The symbolic evocation of occupational prestige

Abstract

symbols form much of the basis for social integration and political acquiescence We agree that people are probably expressing their perceptions of societal values more than their own reservations, especially on questions as ambiguous as those in the NORC survey. There is no opportunity in such a study for the expression of ambivalent feelings about occupations. Attitudinal surveys in general tend to tap only the dominant value system, not ambivalence, latency, or complexity in cognitive structures. Occupational prestige is an abstract value-set, moreover, removed from the concrete problems of daily life. There is usually much greater consensus across a society on abstract issues than on concrete ones. Abstract values are seldom questioned or abandoned because they are so unspecific and so are not challenged by everyday experiences. Yet abstract symbols form much of the basis for social integration and political acquiescence. Much of the agreement across subgroups regarding the occupational prestige scale, then, is an illusory product of the level of abstraction of scale items. It does not necessarily point to genuine consensus in individual rankings of occupational prestige. But the questions remain: Why is there such high agreement among people's perceptions of societal values? It is likely that prestige evaluations are a mixture of factual and normative elements, and that they represent a general consensus respecting the distinctive character of different occupations and the abstract values they produce. What accounts for agreement on this abstract value-set? We must also consider the genesis of the subordinate value-set, the reservations and resentments regarding the prestige scale. How is this ambivalence developed and how do people continue indefinitely to live with it? Because the value dimensions underlying prestige rest partly upon some nonobvious symbolic forms, they are worthy of study. The Perceptual Foundations The dominant value system is the "official" ideology and the justification for reward inequality of a society. It is promulgated through mass institutions---the school system and the mass media. People not only learn it; at one level the vast majority subscribes to it with a greater or lesser degree of commitment because it is the only cohesive, society-wide ideology disseminated to them. Reservations about this framework are localized or privatized and are accorded no such degree of legitimacy in mass institutions. Through the process of taking the role of the "generalized other," people learn to perceive the way society perceives or, more accurately, the way they think society perceives. It is on this foundation that people graft the exceptions and qualifications that they draw from their ties to more specific reference groups. Prestige is a perceptual phenomenon, and perceptions are based on the meanings symbols evoke. The objective characteristics of occupations are not crucial in themselves, though they may become so if they are selected as meaningful in the dominant value system. Thus the relative difficulty, risk, achievement potential, or importance of occupations, to the extent that such dimensions can be measured, are not the salient issues. The perceived difficulty, risk, achievement potential, and importance of different jobs are critical, but that formulation calls attention to the need to specify what accounts for such perceptions. It is revealing that some dimensions of occupations that are in relatively short supply do not serve as justifications for prestige and sometimes undermine it: danger to the incumbent and physical strength, for example. Symbolic Sources of Prestige The relationships among a value-set, its justifications, and its consequences are complex and not easily disentangled. People do not necessarily examine their evaluative beliefs for logical inconsistencies, especially when the beliefs are abstract and have little beating on their daily lives. No doubt one source of prestige perceptions is the material rewards associated with occupations. According to Saul Feldman and Gerald Thielbar, people see prestige as a justification for reward inequalities. At the same time, the symbols of material affluence are a source of prestige in themselves, even when the sources of this affluence are unknown. In her study of fifth and sixth graders in a midwestern community, Bernice L. Neugarten found that upper and upper middle-class children were perceived by their peers to rate high on traits such as good looks, liking for school, leadership, friendship, and other favorable characteristics. On the same dimensions, lower-class children were rated low. Status symbols are bases of prestige precisely because of this circular reasoning process. Joan Huber and William H. Form found that capitalist societies, especially the United States, tend not to support