Social Status Attainment Research Articles

Social change and status attainment among men and women in contemporary Poland

This paper tests hypotheses concerning the relationship between social change and occupational and earnings attainment among men and women in contemporary Poland. Utilizing national-level survey data from 1982, 1987, and 1991—3, we examine the effects of social background, educational attainment, and work experience on occupational prestige and earnings. Findings from regression and multilevel models reveal complex patterns of stability and change over time, and a number of interesting results emerge. Most significantly, the effect of years of education on both earnings and occupational prestige was fairly stable before 1989, but has been increasing — concurrently with the rise in the share of the private sector — since the end of state socialism. This increase occurred only among workers outside the service sector of the economy, however. In addition, the results for men and women are highly similar.

Social Status Attainment: Influence of Siblings' Background

Relationships were examined among birth order, sibsize, family environments, and young adults' attainment of social status for 300 21-yr.-old Australians. The sibling variables had significant associations with young women's social-status attainment whereas the relationships between the siblings' and young men's attainment measures were mediated by their perceptions of family environment.

Social Status Attainment of “Common Man” Young Adults: Kahl's Study Extended

In this follow-up study of an earlier investigation (Marjoribanks, 1995), relationships were examined between perceptions of parents' getting-ahead—getting-by orientations, adolescents' aspirations, and the social status attainment of young adults from differing contexts defined by intellectual ability and family social status. Data were collected from 350 Australian 21-year-olds as part of a longitudinal analysis. The results from this study and the previous investigation suggest that (a) adolescents' perceptions of parents' getting-ahead—getting-by orientations are related strongly to their aspirations; (b) relationships between perceptions of parents' support for learning and young adults' social status attainment are mediated by adolescents' educational aspirations and, in part, by their occupational aspirations; and (c) there are ability/social status context differences in the nature of the relationships between parents' getting-ahead—getting-by orientations, adolescents' aspirations, and young adults' social status attainment.

Distal Contexts, Proximal Conditions, and Attainment of Social Status

This study examined to what extent relations between distal contexts, individual characteristics and young adults' attainment of social status were mediated by perceptions of proximal family conditions. Data were collected from 300 Australian 21-yr -olds as part of a longitudinal investigation. The findings indicated that the mediating effect of proximal conditions varied for differing outcomes and differed between females and males.

Behavioural and endocrine predictors of dominance and tolerance in female common marmosets, Callithrix jacchus

As a result of social subordination, female common marmosets undergo suppression of ovulation and inhibition of sexual behaviour. This study examined the possibility that subordination also results in decreased aggressiveness and increased submissiveness towards same-sex strangers. Thirty-two adult females were pre-assigned to eight mixed-sex social groups. The females' behavioural and adrenocortical responses to brief confrontations with each of three female strangers were assessed under two conditions: while subjects were pair-housed with a male and while they were living in established, mixed-sex groups. Only 22% of subjects threatened stimulus females in the heterosexual pairs condition, 47% submitted and 31% showed no agonism. These agonistic behaviour patterns reliably predicted whether a female would become dominant or subordinate in a mixed-sex group. When animals were housed in established social groups, both dominant and subordinate females either showed similar responses to stimulus animals as they did in the earlier condition or became somewhat less responsive. Plasma cortisol levels did not correlate with agonistic behaviour and were not elevated by stranger-encounter testing. Finally, in the first 10 days following group formation, subordinate females that had shown ovulatory cyclicity prior to group formation were significantly more likely to receive persistent aggression from their dominant female groupmate than subordinates that had been anovulatory. These results suggest that attainment of social status between female marmosets is closely related to pre-existing individual differences in agonistic behaviour, whereas tolerance between females depends upon ovarian function.

Work, Status, and Income: Men in the American Occupational Structure since the Late Nineteenth Century

The historical record rarely presents researchers with precisely the evidence they desire. This is particularly true for social historians and like-minded scholars, whose subjects left precious few signs of their passing. Consequently, certain data have borne a disproportionate evidentiary load in social-historical research. The occupation a person pursued is one key piece of information on which scholars have come to depend. Our understanding of the historical social structure and where people fit into it is bound up with the interpretation of occupations. But this reliance on occupation as the primary social locator in historical research depends on some largely unexamined premises. Whether scholars group occupations or convert them into numerical status measures, they make assumptions about the nature of the occupational structure. When researchers incorporate change over time into their analyses, they suggest that the meaning of occupations remained stable for the purpose of measuring social mobility, class position, or group status-attainment. This assumption has been the subject of little discussion and even less research. For all the use to which historians have put occupation, there has been little effort to assess systematically its stability as a social or economic indicator.

