Dirty work: cultural iconography and working‐class pride in industrial apprenticeships

Pleasant, Emma

doi:10.1111/1468-4446.12703

Cited by 4 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…Clark and Gibbs (2020) and Pleasant (2019) suggest that the industrial work offered parallel biographies; sons would follow in their father’s footsteps and obtain a perceived job for life. Although many working-class people nostalgically recall industrialism’s working conditions (High, 2003; Taylor, 2020), many post-industrial locales’ employment pathways are now non-unionized and uncertain.…”

Section: Deindustrializationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Such stability meant worries about not being able to pay the bills were dispensed from steelworkers’ and their families’ psyche. Nonetheless, steelworkers worked long hours, and it was physically demanding; workers had to be both tough and committed (Linkon, 2013; Pleasant, 2019). Although it was laborious, adequate trade union representation awarded industrial workers sizable holidays and in-work benefits (Warren, 2018).…”

Section: The Seaside and The Steelworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It’s hard to get a job. There’s no such thing as a job for life anymore.The ‘accompanying ravages of deindustrialisation’ (Peck and Tickell, 2012: 246) under neoliberalism were highlighted by most respondents, particularly unemployment and a lack of remunerative industrial employment opportunities (Kotzé, 2019; Mckenzie, 2015, 2017; Pleasant, 2019), as Mary noted: ‘the steelworks shutting means the town has no focus’. Most believed that the demand for jobs now outstrips supply, shifting the power away from employees and towards capital.…”

Section: The Lost Functioning Pointsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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‘There is nothing there’: Deindustrialization and loss in a coastal town

Telford

2021

Competition & Change

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Based on 52 qualitative interviews with working-class individuals, this paper explores the social and economic decline of a coastal locale referred to as High Town in Teesside in the North East of England. First, the paper outlines how the locality expanded as a popular seaside resort under capitalism’s post-war period. It then assesses how the seaside existed together with industrial work, offering stable employment opportunities, economic security and a sense of community. Next, the article documents the shift to neoliberalism in the 1980s, specifically the decline of High Town’s seaside resort, the deindustrialization process and therefore the 2015 closure of High Town’s steelworks. It explicates how this exacerbated the locale’s economic decline through the loss of industrial work’s ‘job for life’, its diminishing popularity as a coastal area and the further deterioration of the town centre. The paper concludes by suggesting that High Town has lost its raison d’être under neoliberalism and faces difficulties in revival.

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Section: Deindustrializationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Seaside and The Steelworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Lost Functioning Pointsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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‘There is nothing there’: Deindustrialization and loss in a coastal town

Telford

2021

Competition & Change

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“…Such culture was operationalised in different ways, either as a distinct way of cultural preferences and attitudes in social and family life, home, and food preferences (Deeming, 2014), or as mundane elements of everyday culture such as solidarity, trust, and equality transmitted from mines or factories to everyday life (Ivinson, 2014). The transmission of working-class cultural codes is intergenerational; they are passed on within the family, educational institutions, or work (Pleasant, 2019;Simpson & Simmons, 2019). Byrne (2002) made two significant distinctions from other research.…”

Section: Working-class Culture: Social Class and Cultural Capital Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

‘What is industrial culture anyway?’ Theoretical framing of the concept in economic geography

Bole

2021

Geography Compass

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In geography, industrial culture is a surprisingly understudied concept. Even when it is considered to play a role in the transformation processes of industrial cities or regions, it is not only terminologically diverse, but also lacks a firm theoretical and conceptual basis. This study conceptualises industrial culture and relates it to ongoing debates in various fields of geography by examining a range of literature from geography and related disciplines. This review structures the existing knowledge into four theoretical approaches: social class (Bourdieusian view), anthropological, institutional and evolutionary. Industrial culture is defined as a dynamic phenomenon in which past and present industrial production is embedded in the human physical environment, social structures, cognitive abilities, and institutions that may influence the future development choices of (post)industrial communities. This concept brings a more nuanced view of the less tangible aspects of culture to economic geography to strengthen its theoretical and empirical basis. This study explores how this concept can be integrated into current geographical research, focussing on the interaction between industrial culture and regional development through different approaches in economic geography (e.g., studies of regional assets, evolution of development paths, agency, deindustrialisation, innovation, entrepreneurship).

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“…Few studies (if any) have focused on female vocational students on the industrial programme and their preparation through workplace-based learning to enter a male vocational domain such as industrial manufacturing companies. Vocational education that relies largely on students' workplace-based learning such as the industrial programme also reflects the overall gender order found within the industrial sector and the labour market (Pleasant, 2019). Therefore, it is also important to consider gender issues in general when studying vocational education, because the vocation in itself can be gendered which affects the conditions for entering a specific vocation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gendered Vocational Identities – Female Students' Strategies for Identity Formation During Workplace-Based Learning in Male-Dominated Work

Ferm

Gustavsson

2021

IJRVET

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Purpose: This article investigates female vocational students' strategies for becoming part of a workplace community, what these strategies are and how they are tied to the formation of vocational identities within male-dominated industrial work. Of particular interest is how female students enrolled on Swedish upper secondary industrial programmes experience workplace-based learning at industrial workplaces as part of their vocational education. The theoretical framework derives from Wenger's concept of community of practice, but his theoretical concept does not explicitly include gender dimensions. Therefore, the concept of community of practice is also combined with Paechter's assumption of gender, whereby femininity and masculinity can be considered as different communities of practice. Methods: The article draws on evidence from a Swedish study based on interviews with 20 female students enrolled on the industrial programme at six upper secondary schools. In this vocational programme, there is a distinct gender distribution and only a small minority of the students on the programme are girls. In the analysis, the focus is on the female students' strategies used during workplace-based learning to become part of the work community which consists almost exclusively of male workers.Findings: The female students deliberately negotiated vocational identities as female industrial workers to become accepted in the male-dominated work community. The findings highlight three specific strategies that the female students used: Acting like gender does not matter, acting like boys (not like drama queens), and acting tough and joking around. The female students' strategies were part of – and tied to – a complex vocational identity formation process that featured contradictory requirements. By taking individual responsibility, they identified relevant information for becoming industrial workers and chose to act like boys. The female students saw no problem with being a girl, yet they struggled with implicit, diffuse and hidden gender structures and prejudices in the male-dominated industrial companies. Nevertheless, they strived for what they perceived to be an attractive vocational identity as industrial workers; it was an alternative, atypically feminine way of being that attracted the female students. Conclusions: The study concludes that female students mostly rely on their individual agency when interacting with others in the male-dominated workplace community. A "gendered vocational identity" is formed which shows that the identity formation of female students is a complex double process, in which vocational and gender identities are formed simultaneously and in parallel within the male-dominated workplace.

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Dirty work: cultural iconography and working‐class pride in industrial apprenticeships

Cited by 4 publications

References 42 publications

‘There is nothing there’: Deindustrialization and loss in a coastal town

‘There is nothing there’: Deindustrialization and loss in a coastal town

‘What is industrial culture anyway?’ Theoretical framing of the concept in economic geography

Gendered Vocational Identities – Female Students' Strategies for Identity Formation During Workplace-Based Learning in Male-Dominated Work

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