Individual and social contexts of dawnward social mobility

The author deals with the phenomenon of individual and social contexts of downward social mobility. She focuses on cases of families with at least one college educated parent whose children did not follow their parents in college education attainment. After defining terms such as social status, social mobility, capital and social reproduction that are key for later analysis, she summarizes previous researches of social mobility and educational inequalities. Thereafter she presents a qualitative analysis of gained interviews with ten respondents. This research has been done by methods of grounded theory that enable to uncover contexts of the analysed phenomenon. The author argues that the phenomenon in general, according to the analysis, is not a problem. It is understood as a problem only after it has been set into the context of the social situation in which the phenomenon occurs. According to the analysis the children of college educated parents do use and develop their abilities gained by socialization and upbringing by college educated parents. Nevertheless, these children do not develop their abilities in the formal system of education that is commonly conceived as the best educational institution. It is just the authority of this institution that creates the social norm - one of the contexts..