Basic Attainment Processes: A Replication and Extension

Longitudinal survey data on a national sample of youth, first sampled as high-school sophomores in 1955 and followed up in 1970, were employed in a replication and extension of the Blau and Duncan basic of the status attainment process. Most of the analysis was consistent with previous inquiries in this area, while the discrepancies suggest possible changes in status dynamics over time and the need to qualify the interpretation of such analyses with reference to substantively relevant characteristics of the samples employed. Finally, an inspection of selected interactions in the attainment process model suggested both their importance in this particular instance and, more generally, the utility of pursuing suspected deviations from linear-addiuity.