ABSTRACT
The first text I want to consider is John H.Goldthorpe’s Social Mobility and Class Structure in Modern Britain, published originally in 1980, then in an expanded second edition in 1987. Written in collaboration with Catriona Llewellyn and Clive Payne, this is a report of the principal findings of the Oxford Study of social mobility among men in England and Wales. Although it is the most recent of the ten studies under consideration, there are, nevertheless, several good reasons why it offers a convenient starting-point for our discussion. One is that it deals with the subject of social class—and it is this topic, above all others, that is associated most commonly with sociology in the minds of its critics. Another is that popular perceptions are, in this case, well grounded in the reality of British sociology: a disproportionately large amount of sociological discussion in this country has indeed focused on the issues of class analysis. Finally, and most importantly, Goldthorpe’s subject matter is the class structure of contemporary Britain—in other words the stratification system of the society as a whole. The nine remaining texts I have selected concentrate instead on one constituent group within that structure— such as black immigrants, grammar-school children, religious sectarians, or industrial managers. Goldthorpe’s general and inclusive concerns mean that he paints an overall picture into which these more specialized investigations can conveniently be set.
