Is Class Mobility Possible?

Is there such a thing as class mobility? Some will say yes, and others will say no. What do you say? There are many answers out there that say many different things.

Isn't this the American dream? My grandfather was born and raised in Trentino, Italy, came to the United States when he was 16 years old and made a better life for himself. But, did he actually move up in class?

The New York Times has an interesting take on class. They have an interactive poll on class that focuses on four continuum which they claim defines class: occupation, education, income and wealth. Click HERE to interact with the article and see where you fall on those four continuum.

But, are those four areas all that there is to defining class? Many would say with passion a resounding no. Class, in higher education circles, is thought of as so much more than socio-economic factors which is pretty much what those four areas cover. Class is thought of through the cognitive, the moral, the emotional... just to name a few other areas of focus.

There is a great blog called Understanding Society. It has some good things to say about this idea of class mobility. I suggest you visit it as I am going to quote it in the next few paragraphs regarding education and class mobility. Understanding Society asks a crucial question: where do children fit?

"A crucial question to pose as we think about class and social mobility, is the issue of the social mechanisms through which children are launched into careers and economic positions in society. A pure meritocracy is a society in which specific social mechanisms distinguish between high-achieving and low-achieving individuals, assigning high-achieving individuals to desirable positions in society. A pure plutocracy is a society in which holders of wealth provide advantages to their children, ensuring that their adult children become the wealth-holders of the next generation. A caste system assigns children and young adults to occupations based on their ascriptive status. In each case there are fairly visible social mechanisms through which children from specific social environments are tracked into specific groups of roles in society. The sociological question is how these mechanisms work; in other words, we want to know about the "microfoundations" of the system of economic and social placement across generations."

At first glance, it would seem simple to assign our country one of the above labels, but is it really that simple. Understanding Society has more to say...

"Education is certainly one of the chief mechanisms of social mobility in any society; it involves providing the child and young adult with the tools necessary to translate personal qualities and talents into productive activity. So inequalities in access to education constitute a central barrier to social mobility. And it seems all too clear that children have very unequal educational opportunities throughout the United States, from pre-school to university. These inequalities correlate with socially significant facts like family income, place of residence, and race; and they correlate in turn with the career paths and eventual the socioeconomic status (SES) of the young people who are placed in one or another of these educational settings. Race is a particularly prevalent form of structural inequalities of opportunity in the US; multiple studies have shown how slowly patterns of racial segregation are changing in the cities of the United States."

I will leave you one more quote from Understanding Society.

Professor Kathryn Wilson, Associate Professor of Economics at Kent State University,“People like to think of America as the land of opportunities. The irony is that our country actually has less social mobility and more inequality than most developed countries."

Well what do you think? I s she right? Is Understanding Society right? Many questions in need of answers, but one thing is certain, the question is no longer as simple as it once was, is it? Blessings!