Attention now turns in this chapter and Chapter 7 to the mobilisation of social resources in the reproduction of advantage. As I outlined in the Introduction, Goldthorpe defined social resources in terms of involvement in social networks that can serve as channels of information and influence in getting a job. He cited the famous research by the American sociologist, Mark Granovetter, on the importance on contacts on careers. Moreover, Goldthorpe argued that social resources are especially important when academic success is not forthcoming. That is to say, parents can call on family and friends to help their less academically able children get good jobs. In the development of an explicit theoretical explanation of middle-class reproduction, however, his initial discussion on the importance of social resources in the reproduction of advantage disappeared from view. In his desire to assert the significance of economic resources and downplay the importance of cultural resources in his critique of Bourdieu, it seemed that Goldthorpe had to ignore social resources as well. Again, I thought this was a shame for precisely the reasons that Goldthorpe initially acknowledged: namely, that networks of a formal and informal kind are often an important source of information and advice in the job search process as Granovetter described. The consequence of this neglect – probably an unintended rather than an intended consequence of Goldthorpe's attack on Bourdieu's ideas – was that he could no longer consider the interconnections between social resources and economic (and cultural) resources.