Social Mobility of Finnish Elite-Athletes of Different Achievement Level

Abstract

The starting point of the present study, which has been made as a little part of the cross-national Project on Leisure Role Socialization (Kenyon and McPherson 1970), has been the observation made about Finnish top athletes according to which the social background of athletes belonging to the internatio nal elite was lower than that of athletes at the national top level (Laakso 1977). The result was interpreted so that athletes from the lower social groups seek to use sport as a means of upward mobility. The purpose of this report has been to find out whether athletic success is related to social mobility when top athletes of different performance level are compared with each other. Social mobility has been assessed only by comparing the athlete's occupation with that of his father. Thus the results do not tell much about changes in social position in larger sense nor do they describe in his own occupation.

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