Search

The past 18 months have delivered a series of "surprising" electoral outcomes. In the USA, the election of Donald Trump confounded expectations. In the UK, the leave result from the EU referendum and the subsequent snap General Election which saw the Conservative Party lose their majority have been heralded as knife‐edge moments and a new period in politics. This paper makes an alternative contention. It posits that the electoral outcomes of 2016 and 2017 were not arbitrary or new occurrences, but instead represent the latest expressions of long‐standing historical trends towards increased inequality across the West. Recognising that the impacts of economic and political restructuring have been unevenly distributed between different groups and geographical areas, the paper makes the case that these electoral outcomes must be seen in the light of policy moves creating a more polarised social and spatial structure. Using the UK as an illustrative case, the paper explores the developments that have reinforced spatial opportunity structures and the reproduction of disadvantage over time. In doing so, the paper contextualises the revanchism resultant from processes of social residualisation and articulates the need to focus on the long‐run effects of rising inequality now being seen to shape voters' choices. This paper critically explores the outcome of the 2016 referendum vote in favour of Britain leaving the EU. With the narrow Brexit majority attributed to long‐standing historical trends towards increased inequality in the UK, the paper makes the case for geographical research to focus on the series of policy moves that have helped widen the gap between rich and poor, leaving an elongated middle group itself experiencing substantial fracturing within. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'Social Stratification, Past, Present, and Future' celebrates the 50th anniversary of the annual Cambridge Social Stratification Seminar. This editorial presents a brief characterisation of the 'Cambridge school' approach that has featured prominently through the seminar's lifetime. Then it discusses the domains and topics explored in this issue – education; intergenerational transmission of inequality; family, work and employment; occupations; migration for work; housing, and political preferences. While most of the papers focus on Great Britain, several papers involve international comparisons, one focuses on stratification in India, and another on China. Collectively, researchers reveal how social hierarchy influences people's lives, and reproduces fairly stably over time. The papers also contribute to understanding the sometimes counter-intuitive outcomes that challenge those charged with policy development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the author investigates rural Chinese citizens' encounters of structural and institutional inequalities and social (im)mobility. The author addresses social (im)mobility from a holistic perspective (i.e., in institutional, occupational, social, educational, cultural and political dimensions). In this regard, the author explores if a range of parental disadvantages serve as significant hindrances to the acquisition of social mobilising opportunities among the next generations in rural Chinese contexts. Here a holistic presentation helps understand the nuanced relationship between institutional barriers (i.e., rural hukou status) and alternative obstacles to social mobility; and explore, in part, how parental inheritance of rural hukou status would bar individuals' from socially mobilising and result in some forms of unsustainability. Previous research on China restrictively measures social (im)mobility from limited perspectives, failing to fully and accurately reflect the extent of social (im)mobility Chinese populations face. This paper is a comprehensive literature review where relevant Chinese literature, exclusively found in the e-library system of the University of Cambridge, is included and thoroughly discussed. Articles that include the keywords of "hukou", "China", "social mobility" and (a) "economic", (b) "social", (c) "cultural", (d) "linguistic" or (e) "political" are extensively studied, in a hope to understand the existing scholarship on multifaceted social (im)mobility in Chinese contexts. The author argues that, despite the 2014 hukou reform, further loosening the requirements for rural-to-urban hukou conversion should be prioritised by the Central Government of China in order to ensure the rural-urban divide and structural and institutional inequalities rural hukou holders face can curtain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite its fuzziness, the term middle class has become increasingly attractive in the past two decades, not only among social scientists and market analysts but also as a term of self-description employed by upwardly mobile individuals. Research on middle classes in the Global South, and especially in Africa, confronts us with particular challenges. First, while conventional class theories take the nation-state as the obvious framework for defining class boundaries, African examples point to the importance of sub-national (as well as transnational) dimensions of class formation. Secondly, marriage ties and kin relations of upwardly mobile individuals in African societies often cut across class boundaries, resulting in 'multi-class' families and competing loyalties. The paper addresses these challenges by looking at the emergence of a national middle class in Ghana. More specifically, we discuss how social mobility and class formation play out in two different regions of what is today Ghana: a coastal region that since the seventeenth century has been drawn into global networks and was highly stratified by the end of the nineteenth century; and a marginalized savannah region with an egalitarian society until chieftaincy and education were introduced by the British colonizers in the early twentieth century. These regional disparities and resulting sub-national memberships intersect with the emergence of a national middle class. However, we argue that despite distinct regional trajectories, we are currently witnessing a certain 'synchronisation' of social stratification and the formation of a broader middle class that understands itself not only in regional, but national terms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to the neoliberal mantra, anyone who is willing to work hard can get ahead in our society. In an era when belief in the myth of meritocracy has become widespread, greater social mobility would represent the promise of escape from rising social inequality. This paper challenges this myth and offers insight into the fallacy of individualized explanations of the role of merit in social ascension. Drawing on 103 interviews with first-in-family (FIF) minority Roma graduates in Hungary, and using the lens of intersectionality, it explores the hidden barriers to career advancement for those Roma professionals whose parents do not have a degree. The paper