On the role of habitus and field in apprenticeships

Abstract

Habitus is generally discussed in relation to academic forms of education. In other words, a working-class habitus disadvantages students in academic subjects or higher education. In contrast, it is often assumed that students who struggle with academic demands (perhaps because of habitus dislocation) can be served by vocational programmes such as apprenticeships, regardless of their social backgrounds or their habitus. Drawing on interviews with young men and women who participated in a high school-based apprenticeship programme in the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Ontario, this article argues that a closer consideration of the relationships between habitus and field are necessary in order to make apprenticeships a viable alternative for a larger number of young people.

Keywords

apprenticeship Canada field habitus vocational education

Introduction

In the past decades, there has been a proliferation of research and scholarship applying habitus to explain access to, experiences in and outcomes of higher education for non-traditional (usually working-class and first-generation) students (Aries and Seider, 2005; Baxter and Britton, 2001; Lehmann, 2012b, 2014; Reay et al., 2010). At the same time, there is far less attention to who goes into vocational education and what the outcomes are of such a decision. This article addresses this issue by presenting findings from a study that tracked high school apprentices in two Canadian provinces a few years after they left high school. These data provide the basis for arguing that a habitus that is part of the field of apprenticeship is very helpful for these youth, in terms of choosing apprenticeship training in high school, being self-advocates in training and continuing apprenticeship training. In contrast, youth whose habitus is not congruent with the field have a more difficult time and are more likely to leave the trade. Importantly, this analysis points to the value of being aware of the habitus that youth bring to trades while considering the structural factors that shape the field of apprenticeship.

Habitus

Bourdieu (1977: 78) thought of habitus as ‘history turned into nature’, and defined it as ‘an acquired system of generative schemes objectively adjusted to the particular conditions in which it is constituted’ (Bourdieu, 1977: 95). Habitus ensures the active presence of past experiences within individuals in the forms of schemes of perception, thought and action. Put more simply, habitus can be understood as a set of acquired patterns of thought, behaviour and taste, which are informed by one’s social milieu (mostly class), that constitutes the individual’s sense of self within the social structure. Thus, habitus creates dispositions to understand the world, and hence to behave, in certain ways. Hodkinson and Sparkes (1997: 33) have explained habitus as encapsulating ‘the ways in which a person’s beliefs, ideas and preferences are individually subjective but also influenced by the objective social networks and cultural traditions in which that person lives’. Growing up in specific social environments thus creates dispositions that are more or less congruent with a field.

Habitus has played an important role in recent scholarship on post-secondary education choices and experiences. Nearly exclusively, this work is concerned with the experiences of working-class students at university (Archer et al., 2003; Aries and Seider, 2005; Lehmann, 2009, 2014; Reay et al., 2010). The importance of Bourdieu’s work for understanding non-traditional, especially working-class students’ access to and experiences in higher education cannot be underestimated. It is therefore interesting to note that his ideas and concepts have hardly informed research in vocational education. In fact, it is often assumed that vocational forms of post-secondary (and secondary) education are the logical and uncontested alternative for those who do not succeed in academic education. Yet, if the relationships between habitus and field affect individuals’ experiences in academic higher education, they should be equally important for understanding experiences in vocational education. Understanding this habitus–field relationship may be especially important in countries like Canada, in which policy makers hope to expand the currently very marginal role played by apprenticeships in order to address both labour shortages and youth unemployment. While countries with well-developed, traditional dual systems (e.g. Germany) offer apprenticeships that have a broad, occupational orientation with corporatist structures, carefully designed learning plans and tight regulative frameworks (Clark and Zukas, 2013), in Canada, apprentices work and learn in a system that lacks most of these features (Lehmann, 2005, 2007). It is therefore also important to understand the field of apprenticeship when considering habitus as a factor that affects apprentices’ likelihood of success.

Field: apprenticeship in Canada

A field is a social space that organizes relationships, in that different players in the field have different levels of access to resources and understand the rules that govern the field differently (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992; Thomson, 2008). Players in the field struggle to change or preserve the form and values of the institutional field, depending partly on their habitus. Therefore, while fields are dynamic and open to change, some participants are more constrained by their structures than others.

