Search

This paper evaluates a Hungarian gifted education programme aimed at providing equal opportunities for students with social and economic disadvantages. In the context of a retrospective study, the differences in academic success and learning pathways were examined in a cohort comprising a group that participated in the programme and a group that did not. The analysis used the data of grade 6 and grade 10 students in the Hungarian National Competence Assessment. The analysis found that the scholastic achievement of the students participating in the programme was higher than that of the control group. By grade 6, participants presented higher scholastic achievement, better results in the competence tests and better school grades, and the difference between the two groups increased again by grade 10. The programme contributed to compensating for the participants' educational inequalities and promoted their integrational social mobility. However, it was found that inclusion in the programme was greatly influenced by teachers' perception, which was not always consistent with the aptitude of students.

This paper evaluates a Hungarian gifted education programme aimed at providing equal opportunities for students with social and economic disadvantages. In the context of a retrospective study, the differences in academic success and learning pathways were examined in a cohort comprising a group that participated in the programme and a group that did not. The analysis used the data of grade 6 and grade 10 students in the Hungarian National Competence Assessment. The analysis found that the scholastic achievement of the students participating in the programme was higher than that of the control group. By grade 6, participants presented higher scholastic achievement, better results in the competence tests and better school grades, and the difference between the two groups increased again by grade 10. The programme contributed to compensating for the participants' educational inequalities and promoted their integrational social mobility. However, it was found that inclusion in the programme was greatly influenced by teachers' perception, which was not always consistent with the aptitude of students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on 165 in-depth, narrative life story interviews with first generation graduates, fieldwork with educational support initiatives and auto-ethnography, this article contributes to the literature on whether and how structural educational inequality can be compensated by talent support programs and whether and how these programs can mitigate the price of education-driven upward social mobility for those Roma and nonRoma Hungarians who come from socio-economically disadvantaged families. Upwardly mobile Roma who achieve social ascension through academic high achievement usually travel vast social distances that straddle class and ethnic context. Many of their mobility trajectories are accompanied by a set of challenges that are unique to college educated, racialized, underrepresented minorities. To overcome these challenges, and to compensate for the inequality of life chances that originate from their socially and economically disadvantaged family backgrounds and from an unequal and highly selective educational system, upwardly mobile minority students join educational support initiatives or organisations. This paper, drawing on the narratives of our research participants, argues that particular types of these initiatives or charitable foundations that deploy an ethnically targeted complex approach, can equip their beneficiaries with different types of capital. Amongst these, one of the most important is the Roma cultural capital. The newly gained capitals are necessary for the first-in-family Roma mentees to get through higher education and succeed in the labour market in the context of the specific challenges they face. These initiatives mitigate the price of social ascension the most. The paper uses a case study of Romaversitas to demonstrate its main findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the subjective experiences of education-driven upward mobility among firstin-family majority and minority (Roma) graduates in Hungary. The central question is how social ascension through educational mobility and the concomitant movement between different social worlds influence the habitus. Under what conditions does the habitus become destabilised as a result of upward mobility? The paper benefits from the empirical results of a 3-year study during which our research team has conducted 153 life history interviews with first-generation graduates in Hungary. The inclusion criteria for the sample of our study was that respondents had to complete college or university despite none of their parents have had a university degree. We identified the most important factors that contribute to the destabilisation of the habitus, either temporary or permanent. We examined the social and geographical range of our respondents’ education-driven mobility; the speed and the destination of their mobility (field of occupation); their belonging to the majority or a minority group; and the mobility aspirations of their family of origin (or the lack thereof). We explore the effect of these factors through an intersectional lens. We demonstrate that the unique