Occupational Evaluation

Abstract

The preceding chapter has demonstrated significant and patterned differences in the cognition of occupations. Different sub-groups of people cluster jobs together in different ways. We now turn to occupational evaluation. Are there similarly patterned differences in the invidious and odious comparisons that people make between occupations? In a sense, this question is unnecessary. Evaluation must depend upon cognition, since it is logically impossible to make orderings without some prior notion about the nature of what is being ordered. It follows that the existence of differences in cognition necessarily implies that there will be consequent differences in evaluation (though it is of course possible that the sociologist may choose techniques of data analysis that are insufficiently sensitive to detect these differences).