Gender Reproduction and Further Education: Domestic Apprenticeships

Skeggs, Bev. 1988. Gender Reproduction and Further Education: Domestic Apprenticeships. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 9(2), pp. 131-151. ISSN 0142-5692 [Article]

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Abstract or Description

This paper explores how a group of 83 young, white, working class women became involved in the state's most recent attempt at restructuring social relations through vocational initiatives. Using ethnographic research conducted in a caring course department of a northern further education college, it examines how the students everyday practical experiences of the vocational caring curriculum involves them in the construction of subjectivity and gender and class reproduction. The central argument is that caring courses are little more than domestic apprenticeships which anticipate both the family household structure and the labour market. The students implicate themselves in this process, through their attempts to gain autonomy and self‐esteem, by constructing ‘ideal’ caring standards, which come to prioritise exclusive, familial forms of care over and above occupational roles. Thus, they socialise themselves out of the labour market and establish familial responsibilities, which can be drawn upon by the state to maintain unpaid welfare provision.

Item Type:

Article

Identification Number (DOI):

https://doi.org/10.1080/0142569880090201

Dates:

DateEvent
1988Published

Item ID:

13663

Date Deposited:

28 Sep 2015 09:50

Last Modified:

07 Jul 2017 12:47

Peer Reviewed:

Yes, this version has been peer-reviewed.

URI:

https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/13663

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