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3.7 Summary

Course video 22 of 54

In Week 3, we will focus on Social Science Research on China. By the end of this week, you should have some sense of major topics in current social science research on China.

Social Science Approaches to the Study of Chinese Society Part 1

Universidad Científica y Tecnológica de Hong Kong

This course seeks to turn learners into informed consumers of social science research. It introduces concepts, standards, and principles of social science research to the interested non-expert. Learners who complete the course will be able to assess evidence and critically evaluate claims about important social phenomena. It reviews the origins and development of social science, describes the process of discovery in contemporary social science research, and explains how contemporary social science differs from apparently related fields. It describes the goals, basic paradigms, and methodologies of the major social science disciplines. It offers an overview of the major questions that are the focus of much contemporary social science research, overall and for China. Special emphasis is given to explaining the challenges that social scientists face in drawing conclusions about cause and effect from their studies, and offers an overview of the approaches that are used to overcome these challenges. Explanation is non-technical and does not involve mathematics. Statistics and quantitative methods are not covered. Explore the big questions in social science and learn how you can be a critical, informed consumer of social science research. Course Overview video: https://youtu.be/QuMOAlwhpvU After you complete Part 1, enroll in Part 2 to learn how to be a PRODUCER of Social science research. Part 2: https://www.coursera.org/learn/social-science-research-chinese-society

Impartido por:

Cameron Campbell
Professor of Social Science

Transcripción

[MUSIC]

Hi, now we're going to recap or summarize what we've talked about in this lecture.

We've been talking about social science research in China.

There's a lot of social science research being conducted that's related to China

on many, many different topics.

But as we just learned, there's a few topics that received special attention and

are the subject of an especially large number of studies.

One very basic topic is change and continuity.

Understanding the tremendous changes that China has experienced,

especially during the 20th century and

also understanding the ways in which what we see in say China today,

represents continuities with the period before the 20th century.

And there are changes in continuities when it comes to society,

education and politics.

Another big area related to change, but an area,

very big one in its own right, is family change.

The Chinese family has been transformed over the course of the 20th century.

Traditional forms,

family organization have in many ways disappeared and been replaced.

There are still some continuities, but understanding the reasons for

these changes in the way that families have been organized and understanding

the implications is an important topic for Social Science Research.

Another topic is population aging.

Especially as people have been living longer and longer and as birthrates have

fallen, the share of Chinese population that is older has been rising rapidly.

And indeed, the share of the population of China that's older or

even above retirement age is going to rise very rapidly in the coming decades and

the numbers of working age adults has began to fall.

So, I have profound implications for China's economy and

for its family organization and its social organization.

There is also migration.

Especially in the last few decades, China's been on the move.

Millions of people have been moving from the countryside into the cities.

This has transformed the countryside and it's certainly transformed the cities.

And indeed, it's transformed the whole world.

It was these migrants from rural areas to urban areas

that were the workforce in the factories that helped

drive China's economic expansion over the last few decades.

The implications of these migration streams are not yet

fully understood and as migration continues over coming decades,

there still going to be lot to study.

And finally, there's education, health, and well-being.

China's been remarkably successful since the middle of the 20th century in

improving overall, or average, well-being.

People are better educated, they're living longer.

By a number of other measures, they are better off.

Nevertheless, there are inequalities in terms of education,

health and other measures of well-being that are related to other features of

China's economic, social and political organization.

Understanding the implication of these differences and

these inequalities in education, health, and overall well-being, is going to be

an important task for social science research in the coming decades.

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