4.2.8.5 Social mobility Quiz: AQA Sociology, Unit 2

The 20 questions

1. What is intergenerational social mobility?

   • Movement of an individual between different jobs and classes during the course of a single working life and career
   • Movement of individuals or families between social classes compared with the class position of their parents
   • Movement of entire populations between countries as migrants seek better economic opportunities over several decades
   • Movement of goods and services between regions through trade networks that link producers with distant consumers

2. What distinguishes intragenerational mobility from intergenerational mobility?

   • Intragenerational mobility is movement of a whole class, whereas intergenerational mobility is movement of a single individual
   • Intragenerational mobility is movement within a single person's working life, whereas intergenerational mobility compares generations
   • Intragenerational mobility is movement caused by schooling only, whereas intergenerational mobility is caused by employment alone
   • Intragenerational mobility is movement between countries, whereas intergenerational mobility is movement within the same country

3. What is structural mobility?

   • Movement between classes caused by individual effort, with each person's personal ambition determining their final class position
   • Movement between classes caused by changes in the occupational structure, such as the decline of manual and growth of professional jobs
   • Movement between classes caused by balanced flows, in which as many people move up as move down in each generation
   • Movement between classes caused by changes in the design of buildings, which alter the places where people live and work

4. What is exchange mobility?

   • Movement between classes in which upward and downward flows balance out, so the overall shape of the class structure stays the same
   • Movement between classes caused by the exchange of currency between countries, which changes the value of wages each year
   • Movement between classes caused by the exchange of marriage partners across class boundaries, which alters family incomes
   • Movement between classes caused by a shift from manual to service work, which raises the number of professional jobs available

5. What is the difference between absolute and relative social mobility?

   • Absolute mobility measures the movement of individuals within a family, while relative mobility measures movement across national borders
   • Absolute mobility is measured in income terms only, while relative mobility is measured in terms of qualifications achieved in school
   • Absolute mobility is the overall share of people changing class, while relative mobility compares odds across different origins
   • Absolute mobility is always higher than relative mobility, because the total number of people always changes class each generation

6. Which study by Goldthorpe and colleagues is associated with the claim that relative mobility rates changed little over time in Britain?

   • The Milgram obedience studies, which measured how readily participants followed instructions from a person in authority
   • The Hawthorne experiments, which studied the productivity of factory workers and the effects of observation on their output
   • The Oxford Mobility Study, which analysed men's mobility across generations and found relatively stable patterns of relative mobility
   • The Stanford prison experiment, which studied the behaviour of participants assigned to roles of guards and prisoners

7. Which factor is most often identified as a route to upward mobility in modern Britain?

   • Membership of a religious group, which determines entry to high-status jobs regardless of qualifications or experience
   • Educational qualifications, which open access to professional and managerial occupations in the labour market
   • Inherited property alone, which guarantees that every family keeps its position without any need for education or skill
   • Residence in a rural area, which gives access to the best jobs because farming is the highest-status occupation in Britain

8. What does the 'meritocracy' ideal claim about social mobility?

   • Individuals are assigned to social classes at birth, with no possibility of movement between classes at any point in life
   • Individuals rise or fall in society according to their talent and effort, rather than their class background or birth
   • Individuals move between classes only through marriage, so mobility depends entirely on the social class of a spouse
   • Individuals move between classes only through inheritance, since every social position is passed down through family lines

9. Which sociological concept helps explain why children from advantaged families often keep their advantage in education?

   • Gender segregation, which places girls in advantaged schools and boys in disadvantaged schools across the whole country
   • Demographic change, which reduces the number of children in advantaged families and so removes their educational advantage
   • Cultural capital, such as familiarity with language, books and cultural activities that schools tend to reward
   • Economic depression, which lowers the value of qualifications for all children and so removes any advantage from family background

10. Which measure of mobility would be most useful for studying whether class background affects life chances for each generation?

