The Future of Children: Fall 2006

Opportunity in America

This semiannual journal provides research and analysis to promote effective policies and programs for children. In this volume, the nation's leading scholars on social mobility focus on the extent to which children’s chances of success depend on the circumstances into which they are born. The following articles are featured:

Introducting the Issue
Isabel Sawhill and Sara McLanahan

Intergenerational Social Mobility: The United States in Comparative Perspective
Emily Beller and Michael Hout

Intergenerational Mobility for Women and Minorities in the United States
Melissa S. Kearney

Making It in America: Social Mobility in the Immigrant Population
George J. Borjas

Early Childhood Development and Social Mobility
W. Steven Barnett and Clive R. Belfield

U.S. Elementary and Secondary Schools: Equalizing Opportunity or Replicating the Status Quo?
Cecilia Elena Rouse and Lisa Barrow

The Role of Higher Education in Social Mobility
Robert Haveman and Timothy Smeeding

Children's Health and Social Mobility
Anne Case and Christina Paxson

"Culture" and the Intergenerational Transmission of Poverty: The Prevention Paradox
Jens Ludwig and Susan Mayer

Event transcript: "Opportunity in America: Does Education Promote Social Mobility?" September 19, 2006.