Faculty of Education - Theses

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Start date: 1946 × Subject: Australia × Subject: Philosophy × Author: Harvey-Beavis, Adrian Peter ×

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    Constructing a map of Australian occupations: Gottfredson's hypotheses and relationships within the world of work
    Harvey-Beavis, Adrian Peter ( 1994)
    This dissertation evaluates L. S. Gottfredson's concept and graphical depiction of the Cognitive Map of Occupations and the Common Cognitive Map of Occupations. The evaluation is guided by a revised version of Popper's argument that there are three types of existence. These he names 'World 1' (the world of material objects and processes) 'World 2' (the world of subjective experience) and 'World 3'. It is argued that Popper misconstrues World 3 by describing it as consisting of the products of the human mind. By adapting the arguments of Bhaskar, it is shown that World 3 can be interpreted as social existence. This theoretical framework shows that the Cognitive Map of Occupations is appropriately conceptualised by Gottfredson. It indicates that the graphical depiction that she presents of the Cognitive Map of Occupations should be regarded only as a heuristic device. When the Common Cognitive Map of Occupations is so regarded, it is argued that Gottfredson erroneously infers its existence because she uses concepts which refer to World 2 processes to extrapolate into World 3. Her graphical depiction of the Common Cognitive Map of Occupations is, consequently, also flawed. When the critique of the Cognitive Map of Occupations and the Common Cognitive Map of Occupations is completed, new data are described and a theoretical context is developed to interpret these data. This theory starts from the critique of Gottfredson's ideas. A map of Australian occupations is then constructed. This map and related data are explored using Exploratory Data Analysis showing that the World of Work may consist of subcultures related to the nature of the work environment. These sub cultures are found to be internally divided along various dimensions. Despite these divisions, they have strong enough boundaries to retain their field type identity. These findings help to show that the Map of Australian Occupations provides a coherent view of the world of work.