Re: Sorokin Social And Cultural Mobility Pdf Download
Fanny Lococo
According to Sorokin, no two societies are the same in terms of movement allowed and discouraged, and that the speed of social mobility can change from one time period to the next. It depends on how developed the society is.
Such a societal shift can happen over time as individuals move from one position to another due to various social interactions. Mobility, more or less, provides people with benefits as they are motivated by different factors in society and work to reach new roles that offer them a better standard of living and greater rewards. People compete and cooperate with others in society to move up the social mobility ladder.
Social mobility can take different forms, and people can experience different types of mobility in different stages of their lives. The types of mobilities are independent of one another and can often overlap. They are only distinguished for the purpose of analysis.
This refers to a change in the occupational, political, or religious status of a person that causes a change in their societal position. An individual moves from one social stratum to another. Vertical mobility can be ascending or descending.
Ascending involves an individual moving from a group in a lower stratum to a higher one or the creation of a similar group with a higher societal position, instead of side by side with its existing group. Descending mobility occurs, for example, when a businessman incurs losses in his business and is forced to declare bankruptcy, resulting in a move to a lower stratum of society.
This is when a person moves from a lower position in society to a higher one. It can also include people occupying higher positions in the same societal group. However, upward mobility, while seen as a good thing, can also come at a cost for individuals.
When a person moves upward, they often need to leave behind familiar surroundings such as family and places. They may also need to change their way of thinking and behavior. The individual will need to adapt to the new environment as a result of their upward movement and adopt different behaviors in the new society.
Downward mobility takes place when a person moves from a higher position in society to a lower one. It can occur when someone is caught performing a wrongful act that can result in the loss of the position they currently hold.
Downward mobility can be extremely stressful for people who face a rapid decline in their social status. They may find it hard to adapt to the new environment, as it is not similar to the standard of living they are used to. Downward mobility is an example of the extent to which a society values equal opportunity and structure.
Inter-generational mobility happens when the social position changes from one generation to another. The change can be upward or downward. For example, a father worked in a factory while his son received an education that allowed him to become a lawyer or a doctor.
The intra-generational change in societal position occurs during the lifespan of a single generation. It can also refer to a change in position between siblings. One way is when a person climbs up the corporate ladder in their career. For example, an individual starts their career as a clerk and through their life moves on to a senior position such as a director. One sibling may also achieve a higher position in society than their brother or sister.
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Sorokin was a professor at Saint Petersburg Imperial University. He was repressed by Vladimir Lenin's communist regime, which led Sorokin to flee to Czechoslovakia with the help of Thomas Masaryk and Edouard Benes.[2] He became a professor of sociology at the Uversity of Minnesota in 1924.[2] In 1930, he was hired as head of the newly formed department of sociology at Harvard University.[2]
Pitirim Alexandrovich Sorokin was born on 4 February [O.S. 23 January] 1889, in Turya, a small village in Yarensky Uyezd, Vologda Governorate, Russian Empire (now Knyazhpogostsky District, Komi Republic, Russia), the second son to a Russian father and Komi mother. Sorokin's father, Alexander Prokopievich Sorokin, was from Veliky Ustyug and a traveling craftsman specializing in gold and silver. At the same time, while his mother, Pelageya Vasilievna, was a native of Zheshart and belonged to a peasant family. Vasily, his elder brother, was born in 1885, and his younger brother, Prokopy, was born in 1893. Sorokin's mother died on March 7, 1894, in the village of Kokvitsa. After her death Sorokin and his elder brother Vasily stayed with their father, traveling with him through the towns searching for work. At the same time, Prokopy was taken in by his aunt, Anisya Vasilievna Rimsky. The latter lived with her husband, Vasily Ivanovich, in the village of Rimia. Sorokin's childhood, spent among the Komi, was complicated, but enriched by a religious and moral education. The moral qualities (such as piety, a firm belief in good and love) cultivated in him at that time would yield their fruits in his subsequent work (his amitology and call to overcome the crisis of modernity).
