Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T12:53:55.213Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

28 - The Social Sciences In China

from PART III - THE INTERNATIONALIZATION OF THE SOCIAL SCIENCES

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2008

By
Bettina Gransow
Edited by
Theodore M. Porter  and
Dorothy Ross
Theodore M. Porter
Affiliation:
University of California, Los Angeles
Dorothy Ross
Affiliation:
The Johns Hopkins University
Get access

Summary

As academic disciplines, the social sciences are quite young in China, having been banned in the People’s Republic from 1952 until the early 1980s. At the same time, they trace back to an extensive tradition, especially the sociological research in China that, along with North America and Western Europe, formed a third flourishing center during the 1930s. During the period of its abolition, Chinese social science became a forgotten chapter in the international history of science. Social scientific study of China fell into oblivion not only because it was neglected for so long in China itself and because of language barriers, but also because of the self-reference of American and European research.

This chapter deals mainly with institutionalized social science in China, which, in a strict sense, includes also studies that do not deal specifically with China. It is concerned especially with what I will call “the Chinese social sciences,” referring to those approaches that aim to sinicize or indigenize the social sciences, as well as with approaches seen as a distinct “Chinese school” of social science. I emphasize specific aspects of this definition, and describe some central junctures in the development of the social sciences in China. The chapter starts with the native domains of learning of the Chinese scholars during the Qing Dynasty; it aims to describe these domains as the intellectual space that served as the framework for the reception of Western sciences as a new body of knowledge. The second section shows how a social space for scientific development was created after the abolition of the imperial examination system during the 1920s, and how sociology, economics, and political science became academic disciplines.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge History of Science , pp. 498 - 514
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2003

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

[Ambrose King], Yaoji Jin “Rujia lunli yu jingji fazhan: Weibo xueshuo de chongtan” [Confucian ethics and economic development: Max Weber’s writings revisited], in Xiandaihua yu Zhongguohua lunji [Collected essays on modernization and sinicization], ed. Li, Yiyuan, Yang, Guoshu, and Wen, Chongyi (Taibei: Guiguan, 1985).Google Scholar
Arkush, DavidFei Hsiao-tung and Sociology in Revolutionary China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bai, Limin “Mathematical Study and Intellectual Transition in the Early and Mid-Qing,” Late Imperial China, 16 (1995).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bond, Michael Harris and Huang, Kwang-kuo, “The Social Psychology of Chinese People,” in The Psychology of the Chinese People, ed. Bond, M. H. (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1986).Google Scholar
Buck, PeterAmerican Science and Modern China, 1876–1936 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980).Google Scholar
Cernea, Michael “Indigenous Anthropologists and Development-Oriented Research,” in Indigenous Anthropology in Non-Western Countries, ed. Farim, Hussein (Durham, N.C.: Carolina Academic Press, 1982).Google Scholar
Elman, BenjaminFrom Philosophy to Philology: Intellectual and Social Aspects of Change in Late Imperial China (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1984).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Freedman, MauriceThe Study of Chinese Society: Essays by M. Freedman, ed. Skinner, G. W. (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1979).Google Scholar
Gransow, Bettina “Chinese Sociology: Sinicisation and Globalization,” International Sociology, 8:1 (1993).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gransow, BettinaGeschichte der chinesischen Soziologie (Frankfurt: Campus, 1992).Google Scholar
Hanseng, ChenMu de chayi [Differences in the Mu] (Shanghai, 1930)Google Scholar
Hanseng, ChenAgrarian Problems in Southernmost China (Shanghai: Canton Lingnan University, 1936).Google Scholar
Hanseng, ChenIndustrial Capital and Chinese Peasants (New York: Garland Publishing, 1946)Google Scholar
Hsu, RobertEconomic Theories in China, 1979–1988 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).Google Scholar
Huang, Lucy Jen “The Status of Sociology in People’s Republic of China,” in Sociology in Asia, ed. Das, Man Singh (New Delhi: Prints India, 1989).Google Scholar
Kohl, Karl-HeinzAbwehr und Verlangen, Zur Geschichte der Ethnologie (Frankfurt am Main: Qumran, 1987).Google Scholar
Kuo, HengyüChina und die “Barbaren”: Eine geistesgeschichtliche Standortbestimmung (Pfullingen: Neske, 1967).Google Scholar
Lee, Rance “Sociology in Hong Kong,” in Sociology in Asia, ed. Das, Man Singh (New Delhi: Prints India, 1989).Google Scholar
Malinowski, Bronislaw Preface to Fei, Hsiao-tung, Peasant Life in China: A Field Study of Country Life in the Yangtze Valley (New York: Dutton, 1939).Google Scholar
Radcliffe-Brown, Alfred “Proposals for a Sociological Survey of Village Life in China,” Shehui yanjiu [Social research] (Kanton) 1 (1937).Google Scholar
Reynolds, David “Redrawing China’s Intellectual Map: Images of Science in Nineteenth Century China,” Late Imperial China, 12 (1991).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rosen, Stanley “The Rise (and Fall) of Public Opinion in Post-Mao China,” in Reform and Reaction in Post-Mao China: The Road to Tiananmen, ed. Baum, Richard (New York: Routledge, 1991).Google Scholar
Schwartz, Benjamin “Social Role and Sociologism in China, with Particular Reference to Confucianism,” in his China and Other Matters (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996).Google Scholar
Schwartz, BenjaminIn Search of Wealth and Power: Yen Fu and the West (Cambridge, Mass: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1983).Google Scholar
Sun, BenwenDangdai Zhongguo shehuixue [The development of Chinese sociology] (Nanjing: Shengli Press, 1948).Google Scholar
Ting, Lee-hsia HsuGovernment Control of the Press in Modern China, 1900–1949 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1974).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tung, Fei Hsiao- and Chih-I, Chang., Earthbound China: A Study of Rural Economy in Yunnan (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1945).Google Scholar
Tung, Fei Hsiao et al., Small Towns in China – Functions, Problems and Prospects (Beijing: New World Press, 1986)Google Scholar
Wong, Siu-lun “Social Enquiries in the People’s Republic of China,” Sociology, 9 (1975).Google Scholar
Xiao, Xinhuang “Sanshi nian lai Taiwan de shehuixue: lishi yu jiegou de tantao” [Thirty years of Taiwanese sociology: Reflections on history and structure] in Sanshi nian lai woguo renwen ji shehui kexue zhi huigu yu zhanwang [Review and forecast on thirty years of Taiwanese humanities and social sciences], ed. Lai, Zehan (Taibei: Dongda Press, 1987).Google Scholar
Xiaotong, FeiXiao chengzhen, da wenti: Jiangsu sheng xiao chengzhen yanjiu lunwen xuan [Small towns, big problems: Collection of articles containing research on small towns in Jiangsu province] (Nanjing: Jiangsu People’s Press, 1984).Google Scholar
Yang, Guoshu and Wen, Chongyi, eds., Shehui ji xingwei kexue yanjiu de Zhongguohua [Sinicization of social and behavioural sciences] (Taibei: Yongyu Press, 1982).Google Scholar
Yeh, Wen-hsinThe Alienated Academy: Culture and Politics in Republican China, 1919–1937 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×