shows how the intersections of class and racialized minority status matter in relation to what career one has in the labour market. It illuminates why FIF Roma professionals can rarely enter elite occupations and why, career wise, they tend to concentrate in jobs dealing with Roma issues. It explores the effect of the dynamic interaction of structural hidden mechanisms and the Roma's response/adaptation to them that contribute both to Roma professionals' labour market segmentation and to the phenomenon of the glass ceiling. The paper calls these two characteristics of the labour market situation of the FIF Roma graduates the racial glass ceiling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers in;formation on the urban and regional inequalities and imbalances in the Great Britain. It discusses the increase in the in-work poverty faster than employment, along with information on the incraese in the child poverty in the Great Britain. It mentions the challenges faced by the people to get minimum amount of income needed to meet the minimum requirements.

This paper documents population‐wide inequalities of outcome in Great Britain amongst and between long‐established and more recently arrived family groups. 'Establishment' is defined using family group presence in the 1851 Census of Population as a benchmark, and the ethnicity or nationality of more recent migrants is determined through classification of given and family names. Inequalities of outcome are measured using a harmonised indicator of neighbourhood deprivation (hardship). White British individuals tend to live in the best neighbourhoods, but within‐group inequalities reflect regional locations in which different family names were first coined 700 or more years ago. The living circumstances of White Irish and Chinese migrants are observed to be in line with long‐established White British family lines, but other conventionally defined ethnic groups fare worse, some very markedly so. Disaggregation of conventional ethnic groups used by the Office for National Statistics such as White Other and Other Asian reveals stark within‐group inequalities. These findings suggest: (a) regional origins of inter‐generational inequalities amongst the White British; (b) comparable neighbourhood environments experienced by the White Irish, Chinese and some White Other groups and (c) significantly worse neighbourhood circumstances within and between other more recently arrived immigrant groups. This work has several implications for understanding economic assimilation of migrants and the existence of inequalities amongst and between populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is the first of two relating to an event at the University of Edinburgh to mark the coming retirement of Lindsay Paterson, Professor of Education Policy. Here three of Paterson's close colleagues outline the very substantial contribution he has made to the study of Scotland, to understanding social inequality, and measuring the contribution of education to social mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how belonging and aspirations interact to shape marginalized young Colombians' strategies for upward social mobility. Recent literature has argued that in the context of inequality and poverty, social mobility is constrained by people's inability to aspire to and/or achieve their aspirations. The majority of this literature is from the economics field and looks at the way poverty acts as a brake on social mobility. This paper provides an additional interdisciplinary analysis of the role of 'belonging' (to places and social class) in influencing aspirations of young Colombians. Findings are based on ethnographic fieldwork with young people from two marginalized neighborhoods in Cartagena. It is argued that aspirations are closely linked to belonging and the extent to which young people feel integral to or distanced from their localities. Using a Bourdieusian perspective, the paper examines how belonging is developed and how it influences behavior, orientations and future prospects. This approach generates insights into young people's apparent low aspirations beyond the explanation of internal behavioral poverty traps. In so doing, it provides a more comprehensive understanding of how societal structures limit aspiration development and achievement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent policy on careers guidance in England suggests a somewhat straightforward process. The assumption is that quality careers guidance will enable young people to make informed career-related decisions. However, the 'reality' of provision is far more complex, as highlighted by the findings from a small in-depth study of careers provision in one National Collaborative Outreach Programme (NCOP) consortium. The study used a theoretical framework informed by Bourdieu's concept of habitus and a mixture of methods. Analysis showed the centrality of contextual factors in shaping a school's careers provision, including its location, history, ethos and values; its self-evaluation development plans; the position and status of the careers policy, career advisor, and the students' profile/background. This paper provides a stimulus for discussion of these contextual factors, which will need addressing for national policy relating to careers to be effective and facilitate social mobility rather than increase social inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Special Treatment / Különleges Bánásmód is the property of University of Debrecen and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Alternative Politics / Alternatif Politika is the property of Alternatif Politika and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Soziologie is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Health inequalities research seeks to determine if changing health gradients may be due to the movement of differently healthy people between area types and/or social classes through a process of selective sorting. Because conclusions vary, in part because of different approaches employed, there is a need to establish an appropriate framework within which it is possible to determine whether and how spatial or social mobility contributes to changing spatial and social inequalities in health over time. In this paper, we present empirical examples demonstrating a methodological approach needed to determine aggregate changes in health, and discuss the results in terms of the impact of selective sorting on changing health gradients. Our empirical work illustrates that selective sorting through social mobility and migration can contribute to widening health inequalities in the population. We conclude that it is necessary to re‐aggregate microdata at the relevant time points of interest to determine changes in the population distribution of a particular health outcome. Simply establishing whether individuals vary in health by transition status may imply an impact on aggregate changes but does not demonstrate it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the