Paula Tufis | University of Bucharest (original) (raw)

Papers by Paula Tufis

While there has been increasing comment and concern over the apparent polarization of the America... more While there has been increasing comment and concern over the apparent polarization of the American electorate, recent research on culture and politics largely denies the existence of such polarization. In new research which focuses on Americans’ ideological identities, Duane F. Alwin and Paula A. Tufis find that voters have indeed become polarized over time, and that their political identities are increasingly informed by cultural, rather than class or economic factors.

Using ISSP data, this study estimates and compares links among social origins and social status c... more Using ISSP data, this study estimates and compares links among social origins and social status characteristics (education, occupation and earnings) across a range of societies and across time. The research topic is fueled by the idea that capitalism, free market economy and industrialization produce a specific logic of stratification, while state socialist societies, under the influence of socialist ideology and adopted state policies, produce a radically different stratification system, following a different logic from that existing in Western capitalist countries. In order to test this hypothesis, the present research is organized around differences and similarities in patterns of status attainment among countries characterized by different types of socio-political organization and different degrees of economic development. In particular, the study focuses on characteristics of state socialist stratification and the question of existence of socialist effects on social stratification and characteristics of postsocialist stratificationits departures from the "logic" of socialist stratification and that of capitalist stratification. In order to follow this line of research, the question of homogeneity of status attainment patterns within regions of countries characterized by similar socio-political systems and similar levels of development is also examined. The results suggest that there is no single model of capitalist stratification, or a single type of socialist stratification and a common process that describes transformations of the stratification system during the postcommunist transition in all former state socialist societies. The empirical analyses also suggest that while socialism might have had some isolated effects on status attainment processes, the effects are weak and it is not clear whether they are indeed attributable to the influence of socialist ideology and policy rather than other processes like economic development and industrialization. At the same time, the status attainment patterns characterizing statue socialist societies are not radically different from those iv characterizing western capitalist societies. Postcommunist effects on social stratification are also observed only in isolated cases, and stability rather than change describes the overtime trends in status attainment in the Central and Eastern European former socialist countries. v

ABSTRACT Studiul este consacrat abordării teoretice şi empirice a relaţiei dintre apartenenţă etn... more ABSTRACT Studiul este consacrat abordării teoretice şi empirice a relaţiei dintre apartenenţă etnică, stratificare socială şi atitudini etnice în ţări din Europa Centrală şi de Est, în România în mod particular. În prima parte a materialului sunt examinate principalele construcţii teoretice care dau seamă de relaţia dintre stratificare şi apartenenţă etnică, dintre stratificarea etnică şi cea de clasă, rolul mecanismelor de piaţă în dinamica stratificării şi a etnicităţii. Pentru validarea ipotezelor formulate sunt folosite date referitoare la ţările foste comuniste din Europa Centrală şi de Est. Pentru cazul României se apelează la analize multinivel prin considerarea datelor regionale, comunitare şi individuale. Analiza datelor empirice la nivel naţional argumentează că o compoziţie etnică omogenă a unei ţări determină orientarea globală a populaţiei spre o atitudine mai puţin tolerantă din punct de vedere etnic. Compoziţie etnică omogenă la nivel de regiune istorică, pentru cazul României favorizează, de asemenea, intoleranţa etnică. Intoleranţa etnică tinde să fie mai mare la straturile de bază ale societăţii. Relaţia între poziţia socială în spaţiul de stratificare şi atitudinile de intoleranţă etnică nu este însă una de tip liniar. Regiunile, tipurile de comunităţi locale şi rezidenţiale precum şi variabilele de capital uman şi material se dovedesc a fi predictori relevanţi ai intoleranţei etnice.

