Social Mobility Among Selected Groups of Schizophrenic Patients

note that father's occupation and son's education both clearly improve the son's chances to secure a relatively larger command over goods and services than his predecessors. But the relative importance of each of these two key variables shifts. Son's education outweighs father's occupation at the beginnings and ends of the educational ladder, while father's occupation is more strongly determinative in the middle ranges. This makes sense in terms of the structure of opportunity in Puerto Rico. For in its present condition of development, some literacy makes a big difference; added amounts of literacy make less difference in terms of available jobs; and educational training does not make a big difference again until one has some college training. Since most of the job mobility in future years is likely to take place into the middle range of jobs for the majority of the future mobile population, father's occupation is likely to play a larger role than son's education in determining where the son will ultimately land upon the occupational ladder, and how well he will have done, in the process, relative to peers. The foregoing observations are illustrative of the kinds of observations about the dynamics of stratification that can be made with the GOMS. We are helped toward a clearer understanding of what it means to be in a given position, so far as the outcome in life chances is concerned; and we are nabled to ask what it is about the several constituents of class position that makes the difference. Moreover, populations can now be sorted out on the basis of their mobility experiences, and a beginning can be made in understanding their motivational schemes, self-images and role performances in terms of the history of their experiences in the social system, without necessary resort to a wealth of historical material.