In Canada, provincial governments have responsibility for the regulation, certification and establishment of provincial standards, and therefore apprenticeship systems vary across the country. For instance, Canada has not developed a national competency-based qualifications framework for vocational education and training. Apprenticeship in Canada has also not been a major instrument of skill formation or a major transition route from school to work (Schuetze, 2003; Sharpe, 2003). Although in the past 20 years, most provinces have introduced high school apprenticeship programmes to address this problem, there is a lack of legal supports in the system overall (e.g. lack of requirements on employers and enforcement of arrangements) that impact youth training, similar to the UK (Gospel and Edwards, 2011). Also like the UK (Keep, 2012), the Canadian apprenticeship system tends to be market-based and voluntaristic, and therefore recruiting employers and finding quality training placements can be challenging. Compared to college and university, which is the dominant pathway for Canadian youth, the requirements for apprenticeship programmes tend to be less homogenous and the path to completing these programmes is less straightforward and structured (Laporte and Mueller, 2013).

Germany’s dual system remains the most important point of reference when discussing new apprenticeship initiatives. In Canada, as elsewhere, the dual system is seen as a best practice approach, although its very different legal, institutional and cultural foundations require one to treat comparisons with caution. For instance, apprenticeship training in Canada is highly deregulated and only loosely monitored and enforced. This is in stark contrast to the corporatist structures of Germany’s dual system that integrate the interests of governments (through the Ministries of Education in the different Länder), employers (through the relevant Chambers) and workers (through unions). Although Canada’s apprenticeship system is also based on the principles of duality of training in both workplaces and educational institutions, there is no formal integration of learning in the two sites. In fact, apprentices are usually laid off and receive unemployment benefits while attending vocational school, usually during a block of one or two months per year. Moreover, the renewed interest in apprenticeships in Canada is strongly driven by specific demands for skilled labour in resource extraction industries (Meredith, 2011), whereas the strength of the dual system rests on its focus on broad occupational knowledge in fields far beyond traditional manual trades, such as administrative and technical occupations (Brockmann et al., 2008). To illustrate the marginal status of apprenticeship and trades labour in Canada, only 12 per cent of the Canadian labour force was employed in the skilled trades in 2007. In the same year, 358,555 Canadians were officially registered as apprentices (a number that represents approximately 2 per cent of the total labour force) and only 24,495 apprenticeship certificates were issued (Ménard et al., 2008). Although much of this low participation can be explained by economic structures, it is also important to note that Canada’s employers have a poor record of involvement in the training and education of their workforce (Cooke et al., 2009; Saunders, 2009). Furthermore, most young people and their parents consider apprenticeships a second-best post-secondary option for those less academically talented or ambitious, despite the prediction that Canada will face a shortage of one million tradespeople by 2020 (Curry, 2013).

To redress this problem of high need and low participation, provincial governments across Canada have introduced youth apprenticeship programmes in the final years of secondary education (high school), hoping they will increase the participation of young people in trades employment (Lehmann, 2012a; Taylor, 2007, 2010). Although there are differences across Canadian provinces in how high school-based youth apprenticeships are organized and integrated into both the school system and the labour market, they nonetheless share important features. Most importantly, hours spent in the workplace count towards participants’ high school completion as well as their apprenticeship requirements, should they choose to continue their apprenticeship once they graduate from high school. Students alternate between work and school during the day (e.g. they attend school in the morning and work in the afternoon), or per term (e.g. they spend the fall term at work and the winter term at school). Typically, high school students begin their apprenticeships in Grade 11 or 12 (when they are usually 16 to 18 years old). Upper-year high school students can choose to work with an employer either as fully registered apprentices (the approach taken in Alberta) or as a cooperative placement (the more common approach in Ontario).

Although these programmes have the potential to engage young men and women in trades work early on and offer an alternative to academic post-secondary education, they tend to suffer from the same problems as traditional apprenticeships in Canada. Because of loose regulation, training experiences of apprentices vary widely. Work-based learning is generally not integrated into what high school students learn elsewhere at schools (Lehmann, 2005). Participants enter workplaces with no learning plans and are thus extremely vulnerable to exploitation as cheap labour (Taylor et al., 2014). High school programmes are also highly gendered – if only male-dominated trades are considered, the representation of young women in high school apprenticeship in Ontario and Alberta is no better than for the adult system (Raykov et al., 2013).

These problems resemble those discussed in relation to the UK’s Modern Apprenticeship programmes, especially when compared to the dual system arrangements in German-speaking countries (Clarke et al., 2013; Dieckhoff, 2008). As with Modern Apprenticeships, high school programmes (and apprenticeships in Canada generally) focus on task-specific (often even employer-specific) skills, rather than broad occupational knowledge (Brockmann et al., 2008).

