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Co-curricular activities have been shown to impact many measures of academic success, such as academic self-confidence, leadership abilities, identity development, personal development, and student thriving. Borrowing from established research paradigms on pluralistic ignorance, the current study sought to explore whether first-year and senior students' perceptions of themselves and others vary when it comes to attending and participating in campus activities and whether sex has an impact on those perceptions. Using data from the 2018 National Survey of Student Engagement, the study included 10,512 students attending 33 institutions. The results suggest significant differences across the sexes and within reference group (self vs. other) for attending campus activities and participating in co-curricular activities. These findings can help guide faculty, advisors, and administrators to better understand how students' perceptions of peer co-curricular activities might relate to their own, and how those perceptions might affect their behavior positively and negatively.

Imposter syndrome can lead to feelings of self-doubt, fear of failure, overpreparation, procrastination, and guilt about subsequent success. Because imposter syndrome is linked to structural inequities, women of color (WOC) may be particularly impacted by feelings of imposter syndrome due to encounters with racism, sexism, and gender discrimination. Drawing from studies primarily focused on imposter syndrome among WOC, the authors offer recommendations for how school psychologists can learn from these scholars to inform their practice and counter feelings of imposter syndrome that may ensue in their own lives.

This study examines the return to a year of schooling and the 'wage penalty' of over-education in the Israeli labour market. I used 2014-2015 PIAAC survey data to examine whether the basic assumption of the ORU wage model, i.e. that the return to a year of over-education is independent of the level of education, is plausible. I find that in Israel, M.A. graduates who are over-educated for their job suffer the highest wage penalty for every year of over-education, which is about twice the size of the wage penalty of B.A. over-educated graduates.

Evidence on gender inequality in the labor market is extensive. However, little is known about the potential role of overeducation and horizontal mismatch in explaining women's labor-market disadvantages. We draw on recent data from the Eurograduate pilot survey to investigate the role of overeducation, field-of-study mismatch and field-specific overskilling for gender gaps in labor income in the European landscape. We found considerable variations in the extent of both gender earning gaps (GEGs) and wage gaps (GWGs) across countries. However, our decomposition analyses show that neither overeducation nor horizontal mismatch contribute to explaining these gender gaps. The lack of mediation seems related to either the absence of gender differences in overeducation and horizontal mismatch, or to the nonexistence of income penalties associated with the mismatch.

Students face frequent formal and informal tests, both in the academic context and social life. On each of these occasions, they risk falling short of their own or others' expectations. Facing failure is a psychological challenge, and people can react with defensive strategies, which may have negative consequences. Here we investigated the role of self-esteem as a possible buffer against these defensive strategies. Previous research has demonstrated that, in the face of failure, individuals with discrepant (fragile: high explicit and low implicit, or damaged: high implicit and low explicit) self-esteem are more likely to engage in defensive mechanisms than individuals with consistent implicit and explicit self-esteem. Two studies investigate the relationship between implicit and explicit self-esteem and two defensive strategies against the threat of failure: subjective overachievement and retroactive excuses. In Study 1 (N = 176 high school students), we find an association between fragile self-esteem and subjective overachievement. In Study 2 (N = 101 university students), damaged self-esteem is related to the increased use of retroactive excuses as a form of self-serving bias. These results add to the growing body of evidence documenting the maladaptive nature of fragile and damaged self-esteem.

Improving student success outcomes such as persistence and graduation rates remains a priority for higher education institutions, scholars, and advocates. Recent scholarly work argues for more qualitative work in this area to develop a deeper understanding of the issue and to identify more effective ways to increase college completion rates across all populations. This study examines student success by focusing on an understudied population in the literature: overachievers. We define overachievers as students who matriculate in the lowest quartile of an institution's standardized test score range but are selected and persist as honors students after their first collegiate semester. This phenomenological study highlights the prevalence of a strong internal locus of control among overachievers. Using Bean and Eaton's student success model as a framework, we explore how our participants operationalized an internal locus of control to achieve academic success in college and consider how higher education institutions can promote this mind-set and its related practices among students on their campuses.

