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SOCY20281 Social Change in China
Tutors: Yannan He and Xiyuan Liu
Lectures: Weekly 2-hour lecture on Mondays 11:00 – 13:00 in Sam alex_A113.
Tutorials: Weekly 1-hour tutorial (starting Teaching Week 1). You will be assigned to a tutorial group by our timetabling team and this will appear on your timetable at https://my.manchester.ac.uk
Programme Administration: All general queries, programme related queries, exams, assessment, unofficial transcripts, confirmation letters, etc. should be directed to: [email protected]
Need to talk to someone about your wellbeing? [email protected]
Applying for extensions and mitigating circumstances, please contact: [email protected]
Contents of this document
· Course Overview and Weekly Tasks
· Course Aims and Outcomes
· Assessments
· Support and Feedback
· Referencing and Plagiarism
Course Overview
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1. |
A general introduction: major events in China - 1840 to now |
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2. |
The Cultural Revolution and the Send-Down of Educated Youth |
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3. |
Culture – ethnicity, religion and tradition |
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4. |
Workplace unit (danwei) in China |
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5. |
The Household Registration System (hukou) in China |
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6. |
Open up and reform |
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7. |
One-child policy and consequences |
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8. |
Internal migration |
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9. |
Socio-economic inequality: mobility and education |
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10. |
Quality of life/happiness/life satisfaction |
Weekly Tasks
Each week contains a mix of lectures and tutorials. Your tasks for each week are specified in detail in the relevant folders on Blackboard. So, for each topic you should, at least:
· Read at least one paper from ‘Core’ part (compulsory) and one other paper from ‘Essential’ or ‘Recommended’ parts (optional).
· Attend weekly lectures ready to take notes and engage with class discussions.
· Carry out additional preparation for scheduled classes as specified on the Blackboard website.
· Participate in scheduled classes, and discussions in the class and tutorial sessions.
· Come prepared to fully participate in tutorials on campus. Please remember to use the SEAtS system to register your attendance at each lecture and tutorial.
Course Aims
This course introduces you to a range of perspectives for understanding socio-economic developments in China since 1949, examining the shifts from a centrally-planned economy to a ‘socialist market economy with Chinese characteristics’. We examine the major institutional divides and policy changes in China (the household registration system –hukou – and the work-unit type –danwei) to assess how they have affected people’s life chances. We also discuss China’s socio-economic development after the open-up and reforms policies since 1978, and its transition from one of the poorest countries to the second largest powerhouse in the world.
We investigate the nature and degree of social inequalities in China. As China’s socio-economic situation is constantly changing, so is the content of the course, which is being upgraded all the time as most relevant and important new research findings come into being.
Intended Learning Outcomes
On completion of this unit successful students will be able to:
· Have a fairly good understanding of the complexity of the socio-economic lives of the 1.4 billion people living in China.
· Be able to apply theoretical knowledge to understand the major changes that have occurred and are still occurring in China.
· Evaluate competing analytical perspectives.
· Assess the strengths and weaknesses of empirical evidence.
· Employ the material available from the academic, media and policy sources to make effective arguments.
· Use library and electronic sources and resources.
· Undertake and present independent research on China.
· Present ideas and ask questions in group discussions.
· Work with others to develop ideas and make presentations.
· Develop a critical approach to contemporary debates on socio-economic lives in China.
Assignments and Assessments
Non-assessed Assignment
You are required to submit anon-assessed essay planto help you prepare for the assessed coursework. You will receive feedback on this work, but marks will not count towards the final grade for this course. There is a 5 point penalty for non-submission. Submission is online via Blackboard – see further details below. The purpose of this piece is for you to develop your knowledge, and receive feedback, on an area that will also be assessed in either the coursework or exam. So, there are no restrictions on your choice of topic in this assignment.
Please prepare an essay plan consisting of the following elements:
· Your chosen essay title (see list below).
· A short summary of your proposed overall arguments (between 200 and 250 words).
· A series of bullet points outlining your proposed structure.
· A list, in the required bibliographic format, ofat least five academic references which you intend to use in your essay, with a sentence describing how each reference will contribute to your argument.
Your non-assessed essay planshould be no longer than two sides of A4 (500 words).
Deadline for non-assessed assignment: 11th Nov 2024 at 2pm
Assessed Coursework
One assessed end-of-semester essay of 2,000 words which makes up 100% of the overall course mark. The word limit allows for +/- 10%, i.e., in the range 1,800–2,200 words.
Deadline: 13th Jan 2025 at 2pm.
Essay Questions
Please answer one of the following questions
1. Was there a fully independent middle class in China before 1949? In what sense was there continuity or rupture with the past?
2. To what extent did class difference persist during the send-down project, and how was it manifested? What were the positive and negative effects of the ‘send-down’ experiences?
