The Role of Other Family Members in Intergenerational Occupational Mobility*

The concept of “occupational origin” has traditionally been measured by father's occupation only, especially in studies of occupational mobility. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether the occupations of other family members are additional components of men's occupational origins Using data from the National Longitudinal Surveys of Mature Men, the traditional father-son mobility table was expanded to include paternal grandfathers' occupations and mothers' occupations. Log-linear analyses of these expanded mobility tables showed that paternal grandfathers' and mothers' occupations have significant associations with sons' occupations, controlling for level of fathers' occupations. The association between grandfathers' and sons' occupations is stronger than that between mothers' and sons' occupations. It was concluded that, while father's occupation is the main component, it does not fully capture the impact of occupational origin. Consequently, intergenerational mobility may be less frequent than is indicated in traditional father-son mobility analyses.     

Migration Theories and First Nations Mobility: Towards a Systems Perspective*

Au Canada, la recherche sur la migration des autochtones vers les centres urbains a mis en avant l'importance de facteurs économiques, les mou‐vements de retour étant expliqués comme un échec lié aux difficultés d'adaptation. Les facteurs sous‐tendant la migration vers les villes ont été peu étudiés, et des études récentes ont mis l'accent sur l'ampleur des mouvements plutôt que sur d'autres théories. Cet article suggère des voies selon lesquelles on peut avoir recours à une approche systémique pour intégrer des facteurs des contextes politique, économique et social ainsi que des liens individuels, institutionnels et de culture de masse. The migration of Canadian Aboriginal people to cities has usually been understood as economically motivated, with return migration to Aboriginal communities resulting primarily from failure to adapt to urban life. However, the reasons underlying migration have rarely been directly addressed, and recent studies of migration have focussed on the size of flows, rather than relating this migration stream to theories of migration developed in other contexts. This paper suggests ways in which a systems perspective on migration can be used to incorporate elements of the political, economic and social context, as well as individual, institutional and mass culture links between the two areas.     

Nonviolent Action from a Social-psychological Perspective*

A social-psychological perspective, used in the analysis of three cases of nonviolent direct action, combines the “exchange theory” of Homans and the two and three dimensional approaches for the analysis of interpersonal behavior suggested by Leary and Bales. The three dimensions are: dominance-submission, positive-negative, and goal, oriented-deviant. Once the behavior of a nonviolent actor has been identified in this three dimensional space, the expected behavior of his opponent can be predicted.     

The Structure of Intergenerational Relations in Rural China: A Latent Class Analysis

Most existing typology studies of intergenerational relations have used samples in North America and Europe. The present study expands on previous research by determining whether similar family relation typologies could be found using a sample of Chinese rural elders. The data were derived from a survey of 1,224 older adults in China's rural Anhui province in 2009. Latent class analysis revealed 5 types of intergenerational relations in rural Chinese families: (a) tight‐knit, (b) nearby but discordant, (c) distant discordant, (d) distant reciprocal, and (e) distant ascending. The authors argue that the distant ascending ties reflect the strong filial obligations that Chinese adult children have toward their parents and that the distant reciprocal ties reflect collaborative and mutually beneficial parent–child relations in rural China in the context of massive rural‐to‐urban migration. The findings of this study demonstrate how family relations in contemporary China are shaped by the larger economic, geographic, and cultural contexts.     

Labor Market Structure and Career Occupational Status Mobility: A Theoretical Model*

Sociological explanations of career or intragenerational occupational status mobility generally have not taken into explicit account the effects of labor market structure. Rooted in structural-functionalist sociological theory or neoclassical economic theories of the labor market, models typically misrepresent the process of individual occupational status mobility, primarily by including only individual characteristics. Dual labor market theory is introduced, direct as well as indirect effects of labor market structure on career occupational status mobility are outlined, and a theoretical model is presented. It is hypothesized that labor market structure will have direct effects on opportunities for career occupational status mobility that are independent of the effects of individual characteristics. Additional indirect effects are suggested: through their effects on social network structures, labor markets operate as job opportunity information filters.     

