The New Generation Of Migrant Workers' Social Distance Study

In the recent three decades after opening-up and reform, the rural migrant workers began to intergeneration alternate. The rural migrant workers of new generation who were born after 1980 are ascended to the history stage and are becoming the main force of rual migrant workers. These new generations with higher education, higher job expectancy and more material & cultural demands, who are very different from thier parents. They dream of the civilized and morden urban way of life, but they could not integrate into city life and city society because of some differences and limits. This will be the important source of counter-urbanization and various social problems.The dissertation takes the Other who keeps no more slience——the new generation of rual migrant workers as subjective perspective, and takes social distance as the angle in the study, reviews the social distance of the new generation of rural migrant workers from the urban residents and the variables affecting their social distance. The dissertation suggests that there are three defects in traditional social distance study. The first is this concept appears the tendency of expanding extensively. The second is measurement methods are sharply divided. The last, and the most important point is to lack a perspective of group minority. Bogardus Social Distance Scale and the Reverse Social Distance Scale are both manifest a philosophical tendency of group majority as speaking subject, group minority is taken as the Other who keeps slience. Bred in the condition of market economy, the new generation of rural migrant workers has cultivated consciousness of equality, rights, independence and participation, their subjective consciousness has become stronger, they becoming more and more realize self-value of life and get used to being self-centered. All of these mean the new generation is no more silence. So the social distance in new generation of rural migrant workers'perspective can be splitted into two factors, one melting willings and the other expected exclusions. The dissertation learns from Bogardus Social Distance Scale and the Reverse Social Distance Scale, reformulate and redesign the social distance scale in new generation of rural migrant workers'perspective according to the actual condition of rural migrant workers. The study finds that the social distance scale in new generation of rural migrant workers'perspective has three features: (1) melting willing and expected exclusion are asymmertrical. (2) the new generation of rural migrant workers'social distance from the urban residents gets larger than their earlier generation. This conclusion proves the theory hypothesis of'counter-immgrant'. (3) the new generation of rural migrant workers'expected exclusion from the urban residents gets larger than the new generation of white collars. This conclusion verifies the household system plays an important role in social distance researching.The dissertation is also to analyze the influence of social-economic status, social relation networks, living space and social culture on the new generation of rural migrant workers'social distance. The results show that social-economic status plays an important role in the new generation of rural migrant workers'social distance. The concrete features are that: (1) the new generation of rural migrant workers with higher social-economic status have higher melting willing, income and subjective identity have significant effect, but education level has no. (2) the new generation of rural migrant workers with higher social-economic status have lower expected exclusion, all factors of income, education level and subjective identity have remarkable effect.Social relation networks play an important role in the new generation of rural migrant workers'social distance. The concrete features are that: (1) the size and heterogeneity of networks have no remarkable effect on the new generation of rural migrant workers'melting willing, but have significant effect on their expected exclusion. Expressive tie and instrumental tie play an important role in the new generation of rural migrant workers'social distance. And expressive tie has more effect than instrumental tie.Living space plays an important role in the new generation of rural migrant workers'social distance. The concrete features are that: (1) the new generation of rural migrant workers who live in downtown have higher melting willing. (2) the new generation of rural migrant workers who live scattered have lower expected exclusion. (3) the new generation of rural migrant workers who want to buy a house have higer melting willing and lower expectes exclusion.Social culture plays an important role in the new generation of rural migrant workers'social distance. The concrete features are that: (1) it's useless in understanding local dialect to have higher melting willing, but it's useful to have lower expected exclusion. (2) it's useful in speaking local dialect to have higher melting willing and lower expected exclusion. (3) knowing local custom have no siginificant effect on melting willing and expected exclusion, but it's useful in accepting local custom to have lower expected exclusion.The dissertation is to address the relational structure model of the new generation of rural migrant workers'social distance. The results show that: (1) melting willing and expected exclusion influence each other reversely. (2) the new generation of rural migrant workers who are willing to marry (be relative) with local people believe that local people are willing to be their closed friends.At last, the main findings, contributions and reflections have been discussed, and future research directions also have been suggested.