On April 9, 1982, the Department of Sociology was restored at Peking University and has been enshrined by academic excellence, social service, and deep commitment to the mission of education ever since. Now, the department has expanded from the embryonic form at its renascence into an institution of scholarly prestige, thanks to the unwavering commitment of successive generations of faculty and students. Today, the department is not only an esteemed constituent of the university community but also a treasured part in the lives of all alumni, whatever capacities they have been associated with.

Now, the department grants B.A. degrees in Sociology, Social Work, and Anthropology, and M.A. degrees in Sociology, Anthropology, Demography, Gender Studies, Social Work, and Social Security. The department runs three Ph.D. programs: Sociology, Anthropology, and Demography. From 1982 to 2022, the department bestowed 1,664 bachelor's degrees, 1,642 master's degrees, and 401 doctoral degrees.

In 1916, when Mr. Yan Fu presided Peking University, his student, Mr. Kang Baozhong, lectured the first sociology courses at Peking University. In 1922, the Department of Sociology was founded at Yenching University, one of the premier missionary universities and probably the best known among them in 20th-century China. Sociologists from both universities left abundant research legacies that converged into the intellectual foundations of the sociological inquiry at Peking University as we know it.

Sociology was introduced to China through the "Social Survey Movement," which also made the discipline accessible to the public. Dr. Tao Menghe, a philosophy faculty at Peking University, was central to this movement. His groundbreaking study on rickshaw drivers in Beijing became an exemplary scholarship in the beginning years of Chinese sociology. The rise of social surveys in early 20th-century China said something about the intellectual community's deep concern for social pathologies and their urgent mission to save the nation. Under the leadership of Wu Wenzao at Yenching University's Department of Sociology, a strong push emerged to go beyond traditional social surveys by integrating advanced Western theories and methodologies. This transition successfully promoted a different kind of social study. Wu invited scholars like Robert E. Park from the University of Chicago and British anthropologist Alfred Reginald Radcliffe-Brown to share their expertise at Yenching University. Collaborating with faculty and students such as Fei Xiaotong and Lin Yaohua, they encouraged "community studies" in the suburban villages in Beijing in the 1920s and 1930s. This led to the emergence of the "Yenching School" of sociology during the Republican era.

Dr. Wu Wenzao regarded "community study" as an initiative force to the "sinification of sociology." Community study focused on communities and villages with clear boundaries, treating them as "wholes." The physical, institutional, organizational, and cultural aspects and the historical chances of the community constitute a dynamic "reality." In addition to thick descriptions, community studies tried to explain phenomena within these communal bounds by applying human ecology and functional anthropology theories. In Wu Wenzao's words, "sinification of sociology" took as one of its primary principles that researchers should "start with field research and conclude a study with it." Mr. Fei Xiaotong later summarized its essence as "seeking knowledge from reality."

Holding to this principle, scholars of the Yenching School moved to conduct various kinds of social studies in Southwest China during the Second Sino-Japanese War. A notable example is the group of young scholars based in suburban Kunming, later called the "Kuige" group, which was composed of Mr. Fei Xiaotong and his advisees. This new generation of sociologists, coming to age intellectually amidst the turmoil of war, were no less passionate than their colleagues one generation ago in doing field research. Important academic works such as Earthbound China: A Study of Rural Economy in Yunnan were completed during this unforgettable era.  This kind of community study exemplified the scholarly approach of "starting and ending with field research." Mr. Fei's publications in this period, From the Soil and The Institutions for Reproduction, signified theoretical advancements in community study and became milestones in the "sinification of sociology" during the Republican era.

In 1982, the Department of Sociology at Peking University was restored primarily due to the efforts of sociologists like Mr. Fei Xiaotong, Ms. Lei Jieqiong, and Mr. Yuan Fang. This period marked a significant growth of "field research" at the university, moving beyond the style of community studies characterized by the Yenching School to foster studies with specific themes and objectives. This new approach combined comparative studies across different regions and typical case studies. One of Mr. Fei's works, "Endless Going," composed during the 1980s and 1990s, featured the "comparative method" and was reminiscent of Yenching School's community studies. Roughly at the same time, the survey of township enterprises conducted in Shandong and southern Jiangsu by a new generation of sociologists, including Ma Rong, Wang Hansheng, and Liu Shiding, in the 1990s led up to some of the best sociological case studies at Peking University. The regenerated field study was multifaceted; it was shared by both sociologists and anthropologists and covered ethnographies of one and multiple sites. It echoed the scholarly ideas from the days of the Yenching School, even with enormous progress in theorization and methodological refinement. The character of sociology at Peking was greatly shaped by this string of research.

In multiple ways, the Department of Sociology at Peking University is a leading institution in this nation. It has a strong belief in social theory, offers exciting theory courses, and has facilitated the translation of canonic theoretical works into other languages. The department is also committed to innovating social science research methods. In the early 1990s, it began to host forums on the "sociological method" and sponsor large-scale surveys on frontier societies and family dynamics in China. In the early 2000s, the department installed significant data centers such as the Chinese Family Panel Studies (CFPS) and made copious efforts to advance technological sociology and computational social science. Additionally, the department is one of the earliest institutes to incorporate a major in social work. A hotbed to various empirical fields such as urban and rural studies, ethnicity, family dynamics, labor, demographics, and gender, the department is a perfect example of Peking University's academic motto, "Open to all that is truly scholarly."

Culturally, sociological fieldwork wakes up "cultural awareness," which Mr. Fei promoted in his later years. In this perspective, the idea of "the differential mode of association" evolves from an initial explanatory mechanism to account for the different modes of personhood between Chinese and Western societies to a theoretical imagination of how such differences can give birth to emphatical understanding. This shift has broadened sociological research to some fundamental aspects of Chinese civilization, a consequent change that has rejuvenated social theory studies in the past decades.

Through sustained fieldwork, one can touch the essence of society, transcending temporal and spatial constraints to delve into the structural and civilizational meanings of a society. This is akin to seeing a single flower or leaf's robust framework and seasonal changes. It involves applying theories and methods to explore communities with rich historical and cultural heritage. It is a process of intermingling the knowledge of both Eastern and Western studies to feel the pulse of China. The "sinification of sociology" is a legacy passed to this department by early Chinese sociologists and remains an ongoing process. Engagement in this process demands rigorous training, exceptional skills, and ethical integrity, critical qualities manifested in outstanding sociologists at Peking University across generations.

Mr. Yan Fu defined sociology as the "study of groups." In the preface to the Chinese translation of Herbert Spencer's The Study of Sociology, which Yan Fu translated himself, he said: "What is the study of groups? It is to employ scientific principles to observe the changes within human aggregations, thereby retrieving the past and forecasting the future." Now that China is connected to the world and situated at the crossroads of civilizations, sociology must overcome its traditional boundaries to "understand the past and forecast the future." This calls forth not only expanding the intellectual horizon to include the latest social science achievements and technological innovations but also renewed endeavors to understand the historical traditions and inquire into the customs of the people.

The Department of Sociology bears more than one intellectual source, but the effort to seek the meaning of society probably never changes, and this effort is more timely than ever. Sociology at Peking University is in search of a grand narrative of society, as expected by Mr. Yan and other forerunners, that is amenable to Chinese civilization.