Social mobility is a fairly simple concept to understand: it means the movement of individuals or groups between social strata. People, or occupational groups, move up or down between different social classes: a bit like snakes and ladders!

There are a few key terms to sort out first:

• Social mobility is different from geographical mobility, which is where people move around from place to place.
• Intragenerational mobility is mobility within ones own working lifetime; gaining promotion at work would be a good example. Intergenerational mobility is mobility between generations, where a person ends up in a different class from the one they were born into. Getting a better job than your father would be a common example.
• Long-range and short-range are easy to understand!
• A meritocracy is a society in which class position is determined by merit ("ability plus effort"). Meritocratic societies do not have class barriers (or "buffer zones", or "closure"), so that individuals rise or fall according to what they actually deserve.

You will need to know the following 3 studies (easy!) and the debate they give rise to (less easy!!)

1. Glass. A 1940s study which looked at the intergenerational mobility of men (i.e. whether they ended up in a different class from their fathers). Used a sample of 10,000.

   Glass found that mobility was uncommon, and that it was almost all short-range. So it appears that Britain is not a meritocracy.

   Evaluation?. Very dated, so of little contemporary significance. Has all the usual advantages of a big quantitative survey: replicability, reliability, generalisability (big sample!), objectivity. Ignores women, but on the other hand was probably right to do so because relatively few were in paid employment.

2. Oxford Mobility Study by Goldthorpe. 1972, updated 1983. Again, a sample of 10,000 men. Goldthorpe divided the population into 3 strata:
   • Service class
   • Intermediate class
   • Working class

   His findings were:

   • Around half the sample ended up in a different class from the one they were born into.
   • Even downward mobility is common.
   • In the sevice class, only a quarter had service class fathers. So three quarters had been intergenerationally upwardly mobile.
   • 29% of service class had manual working class parents; so long range upward mobility was occurring.
   • 16% of service class children slide down to the working class.
   So, there are high rates of mobility, with no "buffer zone" or closure: the UK seems to be meritocratic.

3. Marshall (also known as the "Essex Study"). He found that one third of men and women in the service class started life as manual working class.

   So again, Britain appears to be a meritocracy.

However, both Goldthorpe and Marshall say that the UK is not meritocratic, because the above studies show only ABSOLUTE rates of mobility (i.e. how much there is). We need, they say, to look at RELATIVE rates of mobility (i.e. the chances, or odds, of being socially mobile, compared to others in different classes). This is rather complicated, but essentially means that a child born into the service class has a much higher chance (3x!) of ending up in the service class, than a child born into the working class. Marshall argues that if Britain were a genuine meritocracy, then the chances of all children ending up in the service class would be the same, regardless of where they started out.

However, Saunders argues that the "odds ratio" is unimportant. Most people are just interested in whether their child has a better chance than they previously had, not whether they have a better chance compared to other children.

More importantly, he argues that it is not surprising that middle class children end up with middle class jobs like their parents. These middle class children are the ones with more merit. They are probably naturally more intelligent, due to their genetic inheritance from their bright parents. And they put in more effort, due to the norms and values ("cultural capital") they have absorbed in their socialisation.

So, with lots of social mobility, and the "best" children (i.e. most intelligent and hard-working) rising to the top, Saunders argues that Britain is a meritocracy.

SYNOPTIC LINKS

Social mobility will have an impact upon Families & Households, because it may cause changes in conjugal roles, childcare, power relationships, etc.

It links well to Work & Leisure, as moving class will affect leisure patterns. A society which experiences a growth in the middle class will develop different leisure pursuits.

It also links to Wealth, Poverty, & Welfare, as wealth and poverty are obviously linked very closely to class position. A family that goes up a class is less likely to experience poverty. A society that experiences an increase in the middle class will become more affluent, and will need less state welfare provision. Religion? If you think of any, let me know!

Links to theory are many, and rather complex. Consider what Marxists, Weberians, Functionalists, the New Right, Feminists, and Postmodernists would say about a society experiencing high rates of social mobility. A good place to start is the idea that the more social mobility there is, the less importance social class becomes: because class cannot shape individual's lives so much if their class changes. Postmodernist, huh?!