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In a 'meritocratic' society, people's achievements mainly reflect their own efforts and talents - if you are reasonably bright and motivated there is little stopping you from succeeding in life. In Social Mobility Myths, Peter Saunders, Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Sussex, sets out to convince the political class that much of what they believe (or say they believe) about social mobility in this country is either false or more complicated than they think. According to Saunders, modern Britain is a much more open and meritocratic society than most of us realise and talent and motivation are the key drivers of success and achievement. Saunders examines the political circumstances in which the social mobility debate is w being played out and identifies four specific 'Social Mobility Myths': The myth that Britain is 'a closed shop society' in which life chances are heavily shaped by the class you are born into; The myth that social mobility, already limited, is w getting worse; The myth that differences of ability between individuals either do t exist, or are irrelevant in explaining differential rates of success; The myth that governments can increase mobility via top-down social re-engineering within the education system and greater income redistribution. According to Saunders, most politicians across all parties accept these myths. They wrongly assume that social mobility in Britain is very limited and that class origins count for much more than personal effort and talent in shaping people's destinies. Furthermore, they commonly express their sense of outrage that a class-ridden, closed society is becoming even more class-ridden and even more closed - thus the scene has been set for yet ather bout of ineffective but expensive social engineering aimed at dismantling the imagined inequities of the British class system. In Social Mobility Myths, Saunders investigates the link between intelligence and social class using empirical sociological models. He argues that by igring intelligence, current thinking is in danger of spawning policies that will t work, and which might even make things worse. The bottom line is this: we cant hope to develop good policies if we igre the key influence on the phemen we are hoping to change.Product Identifiers
PublisherCivitas
ISBN-101906837147
ISBN-139781906837143
eBay Product ID (ePID)106629848
Product Key Features
AuthorPeter Saunders
FormatPaperback
LanguageEnglish
TopicSocial Studies: General
Additional Product Features
Place of PublicationLondon
Content NoteIllustrations
Author BiographyPeter Saunders is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Sussex. He is also a freelance consultant and independent author. He was previously Social Research Director at the Centre for Independent Studies, Sydney, and Research Manager at the Australian Institute of Family Studies, Melbourne.
Out-Of-Print Date27/06/2013
Date of Publication31/05/2010
Country of PublicationUnited Kingdom
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