Social mobility among urban women of Mali community

Abstract

Social mobility is a long range social and cultural change often regarded as leading to the progressive development of society with respect to time. According to the encyclopedia of sociology “Social mobility has been defined as movement through “social space” from one status category i.e. the origin to another status category i.e. the destination. Dr. Kurane (1999:12,41) says “Social mobility is movement of a person or group from one social position to another with regards to education, occupation, status, income and power within a social space. It is a change in social object or values, attitudes, beliefs anything that has been created or modified by human activity. It changes a person’s overall position. Further she explains that social mobility occurs through various factors like education, occupation, participation in politics, urbanization, industrialization, emancipation of women, westernization and gradual modernization both in thought and external behavior. According to Sethi (1976) social mobility brings structural changes in a social system related to changes in the attitudes and beliefs of the people. This leads to rationality, universality, and secular ideology which mean equality, freedom and independence for everyone. According to Lip set & Zetterberg (1966:563) social mobility of an individual or group is determined by the shift and ranking of occupation, consumption, social power and social class. People’s beliefs, values, norms, customs and some of their emotional expressions are different according to their occupational class. The rate of mobility may differ in different dimensions. There is a possibility of having a higher rate of mobility in one dimension and lower in another. For the present research the operational definition for social mobility means a positional change in the education, occupation, income and status of the individual. It means not only a change in material position, but it is also concerned with the participation in decision making and change in the inner state of mind and thought in each and every aspect of life.