Opportunities For Social Mobility Research Articles

Can Fair Share Policies Expand Neighborhood Choice? Evidence From Bypassing Exclusionary Zoning Under Massachusetts Chapter 40B

Opening up neighborhoods that offer greater opportunities for social mobility to low- and moderate-income households remains a challenge in the United States. Exclusionary zoning practices act as a barrier to current efforts by restricting the supply of affordable housing. In this paper, we examine whether fair share policies that seek to bypass these restrictive zoning practices offer one potential solution. Focusing on Massachusetts Chapter 40B, we find clear evidence that such policies build affordable housing in neighborhoods with strikingly greater opportunities for social mobility than are otherwise available to low- and moderate-income households. Leveraging novel data on 40B development addresses linked to a wide range of public and administrative records, we find that 40B produces affordable units in neighborhoods with greater economic mobility, higher performing schools, greater social capital, less pollution, better health outcomes, and lower incarceration rates than both the typical neighborhood in Massachusetts and those available to beneficiaries of the state’s Low-Income Housing Tax Credit, Housing Choice Voucher, and public housing programs. Consistent with previous research on policies that have segregated affordable housing and opportunity, we also find that neighborhoods with affordable 40B units are whiter and more affluent than average. An examination of underlying policy mechanisms suggests that 40B’s ability to bypass exclusionary zoning plays a central role in explaining differences in neighborhood characteristics between 40B and other programs. We further find little evidence to support concerns that 40B’s zoning override leads to affordable 40B units being built in the least advantaged areas of municipalities, in polluted zones, or near highways, though a non-trivial share of units are located in industrial zones. These results suggest that policies like 40B may be valuable complements to other major housing programs in the United States.

Трансграничная межкультурная коммуникация между населением Дальнего Востока России и северо-восточных провинций Китая

The article provides a brief description of the development of cross-border cooperation between the regions of the Russian Far East and northeast China, and examines the sociolinguistic aspects of intercultural communication. Attention is drawn to the opportunities for social mobility that become available to the population of the regions in connection with international economic cooperation, and the importance of the educational institutions for such cooperation is emphasized. It is concluded that there is a natural need for friendly communication between peoples belonging to such different cultures, and that communication between the population of border regions is quickly restored, after some decline during the Covid restrictions.

THE SHAPING OF A GENDER NORM: MARRIAGE, LABOR, AND FOOT‐BINDING IN HISTORICAL CHINA

AbstractThis article presents a theory that explains the rise of foot‐binding in historical China, in response to a gender‐asymmetric social mobility shock that dispersed men's quality distribution in the marriage market. The theory characterizes the marriage market equilibrium and women's competition strategies before and after the shock. Empirical evidence using archival data corroborates the theoretical predictions that greater men's social mobility opportunities encouraged foot‐binding and that a greater cost of women's labor discouraged foot‐binding. The article thus highlights that costly gender norms can be traced back to gender asymmetry in social mobility opportunities.

The Influence of Family and School in Shaping the Values of Children and Young People in the Theory of Free Time and Pedagogy

Aim. The aim of the paper was to point out that the hierarchy of values is considered the most reliable prognostic sign that expresses whether a person can behave in accordance with his environment. The author identifies the causes of the current crisis of value orientations, discusses the influence of family and school on the creation and transformation of values in the lives of young people. Methods. Through analytical-synthetic and inductive methods, the author identifies the influence of consumer society and family on the creation of value systems of children and youth. It points to the pedagogy of free time and its connection to the theories and functions of free time. Results. The author provides a summary of theoretical meanings, summaries and theories in the field of value orientation of children and youth, discovered factors that influence the development and formation of value orientation, discovered the share of family, peers and free time in the creation of a value ranking. Conclusions. Any changes in society brought a wider spectrum of information, freedom of speech, opportunities for social mobility and education, but also deepening of social inequality, deterioration of interpersonal relations, moral relativism and value chaos. Current problems of society's development and their solution also affect the way of life of young people, the process of its quantitative changes, including attitudes to life and value orientation.