The United Nations (U.N.) advocates for the inclusion of refugees into public schools. This ethnographic, pilot research explores foreign students' experience of inclusion and belonging in a Nairobi public school. The research found that these students most resented being placed in lower grades and that their lowered grade placement may have benefited the teachers and schools, to the detriment of foreign students. Lowered grade placement was justified as a way to mitigate students' negative impact on school performance [mean grades] - however, foreign, over-aged students soon became the schools' overachievers: given leadership opportunities and getting the highest grades, with some younger Kenyans classmates feeling unable to compete. According to this research, a focus on performance may turn foreign students into a school's 'joker' card: slotted into lower grades when they would harm class performance and left as overaged students when they increase performance, a phenomenon which not only harms all students but further divides host communities and foreign students.

This study analyses the persistence and true state dependence of overqualification, i.e. a mismatch between workers' qualifications and their jobs' educational requirements. Employing individual-level panel data for Germany, we find that overqualification is highly persistent among university graduates over the first ten years of their career cycle. Accounting for unobserved heterogeneity, results from dynamic random-effects probit models suggest that a moderate share of the persistence can be attributed to true state dependence. Unobserved factors are found to be the main driver of overqualification persistence. However, observed heterogeneity in terms of ability and study characteristics significantly contributes to overqualification persistence.

This study explores industry perspectives on the changing nature of graduate roles and the importance of the undergraduate degree, and any impact these have on traditional non-graduate roles in different sectors and industries. Amid declining labour markets, it is critical to consider graduate pathways to employment and the implications of increasing numbers entering non-graduate roles on expectations and turnover. Ongoing disequilibrium in many areas of the graduate labour market points to developing our understanding of alternative pathways into professional roles beyond the undergraduate degree. Interviews were conducted with twenty-one industry members involved in recruiting and/or supervising new graduates. Findings affirmed overeducation among new recruits, highlighting the need for more transparency on employment prospects to prospective higher education students. While there has been extensive research exploring employer perceptions on graduates' preparedness for employment, there has been less consideration of alternative, developmental pathways into entry-level roles to collectively improve youth employment prospects.

The prevalence of academic underachievement or learning disabilities in children with autism or ADHD (two groups at increased risk for such problems) has been extensively researched, but little is known about overachievement in these groups. The frequency of overachievement across academic domains compared to nondiscrepant achievement and underachievement in children with autism versus ADHD was determined. WISC-III/-IV and WIAT/-II scores were analyzed in 164 children with autism and 499 children with ADHD (6-16 years of age, IQ [greater than or equal to] 80). Academic overachievement (achievement test standard scores [greater than or equal to] 1 SD above IQ) in word reading, reading comprehension, math, and written expression was rare in autism (14.6%, 9.1%, 5.5%, and 1.8%) and in ADHD (4.2%, 3.6%, 2.4%, and 0.8%, respectively). Academic underachievement (achievement test scores [greater than or equal to] 1 SD below IQ) was more common, with percentages of 12.8%, 17.7%, 15.2%, and 52.4% for autism and 27.9%, 21.4%, 24.0%, and 57.1% for ADHD. Overachievement was more common in autism than in ADHD. In contrast, underachievement was greater in ADHD than in autism, except that underachievement in written expression was similar and found in the majority of both groups.

Little is known about the characteristics of academic overachievers, children whose achievement significantly exceeds IQ. Correlates of overachievement (achievement test scores = 1 SD above IQ), nondiscrepant achievement, and learning disability (LD; achievement = 1 SD below IQ) were analyzed in 1,543 children (739 ADHD, 285 autism, and 519 general population), 6-16 years of age. Significant correlates of the reading and math achievement groups were diagnosis (autism greatest overachievement, ADHD greatest LD), IQ (lowest in overachievers and highest in LD), and Working Memory scores relative to the child's IQ (close to or exceeding IQ in overachievers and lower than IQ in LD). Demographics (age, sex, race, and parent occupation) and parent and teacher ratings of psychopathology (e.g., behavior problems, anxiety, and depression) and personality characteristics (e.g., motivation and self-confidence) did not contribute significantly more to predicting overachievement and LD beyond that explained by IQ, diagnosis, and working memory. These findings suggest an underlying neurobiological etiology for both overachievement and LD.

This article focuses on the influence of social background on overeducation in Spain, understanding family socialisation as a source of knowledge and skills gain. The dramatic education expansion experienced in Spain in combination with a high percentage of low-skilled jobs has promoted overeducation occurrence to a larger extent than in other Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries. Using the Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC) data results suggest that overeducation affects at least over a quarter of the working population. Younger and middle aged workers are more likely to be overeducated compared to the senior ones, while women are more prone to be overeducated than men. Workers whose mothers have higher education are less likely to be overeducated compared to those whose mothers have basic education, while fathers' education is practically irrelevant to predict workers' overeducation. Thus, a mother's education is the most relevant social background indicator to predict overeducation, even when controlling for firm characteristics and skills level.