issue of the interrelation between different types of social mobility and support for reducing income inequality in contemporary Russia. Drawing from the Russian subsets of the International Social Survey Programme's (ISSP) surveys, we estimate how this support is differentiated across experienced and expected subjective mobility. Official statistics and empirical survey data widely confirm that the largescale socioeconomic changes that took place in Russia during the 2000s brought an increase in living standards for most population groups and a more-than-twofold reduction in poverty. However, according to the ISSP data, demand for the government to reduce income differences is at its highest level since 1992. More than 90 per cent of Russians unequivocally perceive income gaps in the country as too high (the same as in the late 1990s) and unfair. We test the effects of actual and expected mobility, showing that, in contrast to the literature, including earlier studies on Russia, past mobility and expected medium-term mobility do not have any significant effect on levels of support for reducing income differences, and only the effect of short-term expectations can be seen. We argue that the effect of social mobility in Russia is limited by a widespread consensus across the population that preexisting inequalities in Russia are too high and unfair - a viewpoint based mostly not on the specifics of individual situations, including experienced or expected mobility, but on shared subjective norms and beliefs about inequality and their contrast with existing reality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Soziologie is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The literature on dual citizenship has traditionally focused on immigrants in Western Europe and North America. This emphasis has led authors to overlook the context of global inequality and the way it shapes the meaning and uses of a second citizenship. This paper offers a new approach that puts the analytical focus on global inequality in the value of citizenship. First, I construct a composite index of citizenship value and use it to outline the structure of the global citizenship hierarchy. Then, I analyse an original dataset to evaluate the prevalence of dual citizenship in 13 countries. The analysis demonstrates that individuals' reactions to the possibility of obtaining a second citizenship are shaped by their position in the global citizenship hierarchy. Citizens of Western countries have no practical incentive to obtain a second citizenship and exhibit low demand for it. In Latin American and Eastern European countries, in contrast, demand for a second citizenship is high. Millions draw on their ancestry or ethnic identity to claim citizenship from Western or EU countries. The second, higher-tier nationality is not necessarily used to emigrate. Instead, it often operates as 'compensatory citizenship' that makes up for limitations in dual citizens' primary resident citizenship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper revisits Steele's claims about the politics of social equality and justice by interrogating some of his postulates about the allegedly ineluctable effects of preferential policies on African American social mobility. Although his arguments about the psychological and cultural effects of preferential treatment on this community's academic and economic performance might be relatively sound, he fails to provide solutions to go about the persistence of anti-black racism. The discussion of the potential impacts of preferential policies on career building among African Americans shall in this paper draw on the wider debate on the "moral politics" involved in the practices of victimization and compensation. The paper also demonstrates that preferential treatment is currently the only effective assistance that the government could provide for students from this disadvantaged community in the absence of concrete political solutions to the problem of unequal educational preparation by which it seems to be most affected. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the relationship between education, meritocracy and redistribution. It first questions the meritocratic ideal highlighting how it relates to normative expectations that do not hold fully neither in their logic nor in practice. It then complements the literature on persistent inequalities by focusing on the opportunities for change created by current trends in the economy and in social aspirations. As the meritocratic argument that education is strongly linked to certain rewards in the labour market comes under pressure, increasing social dissatisfaction with education and skills wastage could be expected, as already noted in part of the political economy literature. This literature, however, has tended to conclude from such observations that educational expansion cannot deliver equality. The paper contributes to the debate by focusing on the opportunities created by current trends for the reorganisation of the relationship between education, the economy and society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that the Dalit situation of caste-based oppression in India could be characterized by the enduring co-existence of upward social mobility and atrocities. While being a common-sense understanding, the paper suggests that the relation between upward social mobility and enduring atrocity could be referred to as a "structural mechanism" in the Dalit situation. The concept is used to explain the Dalit problem. Moreover, this structural mechanism sheds more light on developments and discursive breaks in the legal context. A central lesson in the post-colonial period is that the problem of "untouchables" could not simply be conceptualized as a problem of civil law and untouchability. Rather, the problem of atrocities created demands and a need to make caste-based atrocities a concern for criminal law. Ambedkar's significance as a symbol of Dalit assertion could be viewed in connection with the structural mechanism of Dalit achievements and caste-based exclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Four decades of rising incomes at the top, combined with income stagnation and declining intergenerational social mobility for the majority of American households, have combined to produce what has been widely described as a "new gilded age" in the United States. Yet analyses of the best available survey data reveal little evidence of a proportional increase in policy demands for redistribution over time. What explains this puzzling pattern of non-responsiveness? One classical explanation, revived in recent economic literature, postulates that high and persisting levels of optimism about the chances for advancement and social mobility reduce Americans' willingness to support redistributive public policies. Although seemingly paradoxical in the current economic environment, the "prospect of upward mobility" (POUM) hypothesis is consistent with cross-national survey evidence revealing relatively high levels