THE STATUS DEFINITION FUNCTION CONTINUES
Many families continue to prepare children to retain the class status of the others seek to prepare their children [(IT social mobility. They do this mainly by trying to give children the kind of ambitions, attitudes, and habits which prompt them to struggle for a higher class status and to fill it successfully. This is called anticipatory socialization, for it is an effort to socialize children for a class status which it is hoped they will someday achieve. At best, this effort is only partly successful. The.child may acquire the ambitions and work habits which prompt it to struggle successfully for upward mobility, but no family can fully succeed in socializing a child for a way or life not practiced by that family.
