First published in 1998. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The study of education and social mobility has been a key area of sociological research since the 1950s. The importance of this research derives from the systematic analysis of functionalist theories of industrialism. Functionalist theories assume that the complementary demands of efficiency and justice result in more 'meritocratic' societies, characterized by high rates of social mobility. Much of the sociological evidence has cast doubt on this optimistic, if not utopian, claim that reform of the education system could eliminate the influence of class, gender and ethnicity on academic performance and occupational destinations. This book brings together sixteen cutting-edge articles on education and social mobility. It also includes an introductory essay offering a guide to the main issues and controversies addressed by authors from several countries. This comprehensive volume makes an important contribution to our theoretical and empirical understanding of the changing relationship between origins, education and destinations. This timely collection is also relevant to policy-makers as education and social mobility are firmly back on both national and global political agendas, viewed as key to creating fairer societies and more competitive economies. This book was originally published as a special issue of the British Journal of Sociology of Education.

Despite the growing significance of social movements worldwide, scholarship on the subject remains largely Western in nature, with studies written primarily by Western scholars and based on the experiences of Western cultures and societies. This book makes an important contribution to the study of social movements in non-Western societies by examining their development in Iran. With a particular focus on the recent environmental movement, the author sheds new light on the implications and significance of these movements. Drawing on in-depth original research, the case study of the environmental movement is integrated into a historical and comparative analysis. Implementing the new social movement theory of Touraine and Melucci in the Iranian context, the author shows that although the reform movement of Iran is unique, in some aspects it is a continuation of the past social movements. She places emphasis on the role of women in recent Iranian social movements, exploring the significance of social movements in civil society and in instigating social change. Using the case of Iran to offer a critical framework for studying social change and transformation of non-European countries, this book fills an important gap in the existing literature on the topic. As such, it will be of great interest to scholars and students of sociology, political science and Middle Eastern studies.

The primacy of education in development agendas is unquestioned. With the gradual acknowledgement of the potential benefits that migration can hold for development, the relationship between migration and education is a growing area of research. Migration, Education and Socio-Economic Mobility explores how the decisions people make in terms of both their migration choices and educational investments, mediated as they are by gender, class, caste and nationality, can potentially contribute to earning incomes, building social and symbolic capital, or reshaping gender relations, all elements contributing to the process of economic and social mobility. Much of the existing literature examining the links between migration and education focuses either on the investment of migrant remittances in the education of their children back home or on 'brain drain' that refers to the migration of skilled workers from the developing to the developed world. Most of these discussions are firmly rooted in materialist arguments and while undeniably important, tend to underplay the social processes through which migration and education interact to shape people's lives, identities and status in society. Along with economic security, people also aspire to social mobility and status enhancement. The ideas presented in this book take a more varied and nuanced view of the relationship between education and migration. This book was originally published as a special issue of Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education.

Migration for educational purposes, once the privilege of the upper class, has become a global mass phenomenon in recent years. This volume examines, within different cultural and historical contexts, the close relationship between migration, education, and social mobility. Adopting the perspective that education includes a broad range of formative experiences, the chapters explore different educational trajectories and the local, regional, and transnational relations in which they are embedded. Three key issues emerge from the analyses: firstly, the central role of temporal aspects in terms of both the overall historical conditions and the specific biographical circumstances shaping educational opportunities; secondly, the complex agendas informing individuals' migration and the adjustment of these agendas in the light of the vagaries of migrant life; and thirdly, the importance of migrants' self-perception as 'educated persons', and the invention of new identities, and the maintaining of old identities that this involves. This book was originally published as a special issue of Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power.

Hip-Hop and Dismantling the School-to-Prison Pipeline was created for K-12 students in hopes that they find tangible strategies for creating affirming communities where students, parents, advocates and community members collaborate to compose liberating and just frameworks that effectively define the school-to-prison pipeline and identify the nefarious ways it adversely affects their lives. This book is for educators, activists, community organizers, teachers, scholars, politicians, and administrators who we hope will join us in challenging the predominant preconceived notion held by many educators that Hip-Hop has no redeemable value. Lastly, the authors/editors argue against the understanding of Hip-Hop studies as primarily an academic endeavor situated solely in the academy. They understand the fact that people on streets, blocks, avenues, have been living and theorizing about Hip-Hop since its inception. This important critical book is an honest, thorough, powerful, and robust examination of the ingenious and inventive ways people who have an allegiance to Hip-Hop work tirelessly, in various capacities, to dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline.

