Par-delà les spécificités nationales : comprendre les expériences de mobilité sociale en France, aux États-Unis et en Inde

Abstract

The analytical framework presented here allows us to account for the success stories of people having experienced strong upward mobility in France, in the United States and in India. Reflecting on the best way to combine different scales of analysis, it defends the idea that, though it is important to take into account national contexts, other levels of analysis must not be overlooked. In order to satisfyingly account for the way mobility is experienced, identifying national repertoires of evaluation and institutional specificities is decisive, yet limited. Achievement narratives are actually marked by the composite influence of the cultural repertoires and the ideologies dominant among one's nation, family, occupational context, school and university, generation, social class of origin, neighborhood and, when applicable, caste or minority group. To make sense of how all these scales work together, we introduce the concept of “instituted ideology” (idéologie instituée).