26 May 2025, Volume 13 Issue 3

    

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  From Single Structure to Multiple Structure:The Perspective and Its Turn of Social Stratification Study in Contemporary China

  社会学评论. 2025, 13(3): 5-26.

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  Understanding the formation of social inequality from the perspective of the labor market has long been a tradition in social stratification research in industrial societies, and contemporary Chinese social stratification research also follows this path, focusing on how socialist institutional arrangements, market transitions, and institutional changes influence social stratification through the opportunity structure of the labor market. However, with the rapid development of Chinese society, the diversification of opportunity structures has made the singular perspective of the labor market is insufficient to fully explain the complexity of social stratification in China. Taking the formation of housing inequality as an example, this paper reveals the limitations of the labor market perspective. Research shows that the impact of structural factors beyond the labor market on housing inequality even exceeds the impact of the labor market as a structural context. This paper argues that contemporary Chinese social stratification research should transcend the singular perspective of the labor market and adopt a multiple structural analytical approach, particularly focusing on the impact of structural factors outside the labor market, such as the real estate market, financial policies, and information technology, on the process of social inequality, so as to more accurately grasp the reality of social stratification in China and promote the theoretical development of social stratification research.
  
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  Over-Estimation or Under-Estimation:Social Mobility Beliefs and Related Perceptual Inaccuracy in China

  社会学评论. 2025, 13(3): 27-52.

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  This study focuses on the evaluation of the overall social mobility in China. Using a quasi-experimental approach, we construct educational and income mobility beliefs measures and compared them with corresponding objective mobility indicators to accurately estimate patterns of perceptual bias. The comparison between subjective and objective indicators reveals the complexity of mobility belief biases: (1)Upward biased belief of absolute mobility, where people overestimate the likelihood of upward mobility from lower family background, particularly for educational mobility; (2)Upward biased belief of relative educational mobility, where people underestimate the intergenerational persistence of education status (subjective parent-child educational rank-rank correlation is lower than it’s parallel objective indicator); (3)Downward biased belief of relative income mobility, where people overestimate the intergenerational persistence of income status (subjective parent-child income rank-rank correlation is higher than it’s parallel objective indicator).Results from the multilevel linear model analysis further confirm that the aforementioned patterns of perceptual bias do not vary according to respondent characteristics and may therefore be widespread.
  
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  The Affective Integration in Memory Construction:A Study Based on the Dual Emotional Structure of the Great-Collective Era

  社会学评论. 2025, 13(3): 53-73.

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  Taking the oral memory of old fishermen in Lanhai town as a case, this paper is trying to answer how the Dual Emotional Memory Structure in the GreatCollective Era is possible. We found that both bitterness and happiness are shaped in emotional memory reconstruction. First, compared with the changing predicament in later life, memory of the food coupon make them easy to generate happiness, which warms themselves in the meantime. And then, the old fishermen who consider themselves dedicator has undergone a change from selfless to dedication-paying, which reflects their views on the changes in self-value evaluation since the reform and opening up, and the way they find the meaning of suffering life. The phenomenon of emotional integration shows that when society changes, people will seek the value connection to alleviate senselessness. The concept of affective integration reveals the connection between meaning-seeking and memory construction, and also contributes to understanding how people seek self-value when society changes.
  
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  Moving Beyond the Durkheimian Injunction:Sociology of Emotions in the Social Turn of Biology

  社会学评论. 2025, 13(3): 74-95.

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  Sociology and biology have long lived in isolation. The emergence of epigenetics enables social factors to re-enter biological explanatory frameworks. In response to the social turn in biology, social scientists have proposed to construct “social theory as a cognitive neuroscience”, while emotion studies have experienced an“affective turn”facilitated by neuroscientific insights. Nevertheless, the mainstream sociology of emotions remains predominantly anchored in the traditional assumption that emotions stem from reflective appraisal processes, thus inadequately incorporating recent discoveries from cognitive neuroscience. This paper identifies two significant challenges cognitive neuroscience poses to the sociology of emotions.First, neuroscientific evidence highlights the automatic and non-conscious nature of emotional processes, directly challenging the foundational premises of traditional cognitivism. Second, the conventional analytical frameworks of individualism and holism are insufficient for comprehending affective processes occurring below the level of the individual. This limitation necessitates the adoption of an“infra-in⁃dividualist”perspective, thereby unlocking the theoretical potential of concepts such as collective effervescence and interaction ritual chains. Consequently, the sociology of emotions urgently needs to transcend disciplinary boundaries by systematically integrating insights from biology and neuroscience to enhance its explanatory frameworks. Interdisciplinary dialogue must maintain critical reflexivity to prevent simplistic or reductionist appropriation of neuroscientific findings.
  
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  Fictive Kinship: Local Elderly Care Practice from the Perspective of Positive Emotional Labor Experiences

  社会学评论. 2025, 13(3): 96-116.

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  This study uses the fictive kinship-based emotional labor of caregivers  at an eldercare service station in Beijing as an example to analyze how emotional labor generates positive experiences. The study finds that the process of emotional

  labor by caregivers includes surface acting such as forms of address and care, as well as deep acting involving rituals and relationships. The reason why fictive kinship-based emotional labor can generate positive experiences lies in caregivers achieving consistency between internal and external identification during the deep acting of emotional labor. This enables them to establish relationships with the elderly that transcend economic dimensions, thus transforming the eldercare service station into a“home away from home”for both themselves and the elderly through fictive kinship. The“consistency of identification”in the labor process is thus key to generating positive experiences in emotional labor. This study offers theoretical insights for reflecting on alienated labor under capitalism and provides practical implications for the development of the eldercare industry.
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  How to Explain the Failure of the Co-operative Silk Factory: The Understanding and Reinterpretation of the Industrial Transformation of Fei Xiaotong

  社会学评论. 2025, 13(3): 117-139.