Pitirim and his older brother's father developed alcoholism. Because of this, their father had severe anxiety and panic attacks to the point where he was physically abusive to his sons. After a brutal beating that left a scar on Pitirim's upper lip, Pitirim, at the age of eleven, along with his older brother, decided that he wanted to be independent and no longer under their father's care.[3]
In the early 1900s, supporting himself as an artisan and clerk, Sorokin attended the Saint Petersburg Imperial University in Saint Petersburg, where he earned his graduate degree in criminology and became a professor.[5]
Sorokin was an anti-communist. During the Russian Revolution he was a member of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, a deputy of the Russian Constituent Assembly,[6] a supporter of the White movement, and a secretary to Prime Minister Alexander Kerensky. After the October Revolution, Sorokin continued to fight communist leaders and was arrested by the new regime several times before he was eventually condemned to death. After six weeks in prison, Sorokin was released and went back to teaching at the University of Saint Petersburg, becoming the founder of the sociology department at the university.[5] As he had been a leader among the Democrats leading up to the Russian Revolution, he was sought by Vladimir Lenin's forces after Lenin consolidated his power.[7]
Accounts of Sorokin's activities in 1922 differ; he may have been arrested and exiled by the Soviet government,[5] or he may have spent months in hiding before escaping the country.[7] After leaving Russia, he emigrated to the United States,[5] where he became a naturalized citizen in 1930.[7] Sorokin was personally requested to accept a Harvard University position, founding the Department of Sociology and becoming a vocal critic of his colleague, Talcott Parsons.[8][9]
Sorokin was an ardent opponent of communism, which he regarded as a "pest of man". People viewed him as a leader, but some viewed him as an outcast which can be reason to why he was exiled. At the time people were not understanding of his ideas that would promote emancipation and change, and these theories he provided were not always well accepted.[10]
Sorokin was a sociology professor at the University of Minnesota from 1924 to 1929 when he accepted an offer of a position by the president of Harvard University to join the Harvard faculty, where he continued to work until 1959. One of his students was writer Myra Page.[11]
Before his achievements as a professor in the United States, he published his 1924 Leaves of a Russian Diary by (E.P. Dutton & Co.), giving a daily, and sometimes hourly account of the Russian Revolution. He first started in February 1917 where he was in the forefront of creating a provisionary government, only to see it unravel and lose power to the Bolsheviks in October 1917. In 1950, Sorokin published an addendum to the book called The Thirty Years After. It is a personal and brutally honest account of the revolution and his exile.
Sorokin's work follows a pattern throughout time from an early period of miscellaneous writings, sociocultural dynamics and social criticism, and then altruism. He believed that altruism had a lot of scientific support for it. After going to Harvard in 1930, Sorokin found his calling and began his famous study of world civilization which led to the work for which he is best known, Social and Cultural Dynamics.[12] This work set the tone for the condemnation of our Sensate culture which is prominent in all of Sorokin's writings since 1937. This condemnation is part of the reason he was always challenged because people were not ready and acceptive of the idea of change and nobody was willing to take responsibility for their actions. Sorokin's extensive study convinced him that our civilization is overly materialistic, disorganized, and in imminent danger of collapse. He spent the next dozen years in warning the public of the danger and seeking a way out and a way to change society.[13]
One of his works, Russia and the United States (1944) is considered wartime propaganda for the peace. Sorokin argues that American and Russian culture have so much in common that these two nations, destined to be the leading postwar power centers, will have a secure basis for friendship. Both nations exemplify unity in diversity. Their cultures favor breadth of outlook, cosmopolitanism, and a healthy self-esteem tempered with tolerance of other societies.[13]
His works are timeless due to the fact they were able to open up new fields of study and make way for more innovative ways of thinking. His works covered a wide variety of topics from rural sociology, war, revolution, social mobility, and social change. He stayed true to his works though and part of the reason he was able to fight for so much change and reform was his commitment to his religion. He was of Komi descent and they were considered some of the most hardworking and religious people in Europe.[10]
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