Family and school environments, adolescents’ aspirations and young adults’ status attainment: Ability-attitude group differences

The study, which is a follow-up analysis of an earlier investigation in theJournal, examined relationships between adolescents’ perceptions of family and school environments, their aspirations and measures of social-status attainment, for young adults with different levels of ability and varying attitudes to school. Data were collected from 330 Australians who were 11-, 16-, and 21-years-old, respectively, during three surveys. The young adults were classified into four groups, defined conjointly by ability and cognitive attitudes to school. Within each group, regression surfaces were constructed from models that included terms to account for possible linear, interaction, and curvilinear relationships. The findings indicated that within various ability-attitude contexts, adolescents’ perceptions of environments and their aspirations operated differentially to be related to measures of young adults’ social-status attainment. Thus, the two longitudinal studies, when considered together, suggest that our understanding of variations in students’ school-related outcomes may be enhanced by exploring in greater detail contexts that are defined by ability and attitude dimensions.

Sibling and Environmental Correlates of Young Adults' Status Attainment

This study used longitudinal data to investigate associations among sibling-related variables, adolescents' perceptions of family and school learning environments, and social-status attainment measures, for 300 young Australian adults from different social-status groups. The findings indicated that: (a) sibling-related variables continued to have a number of significant associations with young adults' social-status attainment after taking into account mediating relationships between adolescents' learning environments and the attainment measures, and (b) these relationships between sibling and attainment measures varied for young adults from different social-status groups.

Family environment and cognitive correlates of young adults' social status attainment: ethnic group differences

A longitudinal sample of 21-year-old Australians from Anglo-Australian, Greek and Southern Italian families was used to examine relationships of children's cognitive performance, family learning environments, adolescents' perceptions of family learning contexts, and measures of young adults' social status attainment. Generally, the findings using a regression approach indicated that there were ethnic group differences in the relations between parents' academic socialisation, children's cognitive performance, and measures of young adults' social status attainment. The results also showed that in each ethnic group, adolescents' perceptions of parents' support for learning had strong associations with young adults' status attainment.

Ethnicity, Family Environment and Social-Status Attainment: A Follow-up Analysis

In this study longitudinal data were used to examine relationships among family context, adolescents’ aspirations and young adults’ social-status attainment. The investigation was a follow-up study of two previous investigations that were published in this Journal. In the sample were 21-year-old Australians from Anglo Australian, Greek and Southern Italian families. Regression surfaces were constructed from hierarchical models that examined possible linear, interaction and curvilinear associations among the variables. Typically the findings indicated that a family context measure, defined by parents’ aspirations and adolescents’ perceptions of their parents’ support for learning, was a moderate to strong predictor of young adults’ status attainment. Also, the results revealed that family context continued to be an important variable in the analysis of relationships between adolescents’ aspirations and the status attainment of young adults from different ethnic groups.

Job Mobility and Social Ties: Social Resources, Prior Job, and Status Attainment

Job Mobility and Social Ties: Social Resources, Prior Job, and Status Attainment

ETHNICITY, ABILITY, ASPIRATIONS AND SOCIAL STATUS ATTAINMENT

In this study longitudinal data were used to examine relationships among children's intellectual ability, adolescents' aspirations and young adults' social-status attainment. The sample included 21-year-old Australians from Anglo-Australian, Greek and Southern Italian families. Regression surfaces were constructed from hierarchical models that examined possible linear, interaction and curvilinear associations among the variables. Typically, the findings indicated that in each ethnic group adolescents' aspirations had moderate to strong associations with status attainment. For Anglo-Australian and Greek young adults the relationships between ability and attainment were, in general, mediated by adolescents' aspirations. In contrast, for Southern Italians, ability continued to be associated with the educational and occupational attainment of the young adults.

