![]() The article argues for a renewed theoretical approach to educational credentialism. These occupational-specific forms of credentialism shape the competition for jobs for university graduates. Rather than functioning as direct signs of work skills and knowledge, signals of trainability or as instruments of social closure, the article shows that higher education credentials serve multiple roles within the three occupations. Drawing on semi-structured interview data, this article compares and contrasts how Higher Education degrees serve as credentials in accessing three different graduate occupations: laboratory scientists, software engineers and press officers. We know that occupations are strong determinants of which skills, knowledge and abilities are utilised in work but we do not know enough of how occupational contexts shape what university degrees represent to employers and labour market entrants. These findings challenge severalconventional macro-level theories of discrimination.Īn ongoing debate is centred around the question of how we can understand the value of university credentials in accessing jobs. ![]() We find smaller differences among Great Britain, Canada,Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, the United States, and Germany. ![]() ![]() France has the highestdiscrimination rates, followed by Sweden. However, discrimination rates vary strongly by country:In high-discrimination countries, white natives receive nearly twice the callbacks of nonwhites inlow-discrimination countries, white natives receive about 25 percent more. Wefind significant discrimination against nonwhite natives in all countries in our analysis discriminationagainst white immigrants is present but low. Because of difficulties inmeasurement, however, little is established about variation in hiring discrimination across countries.We address this gap through a formal meta-analysis of 97 field experiments of discriminationincorporating more than 200,000 job applications in nine countries in Europe and North America. This variation can be explained by different family backgrounds and ethnoracial characteristics but also by axiological positions towards employability and social mobility, with ‘purists’ more likely to invest in increasing their technical cultural capital to make up for ‘handicaps’ and ‘players’ more likely to put forward ‘soft skills’ including, in some cases, those associated with their ‘diversity’.Ĭomparing levels of discrimination across countries can provide a window into large-scalesocial and political factors often described as the root of discrimination. Using data collected through interviews with 42 beneficiaries of this scheme still in the early stages of their professional careers, the article shows that the graduates’ disadvantages and ways of coping with them, as well their chances of being stigmatised and reactions to this process, vary considerably. It adopts a Bourdieusian perspective enriched by research on the barriers encountered by socially mobile individuals from disadvantaged and stigmatised categories and studies the experiences of graduates who lack the economic, cultural, and social capital necessary to compete with traditional holders of elite positions and who, due to their ascribed characteristics and/or the positive discrimination label itself, are prone to self-eliminate from elite positions or be subjected to discriminatory practices. This article analyses the obstacles faced by graduates who benefited from a positive discrimination scheme at an elite French higher education institution. ![]()
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