Along with the economic growth and urbanization development after the reforms since late 1970s, widening economic inequality, inadequate social welfare provisions and weakening social solidarity have increasingly emerged in the urban society of China. Under this backdrop, this study states the evolvement of social inclusion theory in China, and focuses on clarifying its definition as an individual-level perception, and developing a four-dimension scale to measure social inclusion with sound psychometric properties through a quantitative survey among a sample of 895 urban residents. Furthermore, the study investigates the effect of socio-economic status on individual’s social inclusion as well as the underlying mediation and moderation mechanisms.
Dr. Xiaoqing Tang is Lecturer at the Institute of Sociology, Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, China. Her research focuses on social inclusion and well-being of urban population as well as mass psychology and social attitudes in contemporary China. She received her PhD degree from The City University of Hong Kong.
