Researching 40 years of learning for work: the experiences of one cohort of workers

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Researching 40 years of learning forwork: the experiences of one cohort ofworkersJohn Goodwin a & Henrietta O’Connor aa University of Leicester , UKPublished online: 23 Aug 2007.

To cite this article: John Goodwin & Henrietta O’Connor (2007) Researching 40 years of learningfor work: the experiences of one cohort of workers, Journal of Vocational Education & Training,59:3, 349-367, DOI: 10.1080/13636820701520393

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Journal of Vocational Education and TrainingVol. 59, No. 3, September 2007, pp. 349–367

ISSN 1363-6820 (print)/ISSN 1747-5090 (online)/07/030349–19© 2007 The Vocational Aspect of Education LtdDOI: 10.1080/13636820701520393

Researching 40 years of learning for work: the experiences of one cohort of workersJohn Goodwin* and Henrietta O’ConnorUniversity of Leicester, UKTaylor and FrancisRJVE_A_251905.sgm10.1080/13636820701520393Journal of Vocational Education and Training0729-4360 (print)/1469-8366 (online)Original Article2007Taylor & Francis593000000September 2007Dr [email protected]

Using previously unanalysed data from a lost study—the Adjustment of Young Workers to Work Situ-ations and Adult Roles (1962–1964)—and data from a subsequent restudy, this paper contributes todebates on vocational education by examining three themes. First, the methodological issues raisedby undertaking a restudy are discussed. Second, the young workers’ initial workplace learning expe-riences in the 1960s are examined with an emphasis on commitment to learning and training. Third,links between initial training experiences and the subsequent learning experiences in later careersare explored. We conclude that high levels of commitment to workplace learning were evidentthroughout the life-course of this group. However, significantly, this commitment existed only whenthe training available was on-the-job and the links between learning and working practice were clear.Formal learning opportunities were deemed unimportant and seen as existing for the benefit of theemployer, not the employee.

Introduction

The post-war period in Britain from 1946 to the mid-1970s is often characterised asa ‘golden age’ (Vickerstaff, 2003) for initial experiences of vocational education andtraining and for young people’s transition from school to work. It was a period whenyoung people have been depicted as making smooth, linear and uncomplicated tran-sitions from school to work (albeit based on family background, social class andeducation attainment) and obtaining their workplace training during a ‘heyday’ ofapprenticeships and on-the-job training (Carter, 1962; Maizels, 1970; Ashton &Field, 1976; Willis, 1977; Roberts, 1984; Furlong & Cartmel, 1997). As Roberts(1995, p. 117) suggests, ‘when one knows the social group in which one belongs it isrelatively easy to look ahead and see what one’s future holds’; or, as Furlong argues:

*Corresponding author. Centre for Labour Market Studies, University of Leicester, 7 SalisburyRoad, Leicester, LE1 7QR, UK. Email: [email protected]

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350 J. Goodwin and H. O’Connor

The generation of young people who reached their sixteenth birthdays in 1974 entered arelatively buoyant economy, a majority left school at sixteen and… most found jobs rela-tively quickly: the transition from school to work was fairly direct. (Furlong, 1993, p. 3)

The perception of the 1950s and 1960s, in particular, as being a time of ‘easy’ school-to-work transitions characterised by high-quality training has entered socialconsciousness and forms a strong component of a nostalgic view of the past. Thehegemonic nature of this nostalgic view has meant that even when research from thistime is cited, in either discussions of workplace learning or of school-to-work transi-tions, it is often done so uncritically and without question. However, this view of thepast is increasingly being questioned. For example, Vickerstaff (2003) argues thatearlier accounts of post-war school-to-work transitions were overly simplistic andaccepted, too easily, the idea that the labour market was buoyant and that well-paidjob opportunities existed for all school-leavers. Similarly, Goodwin and O’Connor(2005a) highlight that the move from school to work was far from simple for many1960s school leavers, arguing that high levels of job mobility were common in thisperiod and that unemployment, which does not feature in earlier accounts, was a realfear for some young people.

With the exception of the work discussed above, young people’s transitional andinitial training experiences during this period are usually perceived and presented asunproblematic. Moreover, young people’s transitional experiences at this time arecited as a marker against which to examine the difficulties experienced by subsequentgenerations of young people (Furlong, 1993). Yet such approaches caricature thepast and are problematic for two reasons. First, they ignore the individually complexexperiences of young people and underestimate what can be learned from their expe-riences of vocational training. Indeed, as has been shown elsewhere, youth transitionsof the past were not straightforward (Vickerstaff, 2003; Goodwin & O’Connor,2005a), nor was the training received always good (Fuller & Unwin, 1998; Vicker-staff, 2005). Second, treating the past and present in such a dualist and static mannerand ignoring links between past and present as part of a similar (but ever-changing)long-term social process is fallacious (see Furlong & Cartmel, 1997; Goodwin &O’Connor, 2005a). As Elias (1987, p. 226) suggests, ‘one cannot ignore the fact thatpresent society has grown out of earlier societies’. Therefore, if we are to understandmore fully experiences of vocational education and training in Britain during the post-war period, the dominant nostalgic view of the past needs to be challenged. The pastcannot be ignored, but needs to be interrogated and examined more critically.

