Research On Social Mobility Of Modern Hunan (1840-1949)

Social mobility means social members' moving from one position to another in the space of social relationship. It's a quite ordinary phenomenon to indicate the constant changes of people's social status and relationship,which made it a very important factor to show the great changes of Modern Hunan(1840-1949) with intense alternations. According to little research on this subject in recent academia, the article tries to find out actual steps of Hunan's social evolution from the angle of mobility.This article is seperated into seven parts. Part one is the preface, which just introduces the meaning of author's choosing the title and previous research achievement ,auther's new ideas as well.Part two interprets the concept and meaning of social mobility, and briefly analyses the mode of traditional Hunan's mobility.Part three mainly introduces the outline of Hunan's mobility via four main stages. They include the beginning; the accelerating time during "xiangjun" age; the climax of Late Qing; the complicated and poly-faceted trend during the Republic of China.In part four, the author tries to analyse the reasons of such mobility at that time. There are also five aspects, they are : the damage of traditional social order; the industrial and commercial development of modern Capitalism,which cause the splitting up of social construction; great changes of social system and policy; the changes of cultural values and constant happening of natual disasters and man-made calamities.Part five, compared with other districts,especially the coast areas, summarizes several typical characters of Hunan's mobility. On the time,modern professional mobility in Hunan is clearly later than that of coast areas. On the flowing, vertical mobility is more than horizontal mobility, mobility-down is more than mobility-up. On the source, most of them are gentlemen and peasants. On the reason, political mobility is more than economical mobility. On the geographical distribution, people's mobility from country to city becomes a new trend. What's more, the tendency out of the official circles is very clear.Part six mainly inspects the relation between Hunan's mobility and changes of the times. The article says that there are compact causality between the two things. Quick changes of the times lead to overall mobility; on the other hand, the taking place of constant mobility also develops the changes. Such relation embodies three aspects. One is changes of social mobility and construction. Two is the influence to social change and order. Three is the relation between social mobility and Hunan's modernization.Part seven is also the ending part. It is not only mainly about the summary to all contents, but also points out the great current significance by researching tranditional mobility to nowadays. That's to say,how to form a rational mobility to develop the country.The writer puts forward five suggestions:the first is to keep the society stable and stimulate economic development to offer a force for mobility; the second is to offer a stable and unblocked channal; the third is to reform some disadvantageous policies step by step and abolish the obstacles for the mobility; the fourth is to develop and perfect social assurance system to decrease the rate of mobility-down; the fifth is to promote the changes of cultural values which can transform people's attitudes towards social...