This paper examines the seemingly inevitable tedency toward a credential society along with the expansion of school education. In section one three major forces promoting the credentialization of society are identified: equalization of status orientation among individuals, demand for economic rationalization, and demand for organizational rationalization along with the industrialization and bureaucratization of society. Then, a brief review of the related literature shows that many previous studies support the inevitability hypothesistoward a credential society.
Section two points out some shortcomings of previous studies. First, previous studies have failed to consider the structure of objects for individual's needs of achievements, and secondly, their consideration of the function of school education has been insufficient in relation to educational expansion.
Section three, then, investigates economic benefits of obtaining educational credentials for an individual. It is confirmed that as school education has expanded, the rates of return of schooling have decreased at least in post-war Japan. Then, a cross-societal comparison based on the data of 43 countries also confirms the declining tendency of rates of return along with the expansion of school education. But, absolute differences of rates of return among various countries are not only due to the size of school education but also due to the level of equity in society.
Section four investigates social benefits of educational credentials. Here again, it is confirmed that as school education has expanded, more prestiged occupationssuch as professional and managerial ones have become occupied more and more by university graduates. Then, as for determinants of occupational attainment, the relative importance is examined between father's occupational status and son's educational credential by path and regression analyses and by a cross-societal comparison based on 27 sets of correlations. Here again, it is confirmed that the more industrialized, and the more expanded school education, the more important educational credentials for occupational attainment are.
Finally, section five discusses the relationships between the expansion of school education, credential society, and credentialism, and points out the unique characteristics of educational credentials as a determinant of individual career: that is, educational credentialis surely achieved by an individual, and at the same time it functions as an ascribed attribute in the process of one's status attainment.
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