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Researchers have typically understood access to elite positions in the social structure either in terms of a structural-functional focus on ability or a class-reproduction focus on inheritance. This paper argues, and empirically demonstrates with a study of access to Harvard College, that a political- organizational perspective incorporates and goes beyond the insights of each of these perspectives. Using concepts such as cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1977a) and organizational field (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983), hypotheses regarding who gets into Harvard College are generated and tested. Political mobilization as well as historic ties among elites are both key factors in determining admissions outcomes. Though academic merit is a prime determinant of admission to Harvard College, there was evidence that affirmative action for legacy applicants, minorities (but not Asians), athletes, and working-class males was also in effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rytina concludes NPAH by commenting that much of sociological research on social stratification "remains wedded to the findings of an earlier era" and that "reconsideration is in order" (p. 333). Since at least 1992, Rytina's publications have presented a fascinating but non-standard approach to analyze and understand social stratification. Network Persistence and the Axis of Hierarchy: How Orderly Stratification is Implicit in Sticky Struggles. [Extracted from the article]

Although college education is a key to upward mobility, students from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds are less likely to enter and complete college than their more advantaged peers. Prior literature has illuminated how cultural capital contributes to these disparities. An alternative conceptualization of cultural capital, however, suggests that it can also play a role in social mobility. In this study, we build on and extend the literature on cultural mobility by proposing that exposure to education can benefit not only individuals but also families. We examine the influence of older siblings who attended college on the experiences of younger college‐going siblings in families where neither parent has completed college (i.e., first‐generation families). We find that students rarely rely on their older siblings as sources of information and advice, except in a few instances where older siblings attended the same institution. However, both the topics and nature of conversations between parents and students differ between families with and without older college‐educated siblings. The primary benefit of having college‐educated siblings is thus related to students' engagement with and support received from parents. These findings have important implications for cultural capital research and understanding experiences of first‐generation college students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The accounts of upwardly mobile professionals can shed light on conflict and cultural dispositions (what Bourdieu referred to as habitus). There are currently few empirical studies investigating the specific aspects of the habitus that might change or the implications of these changes on cross‐class relationships. Drawing on qualitative interviews with a total of 30 white and African American upwardly mobile individuals, we explore three ways in which upwardly mobile individuals experience a shift in their habitus and the implications of these changes on interactions with family members, friends, and colleagues. Specifically, upwardly mobile professionals report significant change in their dispositions toward new experiences and "horizons," food and health, and language and communication. These changes foster "flashpoints" of conflict with non‐upwardly mobile family members. We find that whites and African Americans report very similar types of conflicts, but African Americans in our study downplay the conflict more than their white counterparts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Migrating to a new country is often associated with difficulties such as social isolation, financial strain, language barriers, and cultural differences. Less is known about how social mobility brought about by migration may be related to the emotional dispositions of immigrants (also referred to as subjective well-being). To examine this relationship, we utilize data from a representative sample of 1,268 first-generation immigrants from 80 different countries living in South Florida. Changes in perceived social mobility between the homeland and the United States-moving up and down the socioeconomic ladder-are indeed associated with differences in immigrants' negative dispositions. We draw from literature on expectations, social comparisons, and subjective class status to explain these findings. We do not find a statistically significant association between changes in socioeconomic status and positive dispositions, which may suggest that losses outweigh migration-related gains. Additionally, findings reveal that nondominant groups fare worse than Cubans (the dominant group in the region) with regard to dispositions. Social comparisons to the dominant ethnic group may explain this, as well as perceptions of relative deprivation experienced by groups not favored by immigration policies and underrepresented in social and economic institutions. We conclude by discussing implications on how negative emotional dispositions represent risk factors that could affect immigrants' mental health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we examine how immigrants from eastern Africa to the Minneapolis and St. Paul metropolitan area understand and navigate the U.S. color line and its implications for nonwhites. Although these immigrants are subject to constraints based on their racial status as black, they mobilize other intersecting aspects of their identities to manipulate racial classifications in the hopes of attaining upward mobility in the United States, even when doing so creates other social costs for them. Eastern African immigrants draw on their ethnicity and, among Muslim immigrants, their religion to differentiate themselves from African Americans, who occupy the lowest position in the U.S. racial hierarchy. In challenging their categorization as racially black and seeking to move up the racial hierarchy, Eastern African immigrants refine the color line to distinguish between African-American blacks and non-African-American blacks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In-depth interview data reveal that workplace context and the social characteristics of clients and coworkers play an important role in shaping how upwardly mobile individuals experience class at work. While respondents did discuss their working-class backgrounds as a liability, as might be expected, they also described ways in which they experience their backgrounds as an occupational asset. These findings challenge the notion of a linear relationship between class and culture, suggesting instead a complex, fluid relationship between class, culture, and occupation, where the “class” of a job does not necessarily determine the class culture needed for that job. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Career aspirations have assumed a central place in our understanding of the process of social mobility, yet aspirations themselves have been subject to remarkably little scrutiny. We conduct an empirical analysis of the dynamics of aspirations in a cohort using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Young Men. Our results indicate that (1) occupational aspirations decline with age; (2) the overwhelming majority of young men have high aspirations at some point; (3) occupational aspirations, highly unstable among teenagers, become more stable with age; and (4) differences by race and social origin grow with age, reflecting growing race and social class differences in educational attainment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The process of religious affiliation is mediated by institutions such as the family, which provide a network of ties to the public sphere. Variations in the likelihood of those with no religious affiliation in high school (N=900) becoming church members by the time they reach 30 are explained in terms of a combination of individual attributes, such as educational and spatial mobility, and changes in structural location, such as the transition to marital and parental status. Panel data from the Career Development Study show that women's chances of affiliation are more affected than are men's by parents' religious homogamy, getting married, and having children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the original 1962 Blau and Duncan data for white males, I compare relative amounts of inequality in the distributions of occupational prestige, earnings, autonomy, and job skills. Also assessed are the degree of `status rigidity" (or intercorrelations) among these four dimensions of occupational inequality and the simultaneous relations among these four dimensions in a father-to-son occupational mobility model. These findings are compared to those obtained with Duncan's socioeconomic index to determine whether additional information can be obtained when using independent measures representing the multiple dimensions of occupational inequality versus using the SEI alone. Only minor discrepancies are found, and these relate to autonomy and earnings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyze male occupational attainment using separate models in which occupational level is measured by indigenous socioeconomic index (SEI) scales, indigenous prestige scales, and a common prestige scale. Other than some consistent societal differences, the SEI scales produce highly similar results in both societies. In sharp contrast, both indigenous and common prestige scales indicate a stronger relative effect of origin (compared with education) on occupation in Great Britain. The dimensions of prestige and socioeconomic status thus seem to tap different aspects of the social mobility process, and the societies differ in the transmission of prestige hut not socioeconomic status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]