Class and ambition in the status attainment process: A Spanish replication

There are two principal theoretical schools that seek to explain status outcomes in early adulthood: those focusing on intergenerational transmission of class privilege and those emphasizing individual characteristics, particularly ambition. The first may be called the structuralist school and the second the psycho‐social school, following the Wisconsin Model of Status Attainment. A second structuralist perspective, Segmented Assimilation, highlights transmission of socio‐economic status across immigrant generations, but emphasizes the positive role of co‐ethnic resources for upward mobility and preventing downward assimilation. We examine these alternative predictions using a large longitudinal sample of youths in Spain that includes both children of native parentage and children of immigrants. Spain possesses characteristics that make it uniquely suitable to examine these predictions. Results show that both family socio‐economic status and ambition, measured by adolescent educational aspirations and expectations, play important roles in educational and occupational attainment, but the influence of family status persists even after controlling for ambition. The influence of co‐ethnic nationalities disappears after these controls, except among Chinese and Filipino youths, a result consistent with segmented assimilation. Predictive models of status attainment yield identical results for children of immigrants and children of natives, indicating that in Spain, they have become part of a common youth universe. Theoretical and practical implications of the analysis are discussed.     

Jaccard-Spline index of structural proximity in contact networks

Network analysts are increasingly being called upon to apply their expertise to groups for which the only available or reliable data is a contact network. With no opportunity to gather additional data, the merits of such applications depend on empirical studies that validate the employment of structural constructs based on contact networks. Fortunately, we possess such studies in abundance. One of the strongest research traditions in social network analysis is the development of formal constructs that may be employed in analyses of networks. I suggest that greater insight into predictive success of network constructs may be acquired by addressing the following question: what features of the contact network in which a dyad is situated allow the prediction of other relations with an accuracy that validates the imputation of the latter given data on the former? In this article, I present findings on the structural contexts of dyads in contact networks and the relationship of these contexts with two fundamental forms of cohesive cognitive relations—accorded interpersonal influence and perceived interpersonal agreement. Based on these findings, I formalize a measure of structural proximity in contact networks with values that correspond to the conditional probabilities of these two forms of cohesive cognitive relations. The substantive settings of this analysis are policy groups with members who are embedded in contact structures based on regular interpersonal communication on policy issues and cognitive structures based on perceived interpersonal agreement and accorded interpersonal influence.     

Testing the modernization hypothesis and the socialist ideology hypothesis: a comparative sibling analysis of educational attainment and occupational status

In this study, we present a comparative sibling analysis. This enables us to test two major social mobility hypotheses, i.e. the modernization hypothesis and the socialist ideology hypothesis. We employ survey data on brothers in England, Hungary, the Netherlands, Scotland, Spain, and the USA, covering a historical period from 1916 till 1990. Results show that the effects of parental social class on educational attainment are smaller in technologically advanced societies, and that the effects of parental social class on occupational status are smaller in social-democratic and communist societies. In addition, the total family impact on occupational status declines with modernization. But overall, we observe that the family of origin has not lost its importance for its sons' educational attainment and occupational status yet.     

Young people's decision making involvement and educational attainment

Increasing participation in family decision making is an integral part of adolescent development. This paper uses longitudinal data from four low and middle income countries—Ethiopia, India, Peru and Vietnam—to assess the relationship between young people's involvement in schooling decision making and schooling outcomes. In the pooled sample, compared to young adults who indicate to have no say in educational choices at age 19, adolescents who make these decisions unilaterally or jointly with parents are on average 17%–23% more likely to drop out by age 22. The effects are, however, heterogenous across countries.     

Adolescent aggression: The role of peer group status motives,peer aggression,and group characteristics

Recent studies of youth aggression have emphasized the role of network-based peer influence processes. Other scholars have suggested that aggression is often motivated by status concerns. We integrate these two veins of research by considering the effects of peer status motivations on subsequent adolescent aggression, net of their own status motivations, prior aggression, and peer behavior. We also explore different levels at which peer effects may occur, considering the effects of reciprocated and unreciprocated friendships as well as larger, meso-level peer groups. We anticipate that peer group effects are magnified by both size and boundedness as measured by Freeman's (1972) segregation index. We find that, net of the adolescent's aggression at time 1, both the aggressive behaviors and the status valuations of friends independently increase the likelihood of aggression at time 2, 6 months later. The aggressive behavior of friends who do not reciprocate the adolescent's friendship nomination has particular impact. The average status valuation of peer groups increases their members’ likelihood of aggression, even after controlling for their own attitudes about status, their friends’ attitudes, and their friends’ aggressive behavior. This effect is magnified in large groups and groups with high Freeman segregation scores.     

