Young Chinese in Urban China
This book examines the condition of being a young person in China and the way in which changes in various dimensions of urban life have affected Chinese youths quest to understand themselves.
The author examines social factors, such as changes in the physical construction of urban neighbourhoods; changes in family life including reduced family size, increasing rates of divorce and increased physical mobility of the family unit; school life and mounting pressure to perform well in examinations and to be a good student; and access to foreign and domestic media as well as access to the Internet. Drawing on the fields of social and cultural anthropology, Alex Cockain shows that the process of self-understanding in a changing spatial, social and cultural world involves ongoing disjointed efforts to achieve a sense of security and belonging on the one hand and a degree of increased autonomy in their relationships with, for example, parents and teachers on the other.
This book will appeal to anyone interested in Chinese Society, Social and Cultural Anthropology, Asian Anthropology and Youth Studies.
Alex Cockain is currently a full-time lecturer within Shanghai Normal Universitys Sociology department. Between 2005 and 2011 he worked within Tsinghua Universitys School of Continuing Education. In 2009, he earned a PhD from the University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies. He has been published in The China Journal.
Routledge studies on China in transition
Series Editor: David S.G. Goodman
1 The Democratization of China
Baogang He
2 Beyond Beijing
Dali L. Yang
3 Chinas Enterprise Reform
Changing state/society relations after Mao
You Ji
4 Industrial Change in China
Economic restructuring and conflicting interests
Kate Hannan
5 The Entrepreneurial State in China
Real estate and commerce departments in reform era Tianjin
Jane Duckett
6 Tourism and Modernity in China
Tim Oakes
7 Cities in Post Mao China
Recipes for economic development in the reform era
Jae Ho Chung
8 Chinas Spatial Economic Development
Regional transformation in the Lower Yangzi Delta
Andrew M. Marton
9 Regional Development in China
States, globalization and inequality
Yehua Dennis Wei
10 Grassroots Charisma
Four local leaders in China
Stephan Feuchtwang and Wang Mingming
11 The Chinese Legal System
Globalization and local legal culture
Pitman B. Potter
12 Transforming Rural China
How local institutions shape property rights in China
Chi-jou Jay Chen
13 Negotiating Ethnicity in China
Citizenship as a response to the state
Chih- yu Shih
14 Manager Empowerment in China
Political implications of rural industrialization in the reform era
Ray Yep
15 Cultural Nationalism in Contemporary China
The search for national identity under reform
Yingjie Guo
16 Elite Dualism and Leadership Selection in China
Xiaowei Zang
17 Chinese Intellectuals Between State and Market
Edward Gu and Merle Goldman
18 China, Sex and Prostitution
Elaine Jeffreys
19 The Development of Chinas Stockmarket, 19842002
Equity politics and market institutions
Stephen Green
20 Chinas Rational Entrepreneurs
The development of the new private business sector
Barbara Krug
21 Chinas Scientific Elite
Cong Cao
22 Locating China
Jing Wang
23 State and Laid-Off Workers in Reform China
The silence and collective action of the retrenched
Yongshun Cai
24 Translocal China
Linkages, identities and the reimagining of space
Tim Oakes and Louisa Schein
25 International Aid and Chinas Environment
Taming the yellow dragon
Katherine Morton
26 Sex and Sexuality in China
Edited by Elaine Jeffreys
27 Chinas Reforms and International Political Economy
Edited by David Zweig and Chen Zhimin
28 Ethnicity and Urban Life in China
A comparative study of Hui Muslims and Han Chinese
Xiaowei Zang
29 Chinas Urban Space
Development under market socialism
T.G. McGee, George C.S. Lin, Mark Y.L. Wang, Andrew M. Marton and Jiaping Wu
30 Chinas Embedded Activism
Opportunities and constraints of a social movement
Edited by Peter Ho and Richard Louis Edmonds
31 Marketization and Democracy in China
Jianjun Zhang
32 The Chinese State in Transition
Processes and contests in local China
Edited by Linda Chelan Li
33 Chinas Governmentalities
Governing change, changing government
Edited by Elaine Jeffreys
34 Chinas Cotton Industry
Economic transformation and state capacity
Bjrn Alpermann
35 Serious Crime in China
Policing and politics
Susan Trevaskes
36 The Chinese States Retreat from Health
Policy and the politics of retrenchment
Jane Duckett
37 Chinas Changing Welfare Mix
Local perspectives
Edited by Beatriz Carrillo and Jane Duckett
38 Small Town China
Rural labour and social inclusion
Beatriz Carrillo
39 Tiger Girls
Women and enterprise in the Peoples Republic of China
Minglu Chen
40 Chinas Thought Management
Edited by Anne-Marie Brady
41 Rural Tax Reform in China
Policy processes and institutional change
Linda Chelan Li
42 Young Chinese in Urban China
Alex Cockain
First published 2012
by Routledge
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Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa business
2012 Alex Cockain
The right of Alex Cockain to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Cockain, Alex.
Young Chinese and new millennium urban China/Alex Cockain.
p. cm. (Routledge studies on China in transition; 42)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Urban youthChinaSocial conditions21st century. 2. City and town
lifeChinaHistory21st century. I. Title. II. Series: Routledge studies