European Societies, 2023

In this article, we explore the complexities of the relationships between motivations in the migr... more In this article, we explore the complexities of the relationships between motivations in the migration process of young Europeans who have returned to their country of origin. We analyze a unique database of over 3,000 returnees, a sub-sample from a larger survey of about 30,000 young people in nine European countries. The findings suggest that there is a link between the motivations for the first migration and those for future migration among this group. Generally, past migration motivations tend to reinforce future migration motivations of a similar nature. By controlling for variables related to geographic space (countries of residence, development profiles of NUTS2 regions, urban profiles of local communities of residence), as well as for several socio-demographic variables and life satisfaction, we can better understand the influence of motivations for past migration on motivations for future migrations. This article extends the internal dynamics of migration approach by combining the idea of individual chains of migration motivations that are extending over-time with the idea of cumulative causation operating at the meso level.

Sociological Forum, 2021

This paper investigates trends in adult child-rearing values in the United States over a 30-year ... more This paper investigates trends in adult child-rearing values in the United States over a 30-year period, from the mid-1980s into the first decades of the 21st century. Using data from the General Social Surveys, we report trends in emphasis on five child traits: think for self, obey, work hard, popularity, and helping others.Independent of the time of the surveys, child-rearing values are associated with several individual attributes:
gender, schooling level, occupational class, birth year, race/ethnicity, region, party identification, religious affiliation, and religiosity. Socioeconomic factors continue to be among the most important, but contrary to many arguments, occupational class, as measured by Weeden–Grusky micro-classes, has a relatively less important role in predicting child-rearing values, once education is taken into account. Religious variables are also important, less so than socioeconomic factors, but there is support for the hypothesis of the growing strength over time in the impact of religious conservatism and participation.

The present paper examines claims of a growing cultural divide in the United States. We analyze s... more The present paper examines claims of a growing cultural divide in the United States. We analyze social change in beliefs about gender over a period of 36 years (from 1974 to 2010) in the United States using data from the nationally representative General Social Survey (GSS). We find evidence of growing gender egalitarianism until the mid-1990s, with a reversal between 1996 and 2000, and a decline in state differences in beliefs about gender over time in our decomposition analysis and multilevel models. Although we find significant differences in gender beliefs among states in the 1970s based on their voting record on the Equal Rights Amendment and based on patterns of family formation and family life associated with the Second Demographic Transition, these differences among states decreased or disappeared entirely by the early years of the twenty-first century. We highlight the implications of our findings for the ongoing public and academic debate surrounding growing cultural differences among states.

This article investigates the implications of Thomas Frank's " conservative backlash " thesis tha... more This article investigates the implications of Thomas Frank's " conservative backlash " thesis that cultural cleavages have become much more important in contemporary American political life relative to traditional socioeconomic bases for political differentiation. we frame our research within the recent literature on the " polarization " of the electorate with respect to social and cultural issues. using Hunter's " culture war " imagery, we examine the extent to which opposing cultural forces on issues of abortion , gay rights, women's extra-familial labor force participation , and child-rearing have become more important in shaping political identities and party preferences. we use data from twenty-six nationally representative surveys of the General Social Survey (GSS) from 1974 through 2010, and we find evidence of polarization in the liberal-conservative identities of respondents. we find that occupational class had a clear and consistent relationship to political views, which is relatively stable over time. we also find that cultural views are related to political identities, and that most features of the cultural component in our analysis are increasingly associated with liberal political views. Our results favor an interpretation of a changing role of cultural orientations in shaping political identities and provide tentative support for Frank's " Kansas hypothesis " as revealed in the GSS data.

Current Sociology, 2012

The impact of modernization and industrialization on gender arrangements has been different depen... more The impact of modernization and industrialization on gender arrangements has been different depending on the gender culture that predominated when the modernization process started. Romania was among the most rural societies in Europe after the Second World War. Women's involvement in agricultural activity was very high, but the gender division of work was a very traditional one. The communist regimes promoted a full employment policy for the entire population but did nothing to encourage gender equality in the private space. This article focuses on the Romanian case, aiming to identify the dynamics of gender beliefs during the post-communist period. Using data from two waves of the European Values Survey (1990Survey ( , 1999, as well as data provided by the Public Opinion Barometer 2007 and by Family Life -2008, the authors carried out standard cohort decomposition methods in order to detect the mechanism that produced the most variation in gender beliefs.