In contrast, apprenticeship in the German-speaking nations is culturally embedded and plays a prominent (if perhaps no longer dominant) role in the post-secondary education choices of young men and women. Especially in the most innovative apprenticeships in Germany, apprentices are gradually inserted into the community of practice and eventually become fully integrated into all work processes in an organization (Grollmann and Rauner, 2007). Furthermore, the cultural importance and prominence of apprenticeships in Germany means that transition pathways are clearly delineated and well understood (Lehmann, 2005).

Habitus–field relationship

Bourdieu has likened the relationship between habitus and field to a game (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992). If habitus and field are aligned, players have an intuitive sense of the game and are more likely to do well. If they are not aligned, players are less likely to understand the purpose of the game, its rules and its intricacies. There are opportunities to assist those whose habitus does not fit the field; however, the negative consequences of this mismatch are exacerbated in fields that are very complex or very unfamiliar. This could be said of apprenticeships in Canada. A recent survey of high school age youth by the Canadian Apprenticeship Forum (2013) found that just under half (46%) were aware of career options available in skilled trades. In addition, the same percentage disagreed that guidance counsellors encouraged them to consider careers in skilled trades. For those who express interest in apprenticeships, the regulatory frameworks and responsibility structures are difficult to understand.

Furthermore, apprentices in Canada are less likely to be educated in a holistic way that reduces the boundaries between theory and practice (for comparison, see Migler et al., 1990: 13). Apprentices in dual systems like Germany’s engage with other apprentices (both at work and in vocational schools), learn broader occupational roles, responsibilities and rights, and continue to receive civic education as part of their attendance at vocational school, all of which ease transitions for even those whose habitus may not be of the field. The notion of Beruf is essential to Germany’s labour market and its apprenticeship system and signals a form of vocational identity that emerges from a thorough development of broad competence in an occupational field (Brockmann, 2013).

In contrast, the narrow task-specific focus of apprenticeships in Canada is more indicative of what Fuller and Unwin (2006) have called a restrictive approach (in contrast to an expansive approach) to vocational education. In particular, apprentices often find themselves engaged in a specialized area of a trade with little opportunity to develop breadth and depth of skill. They lack good mentorship and are treated as employees who must be immediately productive rather than learners in the workplace. Since the worksite plays a very important role in the development of apprentices’ skills (James and Holmes, 2011), these aspects of the institutional context are important. Apprentices overall are less likely to become members of such a community of practice or develop a vocational identity unless that identity is already shaped through their habitus. It therefore stands to reason that those who bring to apprenticeships a ‘natural feel for the game’, in other words, those with a habitus that is situated in a family familiar with trades employment and apprenticeship training, will likely find it easier to transition into apprenticeships and be successful in them. This article explores how structural conditions in apprenticeship impact high school youth differently depending on their habitus.

Methodology

The data in this article are taken from a study of the educational and career trajectories of former high school apprentices in the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Ontario (for more information on provincial differences, see Lehmann et al., 2013). This mixed methods study included an online survey, completed by 173 participants (105 in Alberta and 68 in Ontario) in 2009 followed by interviews with 89 young men and women (33 in Ontario and 56 in Alberta) who participated in high school apprenticeships between 2001 and 2006 (Taylor et al., 2013). The participants in this study are reflective of the top high school apprenticeship trades in Alberta and Ontario. The top six trades in terms of student registrations in the Alberta programme (the Registered Apprenticeship Programme or RAP) are welders, heavy equipment technicians, automotive service technicians, electricians, carpenters and hairstylists (Alberta Government and Apprenticeship and Industry Training (AIT), 2012). In Ontario, the top six trades in terms of student enrolments in OYAP (Ontario Youth Apprenticeship Programme) are auto service technician, cook, electrician, carpenter, machinist and hairstylist (Taylor, 2007, personal communication, Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities).

As this is a rather difficult-to-reach population, a range of recruitment methods were employed, beginning with help from the Ontario ministry that deals with apprenticeship and an Alberta foundation, CAREERS the Next Generation, which helps facilitate youth apprenticeship placements. This article focuses mostly on interview data with references to relevant findings from the survey that help to place these data in context. Interviews took place either in person or over the phone. They varied in length between 60 and 120 minutes. All interviews were audiotaped, transcribed and analysed using NVivo (data analysis software). These data are not intended to be generalizable to all former youth apprentices in these provinces, whether employed in the occupations profiled in this article or not. Instead, they offer productive insights and interpretations into the role of habitus on the educational and employment experiences and trajectories of young people, which may stimulate further study and investigation.

