Social Mobility Quotes

• Indias rigid social structure limits intergenerational economic mobility and fosters acceptance of vast wealth disparities.

  Steven Rattner

  Acceptance, Limits, India

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• The accumulation of cultural capital - the acquisition of knowledge - is the key to social mobility.

  Michael Gove

  Keys, Acquisition, Mobility

  "Michael Gove reveals the surprising inspirations behind his reforms" by Peter Walker, www.theguardian.com. February 5, 2013.

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• The difference between rich and poor is becoming more extreme, and as income inequality widens the wealth gap in major nations, education, health and social mobility are all threatened.

  Helene D. Gayle

  Differences, Becoming, Income

  "Widening Income Disparities" by Helene D. Gayle, www.huffingtonpost.com. January 21, 2014.

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• Free market capitalism is far more than economic theory. It is the engine of social mobility-the highway to the American Dream.

  George W. Bush

  Dream, Mobility, Politics

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• Americans have so far put up with inequality because they felt they could change their status. They didn't mind others being rich, as long as they had a path to move up as well. The American Dream is all about social mobility in a sense - the idea that anyone can make it.

  Fareed Zakaria

  Dream, Moving, Ideas

  "Fareed Zakaria: 'The American Dream Is Better In Europe'" by Noel Sheppard, www.newsbusters.org. November 6, 2011.

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• I've been talking about things like reversing the rise of inequality and strengthening social
  mobility,since before it was cool.

  Barack Obama

  Talking, Mobility, Social

  Source: www.foxnews.com

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• For many young people mobility has turned into a bus down to the job centre.

  Harriet Harman

  Jobs, Mean, People

  "Labour attacks Nick Clegg over social mobility plan". www.bbc.com. April 5, 2011.

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• People are pissed off about the seemingly impossible goal of social mobility. their proposed solution is to take the wheels off the cart.

  Stan Lee

  People, Goal, Pissed Off

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• Modernity has reneged on its promise to young people to provide social mobility, stability and collective security. Long-term planning and the institutional structures that support them are now relegated to the imperatives of privatization, deregulation, flexibility and short-term profits.

  Henry Giroux

  Long, People, Support

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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• It is worthwhile to engage in something that is close to one's heart. I had a scholarship. So if I donate money to give brilliant Chinese students an opportunity to study abroad, then this embodies everything I believe in: education, globalization, social mobility. I am an example of social mobility.

  Zhang Xin

  Believe, Heart, Opportunity

  Source: www.spiegel.de

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• Social mobility decreased under Labour and under the current government it is reversing. The differences between the poorest and richest are returning to Victorian levels. We don't have open sewers and infant mortality rates at fifty percent but in economic terms we're getting to a level of disparity we haven't seen for a couple of hundred years. And we're getting there very quickly.

  Jonathan Trigell

  Couple, Government, Years

  Source: www.3ammagazine.com

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• We used to be so proud that our country offered far more economic opportunities than the feudal system in Great Britain, with its royal family, princesses and dukes. But social mobility in the UK is higher than in the US. Our social rift is as big as it was in the 1920s.

  Robert Reich

  Country, Princess, Opportunity

  Source: www.spiegel.de

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• The stress laid on upward social mobility in the United States has tended to obscure the fact that there can be more than one kind of mobility and more than one direction in which it can go. There can be ethical mobility as well as financial, and it can go down as well as up.

  Margaret Halsey

  Stress, One Direction, Mobility

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• The zooming wealth of the top 1 percent is a problem, but it's not nearly as big a problem as the tens of millions of Americans who have dropped out of high school or college. It's not nearly as big a problem as the 40 percent of children who are born out of wedlock. It's not nearly as big a problem as the nation's stagnant human capital, its stagnant social mobility and the disorganized social fabric for the bottom 50 percent.

  David Brooks

  Education, Children, School

  FaceBook post by David Brooks from Nov 01, 2011

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• I'm afraid you gave up the right to pontificate on social mobility when you abolished educational maintenance allowance [EMA], trebled tuition fees and betrayed a generation of young people.

  Harriet Harman

  Educational, People, Generations

  "Clegg Announces Child Poverty and Social Mobility Commission" by Allegra Stratton and Hélène Mulholland, www.theguardian.com. April 05, 2011.

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• I'm a daughter of the middle class with a strong sense of social mobility and individualism, like the waves of immigrants, like my Spanish grandparents, who made Argentina.

  Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner

  Daughter, Strong, Class

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• I didn't become leader to transform the Liberal Democrats into an enlarged form of the Electoral Reform Society. It's not the be all and end all for us. There are other very, very key ambitions in politics, not least social mobility and life chances, that I care about as passionately if not more.

  Nick Clegg

  Ambition, Keys, Leader

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• If you scratch below the surface and ask what really makes me tick, it's the liberalism of trying to promote freedom and opportunity. Promoting social mobility is one of the keys to that.

  Nick Clegg

  Opportunity, Keys, Trying

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