This article extends social realist theorising about theoretical knowledge and curriculum within the sociology of education to explore the nature of qualifications. The article draws on Bernstein’s concept of evaluative rules to do so. It evaluates human capital, institutional, and credentialist theories about the role qualifications play in society. Each offers important insights, yet each is unsatisfactory. Each fails to recognise education as a relatively autonomous field distinct from other social fields. We theorise qualifications to explore, on the one hand, the role they play in transforming society, and on the other, the role they play in reproducing social inequalities. We argue that qualifications matter, even if they are imperfect, contribute to the reproduction of social inequalities, and should be tied less, and not more, tightly to the labour market. A socially just model of qualifications would include four key purposes: individual, educational, occupational, and social. © 2025 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
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