First published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

What are the consequences of staying in or moving out of a socioeconomically disadvantaged neighbourhood? In European urban sociology, research has mostly focused either on lower class ethnic minorities, or on white ethnic majority middle classes. By contrast, studies on upwardly mobile ethnic minorities are scarce, a gap that this book fills by looking at upwardly mobile Turkish-Germans living in Berlin. Those Turkish-Germans in Berlin, who decide to move out of a low status neighbourhood, mostly in order to find a better educational infrastructure for their children, show various strategies to keep ties back to their old neighbourhood. Moreover, the movers now living in neighbourhoods with a high share of native-German residents, where they stand out as the other, keep ties to other people with a Turkish background, not only through socializing with co-ethnics, but also through various forms of voluntary involvement. Hence, a move presents a spatial withdrawal from a socioeconomically weak and ethnically diverse neighbourhood, but it does not imply that this neighbourhood no longer plays a role in Turkish-Germans' daily practices or as somewhere with which to continuously identify. Barwick's sophisticated study shows that moving and staying are both active decisions and they both have positive and negative consequences. Thus, movers and stayers alike develop coping strategies for their respective situation, and develop particular daily practices and forms of identification with place.

The performing arts is one particular area of youth community practice can that can be effectively tapped to attract youth within schools and out-of-school settings, or what has been referred to as the "third area between school and family." These settings are non-stigmatizing, highly attractive community-based venues that serve youth and their respective communities. They can supplement or enhance formal education, providing a counter-narrative for youth to resist the labels placed on them by serving as a vehicle for reactivity and self-expression. Furthermore, the performing arts are a mechanism through which creative expression can transpire while concomitantly engaging youth in creative expression that is transformative at the individual and community level. Music, Song, Dance, Theater, and Social Work explores the innovative programs and interventions in youth community practice that draw on the performing arts as a way to reach and engage the target populations. The book draws from the rich literature bases in community development and positive youth development, as well as from performing arts therapy and group interventions, offering a meeting point where innovative programs have emerged. All in all, the text is an invaluable resource for graduate social work and performing arts students, practitioners, and scholars.

This qualitative study explores the meaning of working-class origin in the life and career of university graduates. Social transition from a working-class background to a middle-class milieu results in loyalty conflicts and communication barriers. The lack of social and cultural capital and the absent sense of an assertive self-presentation are pivotal barriers to gaining management functions. Positions in certain key sectors are not necessarily allocated according to professional capacity, but to obscure social connections, regulated by cultural codes and tests. Matthys approaches social mobility as a trajectory of identity construction in which different classes are integrated, and uses the notion of identity capital to interpret and discuss the meaning of the individual drive in social mobility.

Economic inequality is a defining issue of our time, with a handful of individuals in the United States today owning more wealth than half the population in the country. What are the psychological consequences of living in a profoundly unequal society? This comprehensive textbook is among the first to examine poverty, wealth, and economic inequality from a psychological perspective. Written by two leading scholars in the field, it provides an intersectional analysis of the impact of economic inequality on cognitive, emotional, interpersonal, intergroup, physiological, and health outcomes. Students are introduced to the diverse methods used to study poverty, wealth, and economic inequality and the strengths and weaknesses of various approaches, while the text focuses on solutions at the individual, community, and national levels to restore optimism and encourage action. Chapter features include exercises and reflection questions that help students think critically about the implications of research findings for their own lives.

Whether precipitated by political or environmental factors, human displacement can be more fully understood by attending to the ways in which a set of bodily, material, imagined and virtual mobilities and immobilities interact to produce population movement. Very little work, however, has addressed the fertile middle ground between mobilities and forced migration. This book sets out the ways in which theories of mobilities can enrich forced migration studies as well as some of the insights into mobilities that forced migration research offers. The book covers the challenges faced by both forced migrants and receiving authorities. It applies these challenges to regions such as the Middle East, South Asia and East Africa. In particular, the chapter on Iraq to Jordan foced migration tests the sincerity of the concept of Pan-Arabism; the chapters on Bangladesh and Ethiopia deal with the more historically familiar variables of warfare and famine as drivers of forced migration. This book will be of value to practitioners in the area of human rights and to scholars of racial and ethnic politics, human geography and globalization. This book was published as a special issue of Mobilities.

A group of leading sociologists present a new and compelling analysis of social mobility, one of the central topics in contemporary sociology.

Much of the literature that addresses youth unemployment has been framed within an economic paradigm and much less attention has been focused on the role played by country-specific value orientations in structuring economic activity. Drawing on extensive fieldwork research and the work of experts in Europe and the United States, this book provides a culturally nuanced analysis of key issues relating to youth unemployment. Examining the causes and consequences of youth unemployment, it explores ways forward to promote economic self-sufficiency. This pioneering work offers invaluable tailored policy solutions to tackle one of today's most important socioeconomic issues.