Such a position is important not only in understanding broader social changes butalso in understanding the related changes in individual experiences and individuallife-courses—especially within the context of current debates relating to work-basedlearning. Individuals’ experiences in later life are affected by those of their youth.Hodkinson and Bloomer (2002) suggest that both discourse and practice have beendominated by a view that concentrates on the early stages of working life and thatcontemporary perspectives, such as Lave and Wenger’s (1991) ‘lack an explicitlydeveloped longitudinal, lifelong dimension’ (Hodkinson & Bloomer, 2002, p. 31). Toresolve this, Hodkinson and Bloomer offer the notion of learning careers as a concept

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Researching 40 years of learning for work 351

that ‘refers to the development of a student’s dispositions towards learning over time’(p. 38). Likewise, studies that concentrate either on initial learning experiences or theexperience of older workers in relation to learning at work do not facilitate a fullanalysis of vocational education and training throughout a learning career; nor dothey allow a full consideration of learning through the life-course. Longitudinalstudies such as the National Child Development Study and the British Cohort Studymay facilitate such analyses, but they are limited by the relatively young age of therespondents. Cross-sectional studies have also acknowledged the benefit of exploringwork and learning experiences over the life-course (see Vickerstaff, 2003) but, again,are often limited in that they require the respondents to reflect back on their lives,introducing problems of recall and nostalgic perceptions of the past.

As Gillies and Edwards suggest, an alterative methodological approach to the studyof social change would be data reuse that

…involves a return to qualitative data collected at a particular point in time in order toconduct a comparative re-analysis from a contemporary perspective. (Gillies & Edwards,2005, para. 6)

We go further, arguing for data reuse and restudy—the reanalysis of past cross-sectional studies and the reinterviewing of the same respondents at a suitable point intime after the original research. By reanalysing data previously collected, and by trac-ing and reinterviewing respondents from earlier projects, we contend that it becomespossible to add a longitudinal dimension to once ‘one-off’ cross-sectional studies. Indoing so, researchers are able to obtain data that covers the bulk of an individual’sworking life.

The rediscovery of 851 interview schedules from a youth transitions project, carriedout at the University of Leicester between 1962 and 1964, provided such an oppor-tunity. This rediscovered data was used to form a new project, From Young Workersto Older Workers: Reflections on Work in the Life Course,1 and allowed us to examineworkplace learning over a 40-year period for the same group of workers. With theideas of lifelong learning or learning throughout the life-course in mind, in this paperwe use data from the original 1960s interviews and from reinterviews to explore threemain themes: the methodological issues raised by undertaking such a restudy, includ-ing the value of secondary analysis and the processes of tracing and reinterviewingrespondents from past cross-sectional studies; the young workers’ initial workplacelearning experiences in the 1960s; and experiences of initial training as these link tothe sample’s subsequent learning experiences over the next 40 years of their careers,as revealed in the recent life-history interviews. We begin with a discussion of our dataand the methodological issues surrounding restudies.

From young workers to older workers: reanalysis and restudy

The From Young Workers to Older Workers: Reflections on Work in the Life Course researchcomprises two data-sets relating to the same respondents interviewed when they wereteenagers in the 1960s and again when approaching retirement in 2001–2003. The

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origin of the project is the school-to-work transition research carried out by researchers,led by Norbert Elias, at the University of Leicester in the early 1960s. Funded by theDepartment of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR), Elias’s Adjustment of YoungWorkers to Work Situations and Adult Roles project was

…concerned with the problems which young male and female workers encounter duringtheir adjustment to their work situation and their entry into the world of adults. When theygo to work, or begin to train for work, young workers have to make a wider adjustment toa situation and to roles which are new to them, whose implications are often imperfectlyunderstood by them and by the adults concerned, and for which they are in many casesnot too well prepared. (Young Worker Project, Minutes of Fifth Meeting, 18 April 1962,p. 2)

Interviews were carried out between 1962 and 1964, based on a sample of youngpeople drawn from the Youth Employment Office index of school-leavers from thesummer and Christmas of 1960 and 1962. From an initial sample of 1150 youngworkers, 882 interviews were completed. The interview schedule was semi-structuredand the respondents were asked to talk about how they learned the skills required fortheir work. They also provided a range of evidence on the nature and type of trainingand workplace learning they were involved in. The data was archived in the mid-1970s, and remained untouched until 851 of the original interview schedules wererediscovered in 2001. It transpires that, which the exception of a few cases used byAshton and Field (1976), the majority of the data had not been analysed or previouslypublished (see Goodwin & O’Connor, 2006a).

In 2001, funding was provided by the Economic and Social Research Council toenable the tracing and reinterview of 200 of the original 851 respondents. We adopteda multistrand approach to tracing the respondents. First, for those respondents whooriginally gave consent to be reinterviewed, we wrote to their last known address. Wealso made use of publicly available sources such as the local telephone directory, theelectoral register and the website ‘www.192.com’, and employed a publicity strategyusing local print and broadcast media for advertisements and public appeals. Usingthese methods we traced 157 of the original respondents, of whom 97 were reinter-viewed.2 The respondents were all born within a clearly defined time-period between1943 and 1947. At the time of the reinterviews (2001–2003), they ranged in age from54 to 60 years.

The reinterviews were semi-structured and covered topics including work histories,education and training, and social attitudes. The research instrument included qual-itative questions to allow the respondents to elaborate on aspects of their lives. Therespondents’ original responses to the first study also generated further reflectivedata. Despite our research instrument having some structure, the reinterviews tendedto be more open and qualitative in nature. The respondents often began the inter-views by talking about significant life events, which meant the interview schedule hadto be adapted during the interview process.

