The Intergenerational Dimension of Credentialisation and its Implications for Vocational Change in Education

Abstract

This paper focuses upon the problem of the relationship between academic and experiential knowledge in the construction of vocationally relevant courses and qualifications. The issues are illustrated through a detailed account of the development of an advertising degree course at a higher education institution in New Zealand. A broader context is provided by locating the issues within a sociological account of the dynamics of ‘credential inflation’ and the way in which it generates changes in the relationships between educational levels and occupational groups and between different types of ‘capital’ for successive generations of practitioners. This further develops an argument presented earlier by Hickox and Moore.