Word: thernstrom
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...America had little difficulty adjusting. And the Irish at least had the advantage over other European groups of not having to adjust to a new language. What is more, many second-generation immigrants in Boston also had low upward mobility, and they grew up in an urban environment. Also, Thernstrom demonstrates that the degree of upward mobility within an ethnic group is unrelated to the extent that the group is segregated from the rest of society...
Although successful at pointing out weaknesses in others' theories concerning upward mobility among ethnic groups. Thernstrom is less successful at suggesting alternative theories. He contends that some aspect of Irish culture or Roman Catholic doctrine discourages Irishmen from striving to achieve material success and from investing in their children's education. Yet, as Thernstrom admits, such a theory explains little. Instead of looking for the reasons Irishmen held these values, the theory uses the fact that the Irish moved up the occupational scale less rapidly than other groups as "proof" simply that they did hold to such principles...
...THERNSTROM'S LONGEST chapter deals the social mobility of blacks in Boston. Although blacks first began coming to Boston in large numbers after the Civil War, they were confined almost exclusively to unskilled service jobs until 1940, when their upward mobility began to increase slightly...
...Thernstrom criticizes most current theories of the lack of social mobility. His study showed that blacks with urban backgrounds fared no better than those with rural backgrounds; blacks on the average received at least as many years of education as more-successful immigrant groups; many ethnic groups were more segregated from the rest of society than were blacks; and black families until quite recently rarely fit Daniel Moynihan's matriarchal stereotype. He concludes that low social mobility among blacks resulted partially from "the nature of black culture," but mostly from discrimination...
...Thernstrom's argument becomes most shaky when he concludes that Boston, although unique in its age and distance from the frontier, is similar to the vast majority of American cities in its degree of social mobility. He claims that the similar occupational structures in most American cities, plus the great fluidity of the national population throughout the last century have resulted in uniform rates of social mobility...