of support for such beliefs. What about trends over-time? This raises an important and largely unexamined question: Have underlying beliefs about POUM also shaped Americans' attitudes toward redistributive policies during the era of rising inequality? In this paper, we examine the POUM-policy preference link, and how it has changed in recent decades. We find that POUM beliefs have shaped how individuals form policy attitudes toward inequality and taxes, net of partisanship, income, and confidence in government. Study findings provide new and provocative evidence in support of the POUM hypothesis, and we discuss implications for models of inequality attitudes and more generally scholarship on the politics of rising inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a previous paper it has been shown that across three cohorts of men and women born in Britain in 1946, 1958 and 1970 a gender difference exists in regard to relative rates of class mobility. For men these rates display an essential stability but for women they become more equal. The aim of the present paper is to shed light on the causes of this trend-or, that is, of increasing social fluidity-among women. We begin by considering a refined version of the perverse fluidity hypothesis: that is, one that proposes that part-time work leads to increasing downward worklife mobility among women that also entails downward intergenerational mobility and thus promotes greater fluidity. We do in fact find that the increase in fluidity is very largely, if not entirely, confined to women who have had at least one period of part-time work. However, a more direct test of the hypothesis is not supportive. We are then led to investigate whether it is not that part-time working itself is the crucial factor but rather that women who subsequently work part-time already differ from those who do not at entry into employment. We find that eventual full- and part-timers do not differ in their class origins nor, in any systematic way, in their educational qualifications. But there is a marked and increasing difference in the levels of employment at which they make their labour market entry. Eventual part-timers are more likely than eventual full-timers to enter in working-class positions, regardless of their class origins and qualifications. Insofar as these women are from more advantaged origins, they would appear not to seek to exploit their advantages to the same extent as do full-timers in order to advance their own work careers. And it is, then, in the downward mobility accepted by these women-who increase in number across the cohorts-that we would locate the main source of the weakening association between class origins and destinations that is revealed among women at large. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adam Smith has usually been seen as an economist who had a positive view of economic inequalities and who was more concerned with diminishing absolute poverty rather than inequalities. Recently though, Rasmussen (2016 ; 'Adam smith on what is wrong with economic inequality, American Political Science Review , vol. 110, no. 2, 342–52') argued that Smith worried about the effects of extreme inequalities on the morality and happiness of commercial societies. While we do not deny Smith's worries on this front and provide new evidence here, the aim of this paper was to show that Smith cared more about the causes of inequalities than their level per se, or independently of the former. Interestingly, Smith seems to reconcile fairness with economic efficiency in his plea for the system of natural liberty in which inequalities arise from the efforts, talents and risk-taking of individuals and ultimately benefit the least well-off. Moreover, and contrary to what Rasmussen claims, Smith addresses several contemporary issues such as the links between inequalities, economic growth, social mobility and politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Human & Society / İnsannsan ve Toplum is the property of Scientific Studies Association and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In this paper we explore how the ‘employable’ student and ‘ideal’ future creative worker is prefigured, constructed and experienced through higher education work placements in the creative sector, based on a recent small-scale qualitative study. Drawing on interview data with students, staff and employers, we identify the discourses and practices through which students are produced and produce themselves as neoliberal subjects. We are particularly concerned with which students are excluded in this process. We show how normative evaluations of what makes a ‘successful’ and ‘employable’ student and ‘ideal’ creative worker are implicitly classed, raced and gendered. We argue that work placements operate as a key domain in which inequalities within both higher education and the graduate labour market are (re)produced and sustained. The paper offers some thoughts about how these inequalities might be addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper provides a critical perspective on emergent geographies of international education, suggesting what these might mean for the reproduction of social (dis)advantage. The assertion that formal education may have regressive consequences for social mobility is hardly new - work on the sociology and geography of education has for a long time shown uncontrovertibly that the opportunities and rewards associated with formal education are unevenly distributed across space, as well as being differentiated by social class. Until relatively recently, however, work focussing on the remarkable transformation of formal education through internationalisation, and its implications for social inequalities, has been limited. This paper provides a critical review of a now burgeoning area of geographical scholarship around international education and student mobilities. It argues that the evidence, to date, suggests that international education entrenches (and in some cases, within emerging economies, actively creates) social inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On the basis of inter-cohort comparisons, this paper describes patterns of intra-generational occupational mobility in Germany and their long-term trends since World War II. It also presents conceptual links between individual mobility and developments of inequality along the life course, with a special focus on the question of the extent to which employment careers are characterised by specific forms of cumulative advantage and disadvantage. Finally, it is asked how intra-generational developments are related to inter-generational social mobility. The paper also discusses how mobility patterns can be linked to specific institutions which - together with labour market conditions - are crucial determinants of the development of inequality within a cohort. In its empirical part, the paper presents evidence from cohort-specific analyses based on life-course data from a broad range of West German birth