성난 젊은 세대들

This study first examines the global youth crisis, symbolized by the term “Ikea Generation”, referring to young people in temporary employment who are easily used and discarded. It traces the origin of this phenomenon back to the works of the “Angry Young Men” in post-World War II Britain during the 1950s. This article compares it to contemporary South Korean youth culture. The study then analyzes three representative novels of the Angry Young Men generation: Kingsley Amis's Lucky Jim, John Braine's Room at the Top, and Alan Sillitoe's Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. After examining their contributions, the conclusion suggests Richard Hoggart's vision of the “cultured, political, and intellectual working-class minority” as a source of hope and alternative for the angry youth, as emphasized in his work The Use of Literacy.
 In particular, the conclusion highlights that just as the Red Brick universities in the UK helped eliminate the literacy gap among the working class and improved social mobility and growth, digital literacy can emerge as a new opportunity for social mobility among South Korean youth. The study emphasizes the need for national support and policy for this digital literacy for the Korean youth generation.

Travelling ‘down South’: language, cultural capital and spatiality in Chennai’s information technology sector

ABSTRACT This article examines the role of language in shaping work processes in the Indian information technology (IT) industry, which has become synonymous with the country’s ‘new’ middle class. In the South Indian city of Chennai, the industry has attracted a number of migrants from other parts of the country, including from non-metropolitan areas south of Chennai. Frequently referred to (and also self-identifying) as being from ‘down South’, many of these employees have been provided new opportunities for social mobility through IT work. Using qualitative methods, this article interrogates the discursive registers of ‘down South’. It demonstrates how the term is layered over fluency in English, a crucial form of cultural capital in the industry, to mark certain employees as possessing less ‘talent’ (or ‘merit’). Moreover, it moves beyond the emphasis on English in existing literature on the Indian middle class to determine the role of regional languages, particularly Tamil, on the IT office floor. By exploring the intersections of cultural capital with the spatialities of language and linguistic identities, this article reveals the internal diversity of the middle-class IT workforce and contributes to wider discussions on the structures of inequality that shape urban working lives.

Entrepreneurship and social mobility: Three status metaphors for future research*

We consider how entrepreneurship and employment differentially shape opportunities for social mobility across people and contexts. Specifically focusing on changes in an individual’s social status, or vertical mobility, we propose three metaphors for studying entrepreneurship: (1) production (i.e., increased status); (2) preservation (i.e., maintained status); and (3) consumption (i.e., decreased status). Each metaphor features theoretical mechanisms that account for how founding an organization can facilitate inter-occupational transitions and, thus, enable status mobility. We offer a proposed research agenda for studying entrepreneurship’s role in social mobility processes, including mechanism-specific propositions at the individual and population levels of analysis as well as guidance on sampling and measurement.

When is an academic degree the best vocational education? Bedouin professionals reflect on their life choices

ABSTRACT We test Foster’s enduring assertion that “the best vocational education is an academic degree” by examining a case study of Israeli Bedouin women and men, young professionals who shared with us their personal stories of their parents taking them out of their local separate but equal schools and moving them to the majority schooling system. The narratives we collected enabled us to follow the education journey of Bedouin children whose achievements are attributable not to institutional initiatives but to grassroot alternatives where parents and their children secured their own vocational future. We outline the professional journey of 16 men and women who moved to a Kibbutz school, mastered the majority language, matriculated, and confidently acquired academic degrees. Their narratives attest to professionalization and self-fulfillment but also awareness of the context of their upbringing and the daily pressures to sustain their social equilibrium. These young professionals fashioned themselves in the interstices between identities, developing both a hunger to participate in the global marketplace and loyalty to the local. Ending up holding jobs that contributed to their own society, and refusing to perform stereotypically minoritized vocational identities, they achieved the kinds of lives they have reason to value. Compelled to honor their journeys, we conclude that our case study corroborates Foster’s finding that the best vocational education is an academic degree, as reflected in professional achievement and enhanced opportunities for social mobility.