There are both methodological concerns and benefits in undertaking reanalysis andrestudies. For example, Goodwin and O’Connor (2006b) have identified a numberof broad issues including confidentiality and anonymity, ethical aspects of tracing,

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replication versus restudy and the problem of ‘auditing’. Confidentiality and anonym-ity issues arise in that it is usually the researcher responsible for data collection andanalysis that provides guarantees to respondents as to how the data will be usedregarding anonymity and confidentiality. A secondary analyst may be unaware ofsuch assurances and, therefore, the secondary analyst has to be concerned aboutmaintaining anonymity and confidentiality. A number of steps can be taken topreserve the confidentiality of the research material, including having a closure periodfor the material; specifying restricted access to the material so that usage can bevetted; or anonymising the data so that personal identifiers are removed (see Cortiet al., 1995). In the case of the From Young Workers to Older Workers research, we havetaken great care to ensure that personal identifiers are removed from any analysis andthat personal details contained within the original interview schedules are keptsecurely, only being used by the researchers during the tracing process.

The tracing of original respondents raises ethical issues in any restudy. The originalinterview booklets from the ‘Adjustment of Young Workers’ project contained arange of personal details including name, date of birth, address and school attended.However, with a concern for privacy and anonymity of the original respondents, wefocused our direct tracing methods only on the 500 original respondents who indi-cated that they would be willing to participate in a follow-up study. We used moregeneral tracing methods to attract the remaining respondents. Interviews were under-taken only with the express permission of the respondent, and all respondents weregiven the opportunity to withdraw from the research at any time.

A further set of issues with reanalysis and restudies includes the problem of audit-ing (Corti et al., 1995) and debates as to the efficacy of restudy versus replication. Theproblem of auditing occurs where through reanalysis methodological criticisms aremade ‘regarding the efficiency and competence of the original researchers andresearch’ (Goodwin & O’Connor, 2006b, p. 377). As Bryman (1989) highlights, arelated issue is the difference between restudy and replication—replication being an‘investigation in which the researcher aims to check the validity of certain findings’.It is clear that questioning the validity of previous research findings might raiseconcerns for those involved in original studies. However, as Corti et al. (1995, p. 3)note, ‘whilst this concern is understandable, it is probable that secondary users willbe more interested in using data for their own specific research rather than replicatingthe original analysis’. In the current research it is not our intention to produce anaudit of the earlier study or ‘imply in any way that the original research design wasincorrect or invalid’ (Goodwin & O’Connor, 2006b, p. 378). Nor is it our intentionto simply replicate the original study and test those findings that were published. Ourconcern is to examine the experiences of young workers from a 1960s data-set afresh,via the generation of new data, and to consider the experiences revealed by both setsof data in the context of complexity and individualisation. Furthermore, in order toobtain permission to use the data, we discussed the purpose of the reanalysis/restudywith members of the original research team and this ‘was advantageous, as they wereable to provide background material, offer insights into the research process, andcomment upon our interpretations’ (Goodwin & O’Connor, 2006b, p. 378).

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Despite the concerns that have been summarised here, such a reanalysis and restudyapproach has, we believe, a number of benefits, including the fact that the originaldata exists, has already been collected, is not intrusive and is cost-effective. One caninterrogate the data with contemporary ideas and concepts, and this has obvious valuein contributing to our understanding. Secondly, too little research is undertaken withrespondents for whom data already exists and about whom a great deal is known frompast cross-sectional studies. In the context of the current research, the respondents inthis study have lived through a period of British history that has witnessed massiveeconomic and social change, including the almost complete disappearance of manu-facturing and traditional industries as well as an almost total change in the way thatindividuals are educated and trained. By undertaking a restudy of this kind, it becomespossible to examine in detail the impacts that these changes have had on individual lives.

‘They just showed me what to do’: young workers’ experiences of workplace learning in the 1960s

Background and context

From analysis of the original data, we have already offered discussions of the experi-ence of leaving school (Goodwin & O’Connor, 2001), the girls’ initial experiences ofwork (O’Connor & Goodwin, 2005), and the boys’ transitional experiences(Goodwin & O’Connor, 2005b), along with a critique of existing representations andunderstandings of youth transitions in the 1960s (Goodwin & O’Connor, 2005). Toadd context to our discussion of workplace learning, we can summarise some of thekey findings to date as follows. First, engineering was Leicester’s leading source ofemployment, followed by textiles and clothing and footwear manufacture. Thesesectors dominated Leicester’s economy in the 1960s and the city was characterisedby high employment, prosperity and opportunity.

Given labour market conditions, the boys in the study had a wide range ofoccupational aspirations, although these were heavily gendered, with most enteringmale-dominated careers that were either trade- or craft-based (Goodwin &O’Connor, 2005b): 43% entered craft-based apprenticeships as their first jobdestination. Over 45% of the boys worked in skilled manual occupations, with 33%working in either partly skilled or unskilled occupations. All the boys in the studyhighlighted the significance of work for their own futures, and creating a home,marriage and having a family was something to which many were aspiring to in thefuture. As such, most boys left school as soon as they possibly could, perceiving it tohave been a ‘waste of time’. Meanwhile, very few of the girls in the sample assumedthat marriage and motherhood would permanently exclude them from the labourmarket. Despite low qualification levels, many had career aspirations that did notreflect their immediate frames of reference or the roles that their mothers hadadopted, although in the main these aspirations went unfulfilled. Indeed, many wereemployed in clerical and secretarial jobs (27%), sales occupations (18%) and asmachine operatives in the hosiery and textile industries (42%).

