Social mobility

The social mobility is a concept defined by Pitirim Sorokin as being the phenomenon of the displacement of individuals in social space . It corresponds to the fact of changing Social class.

The principal types of social mobility that one can seek to measure are:

the intragénérationnelle mobility (also called professional mobility ): it is the change of social position during the working life of the individual;
the intergénérationnelle mobility : one puts in report/ratio the position occupied by an individual and that of his family of origin. One then speaks about ascending mobility when a progression in social space is ensured for the following generation (for example, a son of workman becomes framework). On the other hand, one speaks about downward mobility when a regression in the social hierarchy is carried out of one generation to following (for example, a son of framework becomes employed);
the horizontal mobility : it corresponds to the fact of being able to change professional sector without changing place in the social hierarchy.

The expression " elevator social" usually indicate the upward social mobility, in particular ascending intergénérationnelle mobility.

One in addition distinguishes the ascending mobility (progression in the social hierarchy compared to the father) of downward mobility (regression).

The social mobility can be regarded as an objective, and in this direction, the weak representation of the modest children of social categories in the universities is at the origin of a series of initiatives in favor of the social Ouverture of these universities.

See too

External bonds

intergénérationnelle Mobility in Europe and North America, OJ Blanden, Paul Gregg and Stephen Thing, The Sutton Trust, April 2005

Workshop of the social mobilities, site of the seminar of pupils of the National university (Paris) devoted to the study of the social mobility at the time modern (XVIe-XVIIIe centuries)

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