Between Tradition And Modernity: The Differential Pattern To A Mixed Rational

Since the reform and opening up of China society, the rural area has undergoing comprehensive change. Drived by market economy, the pattern and character of connections between members of rural society are very different from before. Accordingly, the behavior logic of farmers changes too. The old way of "structure of grade" which is used to describe the character of traditional social relation is increasingly under suspicion. For the purpose of understanding the panorama of rural society and promoting its development, it is necessary to study the character of contemporary social relations of rural society.Social network analysis is a view of social structure, a suit of analytical methods and tools. This essay starts from social network analysis, focuses on the relations and transactions actually happened between all of the members of rural society in the perspective of everyday life, and discusses the character of social relations in contemporary rural society. At the same time, this essay reexamines the validity of "structure of grade" which is used to describe traditional social relations. On the basis of these discussions, this essay continues to explore the behavior logic of farmers in the context of market economy.This research adopts the methods of social survey and field study. For data collection, it uses questionnaires and in-depth interviews. For the whole frame, this essay is composed of five parts.The first chapter is introduction. It deals with the genesis and the meaning of this research as well as the way to select samples.The sociology that deals with social structure puts great emphasis on social relations. In China sociology, the focus is on rural social relations. This essay starts from socialnetwork analysis, differentiates three kinds of social relations------material, emotional, andsymbolic------which are different resources flowing in social networks, so as to study thecontemporary social relations. This essay assumes that Shandong province can be representative of China because of its characteristics in the fields of culture, society, and economy.The second chapter is about research background. It mainly includes "theoretical background and reviews about relevant research" and "research methods and hypothesis". In the first half, this essay succinctly introduces social network analysis, reviews the existing researches on China's rural social relations from three different perspectives in academia, and then summarizes researches on China's rural social relations from the...