Educational Attainment and Upward Mobility: Prospects for Filipino Americans

Education was once considered as “the great equalizer,” the means by which those who were economically or socially disadvantaged could increase their life chances and improve their station. Today, the notion of education as the key factor in upward mobility is not so easily accepted. kr example, Lipset and Bendix, and Blau and Duncan have shown the importance of education in achieving high social and occupational status and income, and Nachmias gives evidence that higher levels of education increase one’s chances for power and prestige.’ On the other hand, the studies of Coleman, Gintis, and Jencks throw doubts on the dominance of education over other factors affecting mobility.2 Although there is debate around education and status attainment, the controversy seems to revolve not so much on whether education is important, as on whether it is dominant in determining social mobility or status attainment. This paper takes the position that education may not be the “great equalizer” it was once purported, but it can, and often does, increase one’s opportunities. United States census statistics show that additional years of schooling result in increased earnings, although the size of the increment varies among different population groups. This paper will review education and social mobility in relation to Filipinos in the United States. What factors affect the educational aspirations of Filipino high school seniors is the focus of a survey conducted by the author. From this study, recommendations to increase the educational participation and level of Filipino Americans will be offered.

Social mobility or status attainment, or social mobility and status attainment?

Social mobility or status attainment, or social mobility and status attainment?

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

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.

Toward Methods for a Quantitative Comparative Sociology: A Reply to Burawoy

Previous articleNext article No AccessCommentary and DebateToward Methods for a Quantitative Comparative Sociology: A Reply to BurawoyDonald J. TreimanDonald J. Treiman Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by American Journal of Sociology Volume 82, Number 5Mar., 1977 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/226429 Views: 10Total views on this site Citations: 5Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 1977 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Nobuo KANOMATA Problems of Comparison in Social Sciences: Context vs. General Principle, Journal of Japan Society for Fuzzy Theory and Intelligent Informatics 16, no.33 (Jan 2004): 208–214.https://doi.org/10.3156/jsoft.16.208 Bibliography on Comparative Education Research, (Jan 1982): 37–44.https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-027934-3.50009-4David Schweitzer Social mobility, status attainment, and class formation: Theoretical, ideological, and methodological problems in international comparative research, Sociological Spectrum 1, no.33 (Jul 2010): 209–246.https://doi.org/10.1080/02732173.1981.9981634Kevin B. Smith Class Structure and Intergenerational Mobility from a Marxian Perspective, The Sociological Quarterly 22, no.33 (Dec 2016): 385–401.https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1533-8525.1981.tb00669.x Arne L. Kalleberg , and Larry J. Griffin Class, Occupation, and Inequality in Job Rewards, American Journal of Sociology 85, no.44 (Oct 2015): 731–768.https://doi.org/10.1086/227087

Reply to Daniel Bertaux's Assessment

Previous articleNext article No AccessCommentary and DebateReply to Daniel Bertaux's AssessmentMaurice Garnier, and Lawrence E. HazelriggMaurice Garnier Search for more articles by this author , and Lawrence E. Hazelrigg Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by American Journal of Sociology Volume 82, Number 2Sep., 1976 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/226318 Views: 1Total views on this site Citations: 2Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 1976 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:ROBERT M. HAUSER The Structure of Social Relationships: Cross-Classifications of Mobility, Kinship, and Friendship, (Jan 1982): 205–267.https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-333060-4.50016-4David Schweitzer Social mobility, status attainment, and class formation: Theoretical, ideological, and methodological problems in international comparative research, Sociological Spectrum 1, no.33 (Jul 2010): 209–246.https://doi.org/10.1080/02732173.1981.9981634

The Demographic Transition: Stage Four

The concept of the three-stage demographic transition from preindustrial to industrial society is here reviewed and revised. The rules of the third stage of the transition, in which socioeconomic development of the society and upper economic status of individuals are associated with declining fertility, do not apply to 20th-century America. A fourth stage, in which fertility level is positively related to the condition of the economy, is described for the native white urban population of 20th-century America. The speculation is offered that a fifth stage may be developing, in which the attainment of equal social and employment status by women is related to a decline in fertility. Though technological change is the prime mover throughout, demographic changes are effected through changes in the economic structure of society.