Presentation by Dr. Frerk Blome on the Mechanisms of Social Mobility
From October 21 to 23, 2026, the 8th international conference “Social Boundaries of Work” took place at the Department of Economics and Sociology at the University of Łódź. Under the title “The Meanings of Work in Organizational Contexts,” the conference will explore the significance and boundaries of work in organizational contexts.
Dr. Frerk Blome, director of the BiFam early-career research group at Sociology of Migration and Education, presented his paper “Mechanisms of Upward Social Mobility. A Qualitative Analysis of Class-Specific Careers in Law and Educational Science.” Based on biographical-narrative interviews with professors in the fields of law and educational science, he reconstructs the mechanisms through which social advancement in academia is achieved and how these differ from career paths of social reproduction. The presentation is based on his essay of the same name published in the journal *Soziale Welt*.
In the same panel, researchers from Warsaw and Łódź discussed, among other topics, the experiences of first-generation academics in Poland and international academic mobility.