Learning Through Engaging in Women in Trades Introductory Programs
Date
2022-11-10
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Abstract
Framed by my interest in gender and work-related learning as viewed through a critical realist lens, and using a theoretical framework rooted in the sociological theorizing of Pierre Bourdieu, the case study described in this document examines what 13 participants in a women in trades introductory program (WiTIP) learned through their engagement in the program, and how they related that learning to their prior learning experiences. Analysis of participants’ descriptions of their WiTIP experiences, collected via semi-structured interviews, provides insights into why WiTIPs attendees rarely go on to enroll in apprenticeships upon program completion. Findings indicate that participants found themselves in an adult education program that turned out to be quite unlike what they had hoped for, yet one that still saw them learn a great deal. Though they reported being segregated from the real-life apprenticeship practices going on around them, which reinforced in them the longstanding social idea or, in Bourdieu’s terms, doxa, that women do not, and cannot, embody a skilled trades vocational habitus, their stories also indicate that the emotions elicited by their experiences in the program, many of which were negative, helped them learn a great deal about themselves, adult educational programming, and the broader social world.
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male-dominated, skilled trades, women-in-trades, women in trades, female apprentices, apprenticeship capital, apprenticeship habitus, manipulation of female apprentices, manipulation of women in trades
Citation
Skulmoski, L. K. (2022). Learning through engaging in women in trades introductory programs (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.