cohorts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the magnitude of intergenerational income mobility in less developed, high inequality Chile. Following a known methodology where fathers’ incomes are predicted from standard income determinants such as education and occupation, we get comparable estimates of the intergenerational income elasticity in the range of 0.57 to 0.74 and 0.63 to 0.76 for ages 25-40 and 31-40, respectively. These values place Chile at the high end of the available international evidence. Considering Chile’s high income inequality, this finding supports the hypothesis proposed in the literature of an inverse relationship between cross-sectional income inequality and intergenerational income mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the key theories, concepts, and notions used in comparative research into intergenerational social class mobility. More specifically, it discusses the Featherman, Jones, and Hauser hypothesis about cross-national similarity in social class mobility, describes a distinction between absolute and relative social mobility, and presents the Erikson-Goldthorpe-Portocarero class scheme. After discussing the results of both classical and recent studies on intergenerational social class mobility, this paper deals with the evidence-based policy recommendations relevant for decision-makers who can influence within certain limits the extent to which the rate of intergenerational social mobility can be equalised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines inequality and mobility using measures of income and consumption. Consumption is claimed to be a better measure of permanent income and thus well-being, but most studies of inequality and mobility using U.S. data use income. This paper uses cohort data from the Consumer Expenditure Surveys on total consumption to impute consumption in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. Then, we use this imputed consumption and actual income from the PSID to examine changes in inequality and mobility. Similar to earlier findings, we show that there has been a large increase in income inequality but no concurrent increase in consumption inequality in the 1990s. Conversely, income mobility and consumption mobility are similar during this time period. Finally, we link the concepts of inequality and mobility using a social welfare function. The results suggest that income mobility and consumption mobility more than offset the increases in inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using an experimental-questionnaire method combined with randomized information treatments, this paper analyzes the drivers of individual inequality aversion. We elicit inequality aversion by asking a sample of more than 1800 Uruguayan students to choose a society for a hypothetical grandchild. Participants make a sequence of choices between imagined societies characterized by varying levels of average income and income inequality. In addition, we prime competing narratives regarding the sources of inequality in society. The main findings are that (1) the prevalence of inequality aversion is high: Most participants' choices revealed inequality-averse preferences; (2) inequality aversion is increasing in the position of the hypothetical grandchild in the income distribution, like a normal good; (3) participants are more likely to accept inequality when it results from effort rather than luck independently of their grandchild's position; (4) the effect of social mobility on inequality aversion depends on the grandchild's income position: Mobility opportunities reduce (increase) inequality aversion if participants expect their grandchild's income to increase (fall). The latter result is consistent with the idea that mobility may impact the desire for more or less redistribution through rational expectation and risk aversion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Harsh levels of social inequality stunt social mobility and progress towards equality of opportunity in Hong Kong. There are also strong connections between levels of social inequality and educational attainment in this “global city”. This paper seeks to contribute to the important body of work on equality studies and attainment research by examining two inter-connected aspects of educational inequality in higher education in Hong Kong: first, the relative shortage of degree places available for local students at local universities, and second, the relatively strong correlation between income and educational attainment across the districts in Hong Kong. It adopts a discursive sociocultural approach in examining, and commenting on, both the context and statistical trajectory of post-secondary education in Hong Kong. The paper also assesses government initiatives that claim to encourage higher levels of post-secondary participation, in particular through the rapid development of self-financed sub-degree programmes. A secondary argument discusses how university rankings criteria have a deleterious effect on the commitment to promote mass higher education, especially in terms of participation rates at publicly-funded full-time degree programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite decades of diversity and widening participation initiatives, access to elite professions for those from lower socio-economic backgrounds remains a troublingly persistent issue. Degree apprenticeships present an alternative to the traditional university pathway and an opportunity to increase social mobility into professional occupations. Yet, uptake of this pathway has so far been from more advantaged individuals. This article explores the dispositions of key stakeholders towards alternative pathways. It asks whether professional apprenticeships are perceived as legitimate and, if not, what are the likely consequences? Using the solicitors' profession in England as a pertinent case, interviews with 23 participants on the degree apprenticeship and university pathways were asked about their social and educational backgrounds, exploring the influences on their career and pathway decision making. The analysis demonstrates differing perceptions of risk and legitimacy among those from different social and educational backgrounds, with implications for equity, inequality and social mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The introductory study aims to give an insight into the Hungarian educational system and a mentor program aiming to facilitate development in social mobility in the country. In the Hungarian context of education, the concept of equality and equity is a current phenomenon that influences students of underprivileged families. In Hungary, among students living in the countryside, the intersectionality of disadvantages is observed. Several regions of the country have features of unemployment and low education. Thus, students from underprivileged families face a deficit of capital when entering and proceeding into the educational system. The situation is further complicated for the largest Hungarian minority, the Roma