Dragged Up Proppa is the story of growing up working class in a forgotten England. Pip Fallow was born in the coal-miner's cottage where his family of eight lived, in a village near Durham. Pip was destined to join his father and brothers down the pit, but the closure of his village's mine in the 1980s saw him at the back of the dole queue like the rest. This is Pip's story of being 'dragged up proppa', living by his wits, working and travelling the world before finally settling a few miles from where he grew up. A lot has been written about the red wall in recent years but Pip Fallow has lived it. This is his account of some of the most important issues affecting Britain today; from levelling-up and the north-south divide, to social mobility and class, and the devastating social upheaval caused by decades of deindustrialization and government neglect. Showing how broken promises of the past impact his village and the politics of today. This is the story of a man who left school illiterate, but has now written a book. The story of a lost generation who were prepared for a life that had disappeared by the time they were ready for it, of communities with once strong social ties that have now disintegrated, and a way of living that simply no longer exists in Britain today.

Since 2003, Hong Kong has witnessed a series of large-scale protests which have constituted the core of a reinvigorated pro-democracy movement. What drove tens of thousands of citizens to the street on a yearly basis to protest? What were the social and organizational bases of the protest movement? How did media and public discourses affect the protests' formation and mobilization? How did the protesters understand their own actions and the political environment? This book tackles such questions by using a wide range of methods, including population and protest onsite surveys, media content analysis, and in-depth interviews with activists, politicians, and protest participants. It provides an account of the "self-mobilization processes" behind the historic July 1, 2003 protest, and how the protest kick-started new political dynamics and discursive contestations in the public arena which not only turned a single protest into a series of collective actions constituting a movement, but also continually shaped the movement's characteristics and influence. The book is highly pertinent to readers interested in political development in Hong Kong, and as a case study on "the power of critical events," the book also has broad implications on the study of both media politics and social movements in general.

Scholars from various disciplines have used key concepts to grasp mobilities, but as of yet, a working vocabulary of these has not been fully developed. Given this context and inspired in part by Raymond Williams' Keywords (1976), this edited volume presents contributions that critically analyze mobility-related keywords: capital, cosmopolitanism, freedom, gender, immobility, infrastructure, motility, and regime. Each chapter provides an historical context, a critical analysis of how the keyword has been used in relation to mobility, and a conclusion that proposes future usage or research.

Human mobility is dramatically on the rise; globalization and modern technology have increased transportation and migration. Frequent journeys over large distances cause huge energy consumption, severely impact local and global natural environments and raise spiritual and ethical questions about our place in the world. 'Spaces of Mobility' presents an analysis of the socio-political, environmental, and ethical aspects of mobility. The volume brings together essays that examine why and how modern modes of transport emerge, considering their effect on society. The religious significance of contemporary travel is outlined, namely its impact on pilgrimage, Christology and ethics. The essays examine the interaction between humans and their surroundings and question how increased mobility affects human identity and self-understanding. 'Spaces of Mobility' will be of interest to students and scholars seeking to understand the impact of mobility on modern culture and society, the ethics behind contemporary transport systems and the conditions of immigrants in a world of constant travel.

This volume brings together new research that bridges the domains of stakeholder theory, non-market strategy and social movement theory. Although these three research domains have developed via relatively distinct academic communities, they speak to a common set of phenomena at the intersection of business, markets, civil society, and the state. This collection sets an agenda for a more holistic theory of business and society - a theory that takes seriously the various kinds of stakeholders that make up society and have claims over business, that incorporates the goals and objectives of businesses to survive and thrive, and that places an important role on the process of mobilization and contentious interaction between actors whose goals inherently conflict. Using a range of quantitative and qualitative methods, contributors focus on a phenomenon at the intersection of business, civil society, and government. Examining markets shaped by heavy stakeholder involvement and contention, chapters explore topics such as markets for electric vehicles, medical marijuana, municipal drinking water, and cigarettes along with controversial business practice, including employment practices for LGBT workers and racial/ethnic minorities, and working conditions in global supply chains.

Most of us assume that public schools in America are unequal--that the quality of the education varies with the location of the school and that as a result, children learn more in the schools that serve mostly rich, white kids than in the schools serving mostly poor, black kids. But it turns out that this common assumption is misplaced. As Douglas B. Downey shows in How Schools Really Matter, achievement gaps have very little to do with what goes on in our schools. Not only do schools not exacerbate inequality in skills, they actually help to level the playing field. The real sources of achievement gaps are elsewhere. A close look at the testing data in seasonal patterns bears this out. It turns out that achievement gaps in reading skills between high- and low-income children are nearly entirely formed prior to kindergarten, and schools do more to reduce them than increase them. And when gaps do increase, they tend to do so during summers, not during school periods. So why do both liberal and conservative politicians strongly advocate for school reform, arguing that the poor quality of schools serving disadvantaged children is an important contributor to inequality? It's because discussing the broader social and economic reforms necessary for really reducing inequality has become too challenging and polarizing--it's just easier to talk about fixing schools. Of course, there are differences that schools can make, and Downey outlines the kinds of reforms that make sense given what we know about inequality outside of schools, including more school exposure, increased standardization, and better and fairer school and teacher measurements. How Schools Really Matter offers a firm rebuke to those who find nothing but fault in our schools, which are doing a much better than job than we give them credit for. It should also be a call to arms for educators and policymakers: the bottom line is that if we are serious about reducing inequality, we are going to have to fight some battles that are bigger than school reform--battles against the social inequality that is reflected within, rather than generated by--our public school system.

