Social Mobility and Intergroup Antagonism

This paper reevaluates certain aspects of Dahrendorf's conflict theory in relation to social mobility. Specifically, the relationship between the degree of openness or closedness of the mobility opportunity structure of society and the degree of intergroup antagonism is examined. A game simulation is initiated whereby the researcher is able to create simulated situations of varying mobility opportunity and observe, by means of pre- and posttest questionnaires, the relative antagonism between groups within the situation and the participants' latent antagonism outside the simulated situation. The findings provide support for Dahrendorf's hypothesis, but also indicate that further dynamics are involved in the structure of mobility systems.