Upward Social Mobility and Political Orientation

L’expérience de la mobilité sociale- Plaidoyer pour une approche par le discours

“…Dans le « camp » de l'hypothèse d'acculturation se retrouvent par ailleurs d'autres pistes de recherche que celle d'acculturation, comprise dans le sens que lui attribue Blau. Il est ainsi possible de donner l'exemple de l'hypothèse de la « surconformité » [overconformity] (Hopkins, 1973), ou de l'hypothèse de « réduction de la dissonance cognitive », telle qu'appliquée à l'analyse de la mobilité sociale (Jackman, 1972;Lopreato, 1967). Il apparaît ainsi que l'idée générale de l'hypothèse d'acculturation et de ses variantes est de mettre en avant les effets d'une socialisation secondaire conduisant à une adaptation partielle ou totale au nouveau groupe.…”

Social mobility and musical tastes: A reappraisal of the social meaning of taste eclecticism

“…Using Peter Blau's political acculturation model (Blau, 1956), a number of scholars claim that the political attitudes of socially mobile people tend to reflect a fairly balanced influence of their primary and secondary socialization. This leads to the development of attitudes somewhere in between those of their class of origin and class of destination (Abramson & Books, 1971;Jackman, 1972;Lopreato, 1967;Segal & Knoke, 1971;Thompson, 1971). In cultural matters, this ''intermediate pattern'' also appears more likely to occur than any strict realignment.…”

Social mobility, status attainment, and class formation: Theoretical, ideological, and methodological problems in international comparative research

“…Among the mobility consequences that appear recurrently in both the analytical and contradictory empirical literature are (1) right-wing political extremism (e.g., Chesler and Schmuck, 1969;Rohter, 1969;Grupp, 1969;Lipset and Raab, 1970); (2) political orientation and party preference (e.g., Janowitz, 1958;Lipset and Bendix, 1959;Willensky and Edwards, 1959;Stacy, 1966;Lopreato, 1967;Segal and Knoke, 1968;Lopreato and Chafetz, 1970;Barber, 1970;Thompson, 1971aThompson, , 1971bAbramson and Books, 1971;Abramson, 1972;Jackson and Curtis, 1972;Jackman, 1972;Hopkins, 1973;Schweitzer, 1974;Seeman, 1977); (3) racial prejudice and ethnic hostility (e.g., Blau, 1956;Tumin and Collins, 1959;Silberstein and Seeman, 1959;Bettelheim and Janowitz, 1964;Hodge and Treiman, 1966;Seeman et al, 1966;Leggett, 1968;Barber, 1970;Schweitzer, 1977;Seeman, 1977). Other consequences include a wide array of behaviors extending to patterns of participation in occupational and voluntary associations, differential fertility rates, family cohesion, decline in working-class solidarity and traditional class conflict, mobility attitudes, feelings of relative deprivation and status rejection, and a variety of psychological alienations.…”

“…With very few exceptions (e.g., Lopreato, 1967;Schweitzer, 1977), intervening psychological factors such as status frustration and feelings of status rejection are seldom measured and incorporated directly into the analysis, although in theory they are presumed to have an important conditioning impact on predicted behavioral responses to social mobility or immobility. Objective measures of social mobility and status inconsistency must be viewed only as Indicators of psychological stress.…”

“…Comparative evidence based on surveys conducted in several European countries and the United States indicates that upward mobility is associated with an increase in political conservatism (Lipset andZetterberg, 1956, 1959;Lopreato, 1967;Butler and Stokes, 1969;Lopreato and Hazelrigg, 1972). These studies, however, indicate that upwardly mobile sons of manual fathers in Europe remain less conservative in party choice than their new middle-class peers and adopt a political stance lying somewhere between their working-class origin and their middle-class destination.…”