3. Outline the unintended consequences of the preferential policies in terms of family planning, bilingual education and quota recruitment on minorities’ life chances and inter-ethnic relations. Have the preferential policies effectively removed the disadvantages faced by minorities?
4. Discuss the joint effects of workplace unit (danwei) and household registration (hukou) systems on Chinese people’s life chances. In what senses were these systems perpetuating social inequalities?
5. If there is a difference between heaven and earth in China in terms ofhukou differences, why did the Chinese people perceive so much more progress over the last five or ten years and feel generally happier than do their counterparts in former socialist countries?
6. Does the ‘market-based meritocracy’ or the ‘power persistency’ theory give a better account of the socio-economic development in post-reform China?
7. What are the long-term positive and negative effects of the one-child policy? In what sense does the one-child policy promote gender equality or exacerbate gender inequality?
8. In what sense do migrant peasant workers stand ‘in the shadow of socialism’?
9. How have the household registration (hukou) and workplace unit (danwei) systems affected social mobility in China? What are the similarities and differences in the patterns and trends of social mobility between China and Britain?
10. How is subjective well-being related to social mobility? Does Sorokin’s dissociation theory or Blau’s acculturation theory give a better explanation of mobility effects on people’s subjective well-being in China and/or in Britain?
Note that you could focus on one element in a complex question, or combine closely-related elements from two questions, or have a title of your own choice which is related to the topics covered above. This is because many of China’s social issues are interrelated. We also deliver the lectures with this in mind.)
Note: You must include an accurate word count on the front page of your essay. Failure to do so will lead to an automatic 2-mark deduction. Your word count should include all text in the essay (including any footnotes, tables and so on) but does not include the bibliography.
Online Submissions
Documents prepared for online submission must be in a reasonable font-size (e.g. 12pt Times New Roman or Arial) and have double line spacing. They should include an accurate final word count (excluding any bibliography) and your Student ID number, but not your name. Documents should be saved in a Microsoft Word compatible format (i.e. .doc or .docx). You are required to keep backups of your work in case of device breakdowns and should use either the University p-drive or an online file sync service (e.g. Dropbox, OneDrive).
Documents should be submitted by2pm on the deadline day unless you are given different course-specific instructions by email. Submission is via the Assessments section of the Blackboard course website. Full details and the submission link are included in the ‘Submission of Coursework’ folder.
Ensure you have familiarised yourself with the system and give yourself plenty of time for submission as technology problems will not be an acceptable reason for late or non-submission of work. If you have serious problems submitting on the day please contact the SoSS Undergraduate Office in the Arthur Lewis Building urgently (Email: [email protected]). When you have successfully submitted your essay you will be able to download and print a receipt.You must keep a copy of your submission receipt until all work on this course is complete and you have received your final grades.
Note that our online submission system includesTurnItIn plagiarism detection software. Be sure that you fully understand what plagiarism is; links for further details are included below. If, after reading the guidance, you are at all unsure about what counts as plagiarism then you should contact your Academic Advisor to discuss it.
If your essay is submitted late your grade will be reduced by 10 marks per day for 5 days, after which it will receive a mark of zero. For clarity a ‘day’ is 24 hours, beginning immediately after the published deadline. Deadlines will be strictly enforced in all cases. The mark published through TurnItIn will show your markbefore the late penalty is applied. The final mark, with the late penalty applied, will be recorded on the student system and used to calculate your overall course unit mark.
Mitigating Circumstances
Extensions may be granted to students where there are exceptional mitigating circumstances (e.g. strong medical reasons). In such cases a Mitigating Circumstances Form must be completed and submitted online Full guidance on mitigating circumstances is available here: http://www.socialsciences.manchester.ac.uk/student-intranet/undergraduate/help-and-support/mitigating-circumstances/
Feedback
All sociology courses include both formative feedback – which lets you know how you’re getting on and what you could do to improve – and summative feedback – which gives you a mark for your assessed work. This course uses the following mechanisms for feedback:
· Informal feedback during face-to-face discussion. Preparing adequately and participating fully in discussion will make this feedback as useful as possible.
· Written feedback on the formative essay will be provided by TAs.
· Formal written feedback will be available for coursework essays and should help you plan for future coursework essays in other subjects.
· Feedback Half Day will be provided to allow in-depth one-to-one discussion of feedback on your coursework assessments. Details will be announced by email.
Your Feedback to Us
We’re continually working to improve our teaching practices – for that we need your feedback. Towards the end of the semester you’ll be asked to fill out a Unit Survey for each of your modules – please do! The survey is designed to be very short and easy to fill out but the results are really valuable for our monitoring of teaching quality. We want to hear from you whether your opinion on the course was good, bad or indifferent.