In this ethnographic study of the rural idyll, Broadlands explores rurality and the pace of rural life. In sharp contrast to the urban analytical emphasis upon speed, it gives careful thought to stasis, as rural places offer everyday opportunities for very different social situations and behavioural interactions. Based on new and extensive RCUK-funded primary research, Sam Hillyard generates an original, rigorous and thoughtful understanding of everyday rural life in the 21st century. Taking the principles of dramaturgy and rural studies scholarship, Broadlands provides a toolkit to make sense of rural change. It uses ethnography to enhance interactionist dramaturgy via cross-references with new theoretical orientations that emphasise the temporal dynamics of space in a 'knowing capitalism'. Where early dramaturgy stressed formal organisations in shaping roles and identity, Broadlands expands these concepts to include informal and transient organisations and associations. Ultimately, the book advances a new model for grasping the complexity of the rural. For researchers and students ofrural and urban sociology, this is an engaging text that reframes our understanding of rurality.

New forms of transnational mobility and diasporic belonging have become emblematic of a supposed 'global' condition of uprootedness. Yet much recent theorizing of our so-called 'postmodern' life emphasizes movement and fluidity without interrogating who and what is 'on the move'. This original and timely book examines the interdependence of mobility and belonging by considering how homes are formed in relationship to movement. It suggests that movement does not only happen when one leaves home, and that homes are not always fixed in a single location. Home and belonging may involve attachment and movement, fixation and loss, and the transgression and enforcement of boundaries. What is the relationship between leaving home and the imagining of home itself? And having left home, what might it mean to return? How can we re-think what it means to be grounded, or to stay put? Who moves and who stays? What interaction is there between those who stay and those who arrive and leave? Focusing on differences of race, gender, class and sexuality, the contributors reveal how the movements of bodies and communities are intrinsic to the making of homes, nations, identities and boundaries. They reflect on the different experiences of being at home, leaving home, and going home. They also explore ways in which attachment to place and locality can be secured - as well as challenged - through the movements that make up our dwelling places.Uprootings/Regroundings: Questions of Home and Migration is a groundbreaking exploration of the parallel and entwined meanings of home and migration. Contributors draw on feminist and postcolonial theory to explore topics including Irish, Palestinian, and indigenous attachments to 'soils of significance'; the making of and trafficking across European borders; the female body as a symbol of home or nation; and the shifting grounds of 'queer' migrations and 'creole' identities.This innovative analysis will open up avenues of research an

The authors of this timely book, Who Gets What?, harness the expertise from across the social sciences to show how skyrocketing inequality and social dislocation are fracturing the stable political identities and alliances of the postwar era across advanced democracies. Drawing on extensive evidence from the United States and Europe, with a focus especially on the United States, the authors examine how economics and politics are closely entwined. Chapters demonstrate how the new divisions that separate people and places-and fragment political parties-hinder a fairer distribution of resources and opportunities. They show how employment, education, sex and gender, and race and ethnicity affect the way people experience and interpret inequality and economic anxieties. Populist politics have addressed these emerging insecurities by deepening social and political divisions, rather than promoting broad and inclusive policies.

Honorable Mention, 2014 Distinguished Contribution to Research Award presented by the Latina/o Sociology Section of the American Sociological Association Getting Ahead tells the compelling stories of Latin-American immigrant women living in public housing in two Boston-area neighborhoods. Silvia Dominguez argues that these immigrant women parlay social ties that provide support and leverage to develop networks and achieve social positioning to get ahead. Through a rich ethnographic account and in-depth interviews, the strong voices of these women demonstratehow they successfully negotiate the world and achieve social mobility through their own individual agency, skillfullynavigating both constraints and opportunities. Dominguez makes it clear that many immigrant women are able to develop the social support needed for a rich social life, and leverage ties that open options for them to develop their social and human capital. However, she also shows that factors such as neighborhood and domestic violence and the unavailability of social services leave many women without the ability to strategize towards social mobility. Ultimately, Dominguez makes important local and international policy recommendations on issue ranging from public housing to world labor visas, demonstrating how policy can help to improve the lives of these and other low-income people.