Drum Rhythms and Golden Scriptures: Reasons for Mormon Conversion Within Haiti's Culture of Vodou

Drum Rhythms and Golden Scriptures: Reasons for Mormon Conversion Within Haiti's Culture of Vodou

Rethinking Gentrification and Displacement: Modeling the Demographic Impact of Urban Regeneration

The urban research community tends to view gentrification-based displacement as the primary demographic impact of urban regeneration. This study reopens the discussion by asking whether urban regeneration in Israel does indeed work to the detriment of local homeowners, or whether it expands their opportunities for social mobility. By employing a micro-simulation model based on data pertaining to the households and the existing and planned apartments in the city, the study finds that whereas low-income residents are expected to be displaced, most of the middle-income homeowners will survive the process and benefit from a new apartment.

Special Admission: How College Sports Recruitment Favors White Suburban Athletes

If this book serves as a reader's first entry into the perils of college athletics, they will not be able to look at any sporting event the same. Special Admission coincides with the timing of Operation Varsity Blues, the college acceptance scandal orchestrated by Rich Singer. Kirsten Hextrum contends the fact that families have been paying for their children to be admitted to schools for decades based on false athletic careers is not a big transgression as college admissions have always been “rigged” (xi). She begins the book by assessing the rise of Caylin Louis Moore, a Black male football player from Los Angeles who attended Texas Christian University. He later became a Rhodes Scholar in 2017. Such an honor led many news outlets to recognize Moore's feat (a Black male coming out of poverty receiving such an esteemed scholarship) as a rationale for how sport provides an opportunity for social mobility for people from economically deficient communities. It is an argument that has influenced and shaped much of the discourse around the problems with college athletics. Hextrum claims this type of positioning is based on a false assumption about the utility of a college education.Special Admission disputes the claim that “America is an open and upwardly mobile society.” Hextrum uses the narratives of various student-athletes focusing on issues of race, gender, and socioeconomic status to highlight this point. She contends sports have never been a meritocracy but rather an effort to promote the success of white males in higher education. Hextrum gives a history of how the United States is the only country that integrates sports into the fabric of higher education. In other countries, participants in interscholastic sports are not allowed to play at the collegiate level; rather, they are given the opportunity to attend an academy or turn professional. Why is that not the case across the sporting landscape in the United States? Hextrum argues it is because higher education is authorized through the state. Such a framework may seem awkward to a general reader, but this approach provides a greater understanding of the power dynamics at play within college admissions and athletics. This is seen through the recruitment process, which overwhelmingly favors white athletes from middle-class communities. The author contends this is based on residency, attendance in school districts with adequate resources, and social connections that provide them with ample sporting opportunities.Hextrum's book is well researched using an array of scholarly works in education and sport studies, along with interviews that allow the reader to learn about the experiences of white student-athletes. The author identifies this population of participants in “nonexploited, non-revenue-generating sports” as critical to her overall synthesis (19). Their stories enrich the narrative of this text. The discussion surrounds how the population gained unwarranted access for perceived athletic abilities. The honesty with which many of them realize their privilege is surprising, especially since the meritocracy argument is believed on many fronts. While it can be debated whether they are exploited or not because they do not bring great financial rewards to their respective schools, the inability of students to balance the demands of school and athletic competition across racial, gender, and socioeconomic lines illustrates larger issues within the structuring of college athletics as well. Hextrum's attention to the relationship between college athletics and the admissions process is important. Selection committees have come to favor certain populations who fit prescribed criteria for student-athletes and embrace lower academic standards with a greater guarantee for admission. White middle-class families are given access to highly selective institutions that provide higher graduation rates, better placement in top graduate programs, and better job opportunities through sport.Hextrum does not simply identify the problem of privilege within college athletics. She also provides solutions, encouraging schools, the administrators they hire, and student-athletes to embrace new elements of change to create equity in higher education. For example, new selection criteria need to be developed by admissions offices that will value more than a zip code, one's physical capabilities, and connections to pay for play sporting opportunities. She also argues for a reorganization of college athletics that allows for new sporting forms to be included, recommending activities like karate, surfing, skateboarding, and tai chi. While these recommendations are worthwhile and should be considered, such propositions will be hard to enact, considering many schools focus on their profit margin when determining what non-revenue-generating sports to support financially. Overall, sport studies scholars and practitioners must add Special Admission to their libraries. This work provides insight into the interconnectedness of college athletics and college admissions and how the college athletics arms race encompasses so much of the higher education experience.