combination and intersection of these factors greatly affect the subjective experience of mobility. However, some biographical conditions and contingencies also play a role in the outcome of upward mobility. According to our results, the dislocation of habitus is a particularly common experience for our Roma interviewees, at least at some stage of their mobility trajectory. This is because they have to carry the psychic burden of race in a society where institutional racism is permeated in many areas of everyday life and the question of loyalty to their group of origin is more complicated for them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper measures social mobility rates in Hungary during the period 1949 to 2017, using surnames to measure social status. In those years, there were two very different social regimes. The first was the Hungarian People's Republic (1949–1989), which was a communist regime with an avowed aim of favouring the working class. The second is the modern liberal democracy (1989–2017), which is a free-market economy. We find five surprising things. First, social mobility rates were low for both upper- and lower-class families during 1949–2017, with an underlying intergenerational status correlation of 0.6–0.8. Second, social mobility rates under communism were the same as in the subsequent capitalist regime. Third, the Romani minority throughout both periods showed even lower social mobility rates. Fourth, the descendants of the eighteenth-century noble class in Hungary were still significantly privileged in 1949 and later. And fifth, although social mobility rates did not change measurably during the transition, the composition of the political elite changed rapidly and sharply. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to recent studies, both absolute and relative mobility in Hungary have recently declined. In our paper, we seek to explain how these processes evolved in the lower and upper segments of the social structure. Is the decline in mobility more due to the fact that parents in a more favourable position manage to pass on their privileged social position successfully, or rather to the fact that those starting from below are less able to overcome their disadvantages? To what extent have these processes occurred simultaneously in the last almost twenty years, and to what extent have they taken place independently? According to our results, the decrease in social mobility can be detected in both the lower and upper segments of society. However, processes at the two poles have not involved the same dynamics over the past nearly two decades. In the 2000s, educational expansion fuelled immobility in the upper segment of society, but also created mobility channels for those with an unfavourable social background. In contrast, in the 2010s the proportion of the immobile increased among both the high and low educated. In terms of relative mobility, quite similar processes have taken place in the upper and lower segments of society: the already unequal relative mobility chances became even more unequal during the nearly twenty years under study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the self-narratives of academically high-achieving, first generation college educated, and highly resilient Roma women. We place their meaning making and social navigation processes at the centre of our inquiry, understanding it as an important element of the resilience process of upward mobility (Ungar 2012). Self-narratives describing their changing social class and the corresponding dilemmas offers us the opportunity to understand their strategies, and how to accomplish a resilient minority mobility trajectory, by mitigating the tension and the emotional cost that unavoidably comes with the large social distance they travel between their community of origin and the newly attained class (Naudet 2018). The article draws on two research projects; the first conducted in Spain (2015-17) among 35 Roma university graduates, and the second in Hungary, (2018-20), between 150 Roma and non-Roma university graduates. We have selected one ‘resilient minority mobility trajectory’ as an ideal type from each database for the purposes of this comparison. In this category, upwardly mobile Roma graduates achieve their aspired self-development with the minimal ‘emotional cost’ possible. Our main argument is that a ‘minority path of social ascension’, in itself, is not enough to mitigate the high emotional costs of changing social class. It also requires negotiation, meaning making or reframing work. In this thesis, we support Michael Ungar’s proposal that resilience during upward mobility is a process in one’s ecological context and not an individual asset, and that meaning making work is a crucial part of it. We expand this thesis, however, by demonstrating how navigation among the available resources, and the negotiation of what a ‘proper Roma woman’ and a ‘successful life’ means, in the community of origin, plays a crucial part in accomplishing a resilient upward mobility process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Power inequalities originating from capitalist patriarchy are having an impact on and even determining our personal relationships: gender, class and ethnic inequality are consistently present in our intimate ties as well (Ridgeway 