As Others See Us: A Case Study in Path Analysis

In 1967, Blau and Duncan proposed a path model for education and stratification. This is one of the most influential applications of statistical modeling technique to social data. There is recent use of the same technique in Hope’s (1984) comparative study of Scotland and the United States, As Others See Us: Schooling and Social Mobility in Scotland and the United States. A review of path analysis is offered here, with Hope’s model used as an example, the object being to suggest the limits of the method in analyzing complex phenomena.