Techniques for the Analysis of Social Mobility.

This survey of the literature on methods of analysis to measure equality of educational opportunity and social mobility emphasizes methods of analysis rather than substantive results. It also sketches some potentially important work using transition matrices and vacancy chains. Much is also done with two-way tables, sometimes summarized into two categories (nonmanual and manual) in each generation. Most of what is known about mobility is due to the combined scaling and multiple regression approach. Implicit in this approach is the view that variation among individuals in occupational level depends on ascribed and achieved characteristics, and that regression can break down the variance between characteristics that may be classified as ascribed and those classifiable as achieved. Rather than regression of all of the measurable causal characteristics simultaneously, the most effective work seems to use path coefficients in which some characteristics influence other through intermediate characteristics. Two problems are discussed in the summary section; that of how unmeasured characteristics such as having an honest appearance, or being motivated to material success are distributed, and also how to apportion the measured characteristics to the categories of ascribed and achieved. (Author/AM)