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Second, although labour market conditions were buoyant in 1960s Leicester,Goodwin and O’Connor (2005a) argue that the actual transitional experience wasfar more complex for this cohort of young people than previous commentatorshave suggested. Despite assertions that transitions during this period were single-step, simple and homogenous, we found that the young people experiencedfrequent job moves and periods of unemployment either before entering work orbetween jobs. Being out of work (or threatened with unemployment) heightenedperceptions of risk and insecurity, and many felt disillusioned and anxious abouttheir future prospects. This fear of unemployment amongst the sample contrasts toVickerstaff’s assertion that transitions during this period were characterised byfrequent moves between jobs and employers rather than moves ‘into and out ofemployment’ which, she argues, characterises contemporary transitions (Vicker-staff, 2003, p. 282).

Over half of those interviewed said their transitional experiences were different fromthose of their friends and family so that, rather than experiencing a homogenousprocess, many made individualised transitions. The transition was also protracted formost of these young workers. They remained dependent on their family for housing,money and decision-making long after they had left school. We also argue thattransitions during the 1960s share some of the complexities reported in current-daytransitions and that in previous analyses the ‘over-concentration on macro processesas being central determinants of the transitional process meant that the individualexperiences were largely ignored or hidden in a broader analysis’ (Goodwin andO’Connor, 2005a, p. 217).

In addition to the above, a concern many of the young workers had upon enteringwork was the quality of training they would receive, with many choosing jobs wherethey thought high-quality training would be provided or, instead, holding out to signapprenticeship papers once they reached the age of 16. In the next section we examinethe perceptions and experiences of both informal and formal workplace learning asdocumented in the original survey.

Perceptions of vocational education and workplace learning

In contrast to some of the respondents in other early studies (Carter, 1962;Maizels, 1970), training and workplace learning appeared to be very significant tothese young workers, featuring strongly when the young workers were discussingtheir likes and dislikes, problems at work or reasons for changing jobs. In discuss-ing job moves, some of the young workers reported their reasons for resigning asfollows:

I decided to go to a bigger firm where there were better training facilities. (Apprenticefitter, 19)

Didn’t seem to be getting on—wanted to learn more but wouldn’t let me. (Cutter, 18)

There was a training scheme and I was looking forward to going to the classes and to beproperly trained but I wasn’t given the chance. (Machinist, 18)

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However, where good-quality learning opportunities existed in their organisation, theyoung workers cited learning and training opportunities as key factors that kept themwith their current employer:

You learn from it and in the future, when you’re more advanced in the thing, you can getto higher standards. (Apprentice mechanic, 17)

You never get bored. One woman has been there 30 years and she is still learning.(Clerk, 19)

It’s interesting. You’re not in the same place all the while. You’re learning something.(Installation apprentice, 16)

I took the job as I heard it was a good place for training young people. (Overlocker, 18)

The importance of learning and training for this group was also in evidence in theyoung workers’ perceptions of other jobs. The young workers were asked to rank arange of jobs or roles using a scale of 1–10, with 10 being someone who had reallydone well. The range of jobs and roles included shop work, an apprentice, a semi-skilled worker, an office worker or someone still at school. Some 46% of young work-ers identified an apprenticeship as the best job. Interestingly, someone still at schoolwas ranked second highest, whilst the lowest ranked job was shop work. There isevidence to suggest, then, that having left school, the young workers had begun to seethe value of learning; and such opportunities featured strongly in the justifications forthese rankings. For example, those young workers in apprenticeships were thought tohave done well because they were ‘obtaining knowledge’, ‘getting skills and qualifica-tions’, ‘learning the job properly’ and ‘bettering themselves’. As Vickerstaffcomments, long and poorly paid apprenticeships were valued because the trainingreceived ‘was leading to somewhere reasonably well defined and predictable’(Vickerstaff, 2003, p. 277). Apprenticeships were also perceived as ‘synonymous inmany people’s minds with high standards of workplace learning’ (Fuller & Unwin,1998, p. 153). This is certainly the view that this group subscribed to, as the followingquotes illustrate:

They’re learning the job properly and can go out to a skilled job. (Shoe worker, 16)

An apprentice has got the chance of a very good job because they are learning somethingskilled. When they get on they know it all and they can run a business of their own.(Typist, 18)

…I don’t think you can beat an apprenticeship. It’s a job for life; you’ve got something toshow for it. You can always leave the trade and do something else, but you can always fallback on it (Engineer, 19)

An apprentice is obviously learning a trade and something they’ll never forget all throughtheir lives. They’ll always have a job at their fingertips. (Hairdresser, 17)

This positive view of apprenticeships reflects perceptions of these schemes during theearly post-war decades: ‘many more young men aspired to apprenticeships than wereactually available… perhaps surprisingly, rather more Grammar School boys under-took apprenticeships than might have been expected’ (Vickerstaff, 2003, p. 271).