Calitatea Vieţii, 22(3-4), 321-350, 2010

This paper examines the changes in the relationships between social status components almost ten ... more This paper examines the changes in the relationships between social status components almost ten years after the fall of the communism in Central and Eastern Europe. Communist regimes have altered the relationships in the status attainment process, producing divergences from patterns usually encountered in Western capitalist countries. Due to the influence of the communist ideology and policy and to the characteristics of the command economy, the influence of social origins on status attainment was reduced, the effects of education and occupation on income were weakened, and the relationship between education and occupation was generally higher in state socialist societies compared to Western capitalist societies. With the fall of the communism, some of the constraints that communist regimes have placed on social stratification have been removed. This process is expected to trigger changes in the status attainment process. The paper also explores the extent to which the transitions to post-communism have brought the social stratification in Central and Eastern European countries closer to the model in Western capitalist countries, and to what degree communist patterns of social stratification are preserved after the fall of the communism.
Keywords: status attainment, Central and Eastern Europe, socialist stratification and inequality, post-communist stratification and inequality.

Journal of Marriage and The Family, 2010

This research investigates change in gender beliefs in Japan during a period of economic hard tim... more This research investigates change in gender beliefs in Japan during a period of economic hard times in the late 1990s. Using data from the International Social Survey Programme on the Japanese population from 1994 (n = 1,054) and 2002 (n = 872), we examined how cohort replacement and intracohort change contributed to changes in gender beliefs. We found important differences from the patterns of change reported for many Western countries, namely, a decoupling between societal trends in the female labor force participation rate and beliefs about gender. Such differences may be attributable to factors such as the high societal valuation of the housewife role compared to that in other postindustrial countries and sanctions against full-time employment for women in Japan.

Calitatea Vieţii, 19(3 - 4), 389-405, 2008

The paper analyzes the relationship between family background, school characteristics, communit... more The paper analyzes the relationship between family background,
school characteristics, community characteristics, and children’s school success in Romania, in 2001. The analysis is placed in the context of the debates regarding the relative importance of family
background factors, school factors and neighborhood/ community factors in explaining the variation in children’s academic achievement. While research disentangling these relationships is abundant for developed countries and for several developing countries in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, and South
and East Asia, the Central and Eastern European countries are
underrepresented in this type of research. The empirical analysis on educational inequality in Romania undertaken here will also be placed in the context of the educational reforms that accompanied the fall of communism in 1989. The literature review will draw mainly on the contributions to the field based on the American context and some earlier contributions regarding the context of developing countries. It will also present the opinions of several scholars
examining the context of educational reforms after the fall of communism in Central and Eastern Europe and in Romania, in particular. The present work will draw on these theoretical bases and the results of an empirical analysis on Romanian fourth graders in an attempt to sketch an image of several factors that contribute to inequalities among children in school success, in Romania.

Journal of Learning Disabilities, 2008

Two questions were investigated. First, are children with reading problems in first grade more li... more Two questions were investigated. First, are children with reading problems in first grade more likely to experience behavior problems in third grade? Second, are children with behavior problems in first grade more likely to experience reading problems in third grade? The authors explored both questions by using multilevel logistic regression modeling to analyze data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Class (ECLS-K). After statistically controlling for a wide range of potential confounds, they found that children with reading problems in first grade were significantly more likely to display poor task engagement, poor self-control, externalizing behavior problems, and internalizing behavior problems in third grade. They also found that children displaying poor task engagement in first grade were more likely to experience reading problems in third grade. Collectively, these findings suggest that the most effective types of interventions are likely to be those that target problems with reading and task-focused behaviors simultaneously.

