The Credential Society: An Historical Sociology of Education and Stratification

by Randall Collins

Book Overview

The Credential Society is a classic on the role of higher education in American society and an essential text for understanding the reproduction of inequality. Controversial at the time, Randall... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0121813606
• ISBN13: 9780121813604
• Release Date: January 1979
• Publisher: Academic Press
• Length: 222 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Thought provoking but ultimately incomplete

This book challenges the taken-for-granted nature of requiring educational credentials to enter high paying professions such as medicine and law. The author, however, carries his arguments beyond what they will support by suggesting that class conflict, not increases in knowledge within various professions, is the sole explanation for an apparent educational credential arms race. It is well worth consideing his perspective as a challenge to the current higher education system, but don't take his story as the complete story.

Read if you want the truth about 20th century America.

A most revealing explanation of American life and the educational explosion, its creation and effects.