The New Social Mobility

Dr Geoff Payne, Newcastle University
21 February 2013, 5.15-7.15, P/L/002
Chair: Dilan Gurgur, SPS Student

Interview with Dr Geoff Payne

Seminar presentation recording

Available to University of York students and staff here

Seminar synopsis

Social mobility – that is, the patterns of social advantage and disadvantage reproduced within families across generations – is a core feature of society, but its place in the sociological canon has been weakened because for several decades mobility analysis has been dependent on a heavily statistical methodology which was inaccessible to most British sociologists. While there is still much to gain from analysing mobility tables which show social origins and destinations in terms of social class, occupational aggregates, or even income, I want to advocate a fresh approach due to the current convergence of several new developments. These include

the recent capture and misunderstanding of social mobility in policy discourse
the accumulation of qualitative research on families and education experience, which illuminates mobility as a process rather than working back from prior outcomes
a growing recognition among mobility commentators that ‘absolute mobility’ has been too much neglected in favour of ‘relative mobility’, in particular that career profiles and structural opportunities are more important and complex than initially perceived
the emergence of a new core mobility regime in Britain at the start of the 21^st century

In addressing these four developments, and arguing for a ‘new’ social mobility, I want to unpack some of implicit assumption behind the ‘old’ mobility, rather than getting too involved in the statistics. No quantitative expertise or prior knowledge of social mobility will be needed to follow the presentation.

Dr Geoff Payne

Since directing the Scottish Mobility Study in the 1970s, Dr Geoff Payne, AcSS has written three books on mobility: Mobility and Change in Modern Society; Employment and Opportunity; and The Social Mobility of Women. A number of his articles have appeared in Sociology, British Journal of Sociology and Sociological Research Online. A former President of the British Sociological Association, he now teaches social research methods and social mobility at Newcastle University. He is currently preparing a new edition of his Social Divisions textbook, and working on a new book, The New Social Mobility.