Findings

The following sections contrast the experiences of participants whose habitus was congruent with the field of apprenticeship and those whose habitus was not. This analysis highlights the importance of considering agency when studying apprenticeship experience, while also remaining aware of the structural conditions that shape this agency.

Considering apprenticeship

Bourdieu (1977, 1990) suggested that individuals’ social environment and how they grow up profoundly shape how they see themselves and what range of options, be they educational or occupational, they consider appropriate, or sometimes, just simply consider. Given that apprenticeship training is very marginal in Canada and that young people are often unaware that such a form of post-secondary education even exists, the role of habitus is likely to be even more profound. Furthermore, public discussion about education and employment in Canada is usually centred on assumptions that Canada has transformed into a knowledge economy in which increasingly high levels of formal, academic education are required for success.

Interview data indeed show that many participants entered their high school apprenticeships with a habitus characterized by familiarity with skilled labour and the trades. This is confirmed by survey data, which indicate that, compared to the Canadian population aged 40 to 65, more fathers of former high school apprentices possessed high school or trade certificates as their highest level of educational attainment (Taylor et al., 2013). In addition, 44 per cent of fathers of former apprentices worked as skilled trades workers or as unskilled manual workers. Just over three-quarters of survey participants reported that family played a very important part in their decision to enter an apprenticeship.

Most importantly, while nine of 15 survey respondents (60%) whose fathers were professionals were still working in trades, 39 of 47 respondents (83%) whose fathers worked in trades were still working in trades. Furthermore, the former group (youth with professional fathers) were more likely to be ‘non-continuers’ in their high school trades than those with trades fathers (31% compared to 21%). In terms of gendered outcomes of trades training, just over one-third of females surveyed (16 of 46) discontinued their apprenticeship training compared to one-quarter of males (32 of 127) (Raykov et al., 2013).While the small numbers make it difficult to generalize, these findings prompted a closer look at the role of habitus in the interview data.

In interviews, habitus is reflected in the naturalness with which these young people spoke about working in trades-related jobs. This naturalness was rooted in having worked manually from an early age, often supported by parents who themselves had worked in the trades, or who liked to do manual work at home. For example, when asked why he chose an apprenticeship programme, Bill replied: ‘My father’s a mechanic and I’ve been doing it my whole life. … I was always in the garage or at the farm tinkering with my dad, so it’s just natural’ (Bill, fourth-year heavy duty mechanic apprentice; father owns heavy duty mechanic business; Alberta subsample). Similarly, Harry comments: ‘My father is a licensed carpenter … there’s [definitely] a tendency in our family to work with our hands. We like to work with stuff and build stuff and create things and fix things’ (Harry, certified automotive journeyman; Ontario subsample). For many, this meant that seeking a career in the trades was an unquestioned consequence. The comments of Paul below provide a rather succinct illustration of how habitus might work in the career decision-making process. Paul completed an apprenticeship as a machinist; his father is a certified millwright: ‘I think if my father was a teacher or a businessman of some sort I would probably have thought more about university and taking something more academic’ (Paul, Ontario subsample).

For a substantial number of participants, experiences in manual work were gained growing up on farms and being actively involved in all aspects of farm work. This created a habitus that made ‘working with tools’ natural and uncontested for both young men and women. As Mandy comments: ‘I grew up on a farm and was always hands on with my dad when he was home working on farm equipment, vehicles, whatever. I was basically raised that girls can do anything guys can do’ (Mandy, Parts Technician; Alberta subsample). Familiarity with tools as part of their habitus was arguably even more important for young women to instil the confidence to enter apprenticeships in male-dominated trades. Given that the male-dominated trades are generally seen as hostile environments for women (McMullen et al., 2010), most if not all of the young women interviewed who were successful in completing apprenticeship training had such a habitus. Annie is a good example:

I’ve been told by journeymen, when I was an apprentice that I had a bigger grasp on tools than a lot of first years or second years. My dad is an awesome dad. He would sit down, I can remember being like 10 years old and him showing me, this is this kind of screwdriver. He was a really good teacher. … That definitely helped me, gave me an advantage. (Annie, instrument technician, Alberta subsample)

For Kate, having the ‘right’ habitus was crucial not only for considering a career in the automotive trade, but also for her success in it. As the following comments show, it allowed her access to a lucrative career that did not require the high investment associated with a university education:

My dad kind of is like a mechanic, like a backyard mechanic. He’s not professional, but that’s how I got into auto mechanics. … They were exceptionally happy because my parents can’t afford to send me to school so I would’ve had to take out student loans or get scholarships or things like that. … There’s so many people that are retiring out of the trades right now, they’re begging you to come in and they’re paying for you to go to school. For somebody to pay for you to go to school is great, because a lot of people can’t afford it. (Kate, female; certified automotive journeywoman; father certified automotive journeyman, Ontario subsample)

However, it is important to recognize that there continue to be significant barriers to retaining young women in male-dominated trades even when they do enter with a trades-positive habitus.

