CHINA IN THE WORLD: POSTGRADUATE RESEARCH SUMMER SCHOOL: PANELS

CHINA IN THE WORLD: POSTGRADUATE RESEARCH SUMMER SCHOOL

PANEL INFORMATION: PANEL 6

PANEL 6: Economics and Business: Lecture Theatre 2
July 18th 2008: 9.00am -9.45am

'Survey Work in China: Theory and Practice'
Speaker: Professor Thomas Scharping (University of Cologne)

The presentation will focus on quantitative research in relation to China, with emphasis on both random and non-random surveys. It will familiarize the participants with the specific advantages and disadvantages of different sampling formats and will introduce basic guidelines for questionnaire design. Also covered are practical issues of survey organization: choice of partners for collaboration and permission requirements, pre-testing and training of interviewers, time management and balancing of precision and efficiency goals, coding, data input, processing and language questions. The tensions between textbook prescriptions and their applicability in a Chinese context will be a recurrent theme. In addition to getting acquainted with various research techniques, participants will raise their awareness of the inter-dependencies between empirical and theoretical work, quantitative and qualitative research.

Speaker Biography:
Professor Scharping is Director of the Centre for Modern China Studies at the University of Cologne and was worked the China desk at the Federal Institute for International Studies with policy analysis for the German government 1973-88; since 1989 Chair for Modern Chinese Studies at the University of Cologne, Germany, with special emphasis on political, economic and social problems; regular research stays in China, East Asia and the US; referee work for various German and internal journals and foundations. He has written books on Chinese population, among them Floating Population and Migration in China, (ed.), Hamburg 1997 and Birth Control in China 1949-2000, Population Policy and Demographic Development, London/New York 2003 (Paperback: 2005); more than 100 articles on Chinese political, economic and social developments; collaborative projects, field research, and surveys in China

Key Readings:

Elisabeth Croll, Short-Term Field Investigation in China: A Personal View, in: China Information, Vol. 2, No. 1, Leiden 1987, pp.17-26
Melanie Manion, Survey Research in the Study of Contemporary China: Learning From Local Samples, in: China Quarterly, No.139, London 1994, pp. 741-765
Tianjin Shi, Survey Research in China, in: Research in Micropolitics, Rethinking Rationality, Vol. 5, Greenwich, Conn. 1996, pp. 213-250

Supplementary Reading:

William A.Byrd and Lin Qingsong, China’s Rural Industry, Structure, Development, and Reform, Oxford 1990, pp. 19-40
David Zweig and Chen Changgui, China’s Brain Drain to the United States, Views of Overseas Chinese Students and Scholars in the 1990s, Berkeley 1995, pp. 88-133
Thomas Scharping and Sun Huaiyang, eds., Migration in China’s Guangdong province, Major Results of a 1993 Sample Survey on Migrants and Floating Population in Shenzhen and Foshan, Gamburg 1997, pp. 7-18
Björn Gustafsson and Li Shi, Surveys – Three Ways to Obtain Household Income Data, in: Maria Heimer and Stig Thogerson, Doing Fieldwork in China, Copenhagen 2006, pp. 129-152

Trainer: Dr Yang Chen (Univeristy of Bristol)

Dr. Chen is Lecturer in Contemporary Chinese Studies at the University of Bristol, following a position as Senior Lecturer at the University of Northampton Business School. Her principal research interest is in the study of institutional change of transitional economies. In addition to her books Ownership in China’s Transitional Economy - The Limitations of Conventional Property Rights Theory (2007), and China’s Post-Reform Economy: Achieving Harmony, Sustaining Growth (co-authored with R. Sanders 2007), she has also published with the Journal of Chinese Economic and Business Studiesand in the areas of the ‘New Economy,’ corporate governance and rural development in contemporary China. She is a board member of Chinese Economic Association (UK).

Trainer: Dr Doris Fischer (German Development Institute)
Since the early 1990s Dr. Fischer has taken part in and initiated a number of research projects on different aspects of China's economy. An economist and sinologist by training she received her PhD degree in economics at the University of Giessen. Her thesis on "Competition policy during transition" received the university award for the best dissertation in Law and Economics. Between 2000 and 2006 Dr. Fischer has been assistant professor at the Department of Economics and the Institute of East Asian Studies at the University of Duisburg-Essen. In 2007 she was Visiting Professor of the Faculty of Economics at Seikei University in Tokyo (Japan). Since August 2007 Dr. Fischer is Senior Expert at the German Development Institute and in charge of the research related to China within the project "Sustainable Solutions -- Research for Sustainability" financed by the BMBF. Fischer is editor of the "Country report: China" published in 2007 by the German Federal Agency for Civic Education.'

Breakout and Discussion Following This Lecture : 9.45-10.10am

See Group List & Locations Here>>

Reconvene Lecture Theatre 2 for Full Discussion with All: 10.10-11.00am

Student Presentations: GROUP 6: 11.20-1.10pm July 18th 2008