Social Mobility for the 21st Century
Social Mobility for the 21st Century addresses experiences of social mobility, and the detailed processes through which entrenched, intergenerationally transmitted privilege is reproduced. Contributions include (but are not limited to) family relationships, students encounters with higher education, narratives of work careers, and mobility identities. The book intends to challenge both the framework of the more traditional approach, and the politicisation of mobility which casts mobility as a possession, a commodity or a character trait, and threatens to castigate the non-mobile as carrying a personal responsibility for their situation.
This book presents critical analyses of routes into social mobility, the experience of social mobility, and the political and social implications of social mobilitys panacea status. Drawing on the work of established scholars and more recent entrants, the chapters offer a fresh look at social mobility, opening the topic to a wider readership among the profession and beyond, and stimulating further debate. This book will appeal to higher level students and scholars of sociology alike, as well as having a broad cross-disciplinary appeal.
Steph Lawler is a Reader in Sociology at the University of York. Her work considers identities, not in categorical terms, but in terms of how identities become produced and reproduced, approved or disapproved. She has written widely on the ways in which various social troubles rest on concerns about what kinds of persons there are and there should be. She is the author of Mothering the Self: Mothers, Daughters, Subjects and Identity: Sociological Perspectives, as well as articles and chapters on social mobility and, more widely, the social relations of class and gender.
Geoff Payne, FAcSS, is a Senior Research Associate at Newcastle University. He was Director of the Scottish Mobility Study at Aberdeen University in the mid-1970s, subsequently producing over fifty articles and five books on social mobility. His The New Social Mobility was published by Policy Press in January 2017. A former President of the BSA, and winner of the 2012 HEA National Award for Excellence in Teaching Sociology, he has been an advisor for the Ministry of Justices Social Mobility Strategy. He has served on the Editorial Boards of several leading Sociology journals, and has edited a number of books including his widely used Social Divisions.
Sociological Futures
Series editors: Eileen Green, John Horne, Caroline Oliver, Louise Ryan
Sociological Futures aims to be a flagship series for new and innovative theories, methods and approaches to sociological issues and debates and the social in the twenty-first century. This series of monographs and edited collections was inspired by the vibrant wealth of British Sociological Association (BSA) symposia on a wide variety of sociological themes. Edited by a team of experienced sociological researchers, and supported by the BSA, it covers a wide range of topics related to sociology and sociological research and will feature contemporary work that is theoretically and methodologically innovative, has local or global reach, as well as work that engages or re-engages with classic debates in sociology bringing new perspectives to important and relevant topics.
The BSA is the professional association for sociologists and sociological research in the United Kingdom, with an extensive network of members, study groups and forums, and a dynamic programme of events. The Association engages with topics ranging from auto/biography to youth, climate change to violence against women, alcohol to sport, and Bourdieu to Weber. This book series represents the finest fruits of sociological enquiry for a global audience, and offers a publication outlet for sociologists at all career and publishing stages, from well-established to emerging sociologists, BSA or non-BSA members, from all parts of the world.
Within and Beyond Citizenship
Borders, Membership and Belonging
Edited by Roberto G. Gonzales and Nando Sigona
Higher Education and Social Inequalities
University Admissions, Experiences and Outcomes
Edited by Richard Waller, Nicola Ingram and Michael R.M. Ward
Social Mobility for the 21st Century
Everyone a Winner?
Edited by Steph Lawler and Geoff Payne
Social Mobility for the 21st Century
Everyone a Winner?
Edited by Steph Lawler and Geoff Payne
First published 2018
by Routledge
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and by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
2018 selection and editorial matter, Steph Lawler and Geoff Payne; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Steph Lawler and Geoff Payne to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Lawler, Steph, 1958 author. | Payne, Geoff, 1944 author.
Title: Social mobility for the 21st century : everyone a winner? / Steph Lawler and Geoff Payne.
Description: 1 Edition. | New York : Routledge, 2018. |
Series: Sociological futures | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017036631 | ISBN 9781138244894 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781315276588 (e-book)
Subjects: LCSH: Social mobility. | Occupational mobility. | Social classes. | Social change.
Classification: LCC HT612 .L39 2018 | DDC 305.5/13dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017036631
ISBN: 978-1-138-24489-4 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-27658-8 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman
by Out of House Publishing
In the balanced view of sociology we have to consider the failures as well as the successes. Every selection of one is a rejection of many. Let us be frank and admit that we have failed to assess the mental state of the rejected, and so secure their necessary adjustment.
(Michael Young, The Rise of the Meritocracy, 1958: 11)
But surveys of random samples were (and are) needed too. The individuals experience has to be put into a context to show how far anyones experience is, in some way, typical or not. Without random samples, one cannot normally generalise about anything; without picking out individuals, the results of the random sampling can be lifeless.
