Abstract: As an important theme, “social transformation” is paid close attention by domestic and foreign academic circles. With the integral and radical alteration of the social structure as its essence, social transformation is featured by integrity, progressiveness, heterogeneity, overlapping and formality. From the perspective of the structural features of social transformation, China’s reform and opening course in the last over thirty years has experienced three different stages. China’s contemporary social transformation presents a gradual process from the traditional social structure to the modern one in respects of initiating mechanism, motivation source, main content, basic process, social impact, and general form. Thereby, it promotes to a great extent the social modernization and development of various courses in China.

Key words: social structure, social transformation, structural features