European Sociological Review, 2007

Public Opinion Quarterly, 2006

The purpose of this article is to acquaint the broader public opinion research audience with what... more The purpose of this article is to acquaint the broader public opinion research audience with what has been a salient issue within the community of scholars of religion. We address the question of how best to conceptualize and measure religious identities in research on contemporary American society. We consider the main approaches to the measurement of religious identification with regard to their backgrounds, their assumptions about the importance of understanding religious identities in historically relevant terms, and the practical considerations of survey measurement. Using data from the General Social Survey, particularly recent innovative efforts to obtain information on subjective association with particular religious traditions and/or movements (e.g., Pentecostal, fundamentalist, evangelical, mainline, or liberal Protestant), we compare the two main approaches: the traditional "denominational" approach, where religious identities are assumed to be associated with religious denominations, and the subjective approach, where religious identities are assumed to be captured by a set of "nondenominational" reference categories linked to particular historical religious traditions or social movements. We conclude that both approaches have substantial predictive validity, and the most effective strategy for future research may be one that uses a combination of approaches, rather than one that relies entirely on a single method of measurement.

While there has been increasing comment and concern over the apparent polarization of the America... more While there has been increasing comment and concern over the apparent polarization of the American electorate, recent research on culture and politics largely denies the existence of such polarization. In new research which focuses on Americans’ ideological identities, Duane F. Alwin and Paula A. Tufis find that voters have indeed become polarized over time, and that their political identities are increasingly informed by cultural, rather than class or economic factors.

Using ISSP data, this study estimates and compares links among social origins and social status c... more Using ISSP data, this study estimates and compares links among social origins and social status characteristics (education, occupation and earnings) across a range of societies and across time. The research topic is fueled by the idea that capitalism, free market economy and industrialization produce a specific logic of stratification, while state socialist societies, under the influence of socialist ideology and adopted state policies, produce a radically different stratification system, following a different logic from that existing in Western capitalist countries. In order to test this hypothesis, the present research is organized around differences and similarities in patterns of status attainment among countries characterized by different types of socio-political organization and different degrees of economic development. In particular, the study focuses on characteristics of state socialist stratification and the question of existence of socialist effects on social stratification and characteristics of postsocialist stratificationits departures from the "logic" of socialist stratification and that of capitalist stratification. In order to follow this line of research, the question of homogeneity of status attainment patterns within regions of countries characterized by similar socio-political systems and similar levels of development is also examined. The results suggest that there is no single model of capitalist stratification, or a single type of socialist stratification and a common process that describes transformations of the stratification system during the postcommunist transition in all former state socialist societies. The empirical analyses also suggest that while socialism might have had some isolated effects on status attainment processes, the effects are weak and it is not clear whether they are indeed attributable to the influence of socialist ideology and policy rather than other processes like economic development and industrialization. At the same time, the status attainment patterns characterizing statue socialist societies are not radically different from those iv characterizing western capitalist societies. Postcommunist effects on social stratification are also observed only in isolated cases, and stability rather than change describes the overtime trends in status attainment in the Central and Eastern European former socialist countries. v

ABSTRACT Studiul este consacrat abordării teoretice şi empirice a relaţiei dintre apartenenţă etn... more ABSTRACT Studiul este consacrat abordării teoretice şi empirice a relaţiei dintre apartenenţă etnică, stratificare socială şi atitudini etnice în ţări din Europa Centrală şi de Est, în România în mod particular. În prima parte a materialului sunt examinate principalele construcţii teoretice care dau seamă de relaţia dintre stratificare şi apartenenţă etnică, dintre stratificarea etnică şi cea de clasă, rolul mecanismelor de piaţă în dinamica stratificării şi a etnicităţii. Pentru validarea ipotezelor formulate sunt folosite date referitoare la ţările foste comuniste din Europa Centrală şi de Est. Pentru cazul României se apelează la analize multinivel prin considerarea datelor regionale, comunitare şi individuale. Analiza datelor empirice la nivel naţional argumentează că o compoziţie etnică omogenă a unei ţări determină orientarea globală a populaţiei spre o atitudine mai puţin tolerantă din punct de vedere etnic. Compoziţie etnică omogenă la nivel de regiune istorică, pentru cazul României favorizează, de asemenea, intoleranţa etnică. Intoleranţa etnică tinde să fie mai mare la straturile de bază ale societăţii. Relaţia între poziţia socială în spaţiul de stratificare şi atitudinile de intoleranţă etnică nu este însă una de tip liniar. Regiunile, tipurile de comunităţi locale şi rezidenţiale precum şi variabilele de capital uman şi material se dovedesc a fi predictori relevanţi ai intoleranţei etnice.