2009). For socially mobile individuals from lower classes, one of the main costs of moving between social classes is to exist in the complex conflict that arises from distancing from the social class of origin in order to integrate into new social spaces (Bourdieu 2005, Friedman 2016). These internal conflicts that are caused by broadened social structures are also present not just in the difficulty of finding a desired romantic partner (Durst at al. 2014) but in the process of sustaining an intimate relationship with someone from a particular social background as well. Structural inequalities are also determinative factors in partner selection, education homogamy and ethnic homogamy are highly present in society (Kamijn 1993, 1998, 2010, Kang Fu 2001). In this paper, through analysing narratives of educationally upwardly mobile women in Hungary, regarding intimate partner selection and looking at intimate relationships themselves, I aim to discover how their narratives reflect upon the hidden costs of mobility. I show how gender, education and ethnic inequalities emerge through the personal accounts of their mobility experiences and to what extent these inequalities determine the process of finding a desired partner or sustaining an existing intimate relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Restructuring rural spaces brings about essential changes in the everyday lives of rural societies. Rural restructuring shapes and alters the image, identity, and, ultimately, the content and physical environment of the countryside. The trajectories of change vary widely, although the globalisation of rurality severely challenges some parts of rural areas, too. Peripheries, deprived, and remote settlements suffer from the effects and processes of restructuring, and their spatial representation also changes. In Central and Eastern European rural areas, the globalisation of the countryside started right after the political transition, in which these areas were left with a declining population, a collapsed economy, and inadequate infrastructure. In many cases, these disadvantaged settlements could not cope with the challenges of a market-based economy; furthermore, their geographical location and inability to join the labour market created disconnected spaces with low spatial and social mobility. As a result of such a vicious circle, residents in these areas experienced the destruction of local societies and a deteriorating physical environment, supplemented by an ageing population, and because of all these consequences, different spatial representations emerged in and about rurality. This paper focuses on a disadvantaged, isolated rural area in Hungary, the Baranyai-Hegyhát micro-region. We assume that the changing nature of such rural areas affects local inhabitants' spatial imagination and representation. We surveyed to define values of spatial representation and social status, among other variables. In the evaluation, we compared survey indices and attempted to ascertain the types of spatial representation, social status, and their connections in the research area. As a main result, we found that spatial representations do not depend on spatial position but are strongly associated with social backgrounds. • Processes of marginalisation can lead to perforation of rural settlement networks. • Spatial representation in a deprived, isolated area is not necessarily negative. • Low social status does not lead to negative representations of space. • Negative spatial representation is always compared with lower social status. • Settlements with low social status and low levels of representation are perforated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores how first-in-family-graduate Roma and non-Roma Hungarians from the working-class experience education-driven social mobility and reconcile the dislocation of their primary-habitus due to changing class through transiting a 'third space'. Drawing on Bhabha's and bell hooks' development of this concept, we aim to unpack the different ways how class-changers, in moving between the social milieu of their origin and their destination, occupy a unique position between two fields. Their social position is described as one of social navigators with a bridging potential between social classes. We also investigate what part higher education plays in this distinct form of changing class and becoming incorporated into middle-class society through a third space for those academic high achievers who come from working-class families. Contrasting the experience of Roma with non-Roma first-generation graduates in Hungary, we draw attention to the different opportunities of reconciling conflicting class-related habitus along ethno-racial lines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing upon questionnaire data this paper analyses ethno-national identity transformations among a sample of 470 socio-economically mobile Roma in Hungary. The paper concerns a group of Roma who have been successful in escaping the grip of ethnicity-specific poverty. The authors inquire about the extent to which these persons view themselves as Roma and the extent to which they were relatively privileged or disprivileged by their parents' levels of educational attainment. Some variations in the Romany identities assumed or accepted by the mobile respondents are also investigated and these are related to objective and subjective aspects of the respondents' current and especially childhood background. Predictions for respondents' children's identification are also analysed. The article asks what the circumstances are under which intergenerational socio-economic mobility among the Roma is, or is not, associated with identity switch or, alternatively, with the possible variations in patterns of identity retention? