Qualifications
Qualifications
OPPORTUNITY AND OCCUPATIONAL OUTCOMES
In any society where good (desirable) jobs and high social status positions are relatively scarce, elites put mechanisms into place to limit access. Whereas in traditional societies “proof of ancestry” served that gatekeeper function, in modern societies the gatekeeper mechanism is expected to be the system of qualifications. The German social theorist Max Weber famously noted the rise of education, and specifically certificates (diplomas), as the preeminent form of qualification in modern society. In delineating the distinction of a society/system dominated by bureaucratic form (as opposed to traditional or charismatic forms), Weber wrote that office holding in bureaucracy was a vocation that required at least a prescribed course of training and working experience and oftentimes specialized examinations. The system of examinations was, then, a way to ensure the qualifications of any applicant (of any social strata), and it took the place of the traditional selection by noble birth.
EDUCATIONAL CREDENTIALING
The sociologist Randall Collins, studying U.S. society closer to the turn of the millennium, noted that education and parent occupational level were indeed the most important predictors of occupational success. Yet Collins, in the influential book The Credential Society: An Historical Sociology of Education and Stratification (1979), challenged the notions that (1) education led to skills acquisition and that (2) skills were the main determinant of occupational success. Instead Collins posited that while educational credentials were still the key to occupational achievement, this correlational path need not, and often did not, run through the intervening variable of skills acquisition. Collins noted that most skills could be learned on the job, but the best jobs were saved for the applicants with the best educational credentials. This line of thinking was presaged by the work of postwar French sociologists such as Georges Friedmann (1946) and Alain Touraine (1955) who claimed distinctions between the concepts of qualification (a social construction with historical specificity) and skill (job-specific mastery). Touraine was particularly concerned with how the Industrial Revolution increasingly caused “social” qualifications to replace technical competence as measures of worker value.
Support for the value of education as one of these new qualifications was also proffered in economics by the Nobel laureate A. Michael Spence. Spence argued in 1973 that in a (labor) market characterized by imperfect information, individuals possessing qualifications would need to signal such qualifications to potential employers. Spence noted that education worked as a signal of qualification in the labor market. Taken together, the arguments of Collins and Spence suggest that whether or not education actually bestows qualifications, it bestows the presumption of qualifications in a competitive labor marketplace. As such, it is often not the actual possession of qualifications that leads to a job but rather a credential or signal of employability that leads to a job. That such credentials or signals are not equitably accessible by all members of a given society has been a continuing source of social science inquiry and popular consternation.
Historically, in societies stratified by race, gender, and class, educational credentialing has stratified correspondingly. Human Rights Watch concludes that children across the globe face discrimination in access to education, and thus the educational imparting of qualifications, based on race, ethnicity, religion, and other status. A 2003–2004 UNESCO report confirms that gender disparity in education remains a deep concern for much of the developing world. This concern is exacerbated in societies that are increasingly characterized by the need for knowledge and technological expertise acquired through education.
Yet in many Western postindustrial societies, gender parity in access to education (and even higher education) has been largely achieved. While women in these societies have made great strides in educational credentialing, racial minorities have fared slightly less well, and lower social classes still less well, even though progress has been made. For example, racial discrimination embedded both inherently in a qualification vehicle and in that qualification’s use as an exclusionary moving target was addressed directly by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1992. The U.S. Supreme Court, in United States v. Fordice, 505 U.S. 717 (1992), noted that the State of Mississippi had used minimum ACT test scores first as a way to racially segregate institutions of higher education and then, as black student scores on these exams rose, as a way to maintain segregation by setting minimums out of reach of even the highest performing students of color. In striking down Mississippi’s sole dependence on a discriminatory qualifier, the court further noted that most other states used a variety of qualifications in order to compensate for discrimination embedded in any one indicator and thereby improve racial balance on higher education campuses. The case demonstrates both the progress made and the barriers still to overcome in the United States’ use of qualification for selection purposes.
OPPORTUNITY AND OCCUPATIONAL OUTCOMES
But even if women and racial minorities (though not necessarily lower and working classes) increasingly have access to qualifications (taught skills or merely credentials) afforded by attendance at both non-elite and elite colleges and universities, there is still evidence that coveted jobs are not meted out by qualifications alone. Indeed, social capital theorists are quick to point out that many individuals may share the same qualifications (or human capital) when seeking jobs yet may not achieve the same occupational outcomes due to the scarcity of opportunities. Groundbreaking research by Mark Granovetter in 1974 empirically confirmed the common wisdom that in job placement, it is often not “what you know” (formal qualifications) but rather “who you know.” Even in postindustrial, bureaucratized societies, then, traditional modes of meting out jobs based on social capital and networks oftentimes negate the value of educational qualifications.
Further, some occupational qualifications depend less on education and training and more on physical or biological traits. In the United States, for example, societal controversies have arisen over the stated qualifications for jobs such as firefighters and police officers: Admittance to these occupations typically entails passing physical ability and strength tests that have often discriminated on the basis of sex. U.S. statutes, such as Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, that prohibit discrimination in employment based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin still allow exceptions in cases where an employer can demonstrate that sex, religion, or national origin is a bona fide occupational qualification (BFOQ). British law, under the sex Discrimination Act of 1975, also allows for limited discrimination in recruitment, training, promotion, and transfer in a job for which the sex of the work is a “genuine occupational qualification” (GOQ). As in the U.S. law, the occupational qualification mandating preference for a particular social category exists when the essence of the job makes it unsuitable for persons in other social categories. In these cases, then, sex, religion, and national origin may denote actual job qualifications and not just mark inequitable access to job qualifications.
Due to the richness of the concept, social scientists have been interested in qualifications as both an independent and dependent variable. As noted above, there is a long social science tradition of trying to understand precursors and access to qualifications in the job market (often focusing on racial and gender disparity in possession of job qualifications). As well, newer literature is beginning to center questions of qualifications as independent variables in models of income and occupational prestige, for example. The French sociology of work tradition is a reminder that qualifications are often social constructions, manipulated in the interests of elites. And finally, a continuing challenge is the interchangeability of the constructs of job qualifications and KSAs (knowledge, skills, and abilities) in the management and sociological literature coming out of the United States.
SEE ALSO Labor Market; Skill; Stratification
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Collins, Randall. 1979. The Credential Society: An Historical Sociology of Education and Stratification. New York: Academic Press.
Friedmann, Georges. 1946 . Problèmes humains du machinisme industriel. Paris: Gallimard.
Granovetter, Mark S. 1974. Getting a Job: A Study of Contacts and Careers. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Spence, A. Michael. 1973. Job Market Signaling. Quarterly Journal of Economics 87(3): 355–374.
Touraine, Alain. 1955. La qualification du travail: Histoire d’une notion. Journal de psychologie normale et pathologique 13: 27–76.
Weber, Max. 1968. Bureaucracy. In Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology, eds. Guenther Roth and Claus Wittich; trans. Ephraim Fischoff et al. Berkeley: University of California Press: 956–1006.
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