The Contexts of Social Mobility: Ideology and Theory

This book contains a major statement by one of America’s most preeminent sociologists on what remains an important problem in American history and social analysis: the nature and extent of movement within American society from one status to another. The most important images of mobility involve self-improvement by changing location (going to the frontier, coming to the big city), and by changing social class (second-generation immigrants). Almost all sociological and historical analysis has been limited to these themes. Strauss extends the concept to a wide range of ideologies, institutional contexts, and social movements; his analysis is based on a formal theory of status passage and develops a partial theory of mobility.