The social nature of time is a central theme in the sociology of time. Existing studies usually assume the synchronization and sharing of time standards,and rarely discuss the conditions and forms of synchronization. With synchronization referring to the nature of the sharing of time standards among different subjects, we can examine its multiple paths, levels,characteristics, scopes, and stability. In contrast to the un-synchronicity assumption of solipsists and the universal synchronization assumption of transcendentalist, sociological views on synchronization are constructive in nature. With respect to paths and methods of construction,synchronization can be categorized into three approaches: intersubjectivity, social convention, and ecology-event, which leads to three core issues. First, synchronization involves three levels: form synchronization, content synchronization, and encounter synchronization; second, it involves the scopes of individual, group, nation, and even the world; and third, different types of synchronization display differences in stability and their reproduction processes. Reflecting on synchronicity not only helps clarify core concepts in the sociology of time but also lays the groundwork for rethinking human existence and the rhythms of social time in the era of digital intelligence.

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.

Embeddedness has long been regarded as the dominant research paradigm in economic sociology (as well as anthropology) and a core contribution of the field to economic studies. Despite its profound influence, the embeddedness paradigm has faced widespread criticism for its inability to further break through the explanatory framework of Western economics, leading to an ongoing crisis of disciplinary legitimacy for economic sociology. This paper examines three new research directions: relational work, performativity, and economization, emerging in economic sociology since the 21st century as the embeddedness paradigm encountered challenges. It analyzes how these approaches broaden the theoretical horizons of the embeddedness paradigm and explores their implications and significance for research in the Chinese context.

This study examines the impact of marital power dynamics on household consumption using data from the China Family Panel Studies 2022. The results show that households in which women make spending decisions have significantly higher overall consumption levels than those where men make the decisions.In terms of spending categories, female decision-making notably increases basic survival-related expenditures such as food, clothing, and healthcare, while gender differences are not significant for developmental or major expenditures. The results suggest that women’s power in the household mainly influences everyday consumption. Further mechanism analysis reveals that household consumption increases even more when women make spending decisions and the gap in housework time between spouses is small. The findings highlight the role of marital power dynamics in shaping consumption and suggest that promoting gender equality and balanced domestic responsibilities can help stimulate household spending.

 British anthropologist Max Gluckman’s 1962 reinterpretation of Arnold van Gennep’s concept of“rites of passage”marked a significant turning point in the history of modern anthropology. Through a comparative analysis of their texts, combined with an examination of their life trajectories, research methods, and socio-historical contexts, this article explores Gluckman’s critical reconstruction of van Gennep’s theory, especially focusing on their fundamental divergence on rites and social research. This article also addresses their use of fiction and imagination in their creative work, revealing their personal projections and reflections upon the academic system and the knowledge production. Moreover, this article aims to provide a path for rethinking disciplinary classics and the intellectual history behind them, emphasizing the importance of the recreation and reinterpretation of classical texts in contemporary academic traditions.

Based on Fei Xiaotong’s early works and recently discovered archives from his student days, this article explores how Fei Xiaotong responded to the limitations of the functionalist paradigm in explaining social and cultural changes, and gradually formed a dualistic analytical perspective of“the tradition that functions”and“the external forces that trigger changes”. Starting from the relationship between tradition and external forces, based on the concept of“living history”, he transformed Malinowski’s“three-column approach”employed in African studies into a“four-column approach”that is more suitable for researching the changes in Chinese society. He applied the new approach to the analysis of the silk industry in Peasant Life in China and the Cocoon. This is Fei Xiaotong’s important exploration and theoretical consciousness of the modernization plan for Chinese society in his early years.

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.

Evans⁃Pritchard’s Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande is a foundational text in anthropology and a landmark in the study of“how natives think”. By exploring Azande beliefs in witchcraft and magic, the work illuminates their causal reasoning in the face of misfortune. This article examines the significance and evolving value of Azande studies within shifting theoretical frameworks. Originally situated within the paradigms of functionalism and the Annales School,Evans⁃Pritchard’s ethnography has since been revisited through the lenses of the linguistic turn, the historical turn, reflexive approaches to ethnographic writing, the ethical turn, and the ontological turn. This paper argues for renewed attention to how Azande studies have been embraced, adapted, and recontextualized by successive theoretical currents in anthropology.The connection between magic and causality reveals the important laws governing the operation of non-western rationality and human thinking. People usually explain the changes in the world around them from the language, logic, and morality, they are most accustomed to, and this is a relatively underestimated aspect for Chinese Anthropology
to learn from.