Social stratification in W.L. Warner research

The relevance of the work is due to the transformations of the system of social stratification and opportunities for social mobility, as well as the need to search for relevant approaches for their study in Europe and the United States in the 30–40s of the XX century. The article is devoted to the analysis of studies of the class structure of the American sociologist and social anthropologist William Lloyd Warner. His vision of the social structure of American society is original and based on extensive empirical research. The article analyzes the methodological foundations and features of Warner’s empirical research. One of the tasks set by the author of the article is to consider the heuristic potential of one of the most well-known approaches to the study of social stratification in world sociology. W.L. Warner was instrumental in transforming the sociological explanation of the system of social stratification in the first half of the twentieth century. He described the main characteristics of the social structure of society in the 30–40s of the XX century, for the first time showing it in a new light, as consisting of six classes. Warner is credited with introducing the method of participatory observation into sociology in the study of the system of social stratification, as well as updating the categorical apparatus introduced by the sociologist from his own experience in anthropological research. Warner's research group developed the standard index of status characteristics, well-known in world sociology, which simplifies complex quantitative calculations, which is still used in empirical sociology. The author of the article made an attempt to trace the research logic of the American sociologist, as well as to show the relationship between various methodological components of the theory of social stratification and innovative methods of empirical sociology.

Exploring the Effect of Team Identification on International Students’ Adjustment to Higher Education in the United States

International students have been continuously transitioning to U.S. colleges in pursuit of high-quality education and social mobility opportunities. Multiple studies have dealt with the adjustment of international students in their process of transitioning to a new environment. The purpose of our study is to explore if college sports fan identification can contribute to this population’s adjustment process. This study used lived experiences from 10 international graduate students regarding their college sports fan experiences and how that helped them adjust to American colleges. Results showed that answers from international students derived two themes: social and academic adjustments. Social adjustment was specified as a sense of belonging and academic adjustment was specified as finding a way to relax from their academic burden. The results of this study can help both the international student office and athletic departments to utilize college sports to help international students with their adjustment to their new environments.

The Janus face of development brokers across migration borders

AbstractEmploying an ethnographic approach, I analyse the agentive practices of a codevelopment project named Africoop, showing how it navigates the migration‐development field by blending egalitarianism rights‐based concerns with hierarchical political authority, foregrounding economic neoliberalism and translating development. Africoop advocated for migrants rights and opened up opportunities for social mobility and also reproduced gender asymmetries and power relations among Italian donors and Ghanaian recipients. By examining the organisational level of brokerage and the career trajectories of the main leaders, I unravel how social nets, aspirations and biographical paths are interwoven to reconfigure the brokers' representativeness and accountability across migration borders.

Politische Karriere und sozialer Aufstieg. Konservative und christlichsoziale Politiker aus Vorarlberg als Beispiel (1860-1918/19)

"Political Career and Social Advancement. Conservative and Christian Social Politicians from Vorarlberg as an Example (1860-1918/19). As far as the political developments in Vorarlberg were concerned, Martin Thurnher and Johann Kohler have lived in a time of rapid changes. Many of the newly elected deputies to the provincial parliament in 1870, and later also to the Imperial Council, now came from a petty or lower middle-class milieu. For them, political involvement, supported by structural factors such as the successive extension of voting rights to lower social strata, and the increasingly professional self-organization of the Catholic-conservative camp, provided an opportunity for social mobility. Martin Thurnher and Johann Kohler are just two examples of how political engagement enabled social advancement. Further quantitative and qualitative research would provide important insights into the social processes set in motion by the emergence of modern mass parties and the expansion of political participation. Keywords: social mobility, parliamentarism, Habsburg Monarchy, Imperial Council "