Movement without mobility: Adolescent status hierarchies and the contextual limits of cumulative advantage

This paper develops a theory of interpersonal status hierarchies that builds on and challenges traditional models of cumulative advantage. Cumulative advantage models predict stability in interpersonal status hierarchies, where status is defined by asymmetries in social relationships. According to strict cumulative advantage, initial status differences are exaggerated over time, making upward or downward mobility unlikely. We argue that interpersonal status hierarchies are instead quite fluid, with individuals regularly moving up or down the hierarchy. Individual status gains do not, however, disrupt the status order as the upwardly mobile are often pulled back to their original positions. This drag of the past generates the same long run status outcomes as cumulative advantage models, but through very different means: sustained upward mobility is rare because the upwardly mobile fail to maintain their status gains, and not because initial gains are impossible. More generally, the effect of the past limits sustained mobility in most, but not all, status hierarchies, and we expect sustained mobility where ties are stable and the expectations for reciprocity are low. We test our model using longitudinal data on adolescents, finding strong support for the theory. We end the paper with a reflexive discussion about measurement error, hypothesis testing, and “messy” longitudinal network data.     

Discovery,dissemination, and information diversity in networked groups

This paper examines the performance of networked groups on problems that require the aggregation of information from diverse sources. We present results from a behavioral experiment where groups of twenty networked participants worked on a problem that required them to pool unique information to discover a solution, and then disseminate it to others for adoption. We found that networks comprised of subgroups containing diverse information, which provided many opportunities for local synthesis of information, outperformed those comprised of homogeneous subgroups. Our findings suggest ways the configuration of a group can be altered to improve performance on a task that requires the coordinated discovery and implementation of a solution, illustrating that it is not only the total amount of information diversity in the group that matters but also its distribution within network subgroups.     

Polarization and progress in the black community: Earnings and status gains for young black males in the era of affirmative action

We examined the occupational mobility and earnings attainment of young black and white male workers in the period 1974–1981 for evidence of class polarization among blacks in the era following the 1960s' antidiscrimination legislation. Our model links occupational status and earnings to the social resources of education and father's socioeconomic status, using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, 1968–1981. The results suggest that such resources operated more strongly for advantaged blacks than for whites. But for less advantaged blacks, race remained a significant barrier. As predicted by the polarization hypothesis, enforcement of affirmative action guidelines was beneficial, but only to more qualified blacks.An earlier version of this paper was presented at the annual meetings of the Society for the Study of Social Problems, August 1987.     

The role of assets in improving college attainment among Hispanic immigrant youth in the U.S.

Despite the importance of higher education, Hispanic immigrant youth still have far lower college attainment rate than whites in the U.S. Existing studies show the significant role of household assets on educational attainment even after controlling for income. Thus, this study examines the role of homeownership and school savings on Hispanic immigrant youth's college attendance and graduation. Findings show that homeownership is a significant positive predictor of Hispanic immigrant youth's college attendance and graduation, but parent school savings is not a significant predictor. Policy and practice implications discussed.     

Routes of success: influences on the occupational attainment of young British males

Using data from the National Child Development Study, the paper develops a complex path model predicting the occupational grade achieved by 4,298 employed British males at age 33. Most British social mobility research has been based in the 'class structurationist' tradition, and the paper begins by comparing this with the 'status attainment' tradition, which is more common in the USA. The class structurationist approach has rarely analysed the factors influencing individual occupational attainment, and those working in this tradition in Britain have often assumed that people from working-class origins fare worse on average than those from the middle class because of factors associated with their class disadvantage rather than any difference in individual characteristics such as ability or ambition. Status attainment research, however, has generally found that individual ability and motivation are the key factors influencing occupational attainment, and that class origins count for comparatively little. Using various measures of class origins, parental support, qualifications, and individual ability and ambition, the paper goes on to develop a linear structural equations model which achieves a good fit to the data. The model demonstrates that individual ability is by far the strongest influence on occupational achievement, that motivation is also important, and that factors like class background and parental support, while significant, are relatively much weaker. The paper concludes that occupational selection in Britain appears to take place largely on meritocratic principles.     