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However, given that apprenticeships were, for the most part, rather poorly paid(Vickerstaff, 2003), it is less surprising that the more highly educated school leaversfrequently secured such positions. Indeed, Ashton and Field (1976) classified boyswith a grammar-school education as having ‘extended careers’. An individual fittingthis category was prepared to delay financial gratification in order to undertakeextended periods of often poorly paid training. Whilst some of this group did train aswhite-collar professionals, for example as accountants, others secured apprentice-ships whilst those with fewer or no educational qualifications were more likely to takejobs that offered short-term high financial gain.

It was not only apprenticeships that were ranked highly by the young workers. Theyalso suggested that those still at school had done well for themselves because theywere ‘learning more’, obtaining qualifications and ‘developing for the future’, all ofwhich would lead to enhanced job opportunities and better earnings later in life.

It’s sensible to learn as much as you can while you can [to] get on better. (Apprenticeengineer, 17)

Well they will learn more, won’t they? They’ve got a good education nowadays. (Deliveryboy, 18)

Education is the most important thing. If you’re still at school at 19 you must be learningsomething. (Machinist, 18)

These views contrast strongly with the perceptions of shop work. This type of workwas viewed as providing ‘no learning’ opportunities, and as requiring ‘no skills’ withlimited opportunities for advancement or future prospects:

I don’t think you can learn more in a shop as a job. (Chef, 16)

You’re not really learning much in a shop—just sitting behind a counter. I supposeanybody can do it. (Apprentice metal worker, 16)

They don’t have to learn—how to use the till and everything. They don’t have to havemuch education. (Hosiery worker, 17)

Learning and training opportunities were, then, perceived by the young workers to bevery important in terms of job satisfaction and future prospects. We now turn toexamine respondents’ actual experiences of informal and formal workplace learning.

Informal workplace learning

Unlike the respondents in Carter’s (1962) study, few of whom felt they had learntanything significant in their first year of work, the young workers in this project valuedtraining and workplace learning opportunities—in principle at least. However, itappears that the informal learning opportunities they experienced tended to span aspectrum from the very ad hoc (such as simple demonstrations or single conversa-tions) to ‘sitting with Nellie’ in the early phases of employment. Where the youngworkers identified informal learning having taken place it was, as Maizels (1970) hadfound, fellow workers who provided the training.

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… in the offices there was a clerk doing the job I am doing now. He showed me what todo and stayed with me for a fortnight and then, if I had any queries, I just went to him andasked him. (Apprentice engineer, 16)

[They] show you what to do and you just carry on and they show you more and more eachday until you’re doing it on your own. [Interviewer: ‘One person shows you?’] When Istarted there were 4 to show me—just whichever job I was put on. (Trainee mechanic, 15)

I got a good mate you see—someone near. He’s a good bloke—knew I was learning. I knewas if I was doing wrong he was doing it an all. (Apprentice plumber, 16)

However, the experiences of respondents in the Adjustment of Young Workers projectdiffered from those of Maizels’ study in other respects. First, informal workplacelearning was often led not by qualified instructors or even a ‘master craftsman’, butby other young workers slightly further forward in their careers or who were on thenext rung up the training ladder. This was true regardless of the nature of the work,the gender of the respondent or whether they were apprenticed or not, and supportsthe arguments advanced by Fuller and Unwin (1998) that informal learning wastaught not only by ‘master craftsmen’ but often by a range of other workers in theorganisation.3 Young workers in Leicester commented:

I went down and watched this boy do it and then, every now and then, I went down. (Shoeworker, 16)

I had a friend working there before I started and I used to go in and talk to him and sawwhat he was doing, so I knew about it. (Salesman, 16)

There were two girls in the office, one considered herself a secretary… she showed me abit. (Typist, 16)

Second, it appears that significant numbers of the young workers also learned simplyby observing what others did, with some commenting that:

I was put to work with an older man then sent out on a job. Watched what he did andhanded him the tools and he told me what the tools were for. (Apprentice fitter, 16)

The forelady takes you to watch other girls doing the work. (Packer, 16)

I watched another man working a printing machine for about 4 months. (Machine minder,16)

Others were just left to learn the ropes as they went along, receiving no training at all:

[Did anybody show you how to do the job?].

They expected me to go to a job and to know how to do it. (Apprentice carpenter, 16)

No, they just put you on the job. They didn’t explain to you what they were doing.(Apprentice engineer, 16)

Some 16% of the young workers reported that they had been left on their own to workout the job and what needed to be done; and although, as the above quotationssuggest, these were mainly concentrated in semi-skilled, unskilled or manual jobs,there were others, such as the apprentices, who one would have expected to receivetraining but who claimed that they did not. That the training was so informal did not

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seem to perturb the young workers. A sense emerges that learning on-the-job wasviewed as the best way to learn a trade and, as the following section suggests, moreformal training was not seen as necessary.

Formal workplace learning and off-the-job training

As suggested above, many of the young workers appeared to learn how to do theirjobs through informal on-the-job training. Indeed, informal learning dominated thelandscape of workplace learning for this group of young workers. Only 24% ofrespondents were employed in workplaces offering formal training schemes, andalmost half (48%) suggested that there was no formal training scheme in placewithin their organisation. The latter figure is perhaps the most surprising; many ofthe young workers were working in craft-based industries, and the majority had noexperience of the workplace before entering work for the first time. Likewise, themajority had no formal qualifications to bring to the workplace, and it may thereforebe expected that formal training programmes were in place. However, this wasevidently not the case and, in line with the findings of Carter (1962) and Maizels(1970), the dominance and acceptance of informal workplace learning in the 1960slabour market is clear. Indeed, it appears from Carter’s work that where formalworkplace learning was provided, it was perceived a waste of time and too much likebeing at school.