This paper analyzes the labor market impact of the Great Recession on overeducated and undereducated workers. In March 2008, the U.S. economy was near full employment with an unemployment rate of 4.8 percent. The next year, the unemployment rate peaked at 10.0 percent. The pace of the economic decline allows us to observe the workers' education-occupation match before the downturn and examine its impact on them. We find workers categorized as undereducated prior to the Great Recession less likely to become unemployed or have their hours reduced one year later relative to their just educated and overeducated counterparts, "ceteris paribus."

Teaching music is an act of vulnerability. Our connections with music and with our students give our jobs--and perhaps our lives--value and purpose. However, these connections are also why it hurts so much when we feel undervalued or attacked. In this article, I describe research-supported strategies for nurturing courage, peace, and resilience and also suggest habits of thinking and action that could sustain or even (re)ignite our joy in teaching music.

This study tests the hypothesis that a disjuncture between an individual's attained level of education and that held by average workers in the individual's occupation leads to higher mortality among those with a prolonged mismatched status. Swedish register data are used in a 19-year longitudinal mortality follow-up study of all causes and specific causes of mortality. Participants were all men and women born between 1926 and 1985 who were alive on 1 September 1990, who had concurrent information on their attained level of education and the specific occupation or industry they were employed in during this period for at least a consecutive year. An objective measure of educational and occupational mismatch was constructed from these data. Those with a stable, over-educated matched, or under-educated employment status are included in the final analysis (N = 2,482,696). Independent of social, family, employers' characteristics and prior health problems, the findings from a multivariate, stratified Cox regression analysis suggest there is excessive mortality among the over-educated, and a protective effect of under-education among native-born Swedish men and women.

With the expansion of distance education, the problem of over-education in the system of distance education has emerged, but it seems that none of the existing empirical studies have addressed this issue. This study conducts an empirical and comparative analysis of the problem of over-education between distance education and face-to-face education by analyzing nationwide adult data in China. The empirical results show that distance-education learners are more likely to experience over-education compared to face-to-face education learners; however, over-education does not have a significantly negative relationship with distance-education learners' income.

PIAAC data are used to evaluate the extent of overeducation in G7 countries. Incidence of overeducation is seen to vary systematically with a number of demographic characteristics. The impact of overeducation on remuneration is then estimated using quantile regression. This impact is observed to be minor, suggesting that while some individuals have qualifications in excess of those required to undertake their job, their additional human capital is nonetheless rewarded. Care therefore needs to be taken in interpreting measures of overeducation.

Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth of 1979, this article examines the relationship between adolescents' educational and occupational expectations, and how they correspond to their subsequent labor market outcomes in adulthood. We show that over-aligned adolescents, those who expect to obtain more education than is necessary for their desired occupation, are predicted to have hourly wages 30% higher than under-aligned adolescents, whose educational expectations are lower than their occupational expectations. The misalignment of educational and occupational expectations is not related to the probability of being employed through individuals' early twenties to late forties. However, over-aligned individuals are predicted to have more prestigious occupations than under-aligned individuals, suggesting that those in the over-aligned group sorted into better jobs over their careers. We also show that the effects of misaligned expectations on labor market outcomes change over the years, indicating that having high and aligned expectations are even more important for labor market outcomes than previously estimated.

The objective of this mixed methods study is to gain insights into how teachers can assist their students to become good readers who read with joy and engagement. This study describes multicultural classrooms in a low-SES (socio-economic status) Stockholm area, representing reading communities, where reading fiction is the heartbeat of classroom life. Teachers' ways of relating to their students, their methods and assessment procedures will be discussed. The creation of the classroom climate, the fun factor, parents' roles and collaborative aspects of teachers' work also protruded as major themes in the teachers' narratives. The analyses employ the concepts of the Proximal Zone of Development and Scaffolding from Vygotsky's theories, together with the concepts of weak and strong framing as well as classification from Bernstein's Code Theory. Teachers' ways of relating to phenomena such as deficit syndrome and colour blindness will be analyzed from critical perspectives. Since the practitioner's perspectives are paid much attention to, issues like the need for the employment of broad theoretical perspectives, trans-disciplinary research approaches and mixed methods will also be discussed. (Contains 4 tables.) [This research was supported by a grant from the Swedish Research Council.]

