It's interesting that the article (and presumably the researchers) presume this is a bad thing. This is, in essence, natural selection playing out. Adopting the behaviors of those closest to us is also how will advance (or retreat) as a species.
"Natural" != "morally right"
But it isn't.
And, in case this was a point of confusion, race != family.
Traditionally, it was done via military service. In exchange for risking your life, those in power will educate you, give you a set of skills and some discipline, and surround you with people also looking to get ahead. If you wanted your child to have a better life, military enrollment was a good, if risky, way to go. More recently, schools have been the answer. If you wanted your child to succeed, you put an emphasis on education so he could get into the best schools, learn a valuable skill, and be surrounded by those with similar aspirations. I’m sure that going forward, even more and cheaper opportunities will arise based on technology.
If you look just at the United States, nearly every immigrant group has done this. The Irish, Italians, Japanese, Chinese, and Korean immigrants, all of which were at the bottom of the social totem pole at one time, have all adopted the prevalent socioeconomic background of the dominant groups of the time. And they’ve all succeeded to the point where nobody in the United States considers “the Irish” or “the Chinese” to inhabit a separate or distinct socioeconomic subgroup of Americans.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/02/fashion/02studied.html?_r=...