    • Number of houses owned by each household in a single year, which shows the distribution of property but not social movement
    • Total number of people in each class in a single census year, which shows the size of each class but not movement between them
    • Relative mobility rates, which compare the chances of people from different class origins to reach each destination class
    • Average height of members of each class, which shows the physical characteristics of different social groups in the population

11. Which of these best illustrates structural mobility in the UK?

    • A worker who moves between two manual jobs of identical status in the same factory during a single working year
    • A person who inherits a large fortune and keeps the same class position throughout their entire working life and family
    • A student who gains a degree but then takes a low-paid job, which leaves the balance of the class structure unchanged
    • A rise in the number of professional jobs as manufacturing declines, pushing many people into higher-status occupations

12. Which pattern would suggest that mobility is more open than in the past, using relative mobility as the measure?

    • Children from every origin have the same destination, which means mobility is impossible to measure with any statistical method
    • Children from professional origins have lost all advantage in every field, so class origin no longer predicts their destination
    • Children from working-class origins have improved chances of reaching professional jobs compared with earlier cohorts, relative to others
    • Children from working-class origins have the same chances as before, so relative mobility shows no change over the period

13. Why might absolute mobility be high even when relative mobility is low?

    • Absolute mobility is always equal to relative mobility, so a high rate of one must always mean a high rate of the other
    • Absolute mobility depends only on wages, which rise automatically for everyone, while relative mobility depends only on qualifications
    • Absolute mobility is calculated only for women, while relative mobility is calculated only for men in the same survey
    • Changes in the occupational structure create more higher-status jobs, so many people move up even though the odds remain unequal

14. A researcher finds that the sons of professionals are much more likely to become professionals than the sons of manual workers. What does this show?

    • Class origins have no effect on destinations, since all sons have equal chances of becoming professionals regardless of origin
    • Class origins continue to shape destinations, indicating limited relative mobility even if overall mobility has increased
    • Class origins matter only in the past, so the pattern found in the study cannot be relevant to contemporary social mobility
    • Class origins determine destinations only for women, so the pattern for sons says nothing about the influence of class origin

15. Which argument is often raised against the view that Britain is a meritocracy?

    • Merit is irrelevant to social position, since the only relevant factor is the number of years a person has lived in one place
    • Merit is measured accurately in every school and university, so no advantage can arise from family background or wealth
    • Merit has no role in employment, since all jobs are allocated by lottery and no assessment of ability ever takes place
    • Advantages such as private education, family networks and cultural capital give some children an edge that is not based on merit

16. What does the 'constant flux' thesis suggest about social mobility in industrial societies?

    • Relative mobility chances fall steadily in every society, so each generation becomes more closed than the one before it
    • Relative mobility chances remain similar across industrial societies, even when the occupational structure changes over time
    • Relative mobility chances increase rapidly in every industrial society, so class barriers disappear within a single generation
    • Relative mobility chances are fixed by biology, so no social or economic change can affect how individuals move between classes

17. Which statement about the measurement of social mobility is most accurate?

    • Mobility measures depend on how classes are defined, so changes in the classification scheme can alter the apparent level of mobility
    • Mobility can be measured perfectly without any classification scheme, since individuals move between classes automatically
    • Mobility can only be measured using income data, so occupational classifications have no role in mobility research whatsoever
    • Mobility measures are identical whatever classification scheme is used, so changing the scheme never affects the result at all

18. Which of these would most directly test whether education reduces the link between class origin and destination?

    • Recording the number of university buildings in each region, to see whether investment in higher education has changed
    • Counting the total number of graduates in the population, regardless of the class origins or destinations of those graduates
    • Measuring the average income of all graduates in the country, without reference to the family background of each graduate
    • Comparing the destinations of people from different origins who have the same level of qualification

19. What is social mobility?

    • The movement of goods, money and information between regions and countries through established trade and communication networks
    • The movement of populations between rural and urban areas, as people seek housing and employment in different places
    • The movement of workers between factories within the same town during a period of seasonal demand for labour each year
    • The movement of individuals, families or groups between positions in a stratification system, such as social classes

20. What is meant by the 'glass ceiling' in relation to social mobility?

    • A regulation requiring employers to display promotion criteria on notice boards, so that all staff can see how to advance
    • A physical structure in office buildings that separates senior managers from other staff, with its height set by company policy
    • A legal limit on the salary that any employee can earn in a single year, which applies equally to all workers in every sector
    • An invisible barrier that limits the progress of women and some minority groups into senior management despite their qualifications

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