This paper investigates the consequences of children's exposure to state-level incarceration rates on social mobility in the United States. The study uses social mobility data from the Opportunity Atlas for children born between 1978 and 1983. Jail population data is gathered from the 1985 and the 1995 Annual Survey of Jails. To analyze the impact of jail rates on social mobility, we estimate OLS regressions with state-level control variables. Of key interest is the potential differential effect of early (age 2-7) versus later (age 12-17) exposure. All estimates indicate a negative correlation between incarceration and social mobility. The main results indicate that exposure to incarceration rates during adolescence has a larger impact on social mobility. Further, the subgroup estimates indicate that female incarceration is a more effective determinant of social mobility and that the black and the female population are more sensitive to fluctuations in incarceration rates. The estimates by income percentiles show incoherent results. The results should be treated with caution to methodological issues and potential biases.

The aim of this dissertation is to examine inter-ethnic relations between organizationally active people with different ethnic backgrounds. I focus on relations that are based on a mutual interdependence between parties, mutual respect, common procedural rules, real opportunities that expressly approve or reject a proposal in a decision or deliberation situation free from compulsion, where people, who have different ethnic backgrounds, strive after insight and understanding in their relations. In this dissertation I present three empirical cases about cooperation, consultation and participation as forms of inter-ethnic relations from the organizational fields in the society. These cases are examples of what I characterize as “organizing inter-ethnicity”, or organizing people with different ethnic backgrounds around common concerns. Organizing inter-ethnicity is in turn a part of organizing and integrating diversity in society. Drawing on the results of three case studies, I distinguish between opportunities and barriers. My case studies clearly illustrate that the tensions that influence the patterns of and variation in opportunities and barriers have sources that reach well beyond ethnicity. Tensions between old and new organizations, between working immigrant organizations and refugee organizations, between organizations from same group or between organizations that have conflicts from their members’ countries of origin provide some examples of the difficulties that generate barriers to broad interest constellations between organizations.