European Societies, 2023

In this article, we explore the complexities of the relationships between motivations in the migr... more In this article, we explore the complexities of the relationships between motivations in the migration process of young Europeans who have returned to their country of origin. We analyze a unique database of over 3,000 returnees, a sub-sample from a larger survey of about 30,000 young people in nine European countries. The findings suggest that there is a link between the motivations for the first migration and those for future migration among this group. Generally, past migration motivations tend to reinforce future migration motivations of a similar nature. By controlling for variables related to geographic space (countries of residence, development profiles of NUTS2 regions, urban profiles of local communities of residence), as well as for several socio-demographic variables and life satisfaction, we can better understand the influence of motivations for past migration on motivations for future migrations. This article extends the internal dynamics of migration approach by combining the idea of individual chains of migration motivations that are extending over-time with the idea of cumulative causation operating at the meso level.

Sociological Forum, 2021

This paper investigates trends in adult child-rearing values in the United States over a 30-year ... more This paper investigates trends in adult child-rearing values in the United States over a 30-year period, from the mid-1980s into the first decades of the 21st century. Using data from the General Social Surveys, we report trends in emphasis on five child traits: think for self, obey, work hard, popularity, and helping others.Independent of the time of the surveys, child-rearing values are associated with several individual attributes:
gender, schooling level, occupational class, birth year, race/ethnicity, region, party identification, religious affiliation, and religiosity. Socioeconomic factors continue to be among the most important, but contrary to many arguments, occupational class, as measured by Weeden–Grusky micro-classes, has a relatively less important role in predicting child-rearing values, once education is taken into account. Religious variables are also important, less so than socioeconomic factors, but there is support for the hypothesis of the growing strength over time in the impact of religious conservatism and participation.

The present paper examines claims of a growing cultural divide in the United States. We analyze s... more The present paper examines claims of a growing cultural divide in the United States. We analyze social change in beliefs about gender over a period of 36 years (from 1974 to 2010) in the United States using data from the nationally representative General Social Survey (GSS). We find evidence of growing gender egalitarianism until the mid-1990s, with a reversal between 1996 and 2000, and a decline in state differences in beliefs about gender over time in our decomposition analysis and multilevel models. Although we find significant differences in gender beliefs among states in the 1970s based on their voting record on the Equal Rights Amendment and based on patterns of family formation and family life associated with the Second Demographic Transition, these differences among states decreased or disappeared entirely by the early years of the twenty-first century. We highlight the implications of our findings for the ongoing public and academic debate surrounding growing cultural differences among states.

This article investigates the implications of Thomas Frank's " conservative backlash " thesis tha... more This article investigates the implications of Thomas Frank's " conservative backlash " thesis that cultural cleavages have become much more important in contemporary American political life relative to traditional socioeconomic bases for political differentiation. we frame our research within the recent literature on the " polarization " of the electorate with respect to social and cultural issues. using Hunter's " culture war " imagery, we examine the extent to which opposing cultural forces on issues of abortion , gay rights, women's extra-familial labor force participation , and child-rearing have become more important in shaping political identities and party preferences. we use data from twenty-six nationally representative surveys of the General Social Survey (GSS) from 1974 through 2010, and we find evidence of polarization in the liberal-conservative identities of respondents. we find that occupational class had a clear and consistent relationship to political views, which is relatively stable over time. we also find that cultural views are related to political identities, and that most features of the cultural component in our analysis are increasingly associated with liberal political views. Our results favor an interpretation of a changing role of cultural orientations in shaping political identities and provide tentative support for Frank's " Kansas hypothesis " as revealed in the GSS data.