Network social capital as an outcome of social movement mobilization: Using the position generator as an indicator of social network diversity

In the social mobility literature, the position generator (PG) has been used to examine the relationship between the structural location of individuals, and outcomes such as obtaining a high status job. Diversity of occupational ties (as measured by the PG) is also a significant predictor of an individual's cultural capital. A great deal of work has also been done in the field of social movements examining the relationship between networks and mobilization. However, only limited attention has been given to the position generator in this literature. Also, while past research has demonstrated that prior network ties to activists is one of the most important predictors of current activism, relatively little research has been devoted to examining network structure as an outcome of activism. The present paper builds upon these insights by utilizing data collected with the position generator on a sample of environmental movement members, and examining the relationship between individual activism (as an independent variable) and diversity of occupational ties (as a dependent variable). The result of key theoretical significance is that those who are more active in the environmental movement develop a greater diversity of occupational ties to other environmentalists. Results suggest that this process occurs over time. These findings provide evidence that social capital (as indicated by network diversity) is one outcome of social movement mobilization.     

Weak ties and contact initiation in everyday life: Exploring contextual variations from contact diaries

This study examines how the significance of weak ties varies by contact initiation and purposes of contact in everyday life. Based on data from 55 contact diaries, we analyze the extent to which diary keepers judge each of 104,361 specific contacts as beneficial after they occur, by how well they knew the target person beforehand. Our hypothesis testing and bootstrap resampling show that when a diary keeper initiates a contact, weak ties result in more gains. In contrast, when the other party starts the contact, it is strong rather than weak ties that turn out to be more beneficial to the diary keeper. Such effects vary by other contextual factors, however, particularly the purposes of contacts.     

Ethnic and gender diversity,process and performance in groups of business students in Sweden

This article investigates the complex interrelation between ethnic and gender diversity, process and performance among groups of business students. The article is based on an empirical survey of business students working on a complex assignment in groups of two to five in a small Swedish university. The results indicate that gender diversity leads to positive group outcomes, while ethnic diversity appears to create negative group outcomes. Intervening process variables, such as group communication, conflict and effectiveness in problem solving, were not found to be influenced by diversity, or to influence group outcomes. While the non‐influence of intervening variables can probably be explained by methodological difficulties, the negative outcome for ethnic diversity indicates a need to help students better manage ethnic diversity in order to reap its benefits.     

Market and non-market effects on male and female occupational status attainment

Nous étudions dans cet article le processus ?acquisition de statut social, au regard de quatre approches sur le marché du travail: 1/ le chômage structural; 2/ les cycles économiques; 3/ la théorie des files ?attente et 4/ la théorie de la segmentation. Les implications de ces perspectives sont évaluées au moyen ?un modèle ?acquisition de statut qui comporte trois dimensions: temps, antécédents socio-économiques, sexe. Notre échantillon est composé?individus qui ont obtenu laur premier emploi à temps plein entre 1961 et 1972. Les résultats de ?analyse sont en accord avec les perspectives du chômage structurel et de la théorie de la segmentation, alors que ?accord n'est que partiel avec la perspective du cycle des affaires. Et on peut conclure dans un sens ni dans ?autre en ce qui a trait à la théorie de la file ?attente. De plus, nous montrons que les caractéristiques des individus (surtout les femmes) étudiés varient dans le temps, et que ceci doit être pris en compte si ?on veut comprendre la stratification et ?acquisition de statut social dans les sociétés complexes. The paper examines the status attainment process in relation to four labour market perspectives: 1/ structural unemployment; 2/ the business cycle; 3/ queuing theory; and 4/ segmentation theory. We evaluate their implications by developing a status attainment model which varies along three dimensions - time, socio-economic background and sex -and by testing the model on a heterogeneous sample of individuals who entered their first full-time job between 1961 and 1972. The results support our structural unemployment and segmentation-theoretic hypotheses, are partially supportive of our business cycle hypothesis and are ambiguous with respect to our queuing hypothesis. The discussion relates various labour market trends over the 1961–72 period to the status attainment process. In addition, we emphasize that the characteristics of individuals (particularly of women) entering into their first full-time job are time-dependent, and that this has implications for the understanding of status attainment and social stratification processes in complex societies.     

