Honors Program Theses

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Open Access Honors Program Thesis

First Advisor

Carissa Froyum

Abstract

Upward mobility is an interesting and highly valued phenomenon within American society. Due to American beliefs that hard work is the only requirement for success, individuals feel that moving up a social class from that of their class of origin is not impossible. Past research, however, shows that upward mobility is extremely difficult and quite unlikely. When individuals do achieve upward mobility, there are many consequences for doing so, including changes in relationships with family and friends. Most individuals receive emotional support from family and friends in their quest for mobility, yet the path to upward mobility is often begun alone or with the help of outsiders. The following paper looks at the social consequences of upward mobility in five individuals. Finally, although parents of mobile individuals seem to push education onto their children, mobile individuals seem more lenient on their own children's future careers.

Year of Submission

2010

Department

Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminology

University Honors Designation

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the designation University Honors

Comments

If you are the rightful copyright holder of this thesis and wish to have it removed from the Open Access Collection, please submit a request to scholarworks@uni.edu and include clear identification of the work, preferably with URL.

Date Original

5-2010

Object Description

1 PDF file (39 pages)

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