community, who face ethnic biases and misbeliefs, thus creating the cumulation of disadvantages. For students to overcome their difficulties, equitable interventions are needed. International and Hungarian literature stress the importance of developing positive psychological capital for students to become resilient. Peer-mentoring is observed as a tool to help facilitate individual changes. The study focuses on the framework of a Hungarian national peer-mentoring program called "Let's Teach for Hungary!" which aims to help primary school students (aged 11-15) with the help of university students. The theoretical analysis introduces the program and its goals. With the help of previous research conducted on the mentoring program, the study synthesizes the positive outcomes of the intervention. The research highlights the importance of equitable changes in public education and reveals the Hungarian status quo and its alternative solutions. The study creates a basis for continuing research that can open international discussion on best practices on the topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

English Abstract: In the face of utopian discussions on global citizenship and cosmopolitan identities, this article argues that the concept of offshoring provides insights into rising realities in elite mobility and the formation of expat communities. I do this in the context of the proliferation of 'golden passport programmes', through which rich people are naturalised as citizens in the countries where they invest. Showing how the global citizenship utopia is materialised locally, I argue that golden passports are the continuation of offshoring by other means. Presenting an ethnographic portraiture of those enabling Russians to acquire the Cypriot passport, as well as how the Russophone community takes shape locally in Cyprus, the article shows how 'expat communities' can form as enclaves of safety that offer offshore convenience for certain elite community members. It also shows that golden passports exacerbate local inequality, undermining the egalitarian utopia of citizenship at large, with detrimental effects on the local sense of civitas. French Abstract: Face aux discussions utopiques sur la citoyenneté mondiale et les identités cosmopolites, cet article soutient que le concept de délocalisation permet de comprendre les réalités croissantes de la mobilité des élites et de la formation des communautés d'expatriés. Je le fais dans le contexte de la prolifération des « programmes de passeport doré », par lesquels les riches sont naturalisés citoyens dans les pays où ils investissent. En montrant comment l'utopie de la citoyenneté mondiale se matérialise localement, je soutiens que les passeports dorés sont la continuation des délocalisations par d'autres moyens. En présentant un portrait ethnographique de ceux qui permettent aux Russes d'acquérir le passeport chypriote, ainsi que la façon dont la communauté russophone prend forme localement à Chypre, l'article montre comment les « communautés d'expatriés » peuvent se former comme des enclaves de sécurité qui offrent une commodité de délocalisation pour certains membres de la communauté d'élite. Il montre également que les passeports dorés exacerbent les inégalités locales, sapant l'utopie égalitaire de la citoyenneté au sens large, avec des effets néfastes sur le sens local de la civitas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lay perceptions and experiences of social location have been commonly framed with reference to social class. However, complex responses to, and ambivalence over, class categories have raised interesting analytic questions relating to how sociological concepts are operationalized in empirical research. For example, prior researchers have argued that processes of class dis-identification signify moral unease with the nature of classed inequalities, yet dis-identification may also in part reflect a poor fit between 'social class' as a category and the ways in which people accord meaning to, and evaluate, their related experiences of socio-economic inequality. Differently framed questions about social comparison, aligned more closely with people's own terms of reference, offer an interesting alternative avenue for exploring subjective experiences of inequality. This paper explores some of these questions through an analysis of new empirical data, generated in the context of recession. In the analysis reported here, class identification was common. Nevertheless, whether or not people self identified in class terms, class relevant issues were perceived and described in highly diverse ways, and lay views on class revealed it to be a very aggregated as well as multifaceted construct. It is argued that it enables a particular, not general, perspective on social comparison. The paper therefore goes on to examine how study participants compared themselves with familiar others, identified by themselves. The evidence illuminates social positioning in terms of constraint, agency and (for some) movement, and offers insight into very diverse experiences of inequality, through the comparisons that people made. Their comparisons are situated, and pragmatic, accounts of the material contexts in which people live their lives. Linked evaluations are circumscribed and strongly tied to these proximate material contexts.The paper draws out implications for theorizing lay perspectives on class, and subjective experiences of inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In British social mobility discourse, the rhetoric of fair access can obscure wider issues of social justice. While socio‐economic inequalities continue to shape young people's lives, sociological work on class dis‐identification suggests social class is less obviously meaningful as a source of individual and collective identity. This paper considers subjective understandings of the post‐16 education and employment landscape in this context, drawing on qualitative research exploring the aspirations of young men and women as they completed compulsory education in north‐west England, and the hopes their parents had for their future. It shows how unequal access to resources shaped the older generation's expectations for their children, although this was rarely articulated using the explicit language of class. Their children recognized they faced a difficult job market but embraced the idea that success was possible through hard work. Both generations drew moral boundaries and made judgments based on implicit classed discourses about undeserving others, while at the same time disavowing class identities. There was a more explicit recognition of gender inequality among the parents framed with reference to hopes for greater freedom for their daughters. Opportunities and inequalities were thus understood in complex and sometimes contradictory ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the rise of a new elite of 'super‐state' schools in London, revealing a growing divide within the state sector which problematizes claims that the capital is