Books on Social Mobility

Horizontal Social Mobility, Vertical Social Mobility, Social Mobility, Stratification

Social Mobility In Europe Book by Richard Breen (Editor)

Analyzing Inequality: Life Chances And Social Mobility In Comparative Perspective (Studies in Social Inequality) Book by Stefan Svallfors (Editor)

Class-Passing: Social Mobility In Film And Popular Culture by Gwendolyn Audrey Foster

Social Mobility and Modernization: A Journal of Interdisciplinary History Reader Robert I. Rotberg

Social Mobility and Class Structure in Modern Britain Book by John H. Goldthorpe

Pathways to Social Class: A Qualitative Approach to Social Mobility Daniel Bertaux, Paul Thompson

New Markets, New Opportunities?: Economic and Social Mobility in a Changing World Book by Nancy Birdsall, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Carol Graham

Ethnicity, Social Mobility, and Public Policy : Comparing the USA and UK Book by Glenn C. Loury (Editor), Tariq Modood (Editor), Steven M. Teles (Editor)

Class-Passing: Social Mobility In Film And Popular Culture by Gwendolyn Audrey Foster

Getting Ahead: Economic and Social Mobility in America by Daniel P. McMurrer, Isabel V. Sawhill

The Just Meritocracy : IQ, Class Mobility, and American Social Policy Paul Kamolnick

A Notion at Risk: Preserving Public Education as an Engine for Social Mobility
Book by Richard D. Kahlenberg (Editor)

Social Structure and Social Mobility (American Cities, Vol 7) Book by Neil Larry Shumsky

The Social Mobility of Women: Beyond Male Mobility Models Book by Geoff Payne, Pamela Abbott (Editor)

Reviews:

Social Mobility In Europe Book by Richard Breen (Editor)
Social Mobility in Europe is the most comprehensive study to date of trends in intergenerational social mobility. Study uses data from 11 European countries covering the last 30 years of the twentieth century to analyze differences between countries and changes through time. Findings question several long-standing views about social mobility. A growing similarity between countries in their class structures and rates of absolute mobility: the countries of Europe are now more alike in their flows between class origins and destinations than they were thirty years ago. However, differences between countries in social fluidity (that is, the relative chances, between people of different class origins, of being found in given class destinations) show no reduction and so there is no evidence supporting theories of modernization which predict such convergence. Our results also contradict the long-standing Featherman Jones Hauser hypothesis of a basic similarity in social fluidity in all industrial societies 'with a market economy and a nuclear family system'. There are considerable differences between countries like Israel and Sweden, where societal openness is very marked, and Italy, France, and Germany, where social fluidity rates are low. Similarly, there is a substantial difference between, for example, the Netherlands in the 1970s (which was quite closed) and in the 1990s, when it ranks among the most open societies. Mobility tables reflect many underlying processes and this makes it difficult to explain mobility and fluidity or to provide policy prescriptions.

Analyzing Inequality: Life Chances And Social Mobility In Comparative Perspective (Studies in Social Inequality) Book by Stefan Svallfors (Editor)
"Analyzing Inequality" summarizes key issues in today’s theoretically guided empirical research in social inequality, life course, and cross-national comparative sociology. It describes the progress made in terms of data sources, both cross-sectional as well as longitudinal; the new instruments that make inequality research possible; new ways of thinking and explaining; and empirical findings, or important contributions of rigorous empirical research to our understanding.

