This proposal requests funds to permit Dr. Donald Treiman, Department of Sociology, University of California at Los Angeles, to pursue with Dr. Sylvia Moeno, Senior Lecturer, Sociology Department, University of South Africa (UNISA), for a period of 24 months, a program of cooperative research. This research project, part of a larger effort, will add South Africa to the list of nations embraced by a rich tradition of comparative research in the attainment of social status. Poised on the threshold of major social change, amidst the continuing disparity in socioeconomic outcomes among Whites, Asians, Coloureds and Blacks, this country offers a heretofore neglected, strategic research site for the study of the effects of race and ethnic group membership, residential location, the availability and quality of schooling, and explicit patterns of racial segregation and discrimination on the social and economic outcomes of the population. The project will ultimately survey approximately 12,000 households sampled by race and type of residential location so as to be representative of all major racial groups in the country. An indigenous organization known for the quality of its work among all racial groups and composed primarily (80 percent) of black South Africans will collect the survey data under the direction and with the participation of faculty and graduate students from UCLA. Retrospective work histories, residential histories, and educational histories will be solicited and combined with other data to facilitate a subsequent comparative analysis of the determinants of inter- and intra- generational mobility within race and ethnic groups. The principal investigator is one of the foremost American sociologists doing comparative work in this area and has the credentials and skills to carry out this project in cooperation with black South African colleagues.