Drawing upon a broad concept of inclusion, the first section of this article is dedicated to a critical discussion of the principle of "equal opportunities," which currently dominates the social justice discourse in Germany. Specifically, this section examines how far this principle, which focuses on the role of the individual in socially unequal educational outcomes, could itself contain elements which reinforce inequality. It examines two versions, "talent-based" and "attainment-based." In the second section, this article discusses, from an intersectional perspective, how cumulative disadvantages in segregated social environments can increase inequalities in the educational participation and attainment of school pupils. The third section points to areas for action that have a real potential to address inequalities in the German school system. It draws on observations and findings which are grounded in the theory of justice and that emerge from cases of "overperforming schools in segregated environments."

This paper articulates the challenges of the South Korean education system through a co-constructed narrative, employing duoethnographic methodology. The authors offer critical and contextualized perspectives on their personal and professional observations on the dysfunctional aspects of South Korean education including dehumanization and overachievement. Drawing upon the framework of education for sustainable development, the authors suggest implications for educational reform both at the micro and macro, and practical and conceptual levels. This study is significant in that it considers voices of educators with socio-political backgrounds often marginalized in South Korean society.

This article accounts for a renovation by enriching the existent literature regarding two major nowadays phenomena and their labor implications, which might require a rethinking regarding new career-development approaches: the overeducation phenomenon (academic graduates whose educational level exceeds the educational level required in their jobs) and the horizontal-mismatch phenomenon (the individuals' fit between their educational and occupational fields). The article clarifies the difference between those two phenomena's career repercussions--on three major individuals' career outcomes: wage gaps, job mobility, and demand for further higher education. Two hundred and twenty-one participants took part to reveal that the more the individuals experience horizontal mismatch throughout their career, the less their earning level is, and the horizontally mismatched individuals have lower probability for pursuing further higher education compared to the horizontally matched individuals. These findings' implications suggest individuals to try and modify their career planning, based on the ongoing technological and structural changes in Western-developed countries labor market.

This paper argues that assortative matching may explain over-education. Education determines individuals' income and, due to the presence of assortative matching, the quality of partners in personal, social and working life. Thus, an individual acquires education to improve the expected partners' quality. However, since every individual of the same level of ability acquires the same level of education, the relative levels of education among individuals do not change, the expected partners' quality does not increase and over-education emerges.

In the difficult current socio-economic context, overqualified graduates are increasingly facing challenges in terms of entering the job market and finding jobs which fit their levels of qualifications and satisfaction. Grounded in an auto-ethnography approach, this paper reflects on the challenges that the author (a young female European PhD graduate) experienced when she entered the job market. The ultimate aim is to contribute to the understanding of some aspects of the current situation of numerous overqualified young people, especially in social sciences and the humanities, who have difficulties in terms of simply finding jobs or jobs which fit their levels of qualifications and salary expectations. In this regard, it highlights the responsibility of higher education policies and academic institutions for contributing to the degradation of PhDs' unemployment and overskilling. Ultimately, it points out possible some solutions such as the potential of interdisciplinary academic research (including higher education and gender research) to successfully inform higher education policy in view of tackling the issue of the labour market relevance of PhDs' skills and attributes.

This article explores the influence of social origin on overeducation across various fields of study. With the expansion of higher education most advantaged classes seek qualitative and quantitative advantages to differentiate themselves from other graduates. Although credentials are direct signals of productivity they can also be viewed by employers as indirect signals of non-cognitive skills, which can be acquired through family socialization. These credentials may explain differences in overeducation among graduates of different fields of study and social origin. Parental educational background and occupation are relevant characteristics from which individuals gain useful skills and information to avoid overeducation in the labour market. Using data from the Italian Graduates Employment Survey (ISTAT in Indagine Statistica sull'Inserimento Professionale dei Laureati. Istituto nazionale di statistica, Rome, 2007) this article provides evidence that graduates from fields of study that do not lead to a specific occupation (e.g. Humanities, Political and Social Sciences) decrease their risk of overeducation when their fathers belong to the professional class, but it has no influence on graduates from occupationally focused fields of study (e.g. Engineering and Medicine). These results are consistent even after controlling for the possible use of social networks when looking for a job.

