Social Class Mobility and Family Integration.

This article presents a study which examined the impact of vertical social class mobility on family integration in the U.S. U.S. social scientists have published a mass of empirical data establishing the fact that social classes do exist in the country and, furthermore, that membership in a particular social class does tend to predict a wide range of behavior patterns from voting habits to kissing techniques. The study covers an investigation of 78 families. These family units were studied through a combination technique of having participant- observer papers written by student members of the families, using an outline provided by the writer. Interviews were conducted with students where further information seemed to be necessary. All of the cases were studied in the setting of a state university and reflected both patterns of vertical mobility and social class continuity. In general, families with social class continuity seem to have more stability and more sociological closeness than families in which either the entire group or some members of the group have been moving from one social class to another. The initial theory was based on the assumption that if social class is the basic variable which research implicitly assumes, then social class mobility must be one of the most powerful forces affecting family cohesion in U.S. culture.