All of your Unit Surveys are available via Blackboard – simply go to ‘Unit Evaluation’ on the left hand menu of the Blackboard website to begin. Alternatively, you can download a smartphone app called EvaluationKit to fill out Unit Surveys for all of your course units.
Referencing
The lack of a proper bibliography and appropriate reference in assessed essays will potentially greatly affect the mark for the work and may be considered plagiarism, which is a serious offence. All essays must employ the scholarly apparatus of references and a bibliography. There are different acceptable referencing styles. In sociology we recommend use of the Harvard system of referencing, which is described in detail here: https://subjects.library.manchester.ac.uk/referencing-new
In short, Harvard referencing means that you refer to the author and date of publication in brackets within the text, wherever you are referring to the ideas of another writer. Where you quote an author you must always include quotation marks and a page number in the reference.
All essays must include a References List which lists your sources in alphabetical order by author's surname. This should include all (and only) the sources you have directly referenced in the text. Whatever your source is, you need to provide a full set of publication details as described in the guide linked above. All academic texts you read will include bibliographies and these should give you plenty of examples of what information to include.
Plagiarism
The University defines plagiarism as ‘presenting the ideas, work or words of other people without proper, clear and unambiguous acknowledgement.’ It is an example of academic malpractice and can lead to very serious penalties up to exclusion from the University. You should read the University’s guidelines here:
Undergraduate Marking Criteria
Sociology students’ work is assessed into different class categories by using the following criteria, with descriptions below that would apply to the typical response to assessment in that category. Ask your course convenor or tutor for more information on how these criteria are applied to specific assignments.
High or Very High First Class (80-100)
Responses to the assignment that meet the marking criteria at anexceptional level.
· Understanding & knowledge. Consistent focus; an extremely high degree of accuracy in interpreting sociological ideas; mastery of a broad range of material from and beyond the course.
· Analysis & judgement. Insight, creativity, analytical maturity and exceptional judgement; independence and flair for critical engagement; claims supported or contested with highly relevant quotations and/or empirical information.
· Communication, structure & presentation. Extremely coherent and well-organised structure; language is clear and fluent; references and bibliography are accurate and well-presented.
First Class (70-79)
Responses that meet the marking criteria at anexcellent level.
· Understanding and knowledge. Consistent focus; a very high degree of accuracy in interpreting sociological ideas; knowledge of a broad range of material from and beyond the course.
· Analysis and judgement. Analytical maturity and excellent judgement; independence in critical engagement; claims supported or contested with relevant quotations and/or empirical information.
· Communication, structure and presentation. Very coherent and well-organised structure; language is clear and fluent; references and bibliography are accurate and well-presented.
Upper-second Class (60-69)
Responses meet the marking criteria at a level we would describe asvery good.
· Understanding and knowledge. Relevant content; a very good understanding of sociological ideas; familiarity with a broad range of material from the course.
· Analysis and judgement. Some evidence of analytical skill and judgement; moments of critical engagement; most claims supported with relevant quotations and/or empirical information.
· Communication, structure and presentation. Coherent structure; language is generally clear; references and bibliography are generally accurate and well-presented.
Lower-second Class (50-59)
Responses meet the marking criteria at a level we would describe asgood.
· Understanding and knowledge. Content not always relevant; some understanding of sociological ideas; familiarity with material from the course.
· Analysis and judgement. Sporadic evidence of analytical skill or judgement; attempts at critical engagement; some support for claims.
· Communication, structure and presentation. Organisation and flow is poor; use of language is only occasionally clear; references and bibliography not always accurate or well-presented.
Third Class (40-49)
Responses meet marking criteria at a level we would describe as sufficient.
· Understanding and knowledge. Content rarely relevant; understanding of sociological ideas is present but may include errors and inaccuracies; awareness of relevant material is present but limited.
· Analysis and judgement. Little evidence of analysis; lack of appropriate critical engagement; claims are frequently unsupported.
· Communication, structure and presentation. Structure hard to follow; language tends to be unclear; references and bibliography may be inaccurate or presented inappropriately.
Fail (30-39)
Responses areinsufficient. They fail to engage properly with the question or area being assessed. They may show some understanding and knowledge, a capacity to analyse and evaluate, and some ability to communicate and structure a response to the assignment, but do not fulfil these criteria sufficiently for a pass.
Bad Fail (20-29)
Such responses areinadequate. They tend generally to fail to engage with the question or area being assessed.
Very Bad Fail (10-19)
Such responses areseverely inadequate and tend to exhibit an almost complete lack of engagement with the area or question.
Extremely Bad Fail (0-9)
Such responses areprofoundly inadequate and tend to exhibit a complete lack of engagement with the area or question.