a 'hotspot' for social mobility (Social Mobility Commission). Although recent research has revealed a 'London effect' in which students in the capital on Free School Meals outperform their peers in other regions (Greaves, Macmillan and Sibieta), inequalities between London's schools in access to elite universities have been overlooked. Drawing on a case study of a suburban London grammar school, 'King Henry's School', I show how ethnic‐minority suburbanization has combined with an institutional strategy to compete with elite private schools. Strategies of selection have been mobilized alongside elements of elite 'gentlemanly' educational culture in order to reposition the school within the hierarchy of London's schools. The result is a hyper‐selective school which provides a conduit to elite universities for upwardly mobile British‐Asian students. I show that this strategy has strong parallels with the school's attempts in the early twentieth century to compete with London's fee‐paying 'public' schools. The continuing symbolic value of 'traditional' forms of elite educational culture to a school seeking to reposition itself within the field reflects deep structural patterns of inequality in English education. To understand how apparent improvements in social mobility can sit alongside deepening inequalities between state schools, there is a need for a historical sociological approach that takes account of long‐term processes of institutional change (Savage ; Inglis). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the intersection of social and digital inequality studies, this paper presents the results of a finished research about Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) appropriation among high school students from the City of Buenos Aires (CABA). From the results of an own survey and in-depth interviews, this article studies the digital capital accumulation in young people with the objective of analyzing the influence of social origin on the appropriation of ICT and the scope of social and digital reproduction. The results present a typology on youth appropriations, describing the expected destinations from the digital appropriation trajectories by social class and the dissident cases in which young people from different social classes have appropriated ICT in an “unexpected” way, when students of the same social class have trajectories with different destinations from the influence of digital scaffolding. The role of these scaffolds in the ICT appropriation processes constitutes the main finding of the research since they make possible the change of trajectories and social and digital mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2010, the language of social mobility has been increasingly utilised by UK politicians from across the political spectrum to denote a commitment to 'fair access' to opportunity in both education and the professions. Within this policy discourse, the default understanding of inequality is premised on a narrow notion of access to elite education and employment positions, where a deeper understanding of the politics of social reproduction and inequality, or any meaningful emphasis on redistribution, is absent. The social mobility agenda is axiomatically an equality of opportunity agenda where the focus is on 'levelling up' those who are considered to be falling behind. Its focus on opportunity to the detriment of outcome thus rules out considerations of structural solutions to inequalities. In this article, we unpack the discourses of social mobility that are prevalent in recent UK government papers and political talk, with a specific focus on the Social Mobility Commission (SMC) in order to consider how these shape policy approaches to education and labour market participation. We argue that the presiding 'race to the top' mentality undermines the very equality that the social mobility agenda claims to be seeking to achieve, and in doing so we implicate the SMC in purveying contradictory understandings of mobility that compound and conceal existing inequalities. Through a focus on graduate employment, we problematise the role of higher education in the promotion of social mobility. We consider the role of employers participating in the Social Mobility Employer Index and expose the contradictions between the performance of social mobility and the reality of corporate practices that entrench social inequalities. Our work underscores the need for a new political conversation about social mobility and a redirection of attendant education and employment policy to focus on dismantling rather than reinforcing social hierarchies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how the creation of a socially and ethnically mixed student body relates to mobility within the context of Beaumont Academy. This authoritarian school opened in 2004 under the ethos ‘structure liberates’. Based in a predominantly deprived, ethnic minority area of London, Beaumont seeks to culturally transform its students. With its outstanding GCSE results, the school has been championed as a blueprint for reform, yet the cultural implications underlying this approach remain unexamined. The ethos pathologizes the surrounding area while essentializing itself as an ‘oasis in the desert’ liberating students through discipline. The paper explores how mobility is embodied by students and the alterations or eliminations necessary to achieve it. These alterations produce raced and classed positions and bring them into focus, highlighting who needs to ‘adjust’ themselves to accrue value. Uncritical celebrations of mixed-ness conceal structural inequalities lingering beneath the rhetoric of happy multiculturalism and aspirational citizenship. These inequalities are exacerbated by a marketized education system. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper aims at establishing a clear link between different types of inequality and life satisfaction in Europe. We analyse the relationship between life satisfaction and both income inequality and inequality of opportunity using seven waves of the European Social Survey. The results show that in Europe both income inequality and inequality of opportunity reduce people’s life satisfaction. Our main results suggest that all socio-economic groups are dissatisfied with income inequality, whereas primarily low socio-economic individuals worry about inequality of opportunity. We find that expected mobility is very important in explaining the link between inequality and life satisfaction for all socio-economic groups in Europe. We advance the hypothesis that life satisfaction is conditioned by a mix of normative arguments against inequality and by the fear/possibility to lose/gain a good social position. This result complements findings on the mediating role of social mobility in the relationship with subjective well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Swahili non-elites developed integrative strategies toward centers of power. • Imported ceramics reflect non-elite integration within economic networks. • In