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This paper analyzes trends of social mobility in England and Wales. Speculations about trends of social mobility have been prominent in contemporary commentaries on the condition of England, and on the changing structures of highly industrialized societies. Empirical research has given little support to expectations that definite changes would be observable when rates of social mobility were compared over time. The theory that in the U.S. the closing of the frontier and the consolidation of corporate capitalism must have reduced movement up and down the social scale has been questioned by recent research. And the contrasting notion, common in Western Europe, that economic, political and educational changes must have increased chances of social ascent and descent has also been empirically challenged. These studies have made little impact on the general debate about contemporary social stratification. But such evidence has also been only partly relevant to some major issues of the debate. For while the data relate to patterns of social mobility prevailing yesterday, the debate has often in effect centered on those patterns which may prevail tomorrow. It is possible that the occupational experience of those who are still only children or adolescents today will follow new lines–in consequence particularly, it has been suggested, of recent changes in educational policy.

The article focuses on the discrepancies in the functioning of health centres in England and Wales. Although the so called failure of health centres arose from a variety of factors operating at national and local level, it was caused in the main by the limitations on capital expenditure required by the central government. The attitude of the British Medical association (BMA) also demands consideration, for its views and actions have influenced family doctors whose cooperation determines the success of every health centre scheme. That general practitioners can refuse to work in centres derives from their status as independent entrepreneurs. It is in fact, crucial that, whatever the profession's approval of the concept at a high level of generalization, BMA resolutely opposed the widespread provision of centres by local authorities during the planning stage of the Service. Poor communications have also affected health centre schemes. Lack of early consultation with the doctors is reported from some of the centres that came into existence.

The article addresses the interrelationships of community and occupation in the fishing industry at Hull, and in particular their relevance to the practical problems of recruitment and planned urban redevelopment as well as to the wider theoretical issues in these fields of industrial and urban sociology. Industrial sociologists have so far confined their attention to the more basic industries, notably coal-mining and steel, and fishing has remained sociologically unexplored. By comparison with the industries mentioned above, fishing occupies only a minor part of the economy. Thus in 1951, fishermen accounted for only 0.1 per cent of the total male working population of England and Wales. Even in Hull, the port which lands the most fish, the proportion of the working force so engaged was only 2.8 per cent, though fishing is the largest single industry in the city. A research project was initiated, in April 1954, by the Social Studies Department of the University of Hull. The project was broadly conceived as a community study, rather than as a study in industrial sociology. This conception of the project was based on what is common knowledge in Hull--that the fisherman inhabit a particular area of the city, and that they constitute to some extent a separate community.

The article discusses the significance of the 1904 religious revival in Wales. Religion probably exercised a greater influence on the lives of the people of Wales during the last century than was the case in England or in any other Protestant country. One might say that the Nonconformist chapels and their ministers exercised an influence in Wales comparable with that of the Roman Catholic Church among the peasants of Ireland or Spain: it was the basis of the social and the cultural pattern of life of the Welsh people. Socially and culturally, and often politically, their lives were centered on the chapel. Politically, socially and culturally, class differences in outlook coincided with religious differences, and this cleavage was intensified by a language barrier. Nonconformity had obtained this unique position in Wales as a result of the Methodist Revival of the eighteenth century. This movement had given Wales, for the first time in its modem history a national church--the Calvinistic Methodist Church of Wales--and had given the Welsh people a new interest in religion. The Reformation had left the Welsh people comparatively unmoved. The Puritan movements had barely touched the lives of the lower classes in Wales, and the comparatively few Baptist and Independent Churches which had been founded in Wales during the seventeenth century, had been English in character and had served the needs of a small middle class only. It took the Methodist Revival to awaken Wales to a new consciousness of religion and to make her people feel that churches and chapels could be things which belonged to Welsh life.

The article traces the changes in social class by changes in occupation through a preliminary examination of the social grading of occupations in England and Wales. A survey of a large random sample of the population on a nationwide scale is being carried out in order to discover possible evidence of class mobility by change of occupational grade with changing circumstances, also by comparing the grades of parents and their children, and by change of grade on the part of women on marriage if the grade of occupation of the husband differs from that of the wife's father. The grade of occupation first entered is largely determined by educational opportunity, and particulars as to education as well as occupation will be collected in the random sample survey. The inference to be drawn from the examination of this material is that there is no major difference of opinion among those we have tested as to the social grading of selected occupations. While there may be minor differences in judgment and in variability of judgment between men and women, young and old, drawn from different social levels, in their ranking of certain occupations or grades of occupation, these differences on the average do not appear to be highly significant.