This article assesses the extent to which the impact of overeducation and overskilling on labour market outcomes such as earnings and job satisfaction relate to mismatches in particular competency areas. The analysis uses REFLEX data, which collects information about 19 key competence areas related to job performance. We find that the penalties to both forms of mismatch are insensitive to the inclusion of controls for overskilling in a wide range of job-specific competencies. The research suggests that the problem of mismatch relates to an inability to fully utilise general or innate ability as opposed to specific areas of acquired learning. We conclude that the problem of mismatch can only be effectively addressed by raising general levels of job quality within developed labour markets.

Recently the supply of young graduates entering the UK labour market has undergone a sharp increase. A possible consequence of this is an increase in the number of individuals who are overeducated for the jobs that they do subsequent to participating in higher education. Using British panel data and dynamic panel analysis, I demonstrate that overeducation amongst the young has increased, and that the overeducated are less satisfied with life than their peers who are not overeducated. This result appears to fade over time, with more recently overeducated individuals being both more common and less dissatisfied with life, consistent with the notion that relative effects and comparisons are important for life satisfaction.

Using data from the 2004 National Sample Survey of Registered Nurses, the role of occupational heterogeneity in the standard overeducation-required-undereducation (ORU) earnings function introduced by Duncan and Hoffman [1981. "The incidence and wage effects of overeducation." "Economics of Education Review" 1, no. 1: 75-86] is examined. The occupational category of nursing is subdivided into numerous (as many as 267) minor occupational categories in estimating the level of required education. If occupation heterogeneity impacts the ORU earnings function, the effects are likely small as estimates of the ORU earnings functions of nurses are similar to estimates found in other standard multi-occupation studies. Subdividing nursing into minor occupational categories has a tremendous impact on the measured incidences of overeducation, particularly as the number of occupational categories increases from 17 to 39. The results are analogous to findings in the literature which show that varying the measurement of required education has a sizeable impact on incidence levels and little impact on the ORU earnings functions.

While perceived overqualification (POQ) has received increased research attention in recent years, the identification of variables that moderate POQ-outcome relationships is critical to our understanding of how the construct affects career outcomes. This study, involving 170 full-time primary and secondary school educators in a suburban mid-Atlantic school system, found that POQ is negatively related to job satisfaction and affective commitment while positively related to turnover intentions and desire to turnover. While POQ was not significantly related to performance or continuance organizational commitment, the relationships between POQ and both performance and continuance organizational commitment were significantly moderated by the experience of career calling orientation. Generally, the relationship between POQ and performance was stronger, and the relationship between POQ and continuance organizational commitment was weaker, for those with high calling. Additionally, the effects of career calling were considerably stronger than those of POQ for all criteria. The implications surrounding these results, and opportunities for future investigation, are discussed.

Two distinct student groups, in terms of academic performance, were identified early in the semester as either being under-performing students or over-performing students using an online homework system. The students who are identified as under-performing received, on average, lower grades than their fellow students but spent more time completing the homework assignments. These students are great candidates for targeted advertisement of student resources such as tutoring services. The students who are identified in the over-performing student population received higher grades than their fellow students, but spent less time completing the homework assignments. These students are great candidates for honors programs, independent research projects, and peer-tutoring programs. Incorporating these evaluation criteria to online homework systems will allow instructors to quickly identify students in these academic student populations.

This study investigates the incidence of over-education amongst recent Australian bachelor degree graduates and its effect on their earnings. We find that between 24% and 37% of graduates were over-educated shortly after course completion, with over-education most common amongst young females and least common amongst older females. Over-education rates vary markedly across major fields of study and appear to be associated with the relative demand for graduate labour. Overeducation was less common three years after course completion; however a nontrivial proportion of graduates remain over-educated. With regard to the effect of over-education on earnings, we find a notable age-related effect not reported in earlier studies. Young over-educated graduates were not penalised after unobserved heterogeneity had been addressed, whereas older over-educated graduates were at an earnings disadvantage relative to their well-matched peers. (Contains 6 tables.)

