Critically Examine The Relationship Between Education, Social Class And Social Mobility With Reference To Other Forms Of Stratification

There are two types of social mobility, the first is intragenerational mobility. This looks at social mobility within one generation. It compares a person's occupational status at two points, so if a person starts out in a low position but after ten years has a high status position, they are socially mobile in terms of intragenerational mobility. The second type is intergenerational mobility. This looks at social mobility between generations. It compares the occupational status of parents (mainly the father) with that of their sons and daughters. So if a son of a father in an unskilled profession becomes a skilled worker, he is socially mobile in terms of intergenerational mobility.

David Glass (1949) 3carried out a study of social mobility. He found that a high level of intergenerational mobility existed. Glass has been criticised for not reflecting the growth of middle class occupations in his study.

Goldthorpe (1972) 4 also carried out a major study of social mobility. It is called the Oxford mobility study. Different criteria from the 1949 study were used. The Oxford study categorised occupations in terms of their market rewards whereas Glass had used classification based on occupational prestige. This 1972 study showed that there were higher rates of long range mobility that the 1949 study. The study also showed that there are high rates of absolute mobility (the total amount of social mobility.) The results found that those from a working class background had a better chance of reaching a higher social class than previously during the century. However the study showed that relative mobility chances varied between the classes and the relative chances had not changed much during the course of the century.

Halsey, Heath and Ridge (1980) found little evidence of increasing equality of opportunity, despite the changes that had been made to the education system. Recent studies have shown that great inequalities in educational achievement still exist between social classes.

Marxist theories have argued that education cannot compensate for the inequalities within society. It has been suggested that meritocracy is a myth. Gillbourn and Youdell (2001) have argued that the term 'intelligence' is rarely used in education; it has been replaced by the term 'ability.' They describe ability as being a proxy for common sense notions of intelligence and ability is constituted in ways that provide for the systematic disadvantage of particular socially defined groups, especially children of working class and Black/Afro Caribbean heritage.5

Bibliography

Sociology Themes and Perspectives 6th edition by Haralambos and Holborn

www.scool.com

Harralambos page 72

2 Harralambos page 72

3 Harralambos page 72

4 Harralambos page 73

5 Harralambos page 733