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.

This paper examines bottom-line exploration behavior during expost adjustments under incomplete contracts. Using an“interest-norm”dual game analytical framework, it investigates the mechanisms and strategies of contract participants who engage in game interactions under bounded rationality. Specifically, it explores how actors navigate scenarios where interests and norms are intertwined,leveraging signaling and strategic interactions to maximize cooperative gains. The study proposes that the respective bottom lines of cross-cultural contract participants are not common knowledge and are often subject to dynamic adjustments. Using a combination of sub-game models and field cases, the paper explores phenomena such as bottom-line breaches, differentiated bottom lines, and the transition among multiple bottom lines. It highlights the complexity of interactions and the importance of strategic choices in cross-cultural games. The research concludes that the dual game model has broad applicability to expost adjustments under incomplete contracts and offers theoretical insights for Chinese enterprises operating in complex overseas environments.

Drawing on the latest wave of the Social Attitudes Questionnaire of Urban and Rural Residents（2024）, this study employs latent profile analysis（LPA） to examine the multidimensional nature of stratification beliefs among young people.The findings identify four distinct belief patterns: strongly dual beliefs（45%）,moderately dual beliefs（35%）, predominantly meritocratic beliefs（16%）, and predominantly structural beliefs（4%）. Specifically, respondents holding dual beliefs recognize meritocratic（e. g., effort, ability）and structural factors（e. g., family background, social connections）as equally important for economic success. In contrast, respondents adhering to predominantly meritocratic beliefs emphasize the decisive role of meritocratic factors, whereas those with predominantly structural beliefs attribute economic success mainly to structural factors. Further analysis reveals that socioeconomic status significantly shapes belief patterns. Moreover, youth with different stratification beliefs exhibit systematic variations in their attitudes toward social economic development and other factors, with those holding predominantly structural beliefs expressing substantially more pessimistic views. These findings highlight the diverse ways in which young people perceive the social stratification system, providing fresh insights into the broader social mindset.

The American linguist and anthropologist Edward Sapir, active in the early 20th century, had developed the culture theory of the Boasian school partly through his aesthetic pursuits, in which“form”and“creativity”serve as keywords.Sapir’s culture theory should be understood in the context of his aesthetic pursuits and artistic practices. Moreover, the theories on the individual-culture dynamic of Sapir and Benedict should be compared in a nuanced manner, in relation to how they discuss form and creativity. Although cultural relativism promoted by the Boasian school has become common sense among anthropologists, notions of culture held by Sapir and Benedict, in some ways, contest the notion of cultural relativism held by Boas. Illuminating the theoretical legacy of the Boasian school contributes to shedding light on how American anthropology in the early 20th century embraced science and art for approaching the holism of human beings, which benefits the development of Chinese anthropology today.

This paper reviews the fieldwork conducted in Beizhen over three decades ago and its key findings. From the perspective of economic sociology, it re-analyzes the origins and structures of local specialized luggage and bag markets, the institutional arrangements of“household factories”, the behavioral logic of “household workers”, and the role of the local government. Additionally, it points out the limitations of the original fieldwork and potential directions for further research. In the conclusion section, the paper discusses two approaches in economic sociology, the criteria for evaluating fieldwork data, the necessity of revisiting the research site, and the significance of theoretical reconstruction.

Existing research emphasizes the importance of social foundations for understanding regional development, yet it primarily focuses on abstract dimension such as values and ethics, with insufficient analysis of their structural characteristics. This paper takes the development disparities between local and introduced industries in Shuxi County as a starting point, focusing on the specific characteristics of the county-level labor structure to explore the intrinsic relationship between labor attitudes and labor structure. The study finds that Shuxi County exhibits a dual industrial structure. Although local and introduced industries operate within the same county-level labor market, they differ significantly in terms of labor adaptation.Specifically, the accessibility and stability of child-generation, parent-generation,and grandparent-generation labor from the local population demonstrate inter⁃generational heterogeneity in relation to the two types of industries. The formation of this characteristic is closely linked to Shuxi County’s historical industrial development path and the family life cycles of rural households. Through an in-depth examination of the county’s labor structure characteristics, this study reveals an important dimension of the social foundations in central and western Chinese counties, thereby helping to clarify the difficulties, challenges, and potential pathways for county-level industrial development.

