Ivar Berg

Degrees of Control: A Sociology of Educational Expansion and Occupational Credentialism.

An examination of the rapid expansion of higher education in the US in the 19th and 20th centuries, along with the development of credentialism in occupational recruitment.

Managers and work reform : a limited engagement

Work reform experiments broadly speaking, the attempt to find an alternative to the present hierarchical organization of industrial work are usually supported by a coalition of the right and the left. Managers want work reformers to discover some principle of organization which will increase labor productivity while making plant life so harmonious that workers are no longer attracted to unions; socialists see in work reform a first practical step towards worker self -management. Managers and Work Reform: A Limited Engagement opposesboth the left and the right in the name of an increasingly embattled middle position: it argues that unions and collective bargaining are necessary both because management itself needs to be constantly supervised and because radical change is impossible. This defense of the existing system of industrial relations is made here

The Licensing of Paraprofessionals: The “Visible and Hidden Agendas”:

The issues involved in licensing educational paraprofessionals are, in most instances, parallel to licensing issues in almost any occupation. The arguments of those who endorse occupational licensing reveal two sets of agendas. The first, which is typically made quite explicit, focuses on the alleged need to assure the public that the practitioner-members of an occupation are capable of maintaining the high standards of performance contemplated in well and conscientiously conceived licensing requirements.