INTERGENERATIONAL MOBILITY AND INSTITUTIO NAL AUTONOMY OF EDUCATION

Recent comparative research in social mobility has emphasized a large degree of comonnality in the pattern of social fluidity between genera tions. However, they have only examined the joint occupational distrib utions of fathers and sons, and ignored the institutional context of t he mobility process. The omission of education from such research may have lead to an incomplete picture of the mobility regime. The present study returns to the classic problem regarding how education interven es between origin and destination. The analysis utilizes the four SSM data, collected in Japan from 1955 to 1985 in ten-year intervals. Majo r findings are the following. 1) The importance of education for trans mission of social positions has increased. We can see this trend in th e proportion of movers estimated by the 'quasi-independence' log-linea r model. 2) The origin-education association is unchanged regardless o f educational expansion. Furthermore the influence of origin permeates into the education-destination association Indeed, we can devide the movers with the same educational degree into the upper latent class an d the lower latent class. Such duality denies the institutional autono my of education. 3) Therefore, in Japan, educational upgrading or decl ine of occupational inheritance will not increase the openness of soci al mobility.