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores career mobility in the family, between the time of marriage and the time of data collection. The upward and downward moves of husbands and of wives are analysed separately, in the light of various theoretical frameworks, such as advantage redistribution, advantage accumulation, and status similarity. Empirically, the statistical models consider cohort and age differences, work experience, the social characteristics of respondents (education and occupation), the number and age of the children in the household, and the characteristics of the spouse. Another factor expected to be crucial to the chances of a person experiencing mobility is the occupational heterogeneity or homogeneity of the marriage. The data analysed are taken from the Hungarian Social Mobility Survey for 1992. The probability of upward and downward mobility by partners during the marriage has been subjected to event‐history analysis. This reveals strong evidence that the resources of the spouse have positive effects on the occupational success of both husbands and wives, which supports the process of advantage accumulation in Hungarian households. With comparative advantages, results do not support advantage redistribution but status similarity as the framework for couples' career mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents detailed analyses of eight dimensions of objective distances among social classes in Hungary and Poland based on large-scale social surveys carried out during the 1980s. The data for both countries could be fitted well with a modified log-multiplicative model that included a single set of relative class distances and class-specific tendencies for homophily across all dimensions. Social distances were greatest with regard to the selection of friends, and endogamy with regard to class of spouse and career mobility. Distances were more moderate with regard to intergenerational social mobility, endogamy with regard to spouse's father, and similarities among siblings. They were smallest for residential segregation and two-generation intergenerational mobility. In Hungary, homophily was greatest for workers in agriculture, the self-employed, and higher professionals. The largest gaps in unidimensional class distances were between skilled and semiskilled workers and between higher professionals and managers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes several ways in which the transformation of Hungarian social structure between 1938 and 1973 constrained changes in rates of Intergenerational social mobility. Three concepts of ways in which shifts in the distributions of social origins and destinations can result in changes. in the total rate of mobility-"discrepancy effects," "concentration effects," and "composition effects" -are discussed and shown to be represented in a multiplicative model commonly applied to mobility tables. By observing the changes in the expected percentage mobile when various constraints are added to this multiplicative model, the relative impact of each aspect of structural change becomes more apparent Most of the change in Hungary, particularly between 1953 and 1973, is attributable to changes in structural constraints. Most of the change in mobility across economic classes was associated with changing origin-destination discrepancy effects, as were large portions of the changes in mobility across socioeconomic status levels and broad social strata. Changing concentration effects were less important, and mostly affected mobility across SES levels. Detailed composition effects were most important in conjunction with monotonic increases in mobility across SES levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the intra-generational social class mobility in Hungary between 1992 an 2007 using Hungarian panel data. Social class position is used as an occupation based typology corrected with a social status index (containing income, wealth aiid housing dimension). Self-confidence reflecte respondents' problem solving skills, determination, efficacy and optimism. Mobilizing the gain of pans data self-confidence was set to be stable over time and was measured prior to social class position (in order to avoid endogenity). The results of multivariate logit models showed that self-confidence has an impac on working class and deprived class position in 2007. even after controlling prior class position measure in 1992. People with high self-confidence were less likely represented in the deprived position anti wer more likely to belong to the working class. The decomposition of total effects of self-conlidence into direc and indirect effects (mediated by schooling) revealed that in the case of higher status, social classes (elite tipper middle class, and middle class) self-confidence also had a significant impact however this was main! transmitted