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LIFECOURSE OF THE SOCIAL MOBILITY PARADIGM 203

population into hierarchically superposed Sorokin not only offers empirical evidence
classes. It is manifested in the existence of that the composition of the society is fluid
upper and lower social layers’ (Sorokin, and changing; he also interprets this social
1959: 11). Such schemas had already emerged mobility through an original structuralist
under the influence of Social Darwinism in view of institutional mediations. According
England at the end of the nineteenth century to him, vertical mobility functions through
3
(Szreter, 1984). Sorokin uses this perspec- ‘membranes’, ‘staircases’, ‘elevators’ or
tive to disprove the Marxian analysis of class ‘channels’ which ‘permit individuals to move
struggle; according to him, the proletariat up and down, from stratum to stratum’
was both numerically weak compared to the (Sorokin, 1959: 164). The most important of
growing number of middle class people, and these agencies are the army, churches,
qualitatively deficient compared to the mem- schools, and political, economic, and profes-
4
bers of the ‘upper classes’. This is Sorokin’s sional organizations. This structuralist view
first key contribution to shaping the field; is supported by a functionalist comparison
as we will see below, it contributed power- between the social structure and the human
fully to focusing debates on the functional body: he considers these agencies of vertical
aspects of social stratification and social circulation ‘as necessary as channels for
mobility, which were seen as ways to mobi- blood circulation in the body’ (Sorokin,
lize talent and effort in rapidly modernizing 1959: 180). In these channels, there seems to
societies. exist a kind of ‘sieve’ ‘which sifts the indi-
Sorokin made two other key paradigmatic viduals and places them within the society’
contributions to the field. At first sight, they (Sorokin, 1959: 182). Cuin (1993) has even
appear as simply logical, if clever, extensions suggested that Sorokin’s theory is ‘hyper-
of his initial insight, one in the direction of structuralist’ since individuals are not really
methods, the other offered as an interpretive actors: they are educated, tested, selected,
framework. and distributed by these agencies. Given the
Methodologically, Sorokin proposed to inequality of individual abilities, not only
measure social fluidity using a new tool: shaped by the environment, but also based on
mobility tables, and especially intergenera- heredity, social improvement can only
tional tables, which testify to society’s ability happen if these agencies produce social
to redistribute talent over the long run. Social mobility by assigning the right persons to the
mobility is defined as ‘any transition of an right positions, according to their physical
individual or social object from one position and intellectual abilities.
to another’ (Sorokin, 1959: 133). Sorokin’s These three elements in Sorokin’s
schema of gradation makes it equivalent to approach seem to form a unified whole:
vertical mobility, ‘ascending and descending, modernizing societies need a good measure
or social climbing and social sinking’ of social fluidity, and their major institutions
(Sorokin, 1959: 133). He uses an intergenera- must certainly be providing it, since mobility
tional mobility table to analyze changes in the tables reveal significant amounts of move-
distribution of incomes in a population of 788 ment between vertically arranged positions.
fathers and sons from the US, and he infers But upon reflection, the components of
from these data that ‘each economic stratum Sorokin’s paradigmatic revolution are not
of Western societies is composed not only of that closely connected; in fact, the tensions
sons of fathers who belong to this stratum, but between them prefigure many of the debates
in a considerable proportion of newcomers’ in the field over the following decades, as we
(Sorokin, 1959: 478) and that ‘only an will see in the next few pages.
insignificant part of each economic class First, albeit important, gradation schemes
remains in the same class during five or more are but one way to examine mobility and the
generations’ (Sorokin, 1959: 479). circulation of individuals between the various