response, elites competed with one another to accumulate clients. • Bottom-up integrative strategies structured sociopolitical development on the Swahili Coast. Ceramic trends on Unguja Island in Zanzibar, Tanzania provide insights into non-elite political strategies on the East African Swahili Coast. Synthesizing imported ceramic data from two seasons of systematic field survey across rural Unguja with historical, ethnographic, and archaeological evidence from coastal East Africa, this paper argues that an integrative orientation toward power characterized bottom-up action on the Swahili Coast over the second millennium CE. While theories of bottom-up action have emphasized commoner autonomy and resistance to clientage, debt, and social inequality, evidence from the Swahili Coast attests to efforts by non-elites to seek entrance into cycles of reciprocal obligation as a means for recognition and social mobility—a specifically non-egalitarian orientation toward power. In response, elites competed with one another to accumulate wealth-in-people, resulting in a competitive patron-client system that prevented political consolidation. Elucidating these dynamics contributes to an understanding of how non-elite political strategies have shaped sociopolitical systems globally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focusing on three neighbouring villages in Cambodia, this paper argues the need for a multi-scalar interpretation of the relationship between mobility and wealth. It analyses migrant livelihoods in both sender and receiving areas to show that single scale measurements of mobility are inappropriate in the context of translocal livelihoods because livelihoods enacted across multiple places may possess multiple values of scale and mobility, each co-existing within the same migrant lifeworld. In seeking an improved conception of these complexities, the paper has combined spatial and qualitative analysis of translocal livelihoods to highlight the linkages between mobility in multiple places. On this basis, it posits that the mobility of translocal livelihoods must be assessed at least three scales: the scale appropriate to the sending environment, the scale appropriate to the receiving environment, and the scale on which potential migrations are judged. Making use of this framework allows clear relationships to be observed between mobility and inequality in both the narratives and structures of the communities under investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Changes over time in social-class inequality of educational attainment have been shown by previous research to depend on whether attainment is measured absolutely or relatively. The pioneering work in this respect by Bukodi and Goldthorpe found that inequality has fallen when attainment is measured absolutely (for example, as the percentage completing full secondary schooling) but has changed less when a relative measure is used (for example, reaching the top quarter of the distribution of attainment). Although absolute measures remain intrinsically interesting, insofar as they represent cognitive or cultural accomplishment, relative measures are more relevant for understanding the role of education in allocating people competitively to employment. Implicit in this previous research, as in much research on the connection between education and social mobility, is that the society over which the relative standing of qualifications is measured is the same as that in which they are used to gain social rewards, such as a job. When labour markets operate across educational borders, this assumption might be open to question. The present analysis investigates the interpretation of absolute and relative educational inequality by comparing England, Scotland and Wales, which have distinct education systems but a common labour market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this country-comparative study, we ask to what extent differentiation in secondary education accounts for the association between social origins and social destinations in adult age. We go beyond the widely applied formal definitions of educational tracking and particularly pay attention to country-specific approaches to educational differentiation. Our main expectation is that once we factor in these particularities, the degree to which educational differentiation accounts for social reproduction is quite similar across countries. Our analyses are based on national individual-level life-course data from six European countries that span from secondary education to occupational maturity. Our findings show that educational differentiation mediates the association between social origins and social destinations to a substantial degree in all countries. However, we still find some differences between countries in the extent to which educational differentiation accounts for social reproduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research shows that parental mobility care of children has become a growing feature in many western cities, but parental traffic safeguarding has rarely been examined. Based on an ethnographic, comparative case study of two elementary (primary) schools located in Vancouver, Canada, this paper explores how auto-dominated urban environments intertwine with gender and other social inequalities to produce highly charged, variegated and contested parental safeguarding practices in the school journey. The paper also examines how parental traffic safeguarding is discursively and materially organized in relation to automobility and the social denial of its inherent dangers. Two themes (risky traffic spaces and parental traffic safeguarding strategies) illustrate the ways in which parents practice traffic safeguarding in specific contexts and how as part of domestic labour, their practices contribute to automobility and its illusion of safety. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper explores the key normative issues raised by empirical research into social mobility and meritocracy. Typically, sociologists working in this area are motivated by a concern with matters of social justice and equality of opportunity, but that concern tends to be rather vague and diffuse, which makes it difficult to assess the normative relevance of their findings. Surveying, in an accessible manner, five issues familiar to political philosophers that clarify the significance of sociologists' results, this paper explains why a regime of `perfect mobility' is not an appropriate benchmark for evaluating the extent to which a society offers its members social justice or equality of opportunity. Some of the mechanisms that produce an association between the social position of parents and children are unobjectionable and would exist even in an altogether just society. Sociologists do not endorse perfect mobility. But neither are they clear about the variety, and normative significance, of the various mechanisms that tend to generate inequalities in mobility chances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]