School girls in Sweden are reported to develop psychological (ill)health in relation to their school behaviour and over-achievements. The methods offered as prevention and treatments are aimed at the individual girl's self-management of stress, health and psychological state, putting the responsibility on the girls themselves. This feminist agential realist study aims to explore how the material-discursive school environment, that is, the entanglement of architecture, materialities, bodies, discourses and discursive practices--including the discourses on girls' health in research and media texts--are collectively responsible for, co-constitutive of and enacting female students' ill- and well-being. Doing a diffractive analysis, we register how we as researchers are involved and co-productive of this complex apparatus of knowing of school-related ill-/well-being. A diffractive analysis aims to not only analyse how this apparatus is made and what it produces, but also how it can be productive of new possible realities that might produce more livable school environments.

Using quantile regression analyses, this study examines gender gaps in mathematics, science, and reading in Azerbaijan, Indonesia, Jordan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Qatar, Tunisia, and Turkey among 15-year-old students. The analyses show that girls in Azerbaijan achieve as well as boys in mathematics and science and overachieve in reading. In Jordan, girls achieve as well as boys in all subjects. In Qatar and Turkey, girls underachieve in mathematics, achieve as well as boys in science and overachieve in reading. In Indonesia, the Kyrgyz Republic, and Tunisia, girls underachieve in mathematics and science but overachieve in reading. On the basis of the analyses, two generalizations can be made. First, key country-level economic and social characteristics appear unrelated to achievement gender gaps. Second, the overachievement of girls in reading and underachievement in mathematics and science are similar to findings from non-Muslim industrialized countries.

The main purpose of this study was to examine the classroom, teacher and student factors distinguishing grade three classes performing at higher levels than expected, in relation to socioeconomic status (SES) and language factors, from classes performing below their potential with regard to the same factors. Data from a standardized reading comprehension test and student and teacher questionnaires covering teacher, classroom and student characteristics were collected. The participants were 1,092 grade three classes and their class teachers, from Stockholm, Sweden. By use of regression and a twin-matching procedure, one group of 94 underachieving classes and another group of 94 overachieving classes were formed for comparison. Data about extended voluntary reading, classroom climate, teacher experience and the use of authentic literature were seen to be the main four indicators discriminating between over- and underachieving classes beyond the impact of SES and language background. (Contains 7 tables.)

The potential benefits of collaboration often become overwhelmed with complaints of "freeloaders"--students who do not do their share of the work in the group but get the same grade. However, a survey of gifted students shows that they are likely to take on the bulk of the group's work, a situation that may not encourage group members to get involved. Guided by the surveys and teacher interviews, classroom teachers organizing group work are encouraged to consider: 1) the size and structure of the assignment given, 2) the assessment of the group members in content, product, and process, and 3) the training of students to work well together. (Contains 1 footnote.)

In this paper, we use the 2000-2008 waves of the German Socioeconomic Panel to examine overeducation transitions. The results are based on a first-order Markov model that allows us to account for both the initial conditions problem and potential endogeneity in attrition. We found that overeducation dynamics, especially the probability of entering overeducation, is significantly influenced by personality. Notwithstanding these differences associated with individual heterogeneity, there still appears to be considerable overeducation persistence. Almost 18% of the overeducation risk is due to individual state dependence, that is, the fact of having been overeducated in the previous year. (Contains 7 tables, 1 figure and 13 notes.)

The incidence of overeducation in eight European countries is here assessed by means of multiple indicators. With the exception of Spain, the results reveal that overeducation is a minor risk amongst European tertiary graduates. Yet, the contrast between different indicators reveals the existence of an overeducation of a moderate kind in countries with high rates of tertiary attainment (Norway, Finland and Netherlands). Our results also reveal the importance of higher education differentiation for understanding the risk of overeducation. Graduates from humanistic fields, bachelor courses and vocational colleges are more exposed to overeducation, though their disadvantage varies cross-nationally.

A theoretical approach is formulated that connects various theories of why education has an effect on labour market outcomes with institutional settings in which such theories provide the most likely mechanism. Three groups of mechanisms are distinguished: education as an indicator of productive skills, as a positional good and as a means for social closure. Conditions were formulated under which labour market behaviour is likely to correspond to the behavioural models underlying the three mechanism groups. To test the theoretical relationship between settings and mechanisms, I formulated hypotheses on setting variation in the (horizontal and vertical) process of matching educational level and field of study to jobs and its consequences for wages. Analyses in which Dutch survey data were combined with industry statistics confirmed the hypotheses. (Contains 1 figure, 4 tables, and 10 notes.)