In workplaces where formal training took place, the type and form of the trainingvaried greatly and ranged from the production of apprenticeship pieces to attendanceat workplace schools or training institutes:

[Did you have any formal training for this job?]

Yes after about three months. There was a training school at the top of our shop and theyall went up there for a week—showed you how to serve customers and how to do a bettersale, that sort of thing. (Machinist, 16)

Yes. There is like a school in Portsmouth, a corsetry course, I went on it last week. Youcan please yourself, three of us went but you don’t have to go. (Sales assistant, 15)

Yes, for one year you go to night school. Then you have to take examinations and reportsare written about you. You can go to the adult centre. (Nursery nurse, 16)

They’ve got one of the faces at the pit that they train you on and they show you … thesupports, clocks, props—show you how to strip the face. (Mineworker, 16)

Responses as to the quality of training were varied. However, those who had attendedsuch courses did not value the learning experience highly:

It wasn’t very good really. You didn’t know enough about it, you just served customers.(Apprentice plumber, 16)

This term I don’t go at all. The syllabus changes every few years. It depends how you catchit. I did some things last year that are no use to me at all. (Trainee surveyor, 18)

Wasn’t very good. Taught more about window dressing than anything else and not muchabout my job. (Clerk, 17)

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It’s not too bad but I would rather be working. It seems entirely different from work—alright in theory. (Apprentice fitter, 16)

The last two quotations are indicative of the view of the group as whole that theformal training that was provided was limited, either because it was too generic andnot related to their actual work, or that what was taught in the classroom variedgreatly from their experiences of actually doing the job. These descriptions of formalclassroom-based learning reflect Fuller and Unwin’s argument that ‘the most effec-tive learning combines theory and practice in such a way as to give purpose to thelearning’ (Fuller & Unwin, 1998, p. 157). It is evident from the quotations above thatthe young workers had difficulty seeing how the classroom-based learning reflectedthe skills required in the workplace. This perception of formal learning resonates withcomments made by this group about formal workplace learning some 40 years later,discussed in the last part of this paper.

Given that employer-provided formal classroom-based learning was, for the mostpart, viewed rather negatively, it is fascinating that some 37% of respondents werevoluntarily attending evening classes. These classes were not providing work-related training, but GCE subjects such as woodwork and metal work. Despitetheir attendance at such classes, over 50% of those doing additional courses or off-the-job training felt that it would not assist them with their work at all; rather, itwould improve their long-term prospects. Among the mix of responses were thefollowing:

I mean qualifications get you somewhere don’t they? (Apprentice draughtsman, 16)

At the moment they’re on different lines. At work we’re doing mechanical engineering andat classes electrical engineering but I expect it will be useful later. (Apprentice electrician,16)

Again, these attitudes resonate strongly with comments made in the reinterviewssome 40 years later. Whilst we argue in a later section that the older workers were notparticularly interested in formal workplace learning, and many believed that theywere too old to learn more, a number of individuals had attended courses to learncomputer skills.

In the next section we move to explore what impact these initial experiences hadon the young workers during the next 40 years of their careers, and how their attitudestowards vocational education and training changed over time. We argue that, whilstthe training undertaken and the skills learnt during apprenticeships have had remark-able longevity for this group, the training undertaken in more recent years seemed tohave little value. Occupational identities, formed in the early years at work, have beenretained and the sample of reinterviewed respondents looked back on their early expe-riences of occupational training in a very positive way, despite the fact that, as we haveseen in the preceding section, at the time of their earlier training as young workers,they were ambivalent about the value of their work-related learning, in particularformal learning. The reinterviewees were also sceptical about their current experi-ences of formal workplace learning and, as older workers, were, for the most part,disdainful and dismissive about current training practices, viewing modern training

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programmes as inferior to the hallowed apprenticeships of the ‘golden age’ of the earlypost-war period.

Older workers: reflections on a lifetime of workplace learning

As outlined above, 97 of young workers from the Adjustment of Young Workers projectwere reinterviewed between 2001 and 2003, when they were aged between 54–60, inorder to establish what had happened to them since they were first interviewed in theearly 1960s as school-leavers. Since the 1970s the Leicester labour market haschanged dramatically, with traditional industries such as engineering and boot andshoe manufacture declining. Indeed, the majority of the firms that were large employ-ers in the 1960s have now closed, being replaced by low-skilled, low-valued produc-tion-line jobs such as snack and sandwich manufacture. The comments of onerespondent during his reinterview at the age of 58 neatly illustrate the fate not only ofthe traditional industries in Leicester but also the fate of many 1960s school-leaversin the city:

I’ve been in textiles all my life, and you know, the textile trade just went down. There wasnothing available, and it’s been going like that for a few years, and I thought, ‘What can Ido next’? I’d got no formal qualifications, but the textile trade, was, you know, totallydead. My first job was textiles. Now who’d have thought, years ago, that the biggestknitwear manufacturer in the world would have gone ‘bang’. Such big companies. Thatwas the biggest company and it’s just completely gone. (ICT technician, previouslymechanic in hosiery factory, 58)

Despite this massive economic transformation, the majority of those reinterviewed(79%), like the respondent quoted above, were still economically active. Although theindustrial landscape of Leicester has changed dramatically in recent decades, manu-facturing has remained the most important industry for this group, with some 28%working in manufacturing jobs. The next most important category, the service indus-tries, provided employment for 18%, and equal numbers were employed in the retailindustry and the construction industry (11% each).

