Comparative Studies of Social Structures: Recent Research on France, the United States, and the Federal Republic of Germany

A collection of essays with the purpose of stimulate interest and provoke discussion and criticism, and so contributing to our understanding of the three very different societies of France, the USA and Germany. Each essay stands on its own, and it is the authors’ intention to explain some of the differences between Germany and the United States in the first article. The second essay suggests that career mobility in France has more in common with social mobility in the United States than in Germany. The third essay, while not an explicitly comparative analysis, was included because it clearly shows the close links between the educational and occupational systems in Germany, a source of major differences with the United States, at least until the 1980s. The last section contains analyses of income attainment. Drawing on studies in the United States conducted by Erik O. Wright, the fourth essay compares the effects of education and position on income attainment. Since these can be construed as class effects, we were also curious about other types of potential positional and nonvertical income differences in a comparison of France, the United States, and the Federal Republic of Germany (the fifth essay). The concluding summary is very brief, giving only preliminary answers to the more detailed questions raised in the comparative empirical research projects.