Soci Social Stratification

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1 University of North Carolina Chapel Hill Soci Social Stratification Spring 2010 Professor François Nielsen Module 7 Socioeconomic Attainment & Comparative Social Mobility Discussion Questions Introduction to Module 7 Last modified 25 Feb 2010 Module 7 covers three categories of topics. a. Conceptualizing Occupational Status These are texts concerned with the conceptualization and measurement of social status, starting with one excerpt from the classic book The American Occupational Structure by Blau and Duncan (1967). An important thread in this literature is the debate involving different conceptions of social status: status as prestige (Treiman, Hodge), prestige as socioeconomic index combining typical education and income of an occupation (Blau and Duncan, Featherman and Hauser), or even status as reflecting mainly educaiton and skills of an occupation (Hauser and Warren). (I find the Hauser and Warren reading not optimally condensed relative to the original article on which the chapter is based.) b. Socioeconomic Attainment & Mobility The Blau and Duncan (1967) book was profoundly influential in sociology. There are three substantive themes derived from the their status attainment model that will dominate, explicitly or implicitly, subsequent social mobility research. (1) The direct effect of family background, measured as the coefficients of FaEd (n.s.) and FaOcc (.115) are small, suggesting there was little direct reproduction of social status. (2) What reproduction of social status there is (measured as the indirect effect of FaOcc and FaEd) is largely through (i.e., mediated by) R sed and R s First Job. (3) A rather subtle but crucial point: The effects of education and first occupation on later occupation predominantly consist of indirect effects of the residuals of R sed and R s First Occ, which are by definition independent from social origins. This suggests that individual idiosyncratic qualities (merit?) are more important determinants of individual success than social origins. One way to look at the other readings in this section is to view them as different ways to address the issue of the relative impacts of family background and education on socioeconomic achievement. The reading by economist Gary Solon is difficult, but very important in heralding what I see as a future trend of research in both economics and sociology, which is the decomposition of genetic and environmental factors in socioeconomic achievement. The passage beginning What are the roles of genetic and cultural 1

2 heritability? One intriguing line of research seeks clues from comparisons of relatives with varying degrees of genetic and environmental relatedness.... (p. 484) is particularly important. The passage in Footnote 1 p. 484, family influences loom larger than neighborhood influences in accounting for the effects of origins on socioeconomic outcomes can be related to Esping-Andersen s conclusion about the overall conclusion of social mobility research that the principal factors of socioeconomic attainment relate to the family, rather than later stages in the individual s career. Note that the elasticity β is simply the coefficient of the regression of the logarithm of son s income on the logarithm of father s income. Extensions of the Socioeconomic Attainment Model The readings in this section represent, broadly speaking, various ways of specifying the social process by which socioeconomic attainment takes place. These include the socio-psychological mechanisms that influence the individual (Sewell, Haller and Portes), habitus (Bourdieu), the surrounding culture and the issue of class versus ethnic culture (MacLeod), and the role of social networks in attainment (Granovetter; Lin; Burt). Note the very useful quick overview of the evolution of the literature on social mobility in the Lin reading, including the passage [developments in the field] have significantly amplified rather than altered the original Blau-Duncan conclusion concerning the relative merits of achieved versus ascribed personal resources in status attainment. Synthetic Questions 1. There has been a substantial literature on the process of status attainment and social mobility in industrial society. What do we know (or don t know) from this research about the following questions: (a) How industrial development affects the social mobility process; in particular, how does industrial development affect the openness of the social structure in a society. (b) The veracity of the traditional belief that the United States is a land of opportunity that is distincly more open and rich in opportunities compared to European societies. (c) More generally, whether and in what ways the mobility process differs across advanced industrial societies. 2. In the field of comparative social mobility research it has become customary to distinguish several generations of stratification and social mobility research. Distinguish at least four such generations, and compare them with respect to: (a) The major substantive issues each generaition emphasizes. (b) The methodological approach/innovation that characterizes the generation. (c) The major substantive findings of each generation. Detailed Questions a. Conceptualizing Occupational Status Blau and Duncan (B&D) Measuring the Status of Occupations ) (GRU2e Pp. 2

