Aims to inform students, scholars, and educators about the complex processes and factors that promote or impede education's potential to enhance individual advancement within the socioeconomic structure of a late-industrialized country within the context of modern capitalism.

The postwar orthodoxy postulated that education is both a mechanism for upward social mobility and an engine for economic growth. This book challenges these mainstream conceptions. Using Greece and the Roma people in particular as a case study, Themelis examines qualitative and quantitative social mobility findings to explore the changes associated with education and to analyze their importance for individuals and society.