We don't have an education; that's why we're here: Education and status in trades culture

This study examines the symbolic meaning of education in trades culture. It explores how trades culture in this context is infused with status, and how education is an element how tradespeople experience status in everyday working life. Education is connected with status in two ways. First, education is associated with prominent status markers, specifically wealth, mental work, and textual authority. Second, in light of these associations, tradespeople see education as having nothing to do with their own lives and work. Trades education does not count as education the same way university does. In its status associations, and perceived irrelevance to trades life, education is a symbol of an elite, prestigious, "insiders" world, of which the trades play little part. This study is located within the interpretive tradition of social inquiry most influentially first articulated by the anthropologist Clifford Geertz. The perspective on status which frames the interpretation owes much to Michael Walzer's philosophical explorations of equality and distributive justice. The empirical basis of the interpretation is drawn from an ethnographic study of a single trades setting in the non-union sector of the building industry. The main participants in the study were a crew of carpenters and other tradespeople building an expensive custom-designed family home. Fieldwork took place between October 1992 and October 1993. Site visits took place several times per week for three to four hours per visit, and involved watching, talking, listening, taking notes and photographs, and helping with routine work tasks. Field observations were augmented by interviews with crew members and other tradespeople. During the interpretive stage of the research process, "backstage tales" and "textual authority" came to be seen as key cultural vehicles for the expression of status in everyday practice. The findings of this study suggest that the exclusive status associations of education in the trades are important to recognize for at least two reasons. First, they are counter to the prevailing discourse about education which emphasizes a direct, positive link between education, economic growth, and employment. Second, the status associations of education connect it not necessarily with knowledge and learning, but with a blockage in the flow of ideas. Because their status is lesser, tradespeople's work is not esteemed, and their conceptual input is seldom recognized, sought or credited. From the vantage point of trades culture, education does not look like the tool for economic success it is often portrayed as being. This perspective is important to take into account, if educational objectives are to be egalitarian, realistic, and able to achieve their desired ends.