Social and Spatial Mobility Research

Extract

[...] In other words, in what way can the phenomenon of social reproduction constrain the individual in their desire to rise to the spheres of society? - In what way does spatial mobility inform us about social inequalities? - In what way does symbolic violence crystallize biases towards spatial and social mobility? Taking the example of the difference between Paris within the walls and the suburb, the ring road remaining this symbolic border between different social groups. - Is spatial mobility different depending on the focal used? Whether at the local or national level? [...]

[...] In fact, mobility is a key concept to grasp social and spatial phenomena. Therefore, it is essential to acknowledge the fact that in most societies, and particularly in contemporary Western societies, individuals from different social classes attempt to progress in the social hierarchy (whether in a projected social class or professionally speaking) or, conversely, their ability to reproduce from one generation to the next inherited social inequalities or hierarchies from the past. These social dynamics are therefore part of the questions that still dominate a large part of the empirical reality today in the social sciences. [...]

[...] the mobility within the labor market : it specifically concerns the transitions between the labor market statuses, whether employment, unemployment, and inactivity. We can appreciate it as a subcategory of social mobility. * The different movements in mobility: The mobility upwards means that individuals have moved hierarchically between socio-professional categories, from a lower category to a higher one. The mobility downwards means that individuals have moved hierarchically between social and socio-professional categories, from a higher category to a lower one. * Possible questioning: - To what extent can social belonging (or social origin) influence social mobility? [...]

[...] Finally, we think it would be useful to mobilize Georg Simmel's analysis. Indeed, Simmel's analysis allows us to account for the modalities of construction of social relations in contexts where assert themselves individualisation ; it applies to a number of very current questions. One of its great interests is to associate the game of proximity and distance in social relations to the possibility of moving, to mobility in human societies1 » (Bourdin, 2005). For the sake of being as didactic as possible, the following typology reprises the central concepts concerning the notion of mobility: * Three types of mobility: the mobility spatial which concerns here geographical movements, according to different scales: micro local, local, regional, national or international. [...]