work and education - april 1 Flashcards
Why work?
Human work is purposive and conscious; it isn’t performed by instinct
Work remains central to our existence
Work is a social product, and we seek meaning in our work
Hasn’t always happened in history—we didn’t always seek meaning in our work, and didn’t always structure our identity around them
Work today:
1. Economic sustainment
2. Personal fulfillment
identity
3. Social status
Work and identity
With an increased focus on work for “personal fulfillment,” our occupations are an important part of our identity (including our gender identities)
Often one of the first things we ask people abt—what do you do for work?
Difficult to remove our “worker self” from ourselves in general
Makes being unemployed even more difficult
Our conceptualization of self is often interwoven with what we do on a daily basis (ie work)
We spend more time working than seeing family/friends/partners or doing leisure activities
Makes sense that this is a major part of our identity
We see this with any important role we play, ie student role (so being a student functions similarly to working)
Retiring can be a huge shift in identity
Retiring people are often becoming grandparents, and so lean heavily into the grandparent role and spend a lot of time w/ grandkids
Primary Labour Market
Often requires post-secondary training or education
Stable and comfortable salary, fringe benefits
Like insurance of a specific kind, or maybe chiropractors or wtv
Professions: prestigious occupations that require a specialized body of knowledge
Eg lawyer or doctor
Secondary Labour Market
Insecure and temporary, offer minimal pay, few opportunities to advance
Jobs in this market often called McJobs
Dime a dozen, replaceable, not very fulfilling, don’t tend to value workers
Devalue, demean, and oppress workers
Global economic systems-socialism
Raw materials and the means of production are collectively owned
Defining features: collective ownership, centralized, state-administered planning agency, production and distribution of goods without profit motive
Attempts to address the needs of the majority
NOT the same as Communism
Socialism precursor to communism—in socialism state controls, in communism everything in collectively owned
No real communist countries—all purportedly communist countries are socialist
From each according to their means, to each according to their needs (socialism?)
Global economic systems - capitalism
Grounded in private ownership of the means of production
Defining features: private ownership, ability to pursue personal gain and profit, competition among businesses (no monopolies)
Pure capitalism does not exist
Eg
Military owned and controlled by the state
Public parks owned by the government
Many universities are public/owned by the state/sponsored by the state
So are elementary and secondary schools
Components of public healthcare, even in “capitalist” systems like the US
Medicare and medicaid
First responders—police, firefighters
Public libraries
Maternity leave?
Employment insurancce
What is capitalism?
Laissez-faire capitalism vs welfare capitalism (which isn’t pure capitalism btw—gov isn’t allowed to have a safety net)
**there has NEVER been a purely capitalist society
Global economic systems - state/welfare capitalism
State/Welfare capitalism
Political and economic system combining free-market principles with social welfare programs
Involvement in the economy in order to assure that all citizens have access to health care, education, EI, etc.
Difficult to compete with countries who are able to exploit resources
Eg lower minimum wage
Different paradigms’ perspectives on capitalism
Structural functionalism: capitalism is functional for society because it brings about economic prosperity…BUT it leads to break up of integrated communities
Conflict theory: capitalism results in exploitation of vulnerable groups (eg the proletariat, or elders, or youth ig, or people with disabilities)
Symbolic interactionism: capitalism is sustained by shared beliefs, customs, and cultural reproduction
Capitalist values promoted in the media, in schools, etc
People bragging abt how much money they make, how hard they work, etc
Feminism: capitalism results in gender segregation and discrimination (particularly in the workforce)
good job characteristics
Pay well
Not closely supervised and they encourage creativity
Pleasant working environment
Require higher education
Secure employment
Good benefits and promotion opportunities
**most jobs fall somewhere in the middle, having combinations of both characteristics
bad job characteristics
Don’t pay much
Routine tasks under close supervision
Unpleasant working conditions—sometimes dangerous
Require little formal education
Insecure employment
Few benefits and advancement opportunities
**most jobs fall somewhere in the middle, having combinations of both characteristics
Demand-control model
- another way of evaluating whether or not a job is good
Wellbeing is affected by the worker’s ability to balance work demands with decision latitude over the way work is done
Decision latitude being control
So depends how much control a worker has—can they design their work? does their work require some creativity? etc
High demand with little control = bad for wellbeing (this is the worst case for wellbeing)
(doesn’t matter what the demands are—if you’re constantly being told to do things and in a very specific way, yikes)
Eg fast food jobs, grocery store employees, restaurant workers, customer service roles (like call centers)
Anxiety, low job satisfaction, depression
Injuries, high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease
Other features of jobs related to wellbeing
- Job complexity (example being the peanut processing plant—having a more complex job or one that requires thinking is linked to greater wellbeing)
—– Deskilling: systematic reconstruction of jobs so they require fewer skills
——-Think of this as breaking jobs down into smaller and smaller parts so each individual job is less complex and requires less and less training
——–So the less skilled jobs require less pay so you save money - Coworker support
—–Social aspect of work—ability to socialize and develop friendships with others
——Beneficial to wellbeing - Length of work day
——Eg working more than 8 hours a day can be super damaging - Shift work
——–Particularly night shift work
Latent Functions of education
Creates:
1. A youth culture
Distinct from adult culture—now youth values can conflict with adult values
Eg students value athletic and social success for popularity, whereas adults value academic achievement
2. A marriage market—
Facilitates assortative mating: choosing a mate who is similar to oneself on various ranking criteria
Most students come from similar backgrounds, have similar interests and values, especially in given areas of study
3. A custodial and surveillance system for children
4. A means of maintaining wage levels by keeping postsecondary students temporarily out of the market
5. A “school of dissent” that opposes authorities (occasionally)
Promoting social change
Cultural Homogeneity and Solidarity (education)
Schools create solidarity through cultural homogeneity
Also transmit shared knowledge and culture between generations, thereby fostering a common cultural identity
Respect the law, democracy is the best form of government, capitalism is great
The uniformity of much industrial work requires an education system that teaches workers common standards
A system had to be created in which a privileged few were recruited to elite institutions, socialized to the new standards, and then set back to peripheral regions to impose the uniform standards on students
To teach, essentially
Conflict perspective: meritocracy
Meritocracy: a social hierarchy where rank corresponds to individual capacities fairly tested against a common standard
Conflict theorists challenge the functionalist assumption that educational attainment and subsequent social ranking are regulated by performance based on individual merit
Some schools are better funded than others, some students have laptops and can use them outside of school, some students don’t have safe places to study/work after school, some students can’t participate in extracurriculars (including educational ones)
