subject: University Professors Rank High In Public Estimation [print this page] According to a number of sociological surveys, university professors generally rank high in public estimation, comparable to medical doctors, lawyers, owners of large business and industrial establishments, bankers, and officials of national government. On a scale ranging from1(high) to 7 (low), a university professor is ranked 1 in most countries and 2 in others. A secondary-school teacher is generally ranked 2 to 3 on the same scale, sharing, and the level with journalist, clergy, business managers, accountants, insurance agents, real-estate or land agents, and substantial landowners. A primary-school teacher is generally ranked 3 or 4 on the 7-point scale, on the same level occupied by social workers, office managers, bank clerks, small independent farmers, and foremen. GHD IV MK4 Black
Occupational status in the teaching profession is generally related to the degree of selection involved in obtaining the teaching post and to the amount of training necessary to qualify for it. In a country with a selective university-preparatory secondary school, such as, for instance, the grammar school in England, and the Gymnasium in Germany, teachers must have the equivalent of a university education and must pass rigorous examinations or selective screening. These teachers have a higher occupational status than teachers in other branches of secondary education, such as industrial or commercial schools, which are less selective and require less training and accept lower examination standards of their teachers. Whenever a secondary-school system is divided into a number of branches or types of schools, the teachers and the public both make status distinctions among them.
In most modern countries, where the goal of universal schooling has been extended to the secondary level, distinctions in status between primary- and secondary-school teachers have moderated. In such situations, secondary-school teaching has become relatively less selective as additional teachers are sought for, at the same time that primary-school teachers have increased their training level and, therefore, their salary and status levels. In a growing number of countries, university-level training as secondary-school teachers and a single salary scale has been established, based on the amount of training and years of experience. By 1981, for example, the average annual salary of primary-school teachers in U. 8. Public schools was about 95 percent of that of secondary-school teachers, indicating that the occupational status differential was being eliminated. GHD IV MK4 gold
Whatever the status distinctions may be, the teaching profession in general is an important avenue of upward social mobility. Because teaching does not require capital, property, or family connection, it provides a good opportunity for the economic and social advancement of able and ambitious young people. A study of Chicago public-school teachers in 1964 indicated that approximately half of them had come from families of skilled, semiskilled, or unskilled workers. A study of the social origins of middle-school teachers in Brazil in 1963 showed that approximately half of them had moved up in social class as a result of becoming teachers.
Within the profession, the degree of status mobility is not great, at least in the primary and secondary schools. A classroom teacher is likely to remain a classroom teacher unless he or she seeks out an administrative post or follows some specialty, such as curriculum work, counseling, or the teaching of handicapped pupils. In university teaching, on the other hand, there is a hierarchy of three or four steps within any institution and of prestige and salary among institutions. Thus a university teaching career in the United States normally leads from the rank of instructor or assistant professor to associate professor and to full professor; in Britain the titles are assistant lecturer, lecturer, senior lecturer or reader, and professor; similar rankings occur in other countries.