Current Sociology, 2012

The impact of modernization and industrialization on gender arrangements has been different depen... more The impact of modernization and industrialization on gender arrangements has been different depending on the gender culture that predominated when the modernization process started. Romania was among the most rural societies in Europe after the Second World War. Women's involvement in agricultural activity was very high, but the gender division of work was a very traditional one. The communist regimes promoted a full employment policy for the entire population but did nothing to encourage gender equality in the private space. This article focuses on the Romanian case, aiming to identify the dynamics of gender beliefs during the post-communist period. Using data from two waves of the European Values Survey (1990Survey ( , 1999, as well as data provided by the Public Opinion Barometer 2007 and by Family Life -2008, the authors carried out standard cohort decomposition methods in order to detect the mechanism that produced the most variation in gender beliefs.

Calitatea Vieţii, 22(3-4), 321-350, 2010

This paper examines the changes in the relationships between social status components almost ten ... more This paper examines the changes in the relationships between social status components almost ten years after the fall of the communism in Central and Eastern Europe. Communist regimes have altered the relationships in the status attainment process, producing divergences from patterns usually encountered in Western capitalist countries. Due to the influence of the communist ideology and policy and to the characteristics of the command economy, the influence of social origins on status attainment was reduced, the effects of education and occupation on income were weakened, and the relationship between education and occupation was generally higher in state socialist societies compared to Western capitalist societies. With the fall of the communism, some of the constraints that communist regimes have placed on social stratification have been removed. This process is expected to trigger changes in the status attainment process. The paper also explores the extent to which the transitions to post-communism have brought the social stratification in Central and Eastern European countries closer to the model in Western capitalist countries, and to what degree communist patterns of social stratification are preserved after the fall of the communism.
Keywords: status attainment, Central and Eastern Europe, socialist stratification and inequality, post-communist stratification and inequality.

Journal of Marriage and The Family, 2010

This research investigates change in gender beliefs in Japan during a period of economic hard tim... more This research investigates change in gender beliefs in Japan during a period of economic hard times in the late 1990s. Using data from the International Social Survey Programme on the Japanese population from 1994 (n = 1,054) and 2002 (n = 872), we examined how cohort replacement and intracohort change contributed to changes in gender beliefs. We found important differences from the patterns of change reported for many Western countries, namely, a decoupling between societal trends in the female labor force participation rate and beliefs about gender. Such differences may be attributable to factors such as the high societal valuation of the housewife role compared to that in other postindustrial countries and sanctions against full-time employment for women in Japan.

Calitatea Vieţii, 19(3 - 4), 389-405, 2008

The paper analyzes the relationship between family background, school characteristics, communit... more The paper analyzes the relationship between family background,
school characteristics, community characteristics, and children’s school success in Romania, in 2001. The analysis is placed in the context of the debates regarding the relative importance of family
background factors, school factors and neighborhood/ community factors in explaining the variation in children’s academic achievement. While research disentangling these relationships is abundant for developed countries and for several developing countries in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, and South
and East Asia, the Central and Eastern European countries are
underrepresented in this type of research. The empirical analysis on educational inequality in Romania undertaken here will also be placed in the context of the educational reforms that accompanied the fall of communism in 1989. The literature review will draw mainly on the contributions to the field based on the American context and some earlier contributions regarding the context of developing countries. It will also present the opinions of several scholars
examining the context of educational reforms after the fall of communism in Central and Eastern Europe and in Romania, in particular. The present work will draw on these theoretical bases and the results of an empirical analysis on Romanian fourth graders in an attempt to sketch an image of several factors that contribute to inequalities among children in school success, in Romania.