This article outlines the structure of the Chinese market of the arts,which is composed of“global-China,”“official-occupational,”and“institutional-folk”subsystems. First, the“global-China”subsystem shows the circulation of artworks and artists between the Chinese and global art markets. The cultural intermediaries and the meaning of“Chineseness”are key issues in these processes.Second, the“official-occupational”subsystem highlights the relative independence and coexistence of the government-led and occupational market-led art institutions.They collectively constitute the institutionalised art world in China. Third, folk artists, craftsmen, and self-taught artists maintain small-scale folk art communities. They are relatively independent of the institutionalised art worlds and develop various conventions of their own, which forms the“institutional-folk”subsystem. The article concludes by elaborating on this model’s empirical and theoretical applicability and inclusivity, summarising the historical transformation of the sub⁃systems, and discussing the prospect of the research on the Chinese market of the arts through a reflection on the meaning consciousness in the sociology of the arts.

The transactional behaviors within the grassroots market are both market-driven and socially conditioned. This article, in combination with the case of tea purchasing in Hu Town, southern Sichuan Province, analyzes the transaction logics among different subjects within the market chain of“farmers-peddlers-tea factories”, and reveals how the grassroots market adapts to the open market system as an acquaintance market. Peddlers need to compete for the market scope through interpersonal interaction strategies, but this may soften the quality standards of transactions and clog the market chain. Consequently, they have to achieve risk control through flexible and open transaction strategies. It can be observed that the sociality of different links in the grassroots market chain varies, and forms different adaptive patterns with marketability. Only by balancing the relationship between sociality and marketability based on transaction scenarios can the elasticity of the market chain be maintained, and subsequently, a flexible and inclusive transaction order be constructed in the open market to adapt to the gradual changes in the production and life order of farmers.

The digital technology revolution has triggered profound changes at the world system, national, and social levels. However,previous research has not focused on the forces driving the formation and development of digital societies. This paper attempts to explain how a country’s systemic and social contexts differentiate its digital society development strategies and ultimately influence the outcome of its global digital competition. It is found that the precision drip-irrigation digital social development strategy and overall mobilization provide social foundations for digital user countries to effectively stimulate social demand and give full play to the scale economy effect. On the other hand, the outsourcing development strategy appears unbalanced leading to consumer penalty effects. This study provides a contextdriven explanatory framework for understanding the path choices and competitive outcomes of various countries in the digital era.

The issue of sparse population in border villages means that due to the continuous loss of rural residents, the social life, production, public aspects, and cultural values in these villages are declining systematically. This paper analyzes the practice of cultivating elderly social capital in Town An from the perspective of neo-endogenous development theory. It summarizes the manifestations of depopulation and public crisis in border villages in Northeast China.The study finds that the main challenges faced by depopulated border villages currently include disordered resource integration, misalignment of governance subjects, and atomization of the governance field. Efforts such as empowering through characteristic resources, reconstructing social organizations, and rebuilding social identity can effectively unleash the efficacy of the left-behind elderly as the main actors in rural revitalization. This study can serve as a new case for social governance and a theoretical and practical path for the integrated development of internal and external resources in depopulated border villages.

 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.

Chinese environmental sociology has traditionally focused on issues related to the“environment”dimension, such as environmental pollution and ecological degradation, while systematic exploration of the“natural resources” dimension has been relatively limited. This study centers on natural resources, synthesizing insights from rural sociology, resource science, and tourism management. It reviews recent core topics, including resource governance, rural livelihood dependencies, and protection-development dynamics, intending to systematically highlight key advancements in research on the“natural resourcessociety”relationship. Using the reflexive sociology methods, this paper critically reflects on the process of knowledge production concerning natural resources from ontological, epistemological, and methodological perspectives, revealing implicit biases within the current environmental sociology research paradigm. Building on this critique, the study proposes a dual-dimensional analytical framework that positions natural resources and environmental issues as equally significant dimensions. It advocates for the integration of environmental sociology to overcome its fragmentation, thereby providing theoretical support for constructing a resourceconserving and environment-friendly society.

