perceptions of occupational prestige
Harry Oxley (hxo@management.canberra.edu.au)
Fri, 31 Mar 1995 17:13:47 +1000
Dear Folk,
Oxley brain-picking again. Actually it don't go all one way; I DO
send things TO people who come up on the network with queries &/or common
interests. Just send them to the people concerned and not all over the
network.
OK. Student doing a little ethnography of a hotel came up with some
fine examples of the minutiae of claims to prestige by occupation. This
job gets more money than that one or has more autonomy, obviously enough,
jostling together the only slightly less obvious bits about whether the
task is traditionally menial (as with cleaners) or not or whether it
involves kow-towing to the Almighty Customer, some quite surprising ones
like cleaners who regularly clean on a higher floor claiming a prestige
increment over those who clean on lower floors. And so on and so on. Good
stirring stuff.
I am hunting up the trad sociology of this area (or at least the
recent stuff - not on "prestige ratings" but on reasons why) but it struck
me that this sort of thing is like I nowadays find practically every sort
of thing in being all very much about CONSTRUCTS.
Anyone know anything reasonably recent on job prestige from the pcp
angle? Any information much appreciated.
Harry Oxley
PS; that stuff on whether Kelly had or had not rejected his own grid in
later life (like those disputes about whether some lifelong atheist Found
God on his deathbed) was a lot of fun. Jolly good stuff!
Harry Oxley
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