生育文化研究述评

本文对20世纪90年代以来的中国生育文化研究做述评。文章首先分析了既有研究在生育文化概念上存在混乱的原因,同时强调在生育文化研究中要注意“大传统”与“小传统”、“显文化”与“隐文化”的区分。作者认为既有研究对传统生育文化内容的概括是笼统的,它不能作为严谨学术研究的逻辑起点,应该通过实证调查赋予传统生育文化更具体的数量化特征。对于新型生育文化,作者认为已经有很多非常精彩的研究成果,但横切面式的研究因为缺乏历史的纵深而显得不够厚重,解释力度也受到影响。到目前为止,学者对于生育文化变迁机制的关注还是很少的。

A Review of the Studies Of the Child-bearing Culture

This article makes a review of the studies of the childbearing culture since the 1990s. Firstly, it analyzes why there are some confusions on the concept of the childbearing culture. It is important to differentiate "the Big Tradition and the Little Tradition" and to differentiate "the Obvious Culture and the Hidden Culture". Secondly, the content of traditional childbearing culture is so vague that it can't be the starting point of a strict scientific study. More attention should be paid to the fields work and study the childbearing culture more specifically and more quantitatively. Thirdly, there have been many splendid works on the new style childbearing culture. Yet most of these studies are transverse section studies lacking historical analysis of social change and therefore lack of interpretation of the reality. Up to now, the few studies can interpret the change mechanism of childbearing culture.