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. 

This paper, drawing on Fei Xiaotong’s theory of urban-rural mental order,proposes the concept of“urban-rurality”to depict the ideal mental order generated through the adaptation within the integrated urban-rural society, aiming to resolve the dualistic structure between“modernity-urbanity”and“tradition-rurality”. Studies have found that in traditional China, cities and rural areas maintained a continuous and unified relationship, which was reflected at the mental level in shared local views, life outlooks, and worldviews among urban and rural residents. These corresponded to the integration of urban and rural areas, family and career, and humanity and nature respectively. These three dimensions have both inherited and transformed in the current process of urban-rural integration, collectively constituting the historical foundation and practical form of the new-era mental order.

This study establishes its foundation on four core dimensions—the view of righteousness and benefit, trust, entrepreneurial risk-taking propensity, and government-business culture—and attempts to construct a cultural explanatory framework for corporate philanthropy. Leveraging this framework and the survey data of Chinese private enterprises in 2014, this study examines how the culture of merchant guild influences the charitable donations of private enterprises. The key findings of the study are as follows: First, the overall traditional merchant guild culture exerts a significant positive driving effect on the private enterprise donation.Second, among the subdivided dimensions of merchant guild culture, enterprises affiliated with kinship-based merchant guilds donate more than those associated with geographically-based merchant guilds; meanwhile, enterprises rooted in riskpreferring merchant guilds donate more than those in risk-averse merchant guilds.Third, the positive effect of political connections on corporate donations does not exhibit significant differences due to variations in the government-business cultural attributes of different merchant guilds. This study reveals the positiveeffects of the strong relational trust culture of China’s merchant guilds, which differs significantly from that within the Western culture, and further highlights the institutional and cultural advantages that motivate private enterprise philanthropy.

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. 

Using data from the 2008 to 2018 China Private Enterprise Survey, this article examines how corporate social capital influences corporate social responsibility（CSR) in China’s private sector. Social capital has a positive impact on CSR.
Distinguishing between potential social capital and mobilized social capital, the analysis demonstrates that the CSR-enhancing effect of mobilized social capital is substantially stronger. Market rationality moderates this effect: the effect weakens as firm size increases but intensifies over time as China’s market institutions mature.By applying a social capital lens, this study proposes a new framework for understanding CSR in transitional economies and provides empirical insights into thepromotion of responsible business practices in China.

The governance logic of the rural medical system has continuously evolved, leading to changes in the professional role of rural doctors. Contemporary rural doctors now function as market entities with professional autonomy. They have been assigned the responsibility of serving as health “gatekeepers” in the restructuring of the primary healthcare system. Thus, in the transition from a rural-based to an urban-rural China, they face complex doctor-patient dynamics. These multifaceted shifts have placed rural doctors in a professional dilemma. Using a county in Jiangxi Province as a case study, this paper explores potential solutions to their professional challenges. The findings reveal that, within a semi-administrative institutional framework, a constrained marketized environment,and a fluid rural society, rural doctors’livelihood strategies and professional ethics have become mutually mismatched, creating inherent role tensions. Therefore, it is imperative to realign the public welfare objectives and sustainability mechanisms of the rural medical system in the process of Chinese mordernization, enabling rural doctors to reconcile personal and collective interests, thereby fostering a coherent professional identity.

Existing research on the impact of family structure on rural children’s educational development has primarily suffered from several limitations: an over⁃simplified treatment of parental absence, inadequate comparative analysis of the compensatory effects of grandparent co-residence, and insufficient attention to the transmission mechanisms involving offspring’s non-cognitive abilities. This study focuses on analyzing and comparing the effects and mechanisms through which family structure breakdown (due to parental divorce or death) and family structure separation (due to parental migration) influence the academic achievement of rural children. Based on data from the China Education Panel Survey, the findings reveal that both family structure breakdown and separation significantly negatively affect the academic achievement of rural children, with the negative effect of family structure breakdown being more pronounced. Co-residence with grandparents can buffer the adverse impact of family structure disruption on rural children’s academic achievement but offers limited compensatory effects for separated families. Non-cognitive abilities serve as an intermediary mechanism through which both family structure breakdown and separation affect academic achievement, though the specific pathways differ: family structure breakdown primarily influences academic achievement through emotional stability, whereas family structure separation mainly affects academic achievement through conscientiousness.

