Professor LI lulu’s book “An analysis of the class structure of modern China (Dangdai zhongguo de jieceng jiegou fenxi 当代中国的阶层结构分析) ”won the First Prize in the Eighth Higher Education Outstanding Scientific Research Achievement Award in 2020. This book is the result of Professor Li’s research on social stratification and mobility in China for more than ten years, which presents significant academic and practical contribution.

Firstly, since 1978, China has undergone profound changes due to social transformation, particularly the continuous restructuring of interests and the increasing differentiation of class and social strata. The intertwined social changes have extended and penetrated into various aspects of social life, posing significant challenges to the existing social structure. With the deepening of reform and opening up, social contradictions and conflicts have accumulated, leading to a period of pronounced social contradictions and conflicts. The increasing differentiation and recombination of class and social strata, along with corresponding interest structures, present enormous challenges for the future development and reform of Chinese society. Understanding the contradictions and conflicts in Chinese society during the transitional period, revealing their foundation and analyzing the mechanisms behind their formation, and exploring ways to govern these contradictions and conflicts have become critical theoretical and practical issues in China's march towards a new era.

Secondly, it is well-known that the study of class and social stratification is a classic and rapidly developing field in sociology, especially in the process of disciplinary reconstruction and internationalization in Chinese sociology. Given the overall transformation towards post-industrial and post-modern society, class and social stratification theories face two major challenges: whether class still exists, and if it does, whether its basis and form have undergone significant changes.

This work provides answers to these two fundamental questions based on systematic theories and empirical analysis.

The special issue of 'Sociological Review' in 2018 published three reviews highly praising this book.

In an article titled 'A New Perspective on Understanding China's Social Structure and Class Relations,' Professor Wu Yuxiao from Nanjing University's School of Sociology notes that 'An Analysis of Class Structure in Modern China' is a representative work that explores the structural differentiation and class classification in Chinese society during the transitional period and presents a panorama of social strata.

In another review titled 'The Tension and Attraction of Stratification Research,' researcher Li Jun from Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences points out that stratification research is a core topic in sociology and has experienced the fastest internationalization and professionalization development in Chinese sociology since its restoration.

Assistant Professor Fan Xiaoguang from the School of Sociology at Zhejiang University, in an article titled 'Stratification Schema: Exploring the 'Hard Core' of Invariance in Social Change,' highlights the importance of clarifying the core logic of class composition and proposing effective stratification schemas as key tasks for scientifically evaluating China's social class structure and positioning China's socio-economic development stage.

Author Biography:

Li Lulu, is a professor at the School of Social Research, Renmin University of China. He is also the 'Dahua Chair Professor' at Renmin University and has been the Director of the Teaching Guidance Committee for Sociology Majors in Higher Education Institutions under the Ministry of Education since 2013. His main research areas include social stratification and mobility, organizational studies, and social modernization.

He is one of the earliest researchers to interpret the 'institutional capital' in the framework of 'market transformation' and deepen the theory of 'elite reproduction.' He is also one of the researchers who linked “unit (Danwei) identity” with the social stratification system through the 'identity hierarchy system.' Moreover, he is a major interpreter of the theory of 'class and stratum reproduction'. He is one of the co-founders and principal investigators of the 'China General Social Survey' (CGSS). He has independently or collaboratively published over a hundred academic papers in top journals of this discipline.