Institutional Arrangements and Stratification Processes in Industrial Societies

This chapter reviews the current state of our knowledge about the role of institutional arrangements in stratification processes in industrial societies. The particular institutional arrangements considered are those of educational and labor force organizations. The review is organized around the Blau-Duncan basic model of status attainment and points to the need for a more elaborated conceptualization. Institutional arrangements structure the connections between social origin and educational attainment, between educational attainment and early labor force placements, and between early and later placements in the labor force. Industrial societies vary widely in the nature of these institutional arrangements, and that variation affects the patterns of movement from origins to destinations in the stratification system. Features of educational institutions considered include separation of students into specialized schools and ability groups (tracking), degree of central control, degree of autonomy, degree of stratification, and the number and specialized nature of credentials. Features of labor force institutions considered include occupational and firm specific job classifications, internal labor markets and vacancy chains, industrial sectors and career lines. Critical aspects of the societal variation are the form of the interface between education and labor force structures and the nature of the transition from school to work. A preliminary set of hypotheses linking institutional arrangements and stratification processes is derived from this review.