20 July 2025, Volume 13 Issue 4

    

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  Matching, Translation, and Noise Reduction:An Anthropological Analysis of Clinical Diagnostic Technologies for Mental Disorders

  LI Rongrong

  社会学评论. 2025, 13(4): 5-26.

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  This paper employs the methodology of“laboratory studies”to examine the clinical construction of mental illness by analyzing physicians’diagnostic techniques, thereby proposing an alternative research approach distinct from tracing the historical formation and social consequences of diagnostic categories at the societal level. In the clinical process of transforming ambiguous, vague, or unknown somatic and psychological distress into clearly named and treatable mental disorders,standardized diagnostic tools, such as international diagnostic criteria, expert consensus, and assessment scales, interact with clinicians’technical operations and logic, including matching, translating, and noise reduction. Diagnosis is both a social act and a technical act. Analyzing diagnostic techniques aims to supplement existing discussions with the perspectives of physicians and clinical practices, thereby enriching the understanding of the social construction of mental illness.
  
  
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  Medical Technologies as Cultural Objects:A Sociological Review on Patient Compliance

  MEI Xiao LIU Tianqi

  社会学评论. 2025, 13(4): 27-45.

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  Patient compliance has always been considered a critical factor affecting the outcome of medical practice, and therefore, it attracts much attention from medical sociologists. Past research offers various explanations for why patients cannot always comply with medical instructions. This article first reviews the theoretical underpinnings of the value-laden concept of patient compliance, and points out the discrepancies between theory and practice in the scholarly discussion. Secondly, this article argues that we should understand compliance as objectoriented practice instead of the result of intersubjective power relations. That is, we should not treat patient compliance simply as manifestation of doctor-patient relationships, but understand it as“better”choices made by the patients when interacting with medical technologies. Furthermore, this article proposes to bring cultural sociology into the discussion to demostrate how medical technologies, as cultural objects, construct the“better”choices of the patients, emphasizing how both the materiality and symbolic aspects of the medical technologies, by interacting with both the bodily and cognitive capacities of humans, ultimately shape patient compliance. This article hopes to shed some theoretical light on how to push forward medical practices and reduce the suffering of the patients.
  
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  Social Processes and Knowledge Reception in a Dual-Dynamic Framework:The Reception History of Inkeles and Foucault in the#br# Rebuilding of Chinese Sociology

  WANG Guanyu ZHOU Gang ZHOU Xiaohong

  社会学评论. 2025, 13(4): 46-72.

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  The sociology of knowledge undertakes a systematic examination of the relationship between knowledge and social existence, yet it has rarely explored the ways in which evolving social processes shape the transnational reception of knowledge. By analyzing how Inkeles and Foucault have been received in the knowledge production of Chinese sociology since its reconstruction, alongside the concurrent evolution of China’s modernization, three findings emerge. First, in terms of shifting scholarly influence, Inkeles, once prominent at the outset of sociology’s revival, has seen a gradual decline in visibility. At the same time, references to Foucault, initially little-known, have steadily increased. Second, from a societal perspective, the early fascination with and vision for modernization gave way to a focus on real-world challenges as social reforms and transformations deepened. Finally, a Granger causality analysis suggests that these social processes and the reception of theoretical ideas exert a sustained and long-term impact on each other. This dual-dynamic framework provides a new perspective for understanding how modernization shapes knowledge production and the circulation of theoretical paradigms.
  
  
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  The Position of“Si”in the Differential Mode of Association

  ZHOU Feizhou KONG Xiangrui

  社会学评论. 2025, 13(4): 73-93.

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   This paper re-examines the meaning of“si”and its position in the differential mode of asscociation (chaxugeju) through a discussion of“si qin”(private kinship) and“si zun”(private respect) in mourning apparel studies. The study reveals that in Confucian social thoughts,“si”does not merely denote the self nor carry purely negative connotations. Rather, it signifies relationships of secondary importance that must yield when in conflict with core relationships. The counterpart of“si”is not“gong”(public), but rather the father-son relationship or“tongti” (corporal unity) relationship. The key criterion for determining whether a relationship is“si”lies in whether it is recognized as kin or accorded respect by the father. Relationships with parents and those sharing corporal unity with the father form the core and axis of the differential mode of association. The principles of kinship and respect, as well as the emotions of affection and reverence emanating from these relationships, constitute the true source of“extending from self to others.” 
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  Beyond Instrumental Empowerment: Digital Competence and Residents’Community Participation

  YANG Jianghua YANG Siyu

  社会学评论. 2025, 13(4): 94-117.

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  The rapid diffusion of digital technologies presents new opportunities to address the enduring challenge of weak community participation in urban governance in China. However, existing studies have largely focused on the instrumental affordances of technology, overlooking disparities in residents’digital competence.Drawing on survey data from 17 Chinese cities, this study adopts a perspective that centers on residents as active technology users to examine how digital competence influences community participation and through which mechanisms. The findings indicate that digital competence significantly enhances residents’participation in community affairs, primarily through two pathways: rebuilding community social networks by strengthening ties within online neighbourhood groups, and expanding informational spaces for public interaction on digital platforms. Moreover, digital competence exerts a pronounced activation effect on marginalized or previously disengaged residents, increasing their likelihood of civic involvement. This study contributes to the literature on digital empowerment and community governance by foregrounding user capacity over technological access and offers empirical support for building people-centred smart communities.
  
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  Under the“Eaves”: The Evolution of Form and the Reconstruction of Publicness in Unit Communities#br# #br#

  TAO Yu ​

  社会学评论. 2025, 13(4): 118-138.

