ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the process of social mobility into the specialists, and focuses on analysis of the social sources of recruitment of the intelligentsia. The principal feature of the recruitment of the intelligentsia under present conditions is that the majority pass through the system of higher and secondary specialized educational institutions. This provides important advantages for sociological analysis insofar as indices of education can be used to appraise the extent of changes in the nature of labor and social mobility. The social composition of full-time students at higher schools is important in understanding the process of recruitment of the intelligentsia including advancement to leading posts. Changes in the social composition of the student body appear in official statistical data, which combine workers and their children, collective farmers and their children, and employees and their children. The problem of improving the quality of students admitted, including their quality in the sense of social composition, depends on the functioning of secondary schools.