Toward a Social History of Modern Chinese Warlordism

Abstract The social impact of modern Chinese warlordism on China’s modern development has attracted little attention in past scholarship, which generally has been more interested in warlordism as a military-political system. This article argues, however, that warlordism developed within a social context and had a major impact on Chinese society, and this in turn suggests the usefulness of applying a social history approach to the study of the warlord period. This article makes a preliminary effort to advance this goal by identifying three main areas that could provide a framework for research on the social history of Chinese warlordism. First, the article examines debates over the social (or class) foundations of warlord power. Second, the article explores the ways in which warlordism changed the social status of military men and created opportunities for social mobility. Finally, the article emphasizes the need to look beyond the political impact of Chinese warlordism to show the social and economic effects that arose from the military conflicts of the warlord era.

The Haskins Society Journal 31 ed. by Laura L. Gathagan, William North and Charles C. Rozier

Reviewed by: The Haskins Society Journal 31 ed. by Laura L. Gathagan, William North and Charles C. Rozier Lindsay Diggelmann Gathagan, Laura L., William North, and Charles C. Rozier, eds, The Haskins Society Journal 31 (Studies in Medieval History), Woodbridge, The Boydell Press, 2020; hardback; pp. 233; 6 b/w, 3 line illustrations; R.R.P. £50.00; ISBN 9781783275731. Volume 31 of The Haskins Society Journal presents essays from the organization’s 2018 conference, along with other contributions in related fields. The Journal honours the American scholar Charles Homer Haskins and is dedicated to those aspects of the history of the central Middle Ages in which he was prominent. Its ambit is somewhat wider than that of the comparable series Anglo-Norman Studies (see my review of the latest volume elsewhere in this issue of Parergon) but nonetheless takes Norman affairs as its central focus, in line with Haskins’s own interests. Four essays deal with the Crusades. Alheydis Plassmann revisits the much-debated question of Normannitas (Norman identity). By comparing the careers of the most prominent Norman First Crusade leaders from the north (Robert Curthose) and the south (Bohemond of Taranto) Plassmann proposes that contemporaries saw very little that was specifically ‘Norman’ in their character or achievements. While useful, this conclusion does not stray too far from the view of those such as John France who have written on the topic previously. Katherine Allen Smith observes how early crusade narratives are ‘replete with references to Babylon’ (p. 50) in opposition to Jerusalem. This, in Smith’s persuasive view, is a shorthand for a series of powerful dichotomies: Islam and Christianity; pride and humility; sin and righteousness; Augustine’s earthly and heavenly cities. Clerical authors who had been trained in scripture and theology brought this mindset to bear when describing the geopolitical rivalries of their own day. Andrew Buck’s study of women and power in the crusader principality of Antioch draws on recent debates that seek to remove the framework of exceptionalism from accounts of women’s political influence and economic agency in the Middle Ages. Examining both the ruling families and the wider nobility, Buck asserts that ‘the exercise of rulership in the principality was not simply a masculine space’ (p. 117). Theodore Evergates reflects on the creation and reception of the Memoirs of Geoffroy de Villehardouin, marshal of Champagne and later of ‘Romania’, a key figure in the Latin Empire of Constantinople after 1204. The Memoirs provide one of the standard accounts of the Fourth Crusade and the sack of the eastern Christian capital by western forces. Other contributions delve into Anglo-Norman dynastic affairs and their historiography. Alexandra Locking reminds us that the celebrated marriage of Henry I and Matilda of Scotland, so crucial to uniting the Norman and Saxon royal lines, nearly did not happen. Archbishop Anselm initially objected to the match, as Matilda had taken the veil as a child, before relenting. Locking examines the contemporary debate over this controversy and the way Matilda’s reputation was later transformed to position her as a powerful royal figure. Mark Blincoe traces the shifting dynastic identity in Henry II’s charters before and [End Page 238] after he became king in 1154. Having been recognized as Stephen’s heir in 1153, Henry acknowledged this at first, but soon ignored the reality of Stephen as his predecessor in official documents, emphasizing instead continuity with the reign of his grandfather Henry I, who had died in 1135. This much is well known, but Blincoe makes the cogent point that the strategy forced Henry to implicitly deny the legitimacy of earlier claims to power in England or Normandy by his mother, the Empress Matilda, and father, Geoffrey of Anjou. On the basis of the vernacular history known as the Chronique de Normandie, Alex Hurlow argues for the continued importance of Norman identity into the thirteenth century, even if more regional in nature and in competition with the growing power of the centralizing French monarchy. Three further essays discuss social and legal issues ‘from below’. Stuart Pracy examines evidence from witness lists for manumissions in late Saxon and early Norman England to suggest that opportunities for social mobility by...

