Journal of Education & Social Policy Vol. 6, No. 3, September 2019 doi:10.30845/jesp.v6n3p20 155 Schooling Degree, Social Position and Occupational Destinations: University Graduates Odaci Luiz Coradini Professor of social sciences Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) Porto Alegre, Brazil. Abstract The central theme of this paper is the relationships between the occupational destination of university graduates and their incomes. This occupational destination includes the occupation and the status in employment. The general hypothesis is that, more than the area of training and occupational categories, the most important factor for a higher position in the income hierarchy is the association with management or command occupations. This occurs both in terms of occupation, with the group for legislators, senior officials and managers systematically at the top, and in terms of status in employment, with employers or equivalent always in the highest position. Thus, in addition to the differences in income between the occupational categories, when correlating them with their status in employment, a second hierarchy emerges in conformity with the relationships with their categories. Seven countries were analysed and the results were systematically recurrent, with only minor variations. Keywords: occupational destination and appreciation of education; schooling degree and social position; occupational destination and income; command position and income; position in the occupation and income. Introduction The central theme of this paper is the relationships between the occupational destinations of university graduates and their incomes. It is assumed that, despite the empirical specificity of the theme, it covers a series of more general problems of sociological analysis. Although not all of these problems can be exhausted, particularly due to the limits of the available sources of empirical material, it seems possible to advance the exploration and the explanation of evidence for some of these problems. Among these themes, the one regarding the relationships between the appreciation of formal education and social position is the most prominent. When empirically addressing the relationships between the occupational destination of university graduates and their social positions, one of the central analytical axes consists of the conditions of appreciation of academic degrees or of schooling in general. In general and explicit terms, here the discussion turns towards the confrontation between theoretical positions, which presuppose the value of education as something intrinsic that economically would be the result of the supposed increase of productivity at work, and, at the opposite pole, those positions based on assumptions of dependence of the social conditions on the uses of an academic degree. Regarding the first position, the perspective associated with the human capital theory is highlighted, and, in the second, in addition to the positions associated with credentialism, Bourdieu’s perspective is particularly emphasised. However, as top social positions are systematically occupied by managers and so on, it is worth mentioning another general problem which is the origin of the premises of some of these positions, particularly in relation to credentialism and to Bourdieu’s approach. This problem deals with the formulations of Weber, especially the relationships between what is objectified and explicitly encoded in the social structure and the implicit or indirect principles and means of action and legitimation. In all of Weber’s (1984: 682–694) works, this differentiation occurs especially or more directly and explicitly in the opposition, between the concept of class and status group or estate. In view of the subsequent appropriations, the conditions of social objectivities must be highlighted; as an exemplary case of that, we have bureaucracy or rational/legal domination in general. An aspect that must be highlighted is that in its relationships with instrumental rationality or rational/legal domination, the administrative body is not subordinate and thus not governed by bureaucratic rules (Weber, 1984: 708–716). The occupational group, situated at the top of the hierarchy of incomes and appreciation of academic degree, consists of legislators, senior officials and managers and, in relation to the status in employment, of employers. Therefore, it is about specific positions, with respect to the rules of bureaucracy, and the social division of labour. Together with the multidimensionality of social structure, this assumption of relationships between what is socially objectified and encoded as such and the implicit or indirect resources and principles of legitimation is, in some way, at the foundation of all theoretical positions that contradict the theory of human capital.