While participants who grew up with a trades background (or at least ‘around tools’) spoke about their decisions to enter apprenticeships as a natural choice and largely uncontested decision, those who did not share these conditions struggled. For instance Linda, who entered an automotive apprenticeship without any prior experience and whose parents are employed in the banking sector, had to overcome suspicion and negative perceptions about her educational choice:

The guidance counsellor at my high school actually called my parents and was very concerned about me wanting to go into auto mechanics because it’s not a woman’s trade, ‘Why would she want to do that?’ The guidance counsellor was actually very discouraging for me to want to do it. (Linda, no longer in trades; Ontario subsample)

Although Linda’s parents supported her decision to apprentice as an automotive technician, her apprenticeship was also far from a supportive learning and working experience. Furthermore, her lack of prior exposure to the trades left her insecure about the type of work she would eventually be expected to perform:

Linda:

It was a little bit difficult, I spent a lot of time stocking shelves and cleaning and I helped the guys take things apart, and watched them do different things, but for the most part in that instance I didn’t get a lot of hands-on from the shop.

Interviewer:

Was that frustrating?

Linda:

It was frustrating, but at the same time I … I was still very new, so … to feel completely confident about disassembling somebody’s … a customer’s brakes, I don’t think that I would have wanted to do it.

Thus, young trades entrants may lack a feel for the game, just as working-class youth transitioning to university may feel like fish out of water. Habitus is related to educational dispositions regarding apprenticeships and employment in the trades more generally. Assuming that apprenticeships and vocational education are a ‘natural’ and uncontested alternative for less academically inclined young people not only overlooks the ways in which habitus affects youths’ educational dispositions and choices, but also, as shown in more detail below, their experiences and success in apprenticeships.

Access to and experiences in apprenticeships

As entry into apprenticeship training depends on finding an employer willing to train apprentices, the ‘right’ habitus may have a very concrete, practical effect: access to such employers. Growing up in a family that is strongly related to trades employment means a form of social capital that links young people to others in the trades, including potential employers (Taylor, 2008). Bryan’s story about finding his apprenticeship placement with his father’s employer is perhaps an extreme example of how this type of social capital works, but it is entirely representative of the importance of social capital that reaches into the respective field in which young people seek apprenticeship opportunities:

Actually it was on take your kid to work day in grade 9. I work with my dad still. My dad works at the same garage I do. I went to work with my dad and the owner of the dealership goes to me and says, so what are you doing this summer? I said, ‘I’ll probably be working on the farm like I do every summer.’ He goes, ‘no you’re working for me’. … He set me up as an Ontario youth apprentice and then right out of high school I got registered as a regular apprentice. (Bryan, certified automotive journeyman; father certified automotive journeyman; Ontario subsample)

Later, Bryan explains how his social capital and his knowledge of the trades not only helped find an apprenticeship employer, but also eased his transition into his apprenticeship:

Interviewer:

Do you remember your first day on the job?

Bryan:

It was just a normal day. I’ve been working on cars with my dad since I was four or five. It’s just another day.

Interviewer:

How did the other workers respond to you, as a 15 year old?

Bryan:

I was around that garage and they watched me grow up, because of my father being there for so long.