Such changes have meant that skill requirements in Leicester’s labour market havealso changed. There are now very few jobs requiring the traditional skills that theseworkers learned in their early jobs. For example, many of the skills developed by thosewho obtained engineering apprenticeships and trained to work in the engineeringindustry are now obsolete. In the reinterviews, the respondents were asked to talkabout their skills and their recent experiences of workplace learning. Regardless of anyrecent training, many of the respondents explained that the skills they possessed, andindeed the skills they most valued, tended to be those that they had learned early onin their careers. Moreover, although the majority expressed a commitment to learn-ing, very few actively sought to update their skills. Where skills had been updated, ithad ‘just happened’:

I mean I’ve not done that, not consciously: it’s something that’s just happened over theyears with the jobs that I’ve done. You’ve constantly had to upgrade, you know, becausenew equipment’s coming out all the time. Things are changing; technology’s changing all

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the time. So it’s something that you, you do naturally, you know. (Business machines tech-nician, 60)

However, many of the respondents had a tendency to look back on skills they haddeveloped in their earlier careers, suggesting that these were the only skills theyneeded, or the only skills of value:

I did my apprenticeship as a motor mechanic, which is I mean not the same but similar…I think if, you know, one piece of mechanical equipment is fairly the same. I mean, if youcan do one you can do another, you know, mechanical. And [a] machine’s a machine atthe end of the day. (Business machines technician, 60)

Well it came with my apprenticeship and my administration skills, I think are very good. Ihad good training mind you. (Nightclub worker, 59)

It is evident that the skills learnt during initial training remained important forrespondents’ own identities. Indeed, although most were no longer working in theindustry for which they were originally trained, it was their early occupational trainingand subsequent occupational socialisation that retained the greatest importance forthem. Thus, many found that their skills were no longer in demand for their currentoccupations, such as in the newer service industries of sandwich and snack prepara-tion, and that the work was not a true reflection of their identities as workers. Theystill perceived themselves to be engineers, mechanics and builders:

I’m an all-round engineer. I started off as an electrical engineer, but I’m an all-round engi-neer. There are no engineering disciplines that I’m not familiar with or able to accommo-date. So I am an all-round engineer and that’s where my basic skill and knowledge is inany case. (Manufacturing technician, 56)

[What skills do you possess, do you think?]

What, overall? In my life? Scaffolder. Advanced scaffolder. Top of the range. Can doanything. (Scaffolder, now hygiene employee in snack preparation factory, 56)

We have already shown that apprentices in the 1960s did not always believe that theywere receiving good training at the time their training was taking place. However, anumber of respondents were, retrospectively, extremely positive about theirexperience of apprenticeship and the quality of training received, in particular the on-the-job training received:

The training is totally different now. When you started in the bank they taught youeverything from start to finish but, nowadays, if you go into a job as a personal banker orwhatever they just teach you how to do the personal banker job, they don’t teach you allthe rest of it. (Bank clerk, 60)

Apprentice schemes aren’t going like they used to be. Jelsons, I think they took on appren-tices, but I can’t think of many others. Most of them just want subbers, they want to buildtheir houses and get the hell out quick-time—they ain’t got time to train people up, ordon’t want to train them up. (Scaffolder, 56)

I was a trainee mechanic at a hosiery factory. It must have been for about eight or ninemonths. I know it doesn’t sound very long, but that’s because initially you did training intheir training centre, which was a very good training centre, and I’m always grateful for

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the training I received there. (ICT technician, previously mechanic in knitwearfactory, 58)

I took a team leader role: it’s management, it’s supervising, it’s documentation, it’s train-ing. But the training’s… a bit more basic… not in-depth, like we’d got it at the hosieryfactory. (Team leader in snack preparation factory, previously dye-house operator, 57)

Not only were the reinterviewees positive about the technical skills they had learntduring their early experiences of training, many also believed they had developedimportant and transferable softer ‘life’ skills throughout their careers. This confirmsfindings of other research, which stress the significance of apprenticeship and earlyexperiences of work not only in developing work-related skills but also in developingyoung workers into independent adults (Fuller & Unwin 1998; Vickerstaff, 2003):

I think it’s important for me to understand people. Qualifications are alright, but some-times I think you need to be able to listen and talk to people. (Printing works owner, 59)

Yeah, I regard myself as a good manager. My administration skills, I think are very good.I had good training, mind you. (Security guard, 59)

And it’s life skills, perhaps not… They’re what I call skills to do the job. I don’t necessarilyneed to go and get a B.Sc. in management, because to be honest with you I’m not preparedto give that time up, now at my age. (Finance manager, 57)

It appears, then, that these older workers valued highly the skills they had learnt asapprentices and they believed that apprenticeships represented high-quality occupa-tional training. Many recalled what could be termed a ‘golden age’ of apprenticeship,and few were anything but positive about their experience of the training they hadreceived. Their recent and current experiences of workplace learning were, bycontrast, considered a ‘waste of time’:

[Have you attended any work related training courses in the last two years?]