 Public engagement is essential for achieving ecological civilization. Using the data from the CGSS2021, this paper examines how individual’s perceptions of government environmental governance performance influence their public environmental participation. The findings indicate that positive perceptions promote participation through four mechanisms: perceived environmental efficacy, environmental concern, responsibility attribution, and perceived environmental risk. Furthermore, central and local governments affect participation via distinct pathways, with the former primarily influencing participation through environmental concern and the latter mainly through perceived risk. These results highlight that public perceptions can bridge governance and individual responsibility, offering valuable insights for enhancing environmental governance policies.

This study uses an e-commerce platform as a case study to develop an analytical framework for algorithmic empowerment. It examines the internal logic of algorithmic iteration on short-video platforms and the evolving mechanisms through which these algorithms empower the digital labor of rural women from ethnic regions in Southwest China engaged in live-streaming e-commerce. The findings reveal that algorithmic iteration is not merely a trade-off between com⁃ mercial and social values, nor is it solely driven by profit maximization. Instead, it represents a stage-specific strategic adjustment by the platform following a reversal in its dependency relationship with users, influenced jointly by environmental, organizational, and technological factors. During the scale-expansion phase, platform algorithms aligned with the characteristics of rural women, fostering effective internal-external interactions and generating notable empowerment effects. However, in the consolidation phase, rising algorithmic thresholds limited women’ s adaptability due to insufficient resources and capabilities, leading to diminishing empowerment effects. Nevertheless, some individuals, supported by families, communities, and government initiatives, successfully resisted algorithmic “discipline”and achieved sustained empowerment. The study argues that em⁃ powerment theory should move beyond the subject-object binary and shift towards a framework emphasizing synergy among multiple actors. 

Most existing studies on food-delivery workers in China emphasize platforms’labor control and workers’negotiation or resistance, reflecting a centrality of production and a capital-labor dualism. Through in-depth interviews and participant observation with hearing-impaired delivery workers, this study finds that unlike their non-disabled counterparts who often treat the job as transitional, disabled workers gain positive labor experiences, develop a strong professional identity, and achieve improved socioeconomic status and personal transformation. The shifts in their social relations and self-perception before and after becoming delivery workers underscore the need to understand the diverse values of digital labor through the situated experiences of workers with different characteristics.

This paper explores the binary paradox between“knowledge”and“abstract systems”under the conditions of modernity, based on Giddens’structuration theory.On one hand, as the core component of practice, knowledge enhances individual agency; on the other hand, through the process of disembedding in“abstract systems”, knowledge strengthens the stability of social structures. However, the unequal distribution of knowledge and its dependence on expert systems restrict individuals’ reflective capacity to reconstruct social structures, forming a cognitively inaccessible domain of knowledge. In the era of artificial intelligence, special attention must be paid to the profound impact of knowledge and power relationships on social stability and change, so as to deepen the understanding of modern social structures and technological risks.

This paper examines Alain Touraine’s sociology of action, focusing on its conception of social action and the logic of social transformation centered on“the Subject”. First, the theory places social action at its core, viewing it as a creative practice through which actors reinterpret social meanings and norms. Second, it elucidates the field and dynamics of social transformation, outlining how collective subjects drive structural change through societal movements that contest control over historicity. Touraine further introduces“sociological intervention”as a method to identify and catalyze the transformative potential of collective action. Finally, addressing the crisis of modernity in the globalization era, the theory shifts to the mechanism of“subjectivation”, emphasizing the pivotal role of“the Subject”in resisting alienation and rebuilding solidarity. In this way, the sociology of action establishes an analytical link between individual emancipation and social transformation, which not only deepens our understanding of social generation and change, but also offers a significant theoretical reference for comprehending the surge of subjectivity and new forms of actions within China’s social transformation.

 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.

The care of children with medical conditions extends beyond physical care to encompass their developmental needs. Based on fieldwork and interviews, this article explores care practices of cleft lip and/or palate (CLP) surrounding the goal of“normal life”. It reveals that in both medical and familial contexts, healthcare providers, mothers, and children construct care scripts through performance.Healthcare staff perform acceptant attitudes to reshape families’understanding of the illness, which establishes the foundation of performance for family care. As primary caregivers, mothers perform“pingchangxin,”which involves two key dimensions: normalizing body defects and regulating their emotional expressions to coordinate family networks. Meanwhile, children participate in this co-performance, collectively shaping and maintaining a shared sense of“normal life”with their families. This practice of“performing normality”extends Goffman’s framework into the context of long-term, intimate care, offering a new perspective for understanding dynamic, affective, and ethical dimensions of care work.

