Social mobility, status attainment, and class formation: Theoretical, ideological, and methodological problems in international comparative research

Abstract

This paper is devoted to a critical review of recent theoretical and methodological developments in comparative social mobility research. Issues are raised concerning underlying assumptions and ideological commitments that determine the way questions about social mobility have been formulated and researched within the mainstream empirical tradition of comparative stratification and mobility research. Part of the aim is to provoke a critical rethinking of the problems and a reassessment of the alternatives. It is argued that a substantive and viable alternative lies in class‐based, as distinct from status‐centered, theorizing that draws into its purview a larger, more dynamic image of the mobility process and an empirico‐structural analysis of the interrelationships between social mobility and the process of class formation, domination, and reproduction.