Professional certification programmes became commonplace across the occupational structure in recent years, with many emerging and established professions opting to create their own certification programmes for reasons ranging from collective marketing to reducing malpractice litigation risk. Theories of social closure suggest that advantaged and established individual practitioners might want to use certification as a means of distinguishing themselves and enacting barriers to entry, though research on credentials and signalling theory leads to the expectation that certification is most valued by less secure and younger workers seeking to establish themselves in a profession. We use a survey of employment arbitrators as a case study in the dynamics of who supports certification, finding a surprisingly low overall level of support for certification. Arbitrators who are female, racial minorities and those who earn lower hourly rates are most supportive of creating and earning certification, suggesting that the most natural constituency for a new certification programme may be those looking to ‘break in’ to a profession rather than those already well established in their practice.

中文翻译：

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谁支持专业认证？就业仲裁的见解

近年来，专业认证计划在整个职业结构中变得司空见惯，许多新兴和成熟的专业人士出于集体营销和减少渎职诉讼风险等各种原因选择创建自己的认证计划。社会封闭理论表明，有优势和成熟的个体从业者可能希望使用认证作为区分自己和设置进入壁垒的手段，尽管对证书和信号理论的研究导致人们期望认证最受安全性较低和年轻工人的重视寻求在职业中确立自己的地位。我们使用就业仲裁员的调查作为案例研究谁支持认证，发现对认证的总体支持水平低得惊人。女性仲裁员、少数族裔仲裁员和时薪较低的仲裁员最支持创建和获得认证，这表明新认证计划最自然的选区可能是那些希望“闯入”某个职业的人，而不是那些已经在他们的实践中很好地建立起来。