Organizational Contradictions in Public Bureaucracies: Toward a Marxian Theory of Organizations*

An alternative approach to organizational theory is outlined, based on Marxian categories and propositions. The concepts of “productive force” and “social relations of production” are specified in terms of various organizational phenomena such as organizing activity vs. organization; historical contradictions between organizational control structures and new forms of organizing work activity (e.g., occupational and professional status groups vs. administrative rationalization and bureaucratization; bureaucratic and technocratic administration vs. self-organization of labor and workers' control); the contradictions between such organizational dimensions as labor-power and its manifestations in terms of skills and knowledge, the object of labor (complexity of task structure), the means of labor (technology), the division of labor, the control of labor (cost-accounting and hierarchical authority relations), and the organization of labor (e.g., either in terms of occupations and professions or unions, corporate management, state bureaucracies, or self-organization and workers' control). Organizational contradictions between functional as well as historical phases of the work process are described for work organizations, in general, and for public service bureaucracies and courts of law, in particular. For example, administrative and technical innovations designed to increase productivity tend to come into contradiction with strategies of established authority structures (e.g., of the professional judicial elite) designed to expand domain, thus impeding or nullifying various organizational reform efforts. The paper concludes with a more general discussion of Marxian method.     

The American Educational Structure and the Reproduction of Social Class*

While considerable attention has been drawn to “reproduction” theories of education, little empirical research has been conducted within this framework. This paper uses the reproduction perspective to examine how various mechanisms of the American educational structure contribute to the maintenance of the mental-manual division of labor within class structure. Using a national, longitudinal sample of high school seniors, we look at the reproduction effects of public versus private schooling, the composition of school communities and curriculum tracking. We find that reproduction results from the schooling experiences of a majority of students and that tracking is the most important mechanism in this process. However, nonreproduction is apparent as well which points to some issues that reproduction theories must address to provide viable explanations of the role of education in society.     

Political Economy,Social Movements and State Power: A Marxian Perspective on Two Decades of Resistance to the Narmada Dam Projects*

Abstract In this article, I put forward a Marxian analysis of the conflict over dam-building on the Narmada River in central and western India, which seeks to bring out how in this specific conflict it is possible to discern the workings of the master change processes that have moulded the Indian trajectory of postcolonial capitalist development. I start by showing how the concrete case of dispossession in the Narmada Valley is expressive of how the development strategies that defined the postcolonial nation-building project have been moulded in such a way as to create a de facto transfer of productive resources to the country's dominant proprietary classes. I then move on to argue that these features of the political economy of India's postcolonial development project can be understood as the sediment of struggles between social movements from above and below in the decades immediately prior to Independence. Arguing that the postcolonial development project has unravelled, I outline the fundamentals of an analysis of the characteristics of social movements from below in the conflictual field of force which is emerging in its wake. Finally, I draw on the trajectory of resistance to dam-building on the Narmada to articulate a series of reflections on the nature of state power in India and the possibilities that might exist for the state to function as an enabling space for the struggles of subaltern social groups.     

Production Workers and perceptions of Intraorganization Mobility *

This paper examines the intraorganizational mobility interests of production workers in manufacturing organizations. Substantial numbers of workers report not only being interested in mobility within their organizations, but many also claim to be actively pursuing that objective. The immediate supervisor is found to be a central figure in their goal achievement plans.     

Language and the Self: An Expanded View from a Symbolic Interactionist Perspective*

Language and the self are two of the most important elements in Mead's account of human development and action. Despite the importance of language and the self to symbolic interactionism, little attention has been devoted to exploring their interrelationhip, either theoretically or empirically. Some reasons for this neglect are suggested. By merging Mead's view of language and the self with a functional linguistic perspective new possibilities are displayed for expanding our understanding of this relationship. These are developed by considering the: a) ontogenetic, b) categorical, c) expressive, d) performative, and e) transformative aspects of the interrelationship between language and the self.     

Class Domination and Ideological Hegemony*

Sociological theory poses the issue of whether ideational or coercive factors provide the central basls of social order. The former view maintains (and requires) that a value consensus exist in the empirical world; the latter assumes the existence of a ruling class which dominates the ideational institutions of the society. A preliminary scrutiny of available evidence suggests that: (1) a value consensus does not exist, and (2) there is a high concentration of wealth and economic control which appears to extend into vital political and ideological areas, thereby implying the existence of a dominant or ruling class. Based upon these conclusions, the concept of ideological hegemony is introduced as a significant component of a Marxist view of social order. The hegemonic process is described and available evidence is examined in the areas of political socialization and mass media. A pattern in which debate and discussion are circumscribed while alternative values and world views are ignored or suppressed was found to characterize these two areas. This pattern was seen to provide further support for the Marxist view that an ideological hegemony imposed by the dominant class is the ideational manifestation of a social order based upon coercion.     