The clubhouse model: An outcome study on attendance,work attainment and status,and hospitalization recidivism

The purpose of this outcome study is to assess the effectiveness of one clubhouse program model, Connections Clubhouse. The study was conducted on 117 randomly selected members attending Connections Clubhouse from January 1998 to June 1999. The study examines the effect of attendance rates on members' employment attainment and status, and on rate of hospitalization recidivism. Rate of hospitalization recidivism was conceptualized as the difference between number of hospitalizations after enrollment and before enrollment in the program. It is hypothesized that adult psychiatric patients, with a high rate of attendance at Connections Clubhouse, will demonstrate (a) a high rate of employment attainment and more advanced employment status; and (b) a low rate of hospitalization recidivism as compared to those with a low attendance rate. As hypothesized, the proportion of members with a high rate of attendance with no employment of any kind was significantly lower than the proportion of members with a low rate of attendance. Though less pronounced, the proportion of members with a high rate of attendance holding a more advanced employment status was significantly higher than the proportion of members with a low rate of attendance. As expected, the recidivism rate of members with a high rate of attendance was significantly lower than for members with a low rate of attendance.     

Egocentric contact networks in comparison: Taiwan and Hungary

This study compares the size and structure of egocentric networks in Taiwan and Hungary using a diary approach. Both countries have transformed from authoritarian regimes to democratic states, yet they differ in social, economic, and cultural institutions that may be common to the respective larger region where each is located. To sample the structure of each egocentric network, we extracted information from largely identical contact diaries collected in both countries, 51 from Taiwan and 138 from Hungary. After comparing sample characteristics, network size, and composition, we construct a Strength of Ties (SoT) index based on two objective and two subjective measures of ego-alter ties. We then use this index to analyze tie strength by the types of relationships. On average, the number of alters contacted in one week is much larger in Taiwan than in Hungary, and the gap remains unchanged after controlling for key socio-demographic background factors. Even though the four indicators that we use to construct the SoT index are distributed similarly among the respondents in both Taiwan and Hungary, the composite index pinpoints how the types of relationships play somewhat different roles across the nations. The findings imply that the tendency to maintain only the closest ties with kin and other close friends is linked to distrust in others, a possible ill effect lingering from the authoritarian past. The implication is partially supported by further analyses using the ISSP 2006 survey data. We address how our findings may contribute to the existing literature on the linkage between societal characteristics and interpersonal ties.     

The feasibility of goal attainment scaling to measure case resolution in elder abuse and neglect adult protective services intervention

Objectives: This pilot study describes implementation procedures of goal attainment scaling (GAS) and examines the feasibility of using GAS to measure the multifarious intervention outcome of case resolution in elder mistreatment (EM) adult protective services (APS).

Methods: Substantiated EM victims (n = 27) were recruited prospectively from the State of Maine APS. An adapted GAS approach was implemented involving development of a pre-populated goal scale menu and web-based GAS application.

Results: The GAS menu comprised 18 goals and corresponding scales spanning several domains of case resolution: social support, service access, health/functioning, enhancing independence, and protective measures. The overall GAS process had mean length 33.8 min per case. The mean GAS summary t-score (54.3) aligned with theoretical expectations.

Discussion: Without a measure of case resolution, research cannot compare the effectiveness of different EM intervention models. Findings suggest that GAS is a feasible, client-centered strategy to measure the multifarious EM intervention case resolution outcome.     

Monetary incentives,motivational orientation and affective commitment in contact centers. A multilevel mediation model

High quality contact and customer relationships are key services for all types of firms. To achieve this high quality performance standard, companies need highly motivated and committed employees, and human resources managers are responsible for designing and implementing practices capable of satisfying both economic exchanges and social exchanges in employee-organization relationships. The aim of this study is to analyze the relationships between monetary incentive expectation and affective commitment, in addition to the mediating role of motivation orientation in this relationship, in contact center employees. In particular, based on the social exchange theory (Blau, 1964), the social exchange model of Cropanzano and Mitchell (2005), and the self-determination theory (Deci, Olafsen, & Ryan, 2017), our study adopts a multilevel perspective to examine these relationships in a sample of 2367 contact center employees from 297 teams (3 or more members). The results showed that the level of performance-contingent rewards (team-level) guides the team’s autonomous motivation (team-level), which, in turn, fosters employees’ affective commitment (individual-level). The results have practical implications for human resource managers and for interventions aimed to promote contact center employees’ affective commitment, taking performance-contingent rewards into account.