3 1. What procedure do Blau & Duncan use to estimate their socioeconomic index of the status of occupations, in a nutshell? 2. What is B&D s goal in designing their socio-economic index (i. e., what aspect of occupations are they trying to measure)? How does the SEI relate to classical dimensions of class, status, and party? 3. How does the notion of discrete social classes fit within the B&D approach? b. Socioeconomic Attainment & Mobility Blau and Duncan (B&D) The Process of Stratification (GRU3e Pp GRU2e Pp ) 1. What role do the concepts of ascription versus achievement play within the status attainment research of B&D? 2. In a nutshell, what is the basic model of the stratification process constructed and estimated by B&D? 3. What is the interpretation of a path coefficient? For example, what does it mean to say that the direct effect of education (U) on occupation (Y) is.394? 4. What part of the status achievement model do B&D identify as representing (strict) occupational inheritance, and what typical value does this occupational inheritance effect have? Does this finding imply strong mechanisms of class reproduction? 5. How damaging would it be (in terms of potential bias and erroneaous interpretation) to omit from the stratification model variables that are purely intermediate, acting for example between first job and current job? 6. What is a simple way to estimate the sum of all indirect effects of an independent variable (say X) an the dependent variable (say Y)? (See p. 324, Right column, The sum of all....) 7. How do B&D discuss the idea of inherent mechanisms of perpetuation of family position (or vicious circle, or cycle of poverty ) in the context of the achievement model? 8. To what extent does it make sense to call the B&D approach functionalist? Featherman and Hauser (F&H) A Refined Model... (GRU3e GRU2e Pp ) 1. What is the purpose of F&H in developing their new mobility ratio to estimate relative mobility chances from the raw mobility table? (Or, alternatively, what problem(s) in interpreting raw mobility tables are they trying to address?) 2. In a nutshell (if it is possible to do so), what is the procedure followed by F&H to arrive at their new mobility ratio? 3. What major patterns of relative mobility/immobility do F&H find? 4. How much of an explanation of social mobility does the type of models analyzed by F&H provide Erikson and Goldthorpe (E&G) 3

4 1. In what sense do E&G use the term liberal when they discuss the liberal theory of industrialism? 2. What (three) statements concerning social mobility in industrial societies do E&G attribute to the liberal theory? Is this summary a fair representation of the liberal theory, or could one argue that parts of the attribution are setting up a strawman to be easily destroyed by empirical evidence but that no one would seriously defend? 3. How do E&G characterize the Featherman-Jones-Hauser (FJH) hypothesis, in contrast with the liberal theory? 4. In broad outline, what are the results of the E&G cross-national analysis of absolute rates of social mobility (see especially pp )? What support is found for Lipset and Zetterberg s hypothesis of a once and for all mobility upsurge associated with industrialization? 5. What conclusion do E&G draw from their analysis of relative rates of social mobility (i. e., rates of social fluidity )? 6. If one were to deemphasize the parts of E&G s discussion that consist of adjudicating between conflicting theories, what overall picture of the effect of industrialization on social mobility can one derive from their analyses? c. Extensions of the Socioeconomic Attainment Model Sewell, Haller, & Portes (SHP) 1. What (3) justifications do Sewel, Haller, and Portes provide for incorporating psychological and social-psychological mechanisms in the status-attainment model? 2. What is the role of significant others influence (SOI) in the SHP model? What is the potential importance of this variable for social policy? 3. What characteristics of the study design (e. g., the specification of the sample) may have affected the estimates of path coefficients obtained by SHP? What effects might be especially affected by the nature of the sample? 4. In what ways does (or does not) the SHP study represent progress in understanding mechanisms of status attainment? Additional Questions & References Ganzeboom, Treiman, & Ultee (GTU) 1. What are the five dimensions along which GTU compare and contrast the three generations of stratification research? 2. What were the major substantive research issues posed in the first generation of stratification research (p. 281)? With respect to substantive issues, has the trend in later generations of research always been toward substantive enrichment and progress, according to GTU? 3. What are the three innovations that set the stage for the second generation of stratification research? What sociologist is most prominently associated with these innovations (p. 282)? 4

5 4. How was the substantive concern for mobility and social fluidity in industrial societies translated into the second generation style of research? 5. Cite two names of sociologists most prominently associated with the inception of the third generation of stratification research. 6. What are six new developments that GTU identify as potentially important for future stratification research? In particular, what special difficulties do stratification researchers face in dealing with women, and the family, according to GTU? Lipset & Zetterberg (L&Z) 1. What argument do L&Z make concerning the alleged greater openness of the stratification system in the United States, versus the closed systems of European countries? 2. What are the five processes that can affect the rate of social mobility, according to L&Z (pp )? 3. What individual-level (psychological) mechanism do L&Z invoke to explain that mobile individuals experiencing status discrepancy might be more prone to mental illness? 4. What difference do L&Z find in the effects of upward mobility on voting behavior between Europe and the United States? 5. What is the role of ideological equalitarianism in the United States, according to L&Z? Has ideological equalitarianism destroyed status differences in this country? 6. In what ways is the L&Z approach typical of first generation stratification research, as described by Ganzeboom et al.? 5