Charcoal Production in Palestinian villages - The Paradox of resistance to innovation driving rural development

An attempt to implement new charcoal-production technology in Palestinian villages in the West Bank, Jenin area, is examined in this research. The ‘retort’ system avoided air pollution associated with traditional kilns by recycling flue gases. The attempt was made against the backdrop of the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict and life under Israeli military rule. The study analyzes the relationship between supporters and opponents of the new technology and the moves leading to rural development. Based on a survey, in-depth interviews and field observations, the research identifies environmental, political, socio-cultural and economic interests, power relations and the interdependence between conflicting parties. The findings reveal the leading hamulas' (extended families) use of resistance tactics against the technology to preserve their dominant status within the socio-cultural structure, while traditional kiln usage was prevented by Israel. As a consequence, new strategies were adopted by various parties. Flexible negotiation led to an agreed resolution that opened new opportunities of social mobility and brought economic and environmental prosperity to the rural area. The study contributes to the resistance to innovation theory in traditional rural communities.

Equality of opportunity and human capital accumulation: Motivational effect of a nationwide scholarship in Colombia

We study the ex ante motivational effect of a nationwide merit and need-based scholarship in Colombia, which granted full scholarships to low-income students at high-quality universities. Specifically, we analyze how the opportunity to receive the scholarship, influenced the performance of low-income students in the national high-school exit and 9th grade exams, and their university enrollment rates. Following a differences-in-discontinuity design, we find that the opportunity to receive the scholarship significantly increased test scores at the national high school exit exam at the top of the distribution. At the 90th percentile of the distribution, eligibility for the scholarship reduced the socioeconomic achievement gap by 16 percent. We also document an increase in the post-secondary enrollment of low-income students at the top of their score distribution, even for the non-recipients of the scholarship. Finally, we estimate a positive effect on the test scores of younger 9th grade students, affecting a broader range of the distribution. Our results highlight how opportunities for social mobility encourage human capital accumulation by low-income students, thus contributing to breaking the persistence of poverty and inequality.

Integration Experiences of Former Afghan Refugees in Australia: What Challenges Still Remain after Becoming Citizens?

This paper explores, analyses, and documents the experiences of Afghan-Australians who arrived in Australia as refugees and were granted citizenship after living in Australia for several years. This research adopted a mixed method of qualitative and quantitative approaches and surveyed 102 people, interviewed 13 participants, and conducted two focus-groups within its research design. Analysis of data indicates that former Afghan refugees gradually settled down and integrated within Australian society. They value safety and security, open democracy and orderly society of Australia, as well as accessing to education and healthcare services and opportunity for social mobility. However, since the integration is a long process, they are also facing some challenges in this area. Findings of this study show that Afghan-Australians require more support from Australian governments to overcome some of these challenges particularly securing employment within their area of interests and professional occupations that they have qualifications and experiences from Afghanistan. They are also experiencing broader challenges in the area of socio-cultural issues within Australian society. Since the Afghan community is an emerging community in Western Australia, they require more support from local government to enhance their ethnic cohesion and solidarity.