through the channel of education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policymakers are eager to create socially mixed neighbourhoods, even though evidence for the positive impact of social mixing is patchy. In this paper, we examine the relationship between social mixing, social capital, and the lived experience of residents affected by the desegregation of an urban Roma area. Using qualitative data from a participatory action research (PAR) process in Hungary, we explore the two-way relationship between desegregation and bonding, bridging, and linking forms of social capital. Our results suggest that desegregation has complex and contradictory impacts on lived experience, and that these relate to changes in social forms of capital. Our findings speak to the heterogeneity of the Roma segregated community, and to the multifaceted nature of social capital as a resource. We conclude that the presence of strong negative neighbourhood effects, acknowledged by marginalized residents themselves, indicates that social mixing can contribute to the enhancement of wellbeing and social mobility for many segregated Roma families. However, desegregation alone is insufficient, and further policies are required to increase socio-spatial integration and deal with the social, economic, and cultural causes of extreme poverty. • For segregated Roma, social mixing could simply lead to resegregation, as polarised enclaves re-formed over time. • Social mixing has complex and contradictory impacts on wellbeing in segregated Roma communities, across material and non-material domains. • New institutions may be needed in order to develop forms of supportive linking capital to ensure that Roma families are able to move to inclusive urban environments. • Evaluation of desegregation policy needs to be institutionalized, using a wider range of indicators of wellbeing than income alone. • For a nuanced position on social mixing, we propose the treatment of the segregated Roma community as heterogeneous towards social mixing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contends past findings of the absence of distinctive socialist mobility structures on two grounds: the lack of systematic cross-national comparison within the socialist bloc and an exclusive focus on men's mobility. From a comprehensive analysis of the mobility of men and women in three former socialist societies (Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Poland), the study identifies a socialist mobility regime which differs from the capitalist one in at least two major ways: the existence of long-range upward and downward mobility and the significant outflow of farmers to other destinations. It also finds significant cross-national and gender differences in mobility patterns, confirming that gender and class interact to generate specific mobility patterns even within socialist societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article attempts to answer the question why one out of ten families become an entrepreneur in Hungary, whereas the other nine do not exploit these new entrepreneurial opportunities. It attempts to explore the transformation of rural social structure during the epoch of industrialization and collectivization of agriculture in the state socialist society. The analytical focus of the paper is the rural semi-proletarian, who comprise the bulk of the rural population in Hungary and many of whom are gradually leaving family production and are becoming exclusively wage laborers. During the last decade, there has been a shift in trend. About one out of every ten part-time agricultural producers have become entrepreneurs. Authors of the article developed the theory of interrupted embourgeoisement in order to account for this phenomenon. The theory, based on survey evidence, suggests that only those persons, whose families were already entrepreneurial prior to socialist transformation in 1949, are most likely to be entrepreneurs of today and also that the occupational history of heads of households is likely to play an important intervening role in this process.

This paper presents a comparison of cross-cohort and cohort-specific historical trends in intergenerational social mobility in Hungary and the Irish Republic between 1943 and 1973. Most of the changes and cross-national differences in mobility rates were attributable to structural differences, but there were significant cross-cohort and cross-national differences in specific aspects of the father-son association. Structural changes in mobility rates were closely associated with trends in the rates and forms of structural transformations of the respective labor forces. Changes in fluidity were more abrupt, and, in the Hungarian case, associated with the radical changes in institutions and policies which took place shortly after World War II. Mobility rates in the two countries showed various patterns of divergence and convergence, depending on the forms of mobility and historical periods concerned. Levels of fluidity among urban occupational strata in the two countries showed a heterogeneous pattern of convergence from diverse starting points, with the greatest changes occurring in Hungary. Patterns of nonconvergence or divergence were associated with positions involving self-employment, property ownership, and agricultural production.

