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The movement of an individual (individual mobility) or group (collective mobility) from one social
class or status to
another. Generally, social mobility refers to movement up (upward social mobility) or down
(downward social mobility) in a system of social
stratification. This kind of mobility is technically called "vertical social
mobility" and thus assumes a stratified situation or conditions of inequality in
society. "Horizontal social mobility" refers to individual or group movement
within the same social class or status grouping; referring to a change in social
positioning that does not include a change in rank vis-a-vis the social order. Although in
sociological literature, social mobility (and high mobility rates) are usually associated
with free-open liberal democratic industrial states, this is not always the case. High
rates of social mobility in these nation-states may in fact indicate the optimum structure
of and maintenance of political and economic oppression. - Ralf Dahrendorf, Class
and Conflict in Industrial Society (Stanford CA: Stanford University Press, 1959).
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