Class-Passing: Social Mobility In Film And Popular Culture Book by Gwendolyn Audrey Foster
Oprah Winfrey, Donald Trump, Roseanne Barr, and Britney Spears typify class-passers—those who claim different socioeconomic classes as their own—asserts Gwendolyn Audrey Foster in Class-Passing: Social Mobility in Film and Popular Culture. According to new rules of social standing in American popular culture, class is no longer defined by wealth, birth, or education. Instead, today’s notion of class reflects a socially constructed and regulated series of performed acts and gestures rooted in the cult of celebrity.
In examining the quest for class mobility, Foster deftly traces class-passing through the landscape of popular films, reality television shows, advertisements, the Internet, and video games. She deconstructs the politics of celebrity, fashion, and conspicuous consumerism and analyzes class-passing as it relates to the American Dream, gender, and marriage.
Class-Passing draws on dozens of examples from popular culture, from old movie classics and contemporary films to print ads and cyberspace, to illustrate how flagrant displays of wealth that were once unacceptable under the old rules of behavior are now flaunted by class-passing celebrities. From the construction worker in Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire? to the privileged socialites Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie of The Simple Life, Foster explores the fantasy of contact between the classes. She also refers to television class-passers from The Apprentice, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, and Survivor and notable class-passing achievers Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Martha Stewart.
Class-Passing is a notable examination of the historical, social, and ideological shifts in expressions of class. The first serious book of its kind, Class-Passing is fresh, innovative, and invaluable for students and scholars of film, television, and popular culture.
"Class-Passing is positively overflowing with ideas and insights, teeming with splendid observations of an original and challenging nature. Foster’s ability to link class with issues of race, gender, and the body is quite marvelous and convincing. Class-Passing is very much in the forefront of contemporary film and cultural studies, superior in every way." —David Desser, University of Illinois
"At a time when studies of social class in media representation have taken a back seat to analyses of race and gender, Class Passing, in daring and original fashion, maps and elaborates on contradictions in performing social class via the media and popular culture. The book is commendable for the range of examples that illustrate continuities and changes in representations of social class as well as their relation to treatments of race and gender. Foster’s innovative analysis is not restricted to cinema but includes television, advertising, etiquette books, popular manuals, and video games, providing a broad field from which to assess the character and vicissitudes of class passing." —Marcia Landy, University of Pittsburgh
Gwendolyn Audrey Foster, a professor of film studies, women’s studies, and cultural studies in the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, is the author of eight books. Her most recent book, Performing Whiteness: Postmodern Re/Constructions in the Cinema, was named an outstanding title in the humanities for 2004 by Choice.

Social Mobility and Modernization: A Journal of Interdisciplinary History Reader Book by Robert I. Rotberg (Editor)
The essays in this book examine how the West modernized and what that modernization meant to human society, particularly in Western Europe and the United States. Within that frame are several distinct subthemes: the process of industrialization in Europe and elsewhere; social mobility, class structures, and class differences; social unrest and the stresses of modernization and industrialization; economic and social equality and inequality and their markers; the role of women in modernization; and the origins of nationalism. The book's chapters discuss these issues from medieval times through the twentieth century, with particular focus on the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Social Mobility and Class Structure in Modern Britain Book by John H. Goldthorpe
The second edition of this classic study, fully updated and extended, now includes an analysis of recent trends in intergenerational mobility, the class mobility of women, and views of social mobility in modern Britain from a cross-national perspective.

Pathways to Social Class: A Qualitative Approach to Social Mobility Book by Daniel Bertaux, Paul Thompson
Calling for a broader new approach to social mobility research which goes beyond statistics and utilizes life stories and family case histories, this richly suggestive volume explores sociological issues such as transmission between family generations, how immigrants make good, how social elites survive revolutions, and the meanings of houses, places and dreams for mobility.

New Markets, New Opportunities?: Economic and Social Mobility in a Changing World Book by Nancy Birdsall (Editor), Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (Editor), Carol Graham (Editor)
Many of the countries that have recently converted to a market-based economic system have also experienced an alarming increase in income inequality a widening gap between the haves and have nots. But to what extent is the increase in inequality also increasing the opportunities for economic advancement particularly for those at the bottom of the economic ladder? Does the creation of greater opportunities make a region's move to the market politically acceptable? And, if opportunities don't increase along with inequality, will it eventually cause a political backlash against a country's market policies?
This book highlights the importance of finding the answers to those questions by examining the issues of social mobility and opportunity as an essential part of the income inequality puzzle. It provides a summary of the latest research on the economics and politics of social mobility in both developed and emerging market economies, including the conceptual issues involved and the challenges of accurately documenting trends. The book concludes with a discussion of the economics of opportunity and mobility in Latin America and Eastern Europe, and the politics and perceptions of mobility in the two regions.

