The Significance of Education and Training for the Self-Esteem of Low-Wage Workers in Urban Contexts

Author(s):

Antonia Kupfer(presenting)Antonia Kupfer(presenting / submitting)Hugh Lauder(presenting)

Conference:

ECER 2011

Network:

2. Vocational Education and Training (VETNET)

Format:

Paper

Session Information

02 SES 12 A, Contextual VET-Conditions and Influences: When Success is not an Individual Variable

Paper Session

Time:

2011-09-16

08:30-10:00

Room:

K 23/21,1 FL., 36

Chair:

Marja-Leena Stenström

Contribution

This paper focuses on the influence of education and training in the way workers in the low pay sector understand and value their work and their jobs in Britain and in Germany. Since evaluations of work and jobs take place in social contexts they relate to social constructions of values of work and jobs. In urban areas exist great dynamic and controversial debates of evaluation of low-wage work and young people in cities enjoy greater opportunities than in rural areas.

Work and jobs have values for both: workers and societies as a whole. Work and jobs provide workers with income and the possibility to be creative (Veraeusserung); both is seen as part of a dignified human life and crucial for participation as civil citizen. Work and jobs provide societies with a range of activities, production and possibilities via division of work.

The question of this research is: Does different education and training contribute differently to the perception and evaluation of low-wage work and jobs of individuals in Britain and in Germany?

As we know education and training for low wage-work and jobs is very different in Britain and in Germany (Ryan et al. 2010). For example, the British education system has been marked by a strong valuation of academic work and a concomitant devaluation of vocationally oriented education. In contrast, in Germany, the principle of equality of productive capacity (Brown, Green and Lauder, 2001) has led, in the past, to a far higher valuation of vocational education and training and of craft work. Whereas in Britain people are mainly trained on the job in a short instructional way to perform low-wage work and jobs, in Germany people may receive a two to three year vocational education even for work and jobs that are lowly paid. Referring to the relation between vocational education and specific labour markets, Britain has been characterized as a liberal market economy and Germany as a coordinated market economy (Hall/Soskice 2001). A wider object of this research is to find out whether the difference in the amount of training and education reflects a different societal perception and evaluation of low wage work and jobs.

In order to analyse the self-esteem we refer to two theoretical concepts: one deals with the (re)construction of self and competencies needed in relation to civic participation developed by Haste (2008, 2009, unpublished manuscript). The second theoretical concept outlines the nature of education and skills in relation to employment. Bourdieu/Boltanski (1981) and Offe (1975) differentiate between the technical and the social dimension of education. The technical dimension refers to the qualification that enables people to produce something or to perform a task. The social dimension refers to the reproduction of the social status in a social hierarchy. The differentiation of two dimensions of education and skills takes place in social contexts and might therefore differ between different societies. Together, both theoretical approaches, the psycho-social one and the education-economical one, seem to enable a comparative research on the self-esteem of low-wage workers.

Method

This study compares the views and experiences of low-wage retail workers using a narrative methodology to understand how they view their work in the light of their accounts of their education, training and wider life experiences. It seeks to locate their understanding of the significance of paid work within the narratives and world views that they articulate. To provide a ‘further’ control on the comparison, where possible, workers are selected from retail corporations with outlets in both countries. Interviewees are selected by gender and age cohort in order to grasp probable gender differences and the change of work during the last decades.

Expected Outcomes

It might be that in Britain where workers in the retail trade are mainly trained on the job they perceive their work and jobs as pure means to survive and that the British society is much more marked by segregation between lowly and highly paid workers than the German society. It is likely that low-wage workers build up their self-esteem and gain a sense of meaning in their lives from other institutions such as the family, religion or recreational allegiances and memberships. In contrast, in Germany it might be that workers in the retail trade who received two to three years of systematic vocational education with a degree perceive their work and jobs as means to be creative in addition to earn a living and that the German society, that invests in their vocational education, values their work and jobs as an important contribution to the whole society and thus is characterized by more social cohesion in comparison to the British one.

References

Bourdieu, P. and Boltanski, L. (1981 [1975] Titel und Stelle. Zum Verhaeltnis von Bildung und Beschaeftigung, In: P. Bourdieu, L. Boltanski, M. De Saint Martin, P. Maladier, Titel und Stelle. Ueber die Reproduktion sozialer Macht, edited and translated von H. Koehler, B. Krais, A. Leschinsky, G. Pfeffer, Frankfurt am Main, Europaeische Verlagsanstalt, 89-115. Brown, P., Green, A., Lauder, H. (2001) High Skills: Globalization, Competitiveness and Skill Formation, Oxford, Oxford University Press. Haste, H. (2008) Constructing competence; discourse, identity and culture. In: I. Plath (ed.) Kultur – Handlung – Demokratie; Diskurse ihrer Kontextbedingungen. Wiesbaden, Verlag fuer Sozialwissenschaften. Haste, H. (2009) What is ‘competence’ and how should education incorporate new technology’s tools to generate ‘competent civic agents’? The Curriculum Journal, 20 (3), 207-223. Haste, H. (without year) Culture, Tools and Subjectivity: the (re)construction of self, unpublished manuscript. Hall, P., Soskice, D. (eds.), (2001) Varieties of Capitalism. The Institutional Foundations of Comparative Advantage, Oxford, Oxford University Press. Offe, C. (1975) Bildungssystem, Beschaeftigungssystem und Bildungspolitik – Ansaetze zu einer gesamtgesellschaftlichen Funktionsbestimmung des Bildungswesens, in: H. Roth und D. Friedrich, Bildungsforschung. Probleme – Perspektiven – Prioritaeten, Teil 1 Band 50, Stuttgart, Klett Verlag, 217-252. Ryan, P, Wagner,K., Teuber, S and Backes-Gellner, U., (2010) Corporate Ownership and Initial Training in Britain, Germany and Switzerland, SKOPE Research paper No.99. Cardiff University.

Author Information

Antonia Kupfer (presenting)

Harvard University

Weatherhead Center for International Affairs

Cambridge

Antonia Kupfer (presenting / submitting)

Harvard University, United States of America

Hugh Lauder (presenting)

Bath University, United Kingdom

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