Education and Social Mobility in Spain.

The conceptual framework in social mobility studies in terms of the theoretical and methodological orientation of the social mobility paradigm and its ideological connotations are discussed in the introduction of this paper. Other topics discussed in this section include the following: the inconsistency of the theoretical orientation, a theoretical reorientation of social mobility research, and the liberal-functionalist theoretical model and social mobility studies in Spain. A section on the contemporary Spanish society addresses some of the major contemporary changes in Spanish society and, more exactly, how some of these changes are understood and documented by existing mobility studies. The study of the overall changes in Spanish society and the expansion of formal education is found to be a challenge to the researcher. In the rest of the paper, attention is given to two main problems. First, the extent to which the Spaniards are profitting differentially from these educational benefits is explored. This is, by itself, a complex and many-sided question, and the research is limited to the influence of social origins on the educational attainments of student. Second, in relation to the consequences of educational changes, the effects of schooling on the occupational and economic status of the individual are estimated. (Atuhor/AM)