These comments highlight the importance of habitus in the transition into apprenticeships. Thus, young people are not only familiar and comfortable with the work to be learned and performed, but also with workplace cultures, as the following quotation illustrates:

[Co-workers] accepted me right from the get go. Like I said, my employer was my ball coach, they did work on our farm for years, so they knew the family very well, and they knew who I was just from me being around and they knew who my parents were … They accepted me right off the bat and not once did I ever feel set aside that I was an outsider and we’re better than you and stuff like that. Like, if there was a trench to be dug, everybody grabbed a shovel to dig it was … it was very even workload. (Andy, certified electrician; Ontario subsample)

The following comments by Steve further show that knowledge of the trades can protect young people from exploitation. Or, at the very least, it can give them the agency to recognize exploitation and possibly counteract it:

[As a youth apprentice], it’s a little bit different because you’re new with the programme, you’re … you’re obviously a little bit more susceptible to people telling you things, especially in a work place where you’re sort of … you feel like you’re not quite part of the place yet, so you have to take directions, or instructions. … You have to be very persistent and very straight forward, or you will be the mop up boy, you will be the coffee boy and that’s how you’re going to be treated all your apprenticeship programme long. (Steve, certified automotive journeyman; father truck driver; Ontario subsample)

Although habitus is often criticized as a structurally deterministic concept (see, for example, Jenkins, 1992), Steve’s comments suggest that it also enables agency.

Just as familiarity with the trades enables access to apprenticeship opportunities and eases transitions into them, lacking a habitus that emerges from such familiarity potentially leads to difficulties and struggles. Sandra, a participant from the Ontario subsample whose parents are employed in the service sector and who did not have experiences in trades employment, talks about the long-term implications of not having social capital that reaches into the trades sector. She had to rely on her high school arranging a cooperative placement, as she had no access to employers herself. Unfortunately, her placement was unable (or perhaps unwilling) to allow Sandra to enter apprenticeship training properly. Ultimately, this meant she was unable to enrol in an apprenticeship in plumbing and, at the time of being interviewed, was employed doing semi-skilled work in a plumbing company’s office, taking calls and dispatching plumbers, when her real goal was to be a plumber herself:

Sandra:

The placement that [my school] found for me was at actually at a place that sold plumbing parts and fixtures, so I wasn’t actually out in the field.

Interviewer:

Okay, so were you able to do an apprenticeship with them?

Sandra:

No, the apprenticeship office said that because it wasn’t like a full fledged plumbing company, once I was done my co-op programme, I would have to either find a plumbing company to take me on, or they couldn’t keep using the hours.

Sandra’s struggles may have been exacerbated by the fact that she is a woman. Unlike Kate and Annie, whose prior exposure to the trades opened doors and enabled them to succeed, Sandra was sidelined to an office position.

In the literature on habitus and the academic field, the mismatch between habitus and field has been called habitus dislocation, which is argued to occur when young people from a working-class background attend university and their working-class habitus comes into conflict with the middle-class norms of educational institutions (Baxter and Britton, 2001; Lehmann, 2012b). Similarly, it could be argued that a form of habitus dislocation occurs when young people without prior experience in manual labour have to adjust to the norms and culture of an automotive workshop, a construction site or any other skilled trades workplace.

Recall the experiences of Linda, who entered an automotive apprenticeship without prior exposure to this type of work and who was disadvantaged by both her timid approach to the work and an unsupportive employer. Her apprenticeship was ultimately terminated by her employer, who felt she was not ‘doing her job’ when she asked for help from more senior co-workers and to be taught new skills, which are the purposes of apprenticeship training. The experiences at her placement were frustrating enough that Linda abandoned her plans to become an automotive technician and eventually enrolled at college to study Food and Nutrition.

Similarly Sam entered his apprenticeship as an automotive technician without prior knowledge of the field. Like Linda, he encountered poor training, was terminated from one employer, but nonetheless managed to finish his apprenticeship with a different employer. Like Linda, his overall negative experiences, however, led him to leave the trade eventually and study at university. Problems seemed especially pressing for apprentices in the automotive trade, which was driven by quick turnaround times and remuneration by jobs completed rather than an hourly wage, as Jennifer noted:

[The dealership] put me on the oil change rack, which is normal for apprentices: you start doing oil changes and tyres and you kind of move up from there. I was there for nine months on the lube rack. … To be with the dealership, that was kind of almost a waste of a year in the sense of knowledge-wise. Because I didn’t grow; I didn’t get any experience with anything that whole time. (Jennifer, automotive apprentice; no longer in trade; Ontario subsample)

The experiences of Linda, Sam and Jennifer, none of whom had a family history in the trades when they entered their apprenticeships, illustrate two points made earlier: (1) that social capital in the trades gives apprentices access to employers who are more likely to train them properly as apprentices; and (2) that a habitus characterized by familiarity with the trades enables a form of agency that allows apprentices to resist restrictive practices at work. Lacking the ‘right’ social capital and an ‘embodied cultural capital’ valued in trades (Clark and Zukas, 2013), in contrast, exposes young people to the types of negative experiences described by these three youth.