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  This paper examines the“big and small eaves”community within the Beichang unit of the Northeast Old Industrial Base, exploring how memory shapes the concept of community publicness through the influence on daily practices over a 70-year history. The research findings indicate that through the collaborative efforts of the state, enterprises, society, and the residents of Beichang, the“big and small eaves”production model has completed the practical transformation , evolving into a“memory field”. This memory field encompasses tangible forms of continuity, sacred symbolic meanings, and integrative functional transmission, enabling those embedded within it to achieve deep emotional connections and high spiritual res‐ onance. Consequently, fluid memories become established, coalesce, and resonate, thereby acquiring vitality that transcends personal limitations and achieving timelessness that transcends spatial and temporal boundaries.This paper holds that the governance of unit communities cannot sever the intrinsic connection between tradition and modernity. While connecting with history, it is even more important to respect the people’s memory, carrying and emotional expression, and to effectively stimulate the sense of community and actively recreate new publicness through memory resources.
  
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  Capital Going to the Countryside and Farmers Moving to Cities: Structural Changes and Ethical Continuity in Village Society

  HE Qifeng

  社会学评论. 2025, 13(4): 139-159.

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   In  the context of Chinese modernization, the downward flow of capital and the migration of farmers to cities have co-occurred, exerting a profound impact on rural social change. Based on fieldwork in Mi Village, Yunnan Province, this study takes peasant households as the core analytical unit to explore the logic of rural social structure transformation and ethical continuity from three dimensions: agricultural production, family life, and social interaction. The research proposes a “concentric-circle development model” of “action ethics-social structure-economic institutions”, revealing that family-oriented action ethics serve as an internal driving force, prompting the mutual adaptation between social transformation and the local value. This finding provides a micro-level perspective and empirical support for understanding the logic of urban-rural interaction and constructing an indigenous
  development theory framework that breaks through the“traditional-modern” dichotomy.
  
  
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  A Retrospective Study on the Educational Development and Its Differences of Rural Left-Behind Children

  LIU Ling WU Lei ZHANG Donghui

  社会学评论. 2025, 13(4): 160-181.

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  The event of being left-behind has different long-lasting effects on the development of individual education. Analyzing the generation mechanism and subsequent changes of its effects can help enhance our understanding of the educational development process of those who have experienced being left behind. Based on autobiographies and in-depth interviews, the educational process of 20 rural post-80s youth with left-behind experience was retrospectively analyzed from the perspective of life course theory. Being left behind is an unstable early life state with insufficient educational support and significant individual differences. Its association with respondents’educational development trajectories can be cate‐ gorized into four types: positive cycle, crisis transformation, cumulative disadvan‐ tages, and chain reaction. Respondents’motivation to learn stems from internalizing the positive explanations of their parents’migration for work. External support from guardians, teachers, and friends serves as a sustaining force rather than the primary motivating factor in their educational development. In the current context of pri‐ oritizing rural elementary education to support rural revitalization and advocating for collaborative education among families, schools, and communities, enhancing leftbehind children’s positive perception of their parents’spatial absence and building a stable and positive educational support network in their early lives may contribute to high-quality education for rural left-behind children. 
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  “Sewing”the Orders：Factory Regimes in Fast Fashion’s Global Production Network

  LI Xiaojuan ZHAO Wei

  社会学评论. 2025, 13(4): 182-205.

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   Based on fieldwork in the fast fashion industry, this study describes and analyzes the collaboration among leading companies—represented by fast fashion brands—trading companies, and garment factories in production organization and labor control within a global production network“stitched”by orders. It has constructed a complex and de‐typified factory regime.The entire production network, rather than a single company, constructs workers’consent to the orders, rather than the game of making out based on piecework. The multi ‐level production network reinforces the despotic character of labor control. Trading companies externalize labor control from the direct point of production, further contributing to the atomization of workers. This study provides a more complete picture of labor control within global production networks.
  
  
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  The Social Game Analysis of Technological Path Dependence:Taking the Promotion of a New Scheme in a Certain Enterprise as an Example

  LIU Youchi

  社会学评论. 2025, 13(4): 202-232.

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  This paper based on a utility function that incorporates social factors, analyzes the impact of social games on the path dependence and lock-in breaking mechanisms in the application of technology.The analysis shows that under the condition of coexistence of old and new technologies, even if the new technology can bring an increase in material benefits to all parties in the game,due to the impact of relative status and interpersonal relationships on utility, the choice of new technology may not necessarily become the dominant strategy for all parties involved in the game, and the path dependence on old technology may still continue.The analysis also shows that relative status and interpersonal relationships are not always conservative forces that maintain the old technology path. Under certain conditions,they play an active role in breaking the lock-in during social games in technology applications.Combined with case analysis, the above characteristics exist in the internal social games of enterprises based on the choice of old and new technologies, in the handling of internal hierarchical relationships, and in the external market relationships of enterprises. This study contributes to the rational prediction of potential social barries in the application of new technologies.
  
  
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  Modularization of Digital Technology Professions：2023 Software Engineer Profession Survey Report

  YAN Zehua WANG Tianfu

  社会学评论. 2025, 13(4): 233-256.

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  Based on the data of the 2023 China Software Engineer Profession Survey, this paper takes three positions in the software industry, namely administrative staff, engineering development software engineers, and intelligent scientific research software engineers, where the degree of digital technology involvement increases successively, as the research objects, and conducts comparative analysis from three aspects: work flexibility, work team, and work cognition. By controlling and discussing the influence of ownership attributes of the work organization, this paper finds that the involvement of digital technology has brought about modular professional characteristics. Unlike the output standardization model of assembly line production, modular production is manifested as a function-oriented input standardization, which in turn forms a corresponding architecture-neutral target management model.