C. Arnold Anderson

A Skeptical Note on the Relation of Vertical Mobility to Education

The assumption that in contemporary society vertical mobility depends upon formal education is tested with data from England, Sweden, and the United States. The upwardly mobile group is found to comprise mainly persons of typical, not superior, schooling, though among the few individuals with superior training there is relatively high probability of upward mobility. Detailed data for England reveal that recruits to each stratum outnumber inheritors. A large fraction of the new upper stratum is of lower origin and median schooling. At the same time, a considerable fraction of even the better-educated sons of upper-class fathers drop down the occupational status scale. Circumstances other than schooling play a major part in mobility.

Expanding Educational Opportunities: Conceptualization and Measurement.

This paper re-examines data on inequality of opportunity for higher education in the light of the debate aroused in Sweden by the U68 report. Earlier data for four countries (U.S.A., Sweden, Spain and Germany) are used to portray diverse status profiles of students: neither level of national income nor level of university enrolment appreciably affects selectivity of attendance. Changes in rates of attendance for three status categories in Sweden from 1950 to 1970 are measured in three ways. Convergence between the status categories in rates of enrolment is demonstrated.

REGIONAL AND RACIAL DIFFERENCES IN RELATIONS BETWEEN INCOME AND EDUCATION

tion between extent of schooling and income are interpreted as indicators of the significance of schooling as measured by differences in economic status. An examination of such data suggests that the status benefits of schooling are of differing magnitude in various sectors of the population. Among white males who were at or near their peak earning years (45-54) in 1950, each four-year increment of schooling was accompanied by a successively greater increment to median income (Table 1). The income differential between high-school and college graduates was decidedly the greatest.l Thus, among southern white males an advance from less than five to eight completed grades yielded about

The International Comparative Study of Achievement in Mathematics

1,000 more income; advance from eight to twelve grades yielded another

Food Rationing and Morale

1,200; and a further advance from twelve to

Societal Characteristics within the School: Inferences from the International Study of Educational Achievement

THE LACK of achievement data for pupils in different nations has been called the missing link in comparative education.1 When we have measures of outcomes of instruction (cognitive, non-cognitive, or other) to serve as dependent variables we can then proceed with attempts to explain the varying outcomes in terms of the operations of schools and the characteristics of their social milieu. At that same time a group of educational psychologists from several countries were moving toward a similar proposal. These converging research interests were crystallized by a representative of the curriculum field who directed a pilot study.2 On its successful completion, plans were made for a more rigorous investigation. An Office of Education grant supported the international portion of the work and the testing within the United States. Each participating country bore its own internal costs. For obvious reasons mathematics was chosen as the

A Comparison of Book Reviewing by the AJS and the ASR

A RATIONING system manifests the typical characteristics of a social invention. While food rationing did not originate in the last war, the most definite development in modern times occurred then in European nations. In the United States we are now putting together a rationing system out of elements indigenous to our own culture and on the basis of European models. The inventive process is tentative, and we are not wholly conscious of what the ramifications may be. When rationing spreads throughout a society, a new stateway is emerging. Fundamental cultural attitudes regarding the appropriate methods of distributing goods are being revised. New modes of cooperation, voluntary or enforced, and new techniques of social control are being tested. The foundations of group morale during crises are laid bare. Rationing is urgent in its motivation and widely ramifying in its effects; it deserves to be called a major social invention. In both structure and functioning a rationing system has its sociological no less than its economic elements. The operation of a rationing system provides crucial ex-

The Adaptation of Education to a Mobile Society

ment cross-nationally. The International Educational Achievement (IEA) studies produced large quantities of data. The hope was that these data would yield some understanding of the factors that affect educational outcomes and provide a basis for improving school performance. While much has been written about the IEA endeavor, little has been done to relate the IEA findings to societal characteristics. This article will attempt to do so. It will explore the relation of national school achievement with economic development, national communications systems, and national social and cultural indices.

World Patterns of Education

Complementary to a scientific interest in professional journals as a means of scholarly communication, editors of these journals have several reasons for exploring the types of public they serve and the selective processes by which each journal issue comes into being. Within sociology there is an interest in comparing the American Journal of Sociology (AJS), the oldest journal, with the American Sociological Review (ASR), the official journal of the American Sociological Association. An annual report on the Row of manuscripts for the ASR is given in the American Sociologist, and a similar report is given by the editor of the AJS at the annual meeting of editorial advisors. A step toward more detailed analysis of editorial operations was taken by the editorial office of the AJS a couple of years ago when tabulations were made of the amount of time taken for each step between receipt of manuscript and publication: interval for referees to indicate they would read the paper, interval for reply from referees, and so on. That tabulation will be repeated in the near future, and editors of other sociological journals have been requested to make parallel tabulations in the interest of greater efficiency. The sharp rise in the number of sociological books published has created a greater competition between articles and book reviews for the available space in each issue, One has the impression that writing by sociologists has increased more rapidly than the total number of pages available in sociological journals, much as the latter have multiplied. Thus editors repeatedly face the question of how many and which books should be reviewed. And, with this pressure for space in each issue, is there perhaps too much overlapping of reviews by the AJS and ASR? The problem of space allocated to reviews in each journal separately is also a major problem in insuring coverage of the output of books, avoiding adoption of fashions as to which books or which kind will be reviewed, etc. (see Stinchcombe and Ofshe 1969). Previous tabulations were made of books reviewed between 1962 and 1965 and between 1966 and 1967 by the AJS and/or the ASR. The frequencies for 1962-65 are given in table 1 and those for 1966-67 in table 2. During the first period, each journal reviewed about a third of the books reviewed by the other. During the second period, the ASR continued to review a third of the books covered by the AJS, but the AJS reviewed less

Educational Dilemmas in the USSR

Mr. Andersons thesis is that the American educational system is quantitatively adequate for any demands of high-level manpower likely to be imposed during the next few decades. The qualitative disparities within the system, where not actually beneficial, are readily corrected without Herculean reform programs. The fluid and diverse processes for occupational choice by students have proved their capability for the occupational reorientations called for by changes in the economy. Accepting the efficiency criterion, the social and intellectual basis for educational selection are undergoing effective modification. Mobility, both between generations and between occupational positions, is massive and flexible. While manpower projections have appropriate uses in microanalyses, educational policy is not prudently to be based upon such projections in macro terms. Mr. Nam agrees that a sociological perspective on manpower problems can be useful, but questions Mr. Andersons theoretical approach. Mr. Hollister discusses the need to reduce educational flexibility to achieve the removal of unnecessary inefficiency in planning.