Badges and Skill Certification

History

Badges have a number of sources including nonschool settings, for instance, the military and paramilitary organizations, such as the Boy Scouts of America. In the military, badges (or ribbons, insignia, and medals) are often worn to denote participation in particular types of actions; specialization; special skills, such as parachuting courses completion; or levels of proficiency, for example, marksmanship expertise.

In the scouting movement, the Boys Scouts began manufacturing and awarding merit badges in 1911, with the clear notion that badges were earned by completing particular arrays of requirements. There are currently more than 130 badges available for scouts to earn. For example, in the United States in 2012 the top ten badges earned in the Boy Scouts were First Aid, Swimming, Environmental Science, Citizenship in the World, Citizenship in the Nation, Camping, Communications, Citizenship in the Community, Personal Fitness, and Family Life. A total of 2,175,878 badges were earned in a recent year. In the United States, at a recent overall count, there were a total 115,177,687 Scout badges awarded for performance. These numbers suggest the badge idea is scalable, including the evaluation requirement to certify achievement.

Merit badges include specific performance tasks or benchmarks. Some badges are very specific. For example, the Swimming badge is based on distance, swimming strokes, and time requirements. Other badges offer great latitude or choice for the candidate, such as the Collections badge. To earn this badge, a scout may choose what to collect, but there are specific requirements intended to assist in organization, background knowledge, and presentation to an audience or for review. In all merit badge examples, there is an intended counseling process. To become an Eagle Scout, the highest Boy Scout status, certain badges are required, such as First Aid and Camping, although there are many popular badges that do not count toward Eagle Scout status (e.g., Canoeing or Fingerprinting). Girl Scouts have similar merit programs, subdivided by legacy topics and [Page 72]current world skills. What is notable in both these and other youth organization badging systems is that standards or expectations are clear, adult supervision is required, participants have choices, and higher status has specialized requirements.

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