The Future of Social Mobility International Conference - News #2

As an inter- and transdisciplinary space, the conference welcomes contributions from a wide range of academic disciplines to provide the most updated research on social mobility. This will facilitate mutual learning and interaction with a broader context of social actors and institutions interested in this topic. 

The conference programme will feature plenary sessions, academic-only sessions, mixed sessions, and stories panels, culminating in a collaborative lab to consolidate insights and generate key conclusions.

Main topics

1. Intersectionality of race, ethnicity, gender, class, and territory in social mobility, which will explore how these factors shape social mobility.

2. Meritocracy, social mobility, and the critique to inequality, which will examine the role of meritocracy in perpetuating inequality.

3. New forms of social mobility and aspirations of prosperity, which will explore emerging pathways to social mobility and shifting aspirations of prosperity in today’s world.

4. Climate change, transitions, and social mobility, which will investigate the impact of climate change on social mobility.

Confirmed keynote speakers

MIKE SAVAGE

London School of Economics – International Inequalities Institute 

American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Mike has long-standing interests in analyzing social stratification and inequality. He has played a major role in the revival of the sociology of social class in recent decades so that it has become once more a central plank of discipline. He is one of the major sociologists to embrace the growing awareness of intensified economic inequality in recent decades to draw out the broader systemic social challenges these have produced.

MARÍA JOSÉ ÁLVAREZ

Professor of Sociology at the Universidad de los Andes, Colombia

Full Professor of Sociology at the Universidad de los Andes and the founder of the Sociology Department at the institution. Her work focuses on social inequality, which she approaches through a combination of statistical and qualitative methods, with a particular emphasis on social networks and their segregation. She is also interested in public policies aimed at reducing inequality. She is the author of books on the informal city in Montevideo and on social mobility in segregated contexts. Her research has covered topics such as residential and educational segregation, social movements, low-income neighborhoods, and urban interventions. She is currently studying care policies in Bogotá from a comparative perspective.

GAUTAM BHAN

Associate Dean – School of Human Development at the Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS)

Gautam Bhan is an urbanist whose work focuses on urban poverty, inequality, social protection, and housing. He is currently Associate Dean, IIHS School of Human Development, as well as Senior Lead, Academics & Research, at IIHS.

JODY AGIUS VALLEJO

Professor of Sociology and American Studies and Ethnicity

She is also Associate Director of USC Equity Research Institute and Immediate Past Chair of the International Migration Section of the American Sociological Association. Vallejo investigates immigrant integration and mobility in the United States by concentrating on the mobility pathways and economic and philanthropic endeavors of the Latino middle and elite classes.

Special guests

GÖKCE YURDAKUL

Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

Gökce Yurdakul is the Georg Simmel Professor of Diversity and Social Conflict at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and an affiliated faculty member of its Gender Studies program. She is the recipient of the ERC Advanced Grant for her project “Belonging for Single Migrant Men: A Cross-Country Comparative Perspective“ (2026-2031). She previously served as Director of the Berlin Institute for Migration and Integration Research (2022–2024) and the Institute of Social Sciences (2019–2021).

Yurdakul holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of Toronto (2006), and her research centers on migration, gender, intersectionality, and citizenship. She has held visiting scholar positions at institutions including Harvard University, the University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa), the University of the South Pacific, the University of Sussex, and Mahidol University.

Her publications include From Guest Workers into Muslims (2009) and The Headscarf Debates: Conflicts of National Belonging (2014, co-authored with Anna C. Korteweg). She is also the co-editor of the forthcoming Oxford Handbook on Intersectional Approaches to Migration, Gender, and Sexuality (expected 2026).

GABRIEL KESSLER

Superior reseacher, CONICET. Professor of the Universidad de la Plata, Argentina

Gabriel has served as a Tinker Visiting Professor at Columbia University in New York. He was awarded the Konex Prize for his contributions to Sociology (2004–2015) and, in 2019, was named “Chevalier de l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques” by the French government. His most distinguished publications include Sociología del delito amateur (Paidós); Neoliberalism and National Imagination (Routledge, with A. Grimson); La experiencia escolar fragmentada (IPE-UNESCO); El sentimiento de inseguridad. Sociología del temor al delito (Siglo XXI); Controversias sobre la desigualdad (FCE); Muertes que importan. Una mirada sociohistórica sobre los casos que marcaron la historia argentina reciente (Siglo XXI, with S. Gayol); and Uneven Trajectories: Latin American Society in the 21st Century (Cambridge University Press, with G. Benza).

LETICIA MUÑIZ TERRA

Professor of the Universidad de la Plata, Argentina

Leticia Muñiz Terra holds a Ph.D. in Social Sciences and a Master’s degree in Labor Social Sciences from the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina. She also holds a Bachelor’s and a Professorship degree in Sociology from the National University of La Plata (UNLP), Argentina. She is currently an Associate Researcher at CONICET, based at the Interdisciplinary Center for Social Sciences Methodology (CIMECS), part of the Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences Research (IdIHCS – CONICET-UNLP, FaHCE). She is a tenured Assistant Professor in the course “Social Research Methodology II (Qualitative)” in the Sociology program at the Faculty of Humanities and Education Sciences of UNLP, and a postgraduate lecturer on methodological and labor-related topics at various national public universities (UNLP, UNER, UNTREF).

PEDRO LOPEZ-ROLDÁN

Department of Sociology, Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB)

Pedro López-Roldán currently works at the Department of Sociology, Autonomous University of Barcelona. Pedro does research in Research Methods (Typological Construction, Multivariate Data Analysis, Mixed Methods) and Sociology of Labour and Social Inequalities (Labour Market Segmentation, Gender and Immigration, Labour Trajectories, Social Structure and Inequalities, Social Mobility, Comparative Sociology between Europe and Latin America). He is part of the International Network for Comparative Analysis of Social Inequalities (INCASI).

SANDRA FACHELLI

Full professor, Pablo Olavide University. Sevilla, Spain

Post doctorate in Social Science from University of Buenos Aires (UBA), PhD in Sociology from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), Diploma of Advanced Studies in sociology, Master in Introduction to Research in Sociology (UAB), Master’s in Design and Management of Policies and Social Programs (FLACSO Argentina). She has a BA degree in sociology from the University of Argentina John F. Kennedy. She is a professor in the Department of Sociology of Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Sevilla and a researcher in the Labor and Education Research Group (GRET) of the Autonomous University of Barcelona. She is teaching coordinator and professor of the Master’s programme in Applied Social Research Techniques (TISA) that are co-coordinated by UAB and UB. Her main lines of research are: inequality, stratification and social mobility, higher education and employment.