China poses great challenges and opportunities to scholars who want to understand this vast and rapidly changing society. At Brown University among the first social scientists to initiate research on China after the Cultural Revolution were sociologists Sidney and Alice Goldstein. They provided the definitive analysis of urbanization and migration in China in the 1980’s, including books on Urbanization in China: New Insights from the 1982 Census (1985) and Population Mobility in the People’s Republic of China (1985).

The Brown University Working Group on China was established in 2005 to improve communication and collaboration among scholars who continue to study social change in China and its relations with the international community. The Working Group is supported by S4 (Spatial Structures in the Social Sciences) and PSTC (Population Studies and Training Center).

The following persons constitute the current membership of the working group. Click on the person’s name to see more information about their research activity on China.

Vernon Henderson (Economics)
Robert Lee (American Civilization)
Jianhong Liu (Sociology, Rhode Island College)
John R. Logan (Sociology)
David Meyer (Sociology)
Nancy Qian (Economics)
Susan Short (Sociology)
Mark Swislocki (History)
Leiwen Jiang (Watson Institute)
Michael White(Sociology)

In addition, Brown graduate Ma Rong, Chair of the Department of Sociology at Peking University, provides the working group with a strong tie to social sciences in China.

The Working Group also participates in a consortium of scholars whose collaboration began under the aegis of the Urban China Research Network (http://www.albany.edu/chinanet) and who have carried out a series of original surveys in Chinese cities. Other scholars may request permission to analyze these data. Click here to see a list of surveys and their questionnaires.

Brown scholars are working with the third China Industry Census, which was conducted in 1996, and is known as the 1995 industry census. Click here to see the codebooks; a working group password is required to access the data itself.