Social Science Space

“The argument of this book,” writes Richard Alba, “is not that whites will retain a numerical majority status, although I do not rule out such a possibility, but rather that mainstream expansion, which brings about a melding involving many whites, non-whites, and Hispanics, holds out the prospect of a new kind of societal majority.”

“Education,” says sociologist Sam Friedman, “doesn’t wash away the effects of class background in terms of allocating opportunities. That’s quite profound – I believe there are a lot of people who believe quite strongly that these sorts of educational institutions can and do act as sort of meritocratic sorting houses.”

Despite its obsession with the concept of equal opportunity, the United States hasn’t actively monitored its residents’ social mobility for more than four decades. Now a group of social scientists have proposed an efficient way using existing tools to chart mobility.

What’s in a name? According to economist Gregory Clark, a lot of divine-able information about your family’s past and perhaps a fair bit about your children’s future. In the latest edition of Social Science Bites, David Edmonds talks with Clark about his at-times controversial examination of surnames and their nexus with social mobility.

In a speech this week in London – against a backdrop of students protesting noisily about government cuts to higher […]

The Universities and Science Minister, David Willetts MP, has made several key speeches recently setting out the Government’s views on […]