La valutazione sociale delle occupazioni: questioni di metodo

In sociological literature occupation is widely acknowledged as the best proxy of social stratification. Much research has been carried out on this subject and better techniques to reproduce the distributive aspects of social stratification have been developed over time. There are three main measures of occupational stratification: distributive, relational and based upon socio-economic indexes; any of them arises some relevant methodological issues. The paper aims to depict some of these issues and, focusing on the distributive approach, it addresses some main questions: the concern for the validity of occupational hierarchies, the choice between data collection techniques (Likert-vs-Thurstone) and the preference towards stratification of single occupations rather than of occupational groups. Throughout the paper, the contribution of the Italian sociologist to the development of national and international debate on occupational stratification is underlined