SOCIAL MOBILITY

1.0 INTRODUCTION

The study of social mobility has a long sociological pedigree, extending back to the mid-nineteenth-century writings of Karl Marx and John Stuart Mill, with major contributions in the early twentieth century from Vilfredo Pareto (who proposed a theory of the 'circulation of elites) and Pitirim Sorokin. The now vast literature on the subject is inextricably entangled with wide discussions of (among other things) education, gender, culture, power, statistical techniques, and the role of theory in social research.

It is possible, indeed, to trace many of the classic debates in modern sociology back to the early arguments about mobility. For example, in social mobility (1927), Sorokin wrote that 'channels of vertical circulation exists in any stratified society, and are as necessary as channels for blood circulation in the body'. Sorokin was particularly interested in the role of educational institutions in allocating people to the various occupational positions. Anticipating the radical critiques of the new sociology of education of the 1970s, he argued that schools function primarily as a testing, selecting, and distributing agency; in other words, they merely certify children for particular positions in the labour market, rather than promoting each individual's .abilities or encouraging the development of talent.

Confronted by this potentially vast field of interest, it is useful for heuristic purposes to view the modern literature on social mobility as a dispute between two divergent research programme which have set the terms of discussion for this subject since 1945 and continue to dominate the field even today. On the one hand, there are those investigators who view mobility in the context of a social hierarchy, within which individuals can be ranked according to income, educational attainment, or socio-economic prestige. On the other, there are those who set in within the context of a class structure, embracing social locations defined by relationships prevailing within labour-markets and production units. During the 1950s and 1960s, the former hierarchy perspective was dominant, culminating in the so-called status-attainment tradition of mobility studies emanating principally from the United States. This was increasingly challenged, during the 1970s and 1980s, by researchers schooled within or influenced by the European tradition of class analysis.

The status-attainment programme sees the principal interest of mobility studies as being an attempt to specify those attributes which are characteristic of individuals who end up in the more desirable rather than the less desirable jobs. Characteristically, these studies investigate the extent to which the present occupational status of individuals is associated with the status of their family of origin, rather than individual achievements such as educational attainment. One virtue of this approach, as compared to earlier cross- tabulations of father's occupation by son's occupation, was that it disentangled at least some of the processes that linked the generations. For example, researchers explored the effects of father's education on son's occupational attainment, and showed that these were distinct from the effect of father's occupation. Most studies maintained that son's education was the crucial link between family background and occupational success, arguing that as much as half of the association between the two was mediated via education, with children from more privileged family backgrounds being higher educational achievers than their poorer peers. Later, researchers extend the field of interest to include data on income, with most concluding that the impact of family background on earnings is substantial, but operates entirely indirectly through educational and occupational attainment.

2.0 OBJECTIVES

At the end of this unit, you should be able to:

1. clearly explain the concept of social mobility 
2.  describe types of social mobility. 

3.0 MAIN CONTENT

3.1 Definitions of Social Mobility

The movement -usually of individuals but sometimes of whole groups -between different positions within the system of social statification in any society, is referred to as social mobility. It is conventional to distinguish upward and downward mobility (that is, movement up or down a hierarchy of privilege), and inter-generational from intra generational or career mobility (the former referring to mobility between a family of origin and one's own class or status position, the latter to the mobility experienced during an individual career, such as respondent's first job compared to his or her present job.

In a nutshell, social mobility is further referred to as the movement up or down within the stratification system.

3.2 Types of Social Mobility

In sociology, the following types of social mobility have been identified:

1.  individual mobility 
2.  group mobility .career mobility 
3. generational mobility 
4.  vertical mobility 
5.  horizontal mobility 

3.2.1 Individual Mobility

This refers to the movement of individuals from one social class to another. In this case, an individual may move easily as a result of his/her educational attainment or economic strength from one social position to another. This is a common type of mobility which takes its measurement by comparing an individual's present position to the social class into which he was born and grew up. Most people from poor family backgrounds but who later became known in the society just as a result of their economic wealth or educational opportunities could be said to be an example of individual mobility.

3.2.2 Group Mobility

This has to do with the movement of a group of individuals from one social status to another, usually from a lower one to a higher one. The group upward movement may reflect hard work on the part of the group members or luck.

3.2.3 Career Mobility

This entails the changes in the social status of an individual. These changes could be largely due to education, mother dominance, number of siblings, etc. The changes being mentioned here are what an individual experiences in his life time i.e. his or her achievements.

3.2.4 Generational Mobility

This relates to any change in status that occurs between a child and a parent. There is every possibility for a child to rise above the status into which he or she was born; so when this happens, then it is referred to as generational mobility.

3.2.5 Vertical Mobility

This refers to movement either upward or downwards across various strata. For example, in, one's place of work, one could be promoted (i.e. upward mobility). On the other hand, another individual in another place of work could be demoted (i.e. downward mobility) due to certain offence he or she has committed in the organisation.

3.2.6 Horizontal Mobility

This refers to movement on the same status. For example, a bank manager in Ibadan can be taken to Lagos branch of the bank to be the new bank Manager. This is obviously horizontal mobility because the affected individual still maintains the status.

SELF-ASSESSMENT EXERCISE 1

1.  What do you understand by social mobility? 
2.  State the various types of social mobility. 

4.0 CONCLUSION

It should interest you that social mobility in Nigeria has not been fully stable and established. This is so because ascriptive criteria still influence the pattern of mobility. So much people today have actually grown upward in their different status, partly due to their educational attainment. This now shows that educational attainment partly influences or determines social mobility in the country.

5.0 SUMMARY

In this unit, we have been able to define social mobility. Efforts have also been made to describe some of the major types of social mobility. We have been able to state that social mobility is usually the movement of individuals but sometimes of whole groups between different positions within the social statification in any society. Some of the known types of social mobility include: horizontal mobility, vertical mobility, generational mobility, etc.

6.0 TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENT

1.  What do you understand by social mobility? 
2.  State and explain five (5) types of social mobility.