It is also important to note that poor practices are not necessarily intentionally malicious. Canada has no history or tradition of apprenticeship training. Having mostly relied on immigrant labour to build its infrastructure, apprenticeships in Canada have remained a very marginal form of education. Put more simply, forging a successful path into and through apprenticeships depends on individuals’ understanding of the rules of apprenticeships and expectations in training and at work. Apprenticeships in the German-speaking countries do offer this kind of transparency (Heinz and Taylor, 2005; Lehmann, 2005). They are well integrated into the overall education system, have a long cultural tradition, enjoy a relatively high status, and are the outcomes of close cooperation between different social partners (e.g. governments, employer groups and unions). Apprentices generally understand the structures of apprenticeships and what is expected of them. Vocational schools in the German-speaking countries inform apprentices about apprenticeship rules and regulations as well as their rights as apprentices and workers, unlike Canada, where the in-class portions of apprenticeships focus exclusively on the technical aspects of a trade. Furthermore, workplace learning and vocational schooling are highly integrated. This comparison suggests that structural aspects in the field either enable or limit agency.

Exceptions: the role of well managed transition programmes and labour market opportunities

Although high school apprenticeship programmes tend to attract young men and women who are already familiar with work in the trades, some participants without such a habitus nonetheless credited their high school apprenticeship experience with helping them manage and overcome potential habitus dislocation and allowing them to be successful. Here, Carl speaks about the value of his high school apprenticeship in introducing him to workplace cultures in the trades and in being allowed to learn:

I was never a hands-on person, you know? So I think that scared me a little bit because of the fact that I didn’t know if I was good with my hands, so I didn’t know if an electrician was going to be right for me. … Being the kind of person who knew absolutely no-one, like I said I was a pretty small kid, I looked really young. You know, I just thought about how many brooms I would have to push if I had absolutely no experience. When you go to [youth apprenticeship programme], you are given the opportunity to have free training. (Carl, certified electrician journeyperson; both parents academics; Ontario subsample)

Schools can also play an important role in finding placements for young people who lack connections to employers. For example, Justin notes:

My school found [my apprenticeship employer]. I was one of the top guys in my [vocational education] class. So how it was is I guess the top guy would have, like, the first pick of the placements ’cause my teacher had a whole handful of placements, right? So how it works is whoever the top guy was kinda had, like, the first say and then so on and so forth. … I ended up choosing [name of dealership]. … So I did my placement there for four months, and the manager there, he … I guess he really liked me, every … all the employees there really liked me, so they put in a good word for me and I was hired right after my placement. (Justin, certified automotive journeyperson; father restaurant owner; Ontario subsample)

Mike, who did not grow up with a habitus shaped in the trades (his parents were employed in the service sector) nonetheless became a certified electrician. He explained the importance of well-run high school apprenticeships, but also the importance of employers and co-workers in accepting and mentoring young apprentices:

When I left high school and started working in construction, it’s a completely and totally different culture. It is such a culture shock to get in with all guys on a construction site with these massive tools and machinery swinging around. They’re there getting paid, you’re not. You’re not used to what’s going on, you have no idea how things work or why things work. That’s one thing, if I get a co-op now, I say, listen, you do what I say when I say it, because the last thing I want is you getting hurt. … Everybody’s got those stories from their first year, that they should’ve been killed 10 or 15 times. It’s just one of those things. (Mike, certified electrician; parents in service sector/sales; Ontario subsample)

Unfortunately, a number of factors limit the role of high school-based apprenticeships in this regard. Most importantly, finding employers willing to take on high school students as apprentices or co-op students is difficult. For schools, this means a necessity to establish positive relationships with the few employers who do participate; this in turn limits their ability to enforce proper treatment of the student trainees. At the same time, there is a serious and growing shortage of skilled labour, especially in boom regions in Canada’s western provinces. Schools and employers in these regions have therefore made an effort to attract and mentor ‘non-traditional’ entrants into the trades. Labour shortages like those in Alberta create positive policy environments for interventions and also incentives for employers to offer quality training and support/guidance for apprentices.

While most of the youth interviewed in Fort McMurray, which is the epicentre of the Alberta oil boom, came from families with ties to oil sands trades, they also benefitted from the active promotion of trades as viable careers in schools and the expansive training programmes of multinational oil companies. In such high demand regions, the proportion of young women entering male-dominated trades was also higher. For example, in addition to family support, Sarah was exposed to role models in her youth apprenticeship, and was encouraged to try the instrument technician trade by her school vice-principal who spoke to her ‘one-on-one’ about her career interests. This, coupled with supportive experiences in her initial placement, contributed to her success in becoming a certified instrument technician by age 21.

