Full Description
This book is the English translation of the French title, Entrer dans l'élite: parcours de réussite en France, en Inde et aux Etats-Unis. In this book, the author highlights the particular way in which upwardly mobile people in India, France and the United States-countries embodying three distinct stratification systems-make sense of their experience of shifting from one social class to another. Given that people draw upon particular cultural tools or repertoires to analyze their world and situate themselves in it, the author identifies the extent to which narratives of 'success' varies from one country to another. He argues that for any study on social mobility, it is important to take into account national contexts along with associated levels of analysis. In order to account satisfactorily for the way mobility is experienced, the author argues, identifying national repertoires of evaluation and institutional specificities is a decisive, yet insufficient step. Achievement narratives, the author concludes, are the result of a composite influence of the cultural repertoires and the dominant ideologies present in one's immediate context.
Contents
List of Tables
Acknowledgement
Introduction
Part 1: Theoretical and Methodological Milestones
1. Redefining the Analytical Framework of the Experience of Social Mobility
2. Comparing the Experience of Social Mobility in France, the United States, and India
3. Succeeding Without Betraying: Caste and Counter-Cultural Challenges of Social Mobility in India
4. Unquestioned Success: Class, Race, and Meritocracy in the United States
5. Mobility Haunted by Class: Etiquette, Distinction, and Hierarchies in France
6. National Specificities: Defining the Background of Origin
Conclusion
Appendices
Index
About the Author and Translator
