The Field Is the Classroom: Teacher and Students from Department of Sociology Visit Huilongguan for Community Survey
On April 12, 15 master's and doctoral students from the Department of Sociology, led by Prof. Sun Xiulin, conducted a community survey in Huilongguan, a residential zone in Changping District, Beijing. This survey is a practice of teaching exploration as part of the course "Research Method of Sociology-Case Studies" at the Department of Sociology for the spring semester of 2024.
The survey took place in the community of Huilongguan in Changping District under the theme of "Changes in Community Governance and Residents' Life amid the Transformation of Village Committees into Neighborhood Committees". It featured four groups, including community governance, production and life, migrant population, and life in old age, and focused on issues such as collective economy and spatial changes.
Ms. Zhang Guizhi, Secretary of the Party Committee of the Huilongguan community, expressed her welcome to the survey team from Tsinghua University, and introduced Huilongguan's development history and governance experience.
The four survey groups went to the service hall, migrant population management station, group for swift response to public complaints, and outdoor squares in the community to communicate with the residents, the head of the neighborhood committee, the head of the property company, real estate agents, retirees and other groups of people.
Social survey is a defining feature and special skill in sociology. Social survey at the Department of Sociology of Tsinghua University have been passed down consistently with continuous commitment, are a long historic tradition and have made unique academic contributions. The qualitative research method course continues the fine tradition of social survey at Tsinghua University's Department of Sociology, for which the teacher and students went into the field to check social realities. In the future, the course will continue the model of teaching that combines fieldwork with classroom discussions, and follow up the governance of large urban communities by focusing on both empirical facts and theoretical knowledge. Students will recognize and understand society in the field, and make good use of the imagination and creativity of sociology in the field.
