Calling for a broader, new approach to social mobility research, Pathways to Social Class: A Qualitative Approach to Social Mobility moves beyond pure statistics to use qualitative techniques-such as life stories and family case studies-to examine more closely the dynamics of mobility and address more fundamental sociological questions.

Between Generations concerns powerful memories that continue to shape the present, but in this case in almost all families throughout the world. What is it that parents pass down to their children? How can we understand the mixture of conscious and unconscious models, myths, and material inheritance that are intertwined in both family and individual life stories? These questions turn out to be unexpectedly complicated, and answering them has suggested how a life-story approach can provide a new key to research on the dynamics of the family and on social change. Because culture is the essence of what makes individual humans into a group, the core of human social identity, its continuity is vital. Cultures are always changing, but the stability of languages, religions, and cultural habits can be astonishing. In contrast to the claims of culture to represent tradition over centuries, stands the sheer brevity of individual human life. Hence, the universal necessity for transmission between generations exists. This paperback edition in the Memory and Narrative series, brings together, contributions from the Americas and Asia as well as from Western and Eastern Europe. They combine the techniques of life story research with the insights of family therapy. Interdisciplinary and intellectually stimulating, the volume will appeal to students in many areas, including history, sociology, literature, psychology, and anthropology.

For a period of over seventy years after the 1917 revolutions in Russia, talking about the past, either political or personal, became dangerous. The new policy of glasnost at the end of the 1980s resulted in a flood of reminiscence, almost nightly on television and more formally collected by new Russian oral history groups and western researchers. This book is a fascinating collection of life stories and family history interview material collected by the editors and two Russian groups of interviewers.

Contents:
1. Introduction Daniel Bertaux, Anna Rotkirch and Paul Thompson
Part One: Creating Soviet Society
2. The Cultural Model of the Russian Popular Classes and the Transition to a Market Economy Daniel Bertaux in collaboration with Marina Malysheva
3. Equality in Poverty: the Symbolic Meaning of Kommunalki in the 1930s-50s Victoria Semenova
4. Coping with Revolution: the Experiences of Well-to-do Russian Families Ekaterina Foteeva
Part Two: Personal and Family Life
5. 'What Kind of Sex Can You Talk About?' Acquiring Sexual Knowledge in Three Soviet Generations Anna Rotkirch
6. Family Models and Transgenerational Influences: Grandparents, Parents and Children in Moscow and Leningrad from the Soviet to Market Era Victoria Semenova and Paul Thompson
7. 'Coming to Stand on Firm Ground': the Making of a Soviet Mother Anna Rotkirch
8. The Strength of Small Freedoms: Stories Told at the Dacha Naomi Roslyn Galtz
Part Three: The Marginal and the Successful
9. Religion and Survival in Stalin's Russia: the Old Believers in the Urals during the 1930s-50s Irina Korovushkina Paert
10. The Returned of the Repressed: Survival after the Gulag Nanci Adler
11. Success Stories from the Margins: Soviet Women's Autobiographical Sketches from the Late Soviet Period Marianne Liljeström
12. Epilogue Researching with Interview Sources on Soviet Russia

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

Calling for a broader, new approach to social mobility research, "Pathways to Social Class: A Qualitative Approach to Social Mobility" moves beyond pure statistics to use qualitative techniques--such as life stories and family case studies--to examine more closely the dynamics of mobility and address more fundamental sociological questions.
Up to now, the extensive sociological literature on mobility has been based around the survey method. As a result, we have access to abundant statistical data, but there is little information available to explain how and why people follow particular life paths. To overcome these limitations, Bertaux and Thompson have developed an alternative, complementary approach using life stories, case histories of whole families over several generations, or case studies of local communities. Employing the case-study approach does not prevent the identification of structural trends; on the contrary, it allows us to analyze those collective processes through their local effects, restoring the links with classics of sociological thought.
Bertaux and Thompson tackle such problems as: What exactly is transmitted between generations; is it wealth or land, occupational models or skills, social networks, or values and orientations? What kinds of assets can immigrants draw on? How can a social elite survive the upheaval of a popular revolution? What is the impact of marriage on the mobility of men and women? How far can belonging to one locality rather than another, or choosing a particular house, shape mobility paths and aspirations? Do dreams of mobility matter?
This volume promises to inspire other sociologists towards the richly revealing and highly significant findings that a broader-based-approach to social mobility will enable.
"Daniel Bertaux" is the director of research at the Centre d'?tude des Mouvements Sociaux of the CNRS and EHESS in Paris. His many publications on social mobility and on life stories include "Destins Personnels et Struture de Classe and Biography and Society."
"Paul Thompson" is a research professor in sociology at the University of Essex. His books include" The Edwardians, The Voice of the Past, I Don't Feel Old, and The Myths We Live By." His is co-editor with Bertaux of "Between Generations: Family Models, Myths and Memories.

"Between Generations" concerns powerful memories that continue to shape the present, but in this case in almost all families throughout the world. What is it that parents pass down to their children? How can we understand the mixture of conscious and unconscious models, myths, and material inheritance that are intertwined in both family and individual life stories? These questions turn out to be unexpectedly complicated, and answering them has suggested how a life-story approach can provide a new key to research on the dynamics of the family and on social change.
Because culture is the essence of what makes individual humans into a group, the core of human social identity, its continuity is vital. Cultures are always changing, but the stability of languages, religions, and cultural habits can be astonishing. In contrast to the claims of culture to represent tradition over centuries, stands the sheer brevity of individual human life. Hence, the universal necessity for transmission between generations exists.
This paperback edition in the Memory and Narrative series, brings together, contributions from the Americas and Asia as well as from Western and Eastern Europe. They combine the techniques of life story research with the insights of family therapy. Interdisciplinary and intellectually stimulating, the volume will appeal to students in many areas, including history, sociology, literature, psychology, and anthropology.
Daniel Bertaux is director of research at the Centre d'Etudes des Mouvements Sociaux, ?cole des Hautes ?tudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris. His books include "Destins personnels et structure de classe, Biography and Society. La mobilit sociale, Les rcits de vie," and (with Paul Thompson) "Pathways to Social Class." Paul Thompson is research professor in sociology at the University of Essex, and a fellow at the Institute of Community Studies in London. His books include "The Voice of the Past," "The Edwardians," and "The Work of William Morris."

Migration and Identity concerns the shaping of identity using the theme of migration, revealing how migration acts as a crucible for individual social development and for wider social change. The International Yearbook of Oral History and Life Stories aims to increase our understanding of the recent past and the changing present through autobiographical testimony, in the form of written biography, oral history, and life story interviews.