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A major focus of sociological research is on the role of the credential as a 'currency of opportunity', mediating the relationship between education and occupational destinations. However, the labour market has largely remained a 'black box' in sociological and education policy studies. This article draws on 'big data' from over 21,000,000 job adverts to explore how employers in the UK describe job requirements, with particular reference to the role of credentials. It challenges existing theories premised upon the notion that higher levels of formal education determine individual (dis)advantage in the competition for jobs. Although they have different views of the relationship between credentials, opportunity and efficiency, these theories assume that credentials largely determine occupational hiring. Our analysis suggests that formal academic credentials play a relatively minor differentiating role in the UK labour market, as the majority of employer's place greater emphasis on 'job readiness'. This raises a number of issues for sociological and policy analysis, including the future role of credentials in the (re)production of educational and labour market inequalities. Methodologically, the article highlights how the use of big data can contribute to the analysis of education, skills and the labour market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines, primarily based on large-scale survey data, the functionalist proposition that HE customers, students and employers, demand rankings to be able to adopt informed decisions on where to study and who to recruit respectively. This is contrasted to a Weberian ‘conflict’ perspective on rankings in which positional competition is key. The article concludes that rankings are better understood as instruments in positional competition for a minority of global players. They are a crucial source of information only for particular groups of international students and employers. The empirical analysis further suggests that the state of economic development, cultural aspects and the availability of top-ranked institutions in the home HE system are important factors in explaining differences in the importance of rankings across countries. We conclude by arguing that national governments and HE institutions should re-visit the assumption of a wide-spread importance of rankings for students and employers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper analyses the relationship between education, meritocracy and redistribution. It first questions the meritocratic ideal highlighting how it relates to normative expectations that do not hold fully neither in their logic nor in practice. It then complements the literature on persistent inequalities by focusing on the opportunities for change created by current trends in the economy and in social aspirations. As the meritocratic argument that education is strongly linked to certain rewards in the labour market comes under pressure, increasing social dissatisfaction with education and skills wastage could be expected, as already noted in part of the political economy literature. This literature, however, has tended to conclude from such observations that educational expansion cannot deliver equality. The paper contributes to the debate by focusing on the opportunities created by current trends for the reorganisation of the relationship between education, the economy and society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]