by Harlon Romariz
This is a long-standing debate in economy and sociology, which today is revisited in face of the increase of income concentration, regardless of the expressive increment in school and university offering in the last decades. As shown by Thomas Piketty[1], less than one percent of people holds almost half of the current world wealth.
Since the middle of the last century, studies, in France with Pierre Bourdieu and in USA with James Coleman, showed that the school system ends up reaffirming the inequalities which already exist among families, reproducing the class structure of society. In the field of research of social and educational stratification, it is known that the mobility provoked by the institutionalized cultural capital is short-range, although more years of study means some increase of income. However, there are rare cases in which education could be a strong factor of social mobility between distant social strata.
More recently, several analyses arise with the goal of consider education as a positional good[2]. Using the concept of positionality of goods in the market, these analyses seek to account for what is often called “devaluation of diplomas” or “diplomas swelling”. Once before, with the expressive increase of school and university offer, especially from the 1970’s, in all over the world, this cultural good has be less rare and, therefore, devalued. This imply in the capacity of education to provoke considerable social mobility, especially in countries such as Brazil, given its structural inequality[3].
Thus, the answer to the title question could be: yes, but not socially significant. This is not to say that there are no exceptions, or, that even a small social mobility is not important for individual’s life trajectories. However, in social and macro levels, the effects are not relevant. Considering these facts, two issues arise, one of personal level and another of political level. The first concerns the possibility of personal frustration for those who believe in education as the key to social class ascension or even status gain. The second concerns the fact that if there are indeed any political interest in individuals to have real freedom of social mobility, then, others more effective and structural actions should be undertaken, beyond the school and university offer.
References and Notes
[1] PIKETTY, Thomas. O capital no século XXI. Rio de Janeiro: Instrínseca, 2014.
[2] TRIVENTI, Moris. et al. Education as a positional good: Implications for social inequalities in educational attainment in Italy. Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, v. 43, p. 39-52. 2016.
BOL, Thijs. Has education become more positional? Educational expansion and labour market outcomes, 1985–2007. Acta Sociologica, v. 58, n. 2, p. 105-120. 2015.
[3] FERNANDES, Danielle Cireno; SALATA, André Ricardo; CARVALHAES, Flavio. Desigualdades e estratificação: analisando sociedades em mudança. Revista Brasileira de Sociologia, v. 5, n. 11, p. 86-112. 2018.
To cite this text (ABNT rules):
SANTOS, Harlon Romariz. Is social mobility possible through schooling? Blog Observare: 2018. Disponível em: https://observare.slg.br/is-social-mobility-possible-through-schooling/. Acesso em: dia mês abreviado. ano.