Introduction

For most of those who study social mobility, it is interesting because it is a vital part of a bigger picture. For sociologists, it enables them to be able to better understand how society is structured. One of the most important contributions to such sociological research was Erikson and Goldthorpe’s Constant Flux in 1992. This book was a major comparative study of social mobility across nine different countries. However, one of the most revealing parts of the book with regard to why social mobility should be studied at all is on the very first page: ‘Discussion of social action requires reference to actors who have, in the last analysis, to be recognized as individual men and women: we must as Stinchcombe has put it, see the social structure as being “peopled”’ (Goldthorpe and Erikson 1992: 1).

The question is whether sociological research manages this ‘peopling’ successfully or not, or whether it falls back on a preference for the creation and analysis of structures within which people are slotted. This same question also applies to the work of economists. Throughout the different theories outlined in this chapter, how social mobility is examined is always a product of a broader set of beliefs or principles within which it is positioned. This applies to sociologists with their adherence to providing macro-level structural explanations of how society works, or economists and their commitment to mathematical modelling as the route to understanding better how scarce resources are allocated.

The problem with this approach to social mobility is that, as a concept, it is always defined – and thus trapped – within this broader set of principles. Hence, the understanding of what social mobility is and its importance is always partial.

Pitirim Sorokin and the meaning of ‘stratification’

The major pre-war sociological contribution to understanding social mobility came from the work of Pitirim Sorokin. The way in which Sorokin considered social mobility was broader. Less trammelled by the development of an academic discourse in the area (which, as in any area of established academic discourse, can close off debate by setting parameters to discussion), Sorokin was able to consider the meaning of social mobility.