Discussion and conclusion

Habitus and field are concepts that have for some time been usefully applied in the study of access to and retention in academic higher education, especially for under-represented groups such as working-class students. At the same time, educators and policy-makers have implicitly assumed that those who are either not interested in or struggle with the demands of higher education can easily find an alternative pathway in vocational education. This article shows that success in vocational education may be similarly dependent on habitus as it is for academic education. Having a natural comfort level with important aspects of skilled manual labour, such as handling tools, being safety conscious or not being afraid of working alongside older, experienced workers, seems important for success in apprenticeships. Not only does such a habitus ease the transition into apprenticeships, it also generally means that individuals possess forms of social capital that give them access to employers willing to train them. Sometimes these are employers who already employ other family members or their friends and acquaintances.

Given the reluctance of employers in countries like Canada to take on apprentices or to implement expansive training environments, this type of social capital is crucially important, as the experiences of many interview participants show. Survey findings further suggest that there is an inverse relationship between the number of companies apprentices worked at and apprenticeship training completion rates (Taylor et al., 2013). Having first-hand experiences of skilled work prior to beginning an apprenticeship and access to employers willing to train and mentor them further means that young people may be more likely to chart a more realistic and ultimately successful career pathway in the skilled trades.

Further, data show that former high school apprentices whose habitus is not congruent with the field of skilled labour are also at greater risk of exiting trades. They are less likely to find their own employers and have to rely on placement support from their schools. They are less likely to know what to expect from an apprenticeship and thus more exposed to exploitative practices in the workplace. This is not to suggest that those with the ‘right’ habitus always succeed and those with the ‘wrong’ habitus are doomed to fail in apprenticeships. Habitus counts because the apprenticeship field in Canada is largely unregulated and whatever rules exist to protect apprentices in their learning needs are poorly enforced. That means that the ‘right’ habitus works as a form of protection and fosters agentic behaviour during the apprenticeship. Participants talked about being proactive and discussing their training needs with their employers, having the right ‘attitude’ to fit in with their co-workers and being easily accepted into the workforce culture. Although these things should occur in any apprenticeship, many without the embodied cultural capital valued in trades struggle to gain these positive experiences in workplaces characterized by exploitative employers and unsupportive co-workers.

There are currently serious shortages of skilled trades workers in Canada. At the same time, a substantial number of young people enter the labour market as unskilled workers, directly from high school, which makes them especially vulnerable. Also, as studying at university is becoming increasingly normative in Canada, many young people who enter university with little interest in academia may be better suited to apprenticeships, but never consider this option. Scholars may therefore want to investigate more carefully the inter-relationship between structural conditions and individual agency, both of which are reflected in the habitus–field nexus.

An important question that this article begins to address is how structural conditions in apprenticeships affect individuals differently, depending on their habitus. From a policy perspective, there is also a need to look more closely at ways in which apprenticeships can be reformed so that young people may enter them without a trades-positive habitus and have opportunities to develop such a habitus during their training. High school-based youth apprenticeship programmes are a welcome step in broadening the focus of youth beyond university, but as shown, are more likely to reinforce existing habitual dispositions than to attract a more diverse group of trades entrants. This diverse group would include not only more women but also underrepresented racial/ethnic minority groups, and youth who lack strong parental support. It would also include youth from middle-class families who see themselves as hands on learners, but lack the requisite cultural and social capitals to consider a trade.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

We thank Zane Hamm and Milosh Raykov, both postdoctoral fellows at the University of Alberta, and Laura Wright, research assistant at the University of Western Ontario, for their input on this article. We also wish to acknowledge the constructive comments of the editor and three anonymous reviewers.

Funding

The study was supported by a Standard Research Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).

Wolfgang Lehmann is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology, The University of Western Ontario. After completing a study of the experiences of working-class, first-generation university students, supported by a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), he is currently following up with his original participants about their further education and employment experiences since graduation. He has also published on young people’s school–work transitions and vocational education. His recent book is Choosing to Labour? School–Work Transitions and Social Class (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2007).

Alison Taylor is Associate Professor in Educational Studies at the University of British Columbia. She is the lead researcher on the study, ‘Tracking high school apprentices’, supported by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) grant. Her related research projects address the transition experiences of immigrant and Aboriginal youth.

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