The Downwardly Mobile

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Jessi Streib
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Downward Mobility ◽  
Academic Knowledge ◽  
Class Reproduction ◽  
Low Levels ◽  
Upper Middle Class

Downward mobility is common, but we know little about who falls from the upper-middle class, how, and why they don’t see it coming. This chapter provides an overview of how intergenerational downward mobility occurs. It shows that both resources and identities are associated with downward mobility from the upper-middle class. Individuals who inherit relatively high levels of academic knowledge, institutional insights, and money tend to develop an identity that leads them to maintain high levels of these resources. They use these resources to reproduce their class position. Individuals who inherit relatively low levels of academic knowledge, institutional insights, or money tend to develop an identity that encourages them to maintain their resource weaknesses. Without the resources that schools, colleges, and professional workplaces reward, they tend to enter downwardly mobile trajectories. They do not necessarily anticipate their impending downward mobility as they observe times when they or their parents moved toward class reproduction while not having high levels of these resources.

Privilege Lost

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessi Streib
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
White Youth ◽  
Downward Mobility ◽  
Academic Knowledge ◽  
Time Periods ◽  
Class Reproduction ◽  
Upper Middle Class ◽  
Class Youth

One in two white youth born into the upper-middle class will fall from it. Drawing upon 10 years of longitudinal interviews with over 100 American youth, this book shows which upper-middle-class youth are most likely to fall, how they fall, and why they do not see it coming. The book shows that upper-middle-class youth inherit different amounts of academic knowledge, institutional insights, and money from their parents. Those raised with more of these resources enter class reproduction pathways, while those raised with fewer of these resources enter downwardly mobile paths. Of course, upper-middle-class youth whose families give them few resources could switch courses by acquiring these resources from their community. They rarely do. Instead, they internalize identities that reflect their resource weaknesses and encourage them to maintain them. Those who fall are then youth raised with resource weaknesses, and they fall by internalizing identities that discourage them from gaining more resources. They are often surprised by their downward mobility as they observed other time periods in which their resources and identities kept them or their parents in their social class.

Stay-at-Home Mothers

2020 ◽  
pp. 30-44
Author(s):  
Jessi Streib
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Institutional Knowledge ◽  
Class Reproduction ◽  
Upper Middle Class ◽  
To Receive ◽  
College Educated ◽  
At Home

Women who identify as stay-at-home mothers have only one option for class reproduction: through marriage. Most college-educated professional men now marry college-educated women. Women raised with college-educated mothers tend to receive enough academic and institutional knowledge from their mothers to graduate from college, marry a college-educated professional, and reproduce their class position. Women raised without college-educated mothers tend to inherit less academic and institutional knowledge and struggle with or reject college. Wanting to become stay-at-home mothers, they marry young—but to working-class men who further their slide out of the upper-middle class.

scholarly journals Class, Culture, and Downward Mobility

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessi Streib
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Interview Data ◽  
National Study ◽  
Downward Mobility ◽  
Class Culture ◽  
Class Reproduction

The study of class and culture is predominately the study of class reproduction, not also downward mobility. This article maintains that sociologists do not see the cultural mechanisms associated with downward mobility because we share three collective blinders. First, we under-emphasize the ways that middle-class cultural practices are mismatched with the practices that institutions reward. Second, we over-emphasize the utility of middle-class cultural practices for their class reproduction. We do this as we focus on youths’ cultural practices within institutions, ignoring that not all youth enter institutions associated with class reproduction. Third, we assume that the dominant cultural practices of each class keeps youth in their original social class. In doing so, we do not consider that middle-class actors avoid downward mobility by adopting the dominant practices of the working-class. Using interview data from the National Study of Youth and Religion, this article shows how removing these blinders can help us understand how culture relates to downward mobility. It does so by revisiting Lareau’s theory of how entitlement and constraint relate to class reproduction.

Rebels

2020 ◽  
pp. 58-68
Author(s):  
Jessi Streib
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Early Marriage ◽  
Institutional Rules ◽  
Institutional Knowledge ◽  
Low Levels ◽  
Upper Middle Class

Men raised in liberal communities with low levels of academic and institutional knowledge see no institution that will reward them. In liberal communities, early marriage is frowned upon, and they did not receive the resources that would give them status in school, college, or work. They respond by becoming rebels—by repeatedly breaking institutional rules. This identity does not thwart their ability to stay in the upper-middle class at first, but it does after they graduate from college. Most become unemployed or underemployed—and begin to fall out of their original social class.

Privilege Accumulation Among Upper Middle-Class Youth in Mexico

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Minor Mora-Salas ◽  
Orlandina de Oliveira
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Life Histories ◽  
Social Processes ◽  
Economic Resources ◽  
Upper Class ◽  
Mexican Families ◽  
Life Trajectories ◽  
Class Background ◽  
Upper Middle Class ◽  
Class Youth

This chapter demonstrates how upper middle-class Mexican families mobilize a vast array of social, cultural, and economic resources to expand their children’s opportunities in life and ensure the intergenerational transmission of their social position. The authors analyze salient characteristics of families’ socioeconomic and demographics in the life histories of a group of young Mexicans from an upper middle-class background. Many believe that micro-social processes, especially surrounding education, are key to understanding how upper-class families mobilize their various resources to shape their children’s life trajectories. These families accumulate social advantages over time that accrue to their progeny and benefit them upon their entrance to the labor market.

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