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ERIC Number: EJ751169
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2006-Dec
Pages: 30
Abstractor: Author
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0037-7732
EISSN: N/A
Education and Its Discontents: Overqualification in America, 1972-2002
Vaisey, Stephen
Social Forces, v85 n2 p835-864 Dec 2006
The study of education-occupation mismatch, once central to the sociological investigation of the labor market, has been largely abandoned. While labor economists and scholars in other nations continue to investigate overqualification, it has been more than two decades since its last sociological assessment in the United States. Drawing on previous work and guided by Bourdieu's concept of habitus, I hypothesize that workers who have more educational attainments than needed for their jobs will be less satisfied with their jobs, be more politically liberal, and be less likely to endorse an effort-based achievement ideology. Using the 1972-2002 General Social Survey, I find that overqualification has increased substantially, that the expected effects are generally found, and that these effects remain relatively stable over time. I discuss the implications of these findings for understanding the persistence of existing stratification hierarchies. (Contains 3 tables, 3 figures, and 7 notes.)
University of North Carolina Press. 116 South Boundary Street, P.O. Box 2288, Chapel Hill, NC 27515-2288. Tel: 800-848-6224; Tel: 919-966-7449; Fax: 919-962-2704; e-mail: uncpress@unc.edu; Web site: http://uncpress.unc.edu/
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: United States
Identifiers - Assessments and Surveys: General Educational Development Tests; General Social Survey
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A