Several empirical models aimed at describing human mobility have been proposed in the past. Most of them are based on an unjustified analogy, with a focus on gravity and physical vector or scalar fields. Recently, however, statistical physicists introduced a new category of models that are theoretically motivated by a few simple and reasonable socioeconomic assumptions. The Radiation Model (Simini et al. 2012) and the Radiation Model with Selection (Simini-Maritan-Néda 2013) are such successful approaches. Here, we introduce a new version of the radiation model, the Travel Cost Optimized Radiation Model, and test its applicability for describing the commuting patterns in Hungary. We compare critically the performance of this model with the results of the previous radiation type models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides materials for an institutional history of academic Hungarian Orientalism through the life of Gyula Germanus (1884-1979). Using hitherto unexploited archives, this text explores his education, integration into academia, and career up to 1939.1 argue that Germanus was an assimilated Hungarian of Jewish origin with a strong loyalty to the state. His two conversions - to Calvinism in 1909 and to Islam in 1930 - also transformed him from a minor Turkologist into a popularly acclaimed Arabist. This study demonstrates that academic Orientalism as a national science was a contested vehicle of social mobility in the Hungarian transition from an imperial to a nation-state setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article addresses the effects of economic and political change on social mobility in Hungary between 1910 and 1989 by investigating whether the effects of family background on schooling and the effects of family background and schooling on first occupation vary between periods in Hungary's twentieth-century history. For this purpose, we distinguish five periods: the long-lasting Depression (1910 to 1933), the period around the Second World War (1934 to 1948), the long 1950s (1949 to 1967), the period of reform socialism (1968 to 1982), and the decline of socialism (1983 to 1989). Using large-scale datasets from 1973, 1983, 1992 and 1993, we are able to investigate developments in the parameters of the status attainment model for about 75,000 men and women. We use spline regressions to find out whether trends in the effects vary between periods. Linear secular trends in the effects of family background and schooling do not predominate; spline models reveal discontinuities between periods. On the other hand, a trend from ascription to achievement both for men and women can be observed. In contrast to the general assumption, the most important deviation from the general trend has taken place in the years before the communist take-over. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reports two analyses of changes in social mobility in Hungary during the period from the 1930s through the 1980s. The first analysis is based on retrospective life-history data from merged files from the 1973 and 1983 Hungarian social mobility surveys. It reveals the ways in which Hungarian intergenerational social mobility changed across single years of time and birth cohorts. The patterns of change reflect the effects of historical changes in social policy far more clearly than crosssectional data aggregated over cohorts. The second analysis, based on career histories in the 1983 survey, reports changes in mobility into the Hungarian elite, showing that persons of privileged class backgrounds suffered diminished opportunities during the 1950s but, to some extent, regained positions thereafter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the Transition to socialism and intergenerational class mobility. The data from the 1984 Social Structure Survey in Czechoslovakia were used for the analysis.' This survey was carried out on a sample of the population over fifteen years of age, representative according to sex and age. The non-response rate was 8.8% and the final sample size was 18,829. In the foregoing analyses, origin is defined by the father's class at the time when a respondent (son, daughter) entered the labor force. Destination alternates the respondent's present class, entry class, and class at 40 years of age, for younger respondents this is equal to their present class, hereinafter Class 40. The two later variables mostly enter a cohort analysis, which substitutes the unfortunate lack of mobility data from the past. The higher industrialization rate in Czechoslovakia than in Hungary and Poland may be illustrated by the proportion of workers and farmers, together with farm workers, in the father's generation. The percentage of workers was 55% in Czechoslovakia, as compared to 33% in Hungary and 30% in Poland. On the other hand, the proportion of farmers was 22% in Czechoslovakia as compared to 49% in Hungary and 57% in Poland.

This article focuses on the changes in social mobility in Hungry. The possibilities for an international comparison of social mobility are exceptionally good, as there are five and several additional smaller data sources on social mobility. These Hungarian social mobility data were widely used for cross-sectional international comparisons. In this article, however, the analysis will be concentrated on the historical development of social mobility in Hungary, based on the five major data sources: first, the of 1930; second, the census of 1949; third, the social mobility surveys of 1962-1964; fourth, of 1973; and fifth, of 1983. This historical comparative analysis might be especially interesting, as Hungary underwent important economic and social changes during the last sixty years. In order to understand the meaning of different types of social mobility, the relative position of the different social strata in the social hierarchy has to be presented. The easiest way to illustrate the social stratification in Hungary is to give the average per capita income levels of the households of different social strata. It ought to be added that ocher indicators of social stratification, like the quality of dwelling personal car ownership the participation in cultural activities, demonstrate a similar hierarchy of the strata, but somewhat greater differentiation or inequalities.