The Effects of Upward Mobility: A Study of Working-Status College Students

Abstract

Sociologists often view the process of social mobility as being socially and psychologically disruptive to the mobile person. This article tests that hypothesis with a group of socially mobile college students. Far from displaying psychological symptoms of marginality, however, students from lower-status backgrounds were found to have equally high grades as upper-middle-status students; nor were they more troubled by worries. They displayed no higher symptoms of anxiety, did not harbor a lower self-concept, and did not feel socially rejected. Data on social relationships show that when students from working-status backgrounds go to a public university, they actually experience social continuity rather than disjuncture and marginality. The suggestion is made that mobile college students undergo anticipatory socialization, while in high school, and that those attending public universities experience sufficient social continuity to become assimilated into upper-middle-status positions without major disruption.