Intergenerational Mobility of the Mexican‐Origin Population in California and Texas Relative to a Changing Regional Mainstream

We combine two approaches to gauge the achievements of the Mexican‐origin second generation: one the intergenerational progress between immigrant parents and children, the other the gap between the second generation and non‐Latino whites. We measure advancement of the Mexican‐origin second generation using a suite of census‐derived outcomes applied to immigrant parents in 1980 and grown children in 2005, as observed in California and Texas. Patterns of second‐generation upward mobility are similar in the two states, with important differences across outcome indicators. Assessments are less favorable for men than women, especially in Texas. We compare Mexican‐Americans to a non‐Latino white reference group, as do most assimilation studies. However, we separate the reference group into those born in the same state as the second generation and those who have migrated in. We find that selective in‐migration of more highly‐educated whites has raised the bar on some, not all, measures of attainment. This poses a challenge to studies of assimilation that do not compare grown‐children to their fellow natives of a state. Our model of greater temporal and regional specificity has broad applicability to studies guided by all theories of immigrant assimilation, integration and advancement.     

Rural-Urban Migration and Social Mobility in Third World Metropolises: a Cross-National Study*

Two implicit models have provided the major frameworks for rural-urban migration research in developing societies: one model, the underprivilege model, predicts that rural migrants enter the bottom rungs of the urban occupational structure and suffer inequality in status attainment in the city; the other model, the push up model, suggests that the influx of rural migrants provides a structural impetus to upward social mobility for the urban natives. This study synthesizes relevant findings from several major Asian and Latin American metropolises and thereby provides a cross-national test of the two models. The paper rejects both models and explicates structural reasons why the models do not hold true in Third World cities.     

Minority Group Status and Self-evaluated Class*

Self-evaluated class status is shown to vary among white Protestants, Catholics, Jews, and black Protestants. Holding economic status constant, Jews are most likely to select the middle- (or upper-) class label, followed by white Protestants, white Catholics, and black Protestants. Thus, the independent effect of minority status on self-evaluated class status reinforces the ranking directly attributable to the economic levels of each of the four groups. Also, the congruence between self-identified class and objective economic status is closer among Jews and white Protestants than among white Catholics or black Protestants. The hypothesis that affiliation with a minority necessarily reduces class consciousness was, therefore, not supported.     

Class, work, and politics*

Le texte explore la relation entre la classes sociale et l'idéologie politique en utilisant les résultats d'un sondage-échantillon effectué parmi environ 1800 Canadiens au travail. En se basant sur les catégories de classe de Marx et les développements théoriques de Carchedi, l'auteur fait ressortir des différences modérées entre les classes pour ce qui a trait à l'appui du mouvement ouvrier, les dépenses encourues pour le bien-être social et pour une nouvelle répartition des revenus. Une analyse de régression démontre qu'une attitude plus gauchiste dans la classe ourvière reflète certains aspects des conditions de travail. En effet, la situation au travail joue un rôle considérable dans l'attitude politique, endehors des différences associées à la classe sociale. Par contre, la famille et l'instruction ne se révèlent pas comme étant des facteurs importants pour expliquer la relation entre la classe et l'idéologie politique.
The paper explores the relation between social class and political ideology using data from a simple survey of approximately 1800 Canadians with jobs. Using Marxist class categories, following theoretical developments by Carchedi, moderate class differences are found to support the labour movement, social welfare expenditures, and redistribution of income. A regression analysis shows that the more left-wing position of the working class reflects a number of aspects of working conditions. Indeed, aspects of the work situation have a considerable impact on political attitudes beyond those differences associated     

Class,conformity and political powerlessness*

Ce document clarifie le lien entre deux traditions indépendents de recherche sociale: 1/ les recherches de Kohn traitant des expériences du travail comme L'origine des différences de conformitè extérieure entre les classes sociales; et 2/ la documentation considérable qui démontre la relation négative entre les classes sociales et L'impuissance politique subjective. Les données d'un échantillon de London, Ontario confirment cette dernière relation et montrent que deux éléments expliquent cette relation: L'éducation et le contrôle du travail. On discute ensuite L'importance de ces résultats pour L'extension de la thèse de Kohn sur les classes sociales et la conformité. This paper makes explicit the link between two independent bodies of social research: 1/ Kohn's work on occupational experiences as the root cause of social class differences in external conformity; and 2/ the extensive literature demonstrating the negative relationship between social class and subjective political powerlessness. Findings from a London, Ontario sample confirm the latter relationship and show that two occupation-related factors - level of educational training and level of control in the workplace - account for this relationship. The significance of these results for extending Kohn's class and conformity thesis are discussed.