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suggest and then to impose, though not with- empirical data: the programs of the scientific
out some resistance, ways in which a given meetings of Research Committee 28 of the
phenomenon should be productively International Sociological Association,
researched. We will argue that this has been which are usually held a few times a year. In
done under a few very powerful assumptions, recent years, many new themes have been
some of which may now be put more vigor- explored, indicating that the social mobility
ously in question, especially at the periphery paradigm may be evolving, or at least that it
of the field. is confronted with the challenge of new
Our chapter will proceed in three stages. anomalies and contending interpretations.
In the first section, we will use several avail-
able reviews of the social mobility literature 1
to portray the inception and the evolution of
the social mobility paradigm. We start from THE SOCIAL MOBILITY PARADIGM
Sorokin’s contribution not only because it
came first, but also, more importantly, In this section, we analyze the evolution of
because it offered a number of powerful, and the paradigm of social mobility from its cre-
yet somewhat disparate, insights into social ation in the 1920s to the end of the 1970s.
mobility. We then show how subsequent devel-
opments in this field selected some of these
insights, while others were largely neglected Sorokin’s creation of the social
or marginalized in the emerging literature. mobility paradigm
In the second section, we provide empiri-
cal indications for our interpretation of the Sorokin’s Social Mobility (1927), reprinted
evolution of the field, using a review of the in 1959 in the volume Social and Cultural
papers published in the specialized journal Mobility, can be considered, as a paradig-
Research in Social Stratification and Mobility matic revolution in Kuhn’s sense. Recently
(RSSM), from 1981 to 2006. RSSM has arrived in the US from Russia, where both
become the most representative specialized the Tsarist government and the Communists
journal in the field and the privileged jailed him, Sorokin wants to find evidence
medium of publication for members of for substantial levels of social fluidity in
2
RC28. We use this material to show that, by modern societies; such fluidity he considers
and large, a certain paradigmatic view of as a scientific ‘anomaly’, which cannot be
social mobility research became dominant explained either by Social Darwinism or by
and turned into normal science. Meritocracy, Marxism. These approaches to social
especially through education, and a focus on inequalities were incapable of interpreting
individual trajectories, rather than institu- the shift from an ascribed to an achieved
tions, became the central themes, relegating status order. According to Sorokin, ‘neither
other issues to the periphery. the attacks of the radicals against the caste
In the third section, we point to recent aristocracy, nor the exaggerated dithyrambs
indications of a broadening of the field of to the upper classes as the offspring of a long
social mobility: more attention is now paid to existing hereditary aristocracy seem to be
other institutions at play in the transmission warranted by the facts’ (Sorokin, 1959: 457).
of privilege, such as the characteristics of Marxism as well as Social Darwinism pre-
labor markets, changes in family composi- supposed a static social structure rather than
tion, health, and welfare states. We discern in the fluid composition of present occupational
this evolution the growing influence of the groups.
lifecourse paradigm, which has led to the Sorokin uses a simple system of gradation
exploration of many new research avenues. to describe the social structure: ‘Social strat-
This is briefly illustrated with another set of ification means the differentiation of a given