From Labouring to Learning ― Working-class Masculinities, Education and De-industrialization

From Labouring to Learning: Working-Class Masculinities, Education and De-Industrialization explores how economic changes and the growing importance of educational qualifications in a shrinking labour market, particularly effects marginalized young men. It follows a group of young working-class men in a de-industrial community and challenges commonly held representations that often appear in the media and in policy discourses which portray them as feckless, out of control, educational failures and lacking aspiration. Ward argues that for a group of young men in a community of social and economic deprivation, expectations and transitions to adulthood are framed through the industrial legacy of geographically and historically shaped class and gender codes. These codes have an impact on what it means to be a man and what behaviour is deemed acceptable and what is not.

Michael R.M. Ward is Associate Lecturer and a Sociological Researcher at the Open University, UK, and a tutor at Cardiff University, UK. He is on the editorial board of Sociological Research Online and is also co-convener of the British Sociological Association Education Study Group.