Individual Status and Contextual Inequality: Explaining the Value Change in China

• In Event: 392 - Section on Asia and Asian America Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 07. The Sociology of Culture. Case Studies from Asia

Abstract

Public opinion studies agree that economic growth shapes the value change, and cultural tradition has a path dependence effect at the same time. However, the idea that people's value always "progresses" and economic factors is positively contributing to the value shift regardless of cultural context has been taken for granted without careful examinations. Moreover, research in this area overwhelmingly uses nations rather than individuals as cases. This country-average approach leads to two major problems: the ecological fallacy and consequently a misleading conclusion of the causes of value shifts. In this paper, we question both the theoretical explanations and the methodological practices of public opinion studies with the case of China. Based on Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS) 2006 data, we use hierarchical linear model (HLM) to identify the sources of effects on value shifts. We find that economic factors' promoting effects are not valid for value shifts in the cultural dimension and differ at the individual and contextual levels. Higher individual social status in China does not guarantee a progressive value orientation. Different from previous studies, we find that contextual inequality increase people's demand for social change and democratization.

Author

• Tony Huiquan Zhang, University of Toronto