Abstract
Many theories explain how culture is linked to class reproduction but few explain how culture is linked to class mobility. This article argues that this theoretical imbalance is problematic as it ignores key stratification processes. The article then develops three concepts that link culture to downward mobility and three concepts that link culture to upward mobility. These concepts offer initial steps toward understanding how cultural differences between the classes are associated with class mobility as well as class reproduction.
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Another perspective maintains that mobility occurs due to random events, such as the age at which children experience their parents’ divorce or as the outcome of meeting an unusual gatekeeper (Conley, 2005; Rivera, 2015). This perspective, however, considers mobility as a fluke rather than as a systematic outcome of cultural patterns.
Scripts are similar to Swidler’s (1986) strategies of action.
Individuals explain their attraction to their cross-class spouse by identifying cultural complements. Middle-class-origin spouses felt that they grew up with parents who were overly involved in paid work and who were insufficiently emotionally expressive. Although they disliked these traits, they felt they internalized them. Middle-class-origin respondents remembered feeling drawn to working-class-origin spouses with the opposite traits – an ability to disconnect from work and express their emotions. Although selecting a spouse is different than selecting an employee or advocating for a student, the same principles apply.
Consider two early-career doctors. The first grew up in an upper-middle-class suburb, exceled in extra-curricular activities such as theater, singing, and swimming, attended an elite college, and graduated with high grades from a top-tier medical school. A second early-career doctor grew up in the working-class, routinely helped his brother fix cars, assisted his father with his work as an electrician, and developed a hobby of wood-carving while attending a mid-ranked college and medical school. The first begins his job as a doctor with little experience with one of the key skills doctors need: using their hands to gain knowledge and to solve problems. The second begins the same job with deep experience using his hands. The second is likely to pick up hands-on information faster, become more skilled at intricate procedures, and more accurately diagnose problems that involve feeling patients’ bodies.
Anyon (1981) finds that working-class schools teach students to follow rules without question while middle-class and elite schools do not.
Lareau (2011) and MacLeod (2008) have followed their respondents for years. While these studies are exceptional, what I have in mind is borrowing the research design used in the National Study of Youth and Religion and applying it to the topic of culture and mobility. This means collecting detailed survey and interview data on culture and class with a nationally representative panel.
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The author would like to thank Elizabeth Armstrong, Jane Rochmes, Duke Sociology’s culture workshop, and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful feedback.
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Streib, J. The unbalanced theoretical toolkit: Problems and partial solutions to studying culture and reproduction but not culture and mobility. Am J Cult Sociol 5, 127–153 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41290-016-0015-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41290-016-0015-5