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Cited by 824

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Functional and Conflict Theories of Educational Stratification

Collins, Randall·1971·American Sociological Review
DOI 10.2307/2093761
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Abstract

Two theories are considered in accounting for the increased schooling required for employment in advanced industrial society: (a) a technical-function theory, stating that educational requirements reflect the demands for greater skills on the job due to technological change; and (b) a conflict theory, stating that employment requirements reflect the efforts of competing status groups to monopolize or dominate jobs by imposing their cultural standards on the selection process. A review of the evidence indicates that the conflict theory is more strongly supported. The main dynamic of rising educational requirements in the United States has been primarily the expansion of mobility opportunities through the school system, rather than autonomous changes in the structure of employment. It is argued that the effort to build a comprehensive theory of stratification is best advanced by viewing those effects of technological change on educational requirements that are substantiated within the basic context of a conflict theory of stratification.

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Metadata

Authors
Collins, R.
Venue
American Sociological Review
Publisher
SAGE Publications
Published
1971-12
Volume
36
Issue
6
Pages
1002
ISSN
0003-1224 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.2307/2093761
OpenAlex
W2115442698
Cited by
824
References
0
FWCI
27.26
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Functional and Conflict Theories of Educational Stratification. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.2307/2093761
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Collins, R. (1971). Functional and Conflict Theories of Educational Stratification. American Sociological Review. https://doi.org/10.2307/2093761

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Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.

Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.