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  Fei Xiaotong’s continuous thinking on why the“cooperative silk Factory”failed not only has a theoretical explanation, but also explains how to deal with the problem of modernity in China on the basis of the academic plan and thinking. The internal and external interweaving and mutual influence between market, society and custom constitute the three main fulcrum of Fei Xiaotong’s explanation of the failure of the“cooperative silk Factory”. The social structure behind the industrial organization was discussed by combining economy and society, which deepened the understanding of the failure of the“cooperative silk factory” during the period of Quige. Fei Xiaotong’s explanation of the failure of the “cooperative silk factory”is not only a dialogue and transcendence of the analysis of Delleren’s economic perspective, but also deepens the understanding of rural industry itself within the rural industrial school and expands the vision of the debate on China’s economic development path during the Republic of China. It also responds to the question of how to take a different path from Western modernity since the May Fourth Movement. With today’s“hindsight”, the process of reinterpreting the failure of the“cooperative silk factory”from the perspective of the transformation of peasant household wage labor unit, the different social nature of towns and villages and differentiated humanistic and ecological perspectives can prompt and explore new possibilities of the core question of modern Chinese society.
  
  
  
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  From Governance Elite in Structure to Proactive Elite Governance：A Shift in Perspective of Local Social Governance Research

  社会学评论. 2025, 13(3): 140-162.

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  Traditional research on local social governance has evolved diverse analytical pathways, among which the“state⁃society”perspective and the“regional society”perspective constitute the two most contrasting and tension ⁃ filled orientations. From the first perspective, relevant research shows three paths：dual coexistence of national administrative control and local social governance, dualcompetition and dual integration. From the second perspective, relevant research presents the relationship between regional society and elite governance orientation, governance strategies, and organizational networks. This research context implies that the research content of local social governance has shifted from structure to actors, and from actors to action networks, and its research orientation has shifted from actors being limited by structure to actors dominating structure.
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  Origins and Conceptual Examination of Environmental Social Work：A Comparative Research Perspective

  社会学评论. 2025, 13(3): 163-184.

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  In recent years, environmental social work has shown rapid development,but issues such as unclear academic trajectory and conceptual confusion still persist.Compared to the reflective and anti-oppressive characteristics of Western environmental social work, China’s environmental social work primarily focuses on social development, aiming to provide practical support for promoting ecological civilization. In contrast to related concepts such as green social work and ecological social work, environmental social work is a model of social work based on a moderate view of environmental justice, striving for the sustainable development of human society.Under the backdrop of ecological civilization construction, environmental social work in China aims to establish a sustainable society where humans and nature coexist harmoniously. It focuses on mitigating the negative impact of production and daily life on the natural environment and adopts strategies such as advocacy, information integration, and knowledge extraction to promote ecological consciousness among multiple stakeholders, thereby stimulating the internal drive for environmental governance and green development.

  
  
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  Between Intimacy and Distance: Employment Relationships and Psychological Contracts in Domestic Service

  社会学评论. 2025, 13(3): 185-206.

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  Drawing on in-depth interviews with 52 domestic workers, this study demonstrates that the interpersonal relationships between domestic workers and household employers are underpinned by a dynamic logic grounded in trust. These relationships are structured around a dynamically evolving trust-based logic, which unfolds within a complex, multidimensional framework shaped by the interrelationship of particularized trust, professional expertise, market transaction costs, and associated risks, as well as the institutionalized services offered by domestic service agencies. The nature of the employment relationship, along with the psychological contract it entails, shapes the interactional dynamics between domestic workers and household employers by influencing the mechanisms through which interpersonal trust is constructed. Occupational roles act as moderating variables influencing the effect of psychological contracts in maintaining interpersonal relationships. These psychological contracts delineate the boundaries of rights and obligations; when misaligned, these boundaries become intricately tied to the pricing mechanisms and structural supply-demand imbalances characterizing the domestic labor market.

  
  
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  Ascetic Personality and Organization of Life: Weber’s“Science of Man”

  社会学评论. 2025, 13(3): 207-230.

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  This article argues that Weber has fully discussed the issue of“human development”based on the religious concept of“asceticism”. He regarded asceticism as the key element of the formation of modern western personality, and clarified the significance of this personality for the construction of modern order,thus breaking through the general view of theologians and philosophers on asceticism at that time. Weber’s preference for asceticism led him to bring it into the study of comparative civilization, and then revealed the differences in personality types in different civilized orders, which also shaped different living orders. Based on this, Weber put forward the multi-causal civilization analysis path of“idea-personalityorder”, which constituted his“human science”. For Weber, the dilemma caused by the order created by man in turn controlling man can only be broken through by personality. The rational ascetic personality has completed its initial mission. After that, personality will be reborn in the struggle for the values of survival order.
  
  
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  The Rationalization and Irrationalization of Monetary Earmarking：2024 Truck Driver Account Investigation Report#br#

  社会学评论. 2025, 13(3): 231-256.

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  This article uses synchronic accounting methods and extended participant observation to investigate the income and expenditure accounts of 13 selfemployed truck drivers engaged in road freight transportation in 2024. The research reveals that the labor of self-employed truck drivers is entrepreneurial labor, with a significant disparity between their freight charges and costs. Their income is a complex calculation process that is comprehensive, fluid, long-term, multi-category, and multi-level, jointly determined by multiple factors of freight charges and costs, and embedded in the labor context, business model, and market position of each truck driver. The account investigation brings the discussion of monetary earmarking and instrumental rationality back to the production and operation field, concluding that monetary earmarking is not only a rational process of clarifying the flow of money and surplus but also an irrational process of endowing subjective meanings and psychological feelings.