience of corruption,the one who has experienced corruption, could perceived government more corrupt and has weaker capacity to control corruption. Our measurement of corruption experience is based on list experiment survey questionnaires to solving social desirability bias problem. The findings suggest that corruption experience may exert considerable influence over an individual's view of corruption and anticorruption endeavor of Chinese government. Our findings further reveal that the corruption experience's impact is various between local and central government.

    Regional Differences of Subjective Social Status in China:Using Anchoring Vignettes to Analyse Data from the Chinese Family Panel Studies in 2012
    SONG Qingyu, QIAO Tianyu
    2017, 37(6):  216-242. 
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    Subjective social status is a critical topic in the field of social stratification, because it can reflect an individual's position in social status hierarchy as well as his/her view of social structure. However, empirical subjective social status data often have the problem of interpersonal incomparability because respondents may understand questions in completely different ways in survey research. Previous studies assume that different individuals' criteria on evaluating subjective status are equal and thereby ignore the influence of criterial difference when assessing subjective social status,which lead to the potential risk of biased or even wrong results. In recent years,to address ameliorate these problems,many social scientists begin to introduce innovative methods to investigate the impact of the different criteria in subjective evaluation,and the Anchoring Vignettes method is one of them. Using data from the Chinese Family Panel Studies in 2012, this article uses the anchoring vignettes method to analyze the subjective social status in China. The anchoring vignettes method allow us to detect the accurate subjective social status by correcting interpersonally incomparable survey responses. After accounting for the criterial difference using the anchoring vignettes method,we find that there is a regional difference in subjective social status in China. Subjective social status was significantly influenced by one's achieved status such as education and occupation in economically developed areas. However,there is no common criterion in developing areas. This study suggests the complexity of the concept of subjective social status,which requires researchers to be cautious when use this concept. This research also showsthe strength of Anchoring Vignettes in analyzing subjective and abstract concepts and it has great implications for future research in social science.