ARTICLE REVIEW

Article Review

Article Review

Introduction

Occupational Inheritance: The Role of Cultural Capital and Gender' Work, Employment and Society is an important publication for a number of reasons. The study this book is based on is truly unique and ground breaking. It is a "longitudinal" study of multiple families over multiple generations. This means over thirty years ago, the researchers began studying a number of families and have followed those families for up to four generations. This is important because we can compare the social attitudes and values, physical and mental health, and the educational and occupational aspirations and goals of each generation and compare them to the generations before and after them and note the changes in the function of a family.

While this study includes much data from the first and second generation (G1 and G2 respectively) studies, the focus of this book is on the third and fourth generation) G3 and G4) because the youth of today (G4) is the best indicator of how families are working. With the ability to compare up to four generations worth of data for any of the many families involved the authors can more accurately evaluate and analyze the ability of today's families to function.

Egerton's View

Though research is the foundation of this book, one of the Occupational Inheritance: The Role of Cultural Capital and Gender' Work, Employment and Society's most important achievements is to discredit many of the current beliefs about the youth of America. These beliefs are based on "conventional wisdom" which often has no basis in social theory. Take, for example, the increase of mothers in workforce. One would expect that the working mother would not be as effective at transferring her values and goals, or nourishing the mental and physical health through the process of growing up.

This is an example of conventional wisdom and how conventional wisdom differs from the results of social science research provides. It turns out that there is, in fact, negligible change in the child's goals and values over the last 26 years during the increase in maternal employment(Bengtson, Biblarz, and Roberts: Pg.158). There are currently a number of assumptions about families and youth which this book discusses and often discredits using its definitive research data and sound social theory.

Concept of Occupational Inheritance

In the last thirty years families have experienced a number of cultural changes that affect how families function. Occupational Inheritance: The Role of Cultural Capital and Gender' Work, Employment and Society has defined some of the significant changes as follows. "(1) a rise in individualism and materialism and a decline in the importance of family commitment; 2) a rise in divorce and, correspondingly, in children's likelihood of experiencing their parents' divorce; (3) a rise in the percentage of mothers with dependent children who work in the paid labor force; and (40 a heightening in the educational and occupational standing of families" (Bengtson, Biblarz and Roberts: pg. 57). The discovery of these changes has led the researchers to discus the following questions: How have these changes ...