Abstract: Besides routine migration from villages gradually to small cities, big cities, and then even to foreign countries, the intellectuals’ social mobility between urban and rural areas in Jiang’nan (regions south of the Yangtze River) during the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China also consisted of a tendency of returning to rural areas willingly or reluctantly due to their difficulties in the upward mobility on the one hand and the available accommodation for them in villages, towns and small cities at that time on the other. With a case study of the schools and the conditions of their teaching staff during 1912-1925 in Kunshan, this thesis discusses the tendency of returning to the rural areas in the intellectuals’ social mobility between urban and rural areas in Jiang’nan during the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China and the significance of the tendency in modern China as well.

Key words: the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China, intellectuals in Jiang&rsquo, nan region, social mobility, Kunshan