Ethnicity, Social Mobility, and Public Policy : Comparing the USA and UK Book by Glenn C. Loury (Editor), Tariq Modood (Editor), Steven M. Teles (Editor)
The causes and consequences of social mobility are a central area of study within the social sciences and the differing levels of economic development between ethnic groups is an issue of major concern for policy-makers. Written by leading scholars with a wide range of expertise, this book is the first to provide a comparative analysis of these and related issues within the US and the UK and includes such topics as education, work and employment, political mobilization and social networks.
Glenn C. Loury is Professor of Economics and Director of the Institute on Race and Social Division at Boston University. Tariq Modood is Professor of Sociology, Politics and Public Policy and founding Director of the Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Citizenship, University of Bristol. He has published extensively and was awarded the MBE for services to social science and ethnic relations in 2001. Steven M. Teles is Assistant Professor of Politics at Brandeis University. He has published books and articles on a wide range of topics including welfare, affirmative
action, devolution in the UK and EU.

Getting Ahead: Economic and Social Mobility in America Book by Daniel P. McMurrer, Isabel V. Sawhill
Adapted in part from the Opportunity in America series of policy briefs, this volume focuses on social and economic mobility in the United States. The authors find that class or family background has a strong effect on individual success. They examine the possible reasons for this relationship, how it has changed over the past century, and the role of the economy, the welfare system, and education in opening up opportunities for the less fortunate.

The Just Meritocracy : IQ, Class Mobility, and American Social Policy Book by Paul Kamolnick
The author provides a detailed investigation of the facts surrounding human mental ability, its measurement, inheritability, possible neurobiological underpinnings, and its role as a currency in human mate choice. He links human mental ability with educational attainment, occupational attainment, occupational prestige, and earned income. The ethical and policy implications are profound for both liberal democratic and libertarian social thought.
PAUL KAMOLNICK is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at East Tennessee State University.

A Notion at Risk: Preserving Public Education as an Engine for Social Mobility
Book by Richard D. Kahlenberg (Editor)
The 2000 presidential campaign is ushering in a renewed focus on public education. The question is, What would be best for our children?
This volume of essays seeks to restore the notion that public education should be an engine for social mobility, a concern that animated Brown v. Board of Education and the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act. It identifies the leading sources of inequality - both in the home and in school - and proposes concrete public policy remedies. The authors also examine the strengths and weaknesses of summer schooling, federal aid to education, standards, teacher enhancement, charter schools, and zero tolerance policies.
The contributors include Doris Entwisle, Karl Alexander, and Linda Olson, Johns Hopkins University; Richard Rothstein, Economic Policy Institute and Occidental College; Adam Gamaron, University of Wisconsin; Linda Darling-Hammond, Stanford University; Amy Stuart Wells, Jennifer Jellison Holme, Alejandra Lopez, and Camille Wilson Cooper, University of California at Los Angeles; Paul Barton, Educational Testing Service; and Ruy Teixeira, The Century Foundation.
Richard D. Kahlenberg is a senior fellow at The Century Foundation and author of The Remedy: Race, Class, and Affirmative Action (Basic Books, 1996).

Uprooting Children: Mobility, Social Captial, and Mexican-American Underachievement (The New Americans) Book by Robert Ketner Ream
A critical issue facing U.S. schools is the persistent disparity in achievement between racial/ethnic groups. The achievement gap is particularly pronounced for Mexican-Americans. By employing mixed-methods research techniques, Read links emergent literature on social capital with research on student mobility to investigate student performance among Mexican-American and non-Latino White adolescents. Findings underscore the prevalence of student mobility, particularly among Mexican-origin youth, and its impingement on both the availability and convertibility of the resources embedded in their social networks. Results also suggest that minority and non-minority students fortify social ties in different ways, and that these differences have implications for the educational utility of social capital.
Robert K. Ream is currently a RAND/Spencer Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow in Education Policy in Santa Monica. He received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2001 and recently completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Princeton University’s Office of Population Research.

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