About this session

Friday, 8:30 AM - 10:00 AM

Children’s insights on social mobility for themselves and others across diverse identities

Social mobility refers to a shift in social status, often upward, by attaining wealth, education, or occupational prestige. Clarifying the development of beliefs about social mobility is essential given the potential for both positive, empowering (Browman et al., 2017) and negative, system-justifying (Davidai & Wienk, 2021) consequences of these beliefs. This symposium brings together 4 papers that explore the development of American children’s belief about social mobility, highlighting the complex, multifaceted nature of young children’s beliefs about social mobility. Paper 1 finds that although children and adults initially express little belief in upward mobility for others, children readily believe in upward mobility for themselves and also increase estimates for others after seeing a single example of social mobility. Paper 2 provides evidence for an awareness of anti-Blackness in children’s expectations for upward social mobility, across Black Americans and Black immigrants. Paper 3 focuses on immigration as well, finding that children believe that immigrants can achieve upward mobility, but only under particular circumstances. Paper 4 investigates where children’s beliefs about social mobility come from, finding that children’s beliefs can reflect parent political ideologies. Social status and social mobility are broad, complicated ideas and this symposium unites diverse conceptualizations and empirical methods to study children’s beliefs about social mobility across different targets (the self or others) and diverse identities (race, heritage country). This symposium provides a comprehensive and detailed view of children’s belief about social mobility, and supports the idea that beliefs about social mobility can be targeted to promote healthy child development.

Paper #1
Title	Children’s beliefs about chances of moving up the social ladder
Presenting author	Jacqueline Beck, UCIrvine, United States

Paper #2
Title	Children’s awareness of disparities in social mobility based on race and heritage country
Presenting author	Yuchen Tian, Boston University, United States

Paper #3
Title	American children believe that immigrants will achieve upward mobility when effort matters and others care
Presenting author	Laura Elenbaas, Ph.D., Purdue University, United States

Paper #4
Title	Children’s reasoning about socioeconomic inequality and mobility
Presenting author	Rachel Ann King, University of Chicago, United States

View all paper details

Session chairs
Yuchen Tian, Boston University, United States; Dr. Tara Mandalaywala, Ph.D., , United States

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