The credential society: an historical sociology of education and stratification

The Credential Society by Randall Collins is a classic on higher education and its role in American society. Forty years later, its controversial claim that the expansion of American education has not increased social mobility, but created a cycle of credential inflation, has proven remarkably prescient.

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface to the Legacy Edition -- Foreword / Cottom, Tressie McMillan -- Foreword: Educational Entrepreneurship in a Changing America / Stevens, Mitchell L. -- 1. The Myth of Technocracy -- 2. Organizational Careers -- 3. The Political Economy of Culture -- 4. The United States in Historical Time -- 5. The Rise of the Credential System -- 6. The Politics of Professions -- 7. The Politics of a Sinecure Society -- References -- Index