Interpretation of the Prospects of Social Mobility by Students

The article delves into the study of the problems of social mobility and students’ interpretation of life chances and career trajectories. It examines sociological theories of various paradigms devoted to the problems of interpreting social mobility and stratification, which formed the basis of the theoretical and methodological ap-proach (K. Marx, P. Bourdieu, P. Berger, T. Luckman, and A. Schutz). The results of an empirical study of types of interpretation of social mobility prospects using in-depth interviews are presented. The types of interpretation of social mobility prospects by students are identified and described: ambitious materialist; balanced pragmatist; san-guine contemplative; choleric dealmaker; social melancholic (for some types, scenarios were identified: variable components of interpretation that do not contradict the key quality of a given type). A comprehensive social char-acteristic was compiled for each of them. Some barriers to social mobility have been identified and empirically described, and appropriate practical solutions have been proposed. Conclusions dwells upon a tendency for stu-dents’ interpretation of their own prospects to depend on a number of factors: level of capital, social proactivity, assessment of the system of social mobility and inequality, which needs to be quantitatively verified.