Journal of Learning Disabilities, 2008

Two questions were investigated. First, are children with reading problems in first grade more li... more Two questions were investigated. First, are children with reading problems in first grade more likely to experience behavior problems in third grade? Second, are children with behavior problems in first grade more likely to experience reading problems in third grade? The authors explored both questions by using multilevel logistic regression modeling to analyze data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Class (ECLS-K). After statistically controlling for a wide range of potential confounds, they found that children with reading problems in first grade were significantly more likely to display poor task engagement, poor self-control, externalizing behavior problems, and internalizing behavior problems in third grade. They also found that children displaying poor task engagement in first grade were more likely to experience reading problems in third grade. Collectively, these findings suggest that the most effective types of interventions are likely to be those that target problems with reading and task-focused behaviors simultaneously.

European Sociological Review, 2007

Public Opinion Quarterly, 2006

The purpose of this article is to acquaint the broader public opinion research audience with what... more The purpose of this article is to acquaint the broader public opinion research audience with what has been a salient issue within the community of scholars of religion. We address the question of how best to conceptualize and measure religious identities in research on contemporary American society. We consider the main approaches to the measurement of religious identification with regard to their backgrounds, their assumptions about the importance of understanding religious identities in historically relevant terms, and the practical considerations of survey measurement. Using data from the General Social Survey, particularly recent innovative efforts to obtain information on subjective association with particular religious traditions and/or movements (e.g., Pentecostal, fundamentalist, evangelical, mainline, or liberal Protestant), we compare the two main approaches: the traditional "denominational" approach, where religious identities are assumed to be associated with religious denominations, and the subjective approach, where religious identities are assumed to be captured by a set of "nondenominational" reference categories linked to particular historical religious traditions or social movements. We conclude that both approaches have substantial predictive validity, and the most effective strategy for future research may be one that uses a combination of approaches, rather than one that relies entirely on a single method of measurement.

Using ISSP data, this study estimates and compares links among social origins and social status c... more Using ISSP data, this study estimates and compares links among social origins and social status characteristics (education, occupation and earnings) across a range of societies and across time. The research topic is fueled by the idea that capitalism, free market economy and industrialization produce a specific logic of stratification, while state socialist societies, under the influence of socialist ideology and adopted state policies, produce a radically different stratification system, following a different logic from that existing in Western capitalist countries. In order to test this hypothesis, the present research is organized around differences and similarities in patterns of status attainment among countries characterized by different types of socio-political organization and different degrees of economic development. In particular, the study focuses on characteristics of state socialist stratification and the question of existence of socialist effects on social stratification and characteristics of postsocialist stratification – its departures from the ‘logic’ of socialist stratification and that of capitalist stratification. In order to follow this line of research, the question of homogeneity of status attainment patterns within regions of countries characterized by similar socio-political systems and similar levels of development is also examined. The results suggest that there is no single model of capitalist stratification, or a single type of socialist stratification and a common process that describes transformations of the stratification system during the postcommunist transition in all former state socialist societies. The empirical analyses also suggest that while socialism might have had some isolated effects on status attainment processes, the effects are weak and it is not clear whether they are indeed attributable to the influence of socialist ideology and policy rather than other processes like economic development and industrialization. At the same time, the status attainment patterns characterizing statue socialist societies are not radically different from those characterizing western capitalist societies. Postcommunist effects on social stratification are also observed only in isolated cases, and stability rather than change describes the over-time trends in status attainment in the Central and Eastern European former socialist countries.

Sociologie (pp. 294-336), 2011

Analiza strucnrrii, stratificlrii gi mobilitittii sociale este unul din cele mai importante capit... more Analiza strucnrrii, stratificlrii gi mobilitittii sociale este unul din cele mai importante capitole ale sociologiei. Aceasta intrucflt sunt avute in vedere nu numai mecanismele organiz[ni sau structurlrii sociale, ci Si modurile de distribugie a 1

The Values of Romanians: 1993 – 2006. A Sociological Perspective (pp. 205-241), 2008