Social Mobility and Social Isolation: A Test of Sorokin's Dissociative Hypothesis

Panel-design research on lower-class youth entering a high-status university is used to test three competing hypotheses of the personal and social consequences of upward mobility. The evidence clearly shows that, although these upwardly mobile youth have been screened for their middle-class characteristics and for their academic and social promise in high school, they nevertheless encounter a disproportionate share of isolating experiences and personal strain, both as viewed through the eyes of institutional observers and as realized in personal experience. The compensatory hypothesis-that this situation stems from early childhood deprivation and the attendant inability to form effective primary group relations-is not supported by their high school records and recommendations. The ameliorative hypothesisthat the value assimilation necessary for upward movement brings acceptance by the new group-is not substantiated by the college experiences of the subjects. Rather, the evidence bears out Sorokin's dissociative hypothesis that upward mobility is itself a disruptive social experience which leaves the individual for an appreciable period without roots or effective social support.