Taking Chinese musicians in Germany as a case study, this paper proposes a theoretical model of the“mutual construction of conceptual structures and social relationships.”Due to their distinctive cultural characteristics, musicians inclined to adopt a Chinese style in their music production are more likely to build relationships with commercial and governmental institutions. Simultaneously, they internalize the concept of“popularized classical music”and become“crossover populist”musicians. Conversely, musicians who avoid Chinese stylistic elements are more likely to gain support from professional elites in academic settings, owing to their abstract and avant-garde styles. These musicians internalize the concept of “elitist classical music”and become“avant-garde elitist”musicians. This paper offers an analytical framework for understanding the mutual shaping processes between social relationships and conceptual structures, while also enriching the field of the sociology of art through a unique empirical case.

 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.” 

The concept of monumentality stresses how social space and its associated symbolic practice produce, materialize, and embody collective memory and public remembrance. Its pursuit of eternity through symbolic construction implies constant tensions with the lived contemporary lifeworld. Taking Yulin Island as a case study, this article draws on Lefebvre’s spatial triad theory, integrates sociological perspectives of time and the body, and disentangles the spatial monumentality of Yulin Island in polyvocal making across the perceived, the conceived, and lived dimensions. Yulin’s monumental construction evolves amid center-periphery dynamics spanning the historical contexts of geopolitics and modernization. Its monumental space is shaped by adaptive spatial practices of local governance and islanders’differential bodily experiences and negotiations with space representations. These tripartite spatial practices collectively constitute Yulin’s historical and contemporary significance as a“red monument”in Chinese history, projecting a form of monumentality grounded in lifeworld realities as lived eternity. This study enriches the sociological dimensions of monumentality and offers empirical implications for understanding the production of social space in the Chinese context.

This study takes a Chinese home appliance enterprise operating in North Africa as a case to analyze the formation, operation, and solidification mechanisms of seemingly redundant twin structures that are widely observed in Chinese mul⁃tinational enterprises. Drawing on the principal-agent perspective and employing a dual-game analytical framework of interest and norms, the study aims to develop a decision-utility model for cross-border human resource allocation, thereby revealing the social processes underlying decision-making. The business objectives of multinational enterprises combine strategic unity with operational localization.When the host country’s human resource pool cannot meet the firm’s cross-border objectives, principals tend to establish an internal“twin structure”, through which “segmented cooperation”between two ethnic groups facilitates cross-cultural collaboration. However, under conditions of divergent normative constraints and limited mutual understanding, micro level interaction may reinforce labeling impressions and hinder the reception of negative feedback, potentially leading to the long-term solidification of the twin structure.

Current academic research on Liang Shuming’s rural construction theory primarily focuses either on the rejuvenation of traditional Chinese culture, or on the adjustment of rural structures and ethics within the theory and practice of rural construction. However, it often neglects the issue of agricultural construction—an important component of the rural construction plan—and its civilizational implications. Against the backdrop of the severe civilizational crisis faced by modern China, and based on a theoretical understanding of the characteristics of agricultural production and the vitality of Chinese small-scale farmers, Liang Shuming proposed an agricultural reform plan that took“Xiang Nong”schools as the supporting framework and agricultural cooperatives as the core to promote the development of agricultural technology and agricultural finance, implementing it in the rural construction of Zouping.From the perspective of civilization theory, this plan embodies a critical consciousness toward Western modern capitalist civilization through a comparison between Chinese and Western civilizations. It also presents a vision of reorganizing modern civilization based on cultivating this rational spirit of Chinese civilization, striving to embark on a path of human development rooted in the rational spirit of China and truly putting people first.Liang Shuming’s discussions on agricultural construction constitute a significant tradition within Chinese of agricultural sociology. Re-examining his agricultural construction plan also helps to deepen the understanding of the relationship between agricultural development and civilizational construction from the perspective of agricultural sociology.