I had one at work, last September I think it was. That was about a week. That was thehistory of the company, and then all the product knowledge that they could throw at you.Every decorator’s item you can think of, and what it’s for and what’s best to use with what.What paint is best, what gives the best coverage and you know, a week of that’s enough.(Decorator, 58)

Yeah, they’re forever bringing up new ideas, like they brought this Just in Time… and then,what else did they bring? A new concept, they have all sorts of Investment in Excellence.Now they had videos, tapes, books and we all had to go to it. It was about a week’s trainingand, and I refused to go on it, I thought it’s all bullshit to me. (Assembly-line worker, 59)

Some respondents felt that the training they were now offered, or required to go on,was largely to protect employers from legal action over issues such as workplaceaccidents. As such, these learning opportunities were treated with scepticism:

Yeah we’re doing them all the time. Tomorrow I’ve got to go along and be taught how tooperate a pallet machine. All the work’s palletised, wooden pallets and we’ve got batteryoperated trucks. We’ve got to go… it’s the company covering themselves. They teach usabsolutely everything now… I think the concept is a bit over-the-top. (Warehouseemployee, 59)

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I believe the company want to make sure nobody can point their finger at them, and say,‘Well nobody showed me how to do that’. ‘You’re doing that in the wrong way’. ‘Wellnobody showed me’. So all, all the things that we’ve involved with on a daily basis we getrefresher courses for. (Factory worker, 57)

Well you have to be trained up for the hygiene, don’t you? What’s it called, Basic Hygieneor something? Then you have to do it. There’s a few training—handling and lifting, itsounds a bit stupid but you have to do that. Basically, it covers their back. If I pull my back,I can’t have a go at them, can I, because I’ve been trained up how to lift things. (Scaffolder,now hygiene worker in snack factory, 56)

This attitude towards learning at work is, in part, explained by the older workers’perceptions of themselves as learners. Many indicated that they had found it harderto learn new skills as they had got older. Some of the reinterviewees did not really seethe point of learning or acquiring any new skills at all, emphasising age as an impor-tant factor in this:

Oh, yeah, well not at my age. I should’ve learnt more when I were younger, which I didn’t,you know. (Labourer, 59)

Yeah, oh yeah. Well at my age not now, I don’t wanna know now. (Retired, 58)

At my time of life I’m quite happy now to just to have a job and… well, basically, carry onnow until I retire. (Hospital porter, 58)

My brain probably has been on comfort zone for the last ten years. Maybe, because it’s ajob you can do without taxing yourself. (Warehouseman, 58)

What is apparent from the interviews with this group at the beginning of their workinglives and again as they approach retirement is that learning at work is, and has alwaysbeen, valued highly—as long as that learning is seen to be directly relevant to the jobat hand. We concur with Pillay et al. that workplace learning is valued when being‘about acquiring skills to survive or observing and experiencing work practices’ (Pillayet al., 2003, p. 109) rather than being about classroom-based learning with few clearlinks to everyday work practice.

Conclusions

We have argued in this paper that significant insight can be obtained from reanalys-ing past cross-sectional studies and that undertaking follow-up restudies with pastrespondents can add a further dimension to our understanding. Not only doesreanalysis and restudy allow us to examine currently held beliefs about the past; italso enables us to assert the view that the past and present are connected, bothsocially and as part of individual life-courses. Such an approach is useful for anyonewith an interest in notions of lifelong learning and careers. In reanalysing data frompast studies, however, one needs to be mindful of the methodological and ethicalissues such an approach brings with it. One also needs to be conscious of the concep-tual shift that take place between original data collection and analysis, and reanalysisand restudy. Indeed, as we have pointed out elsewhere, we are highlighting the

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complexity of individual transitions and workplace learning experiences becausewe are looking for them. Nevertheless, previous scholars have tended to underesti-mate the level of individual complexity due to a dominance of modes of analysis thatplace a great deal of emphasis on social structure (see Goodwin & O’Connor,2005a).

In terms of vocational education and training, the young workers’ perceptions ofworkplace learning, and their experiences of both formal and informal training mech-anisms, were far more complex than might be expected. The young workers in theoriginal study valued education and training greatly, and perceived training and qual-ifications obtained through an apprenticeship as being highly important. However,their actual experiences of workplace learning were very varied, with everything fromsimple demonstrations to formal training courses being provided. Moreover, despitetheir obvious belief in the importance of education and training and the valueattached to on-the-job learning, many had negative perceptions and experiences offormal workplace learning.

Regardless of such experiences, it appears from those reinterviewed that the impactof initial training experiences had had a profound impact, with many looking back tothe initial training they received as being the most important and useful. There is alsoemerging evidence from the reinterviews to support the work of authors such as Laveand Wenger (1991), who conceptualise learning as a broad transformation processand a process of becoming. The element of this process originally undertaken whenthe reinterviewees were aged between 16–18 appears to have had a lasting impact onlong-term occupational identities.

Perhaps the most interesting finding, in the context of lifelong learning, is thatthese individuals attached great importance to learning throughout their workhistories, as long as the training was aimed at enhancing their day-to-day job capa-bilities. This was true at the apprenticeship stage and later in career histories.However, by contrast, formal workplace learning and learning not directly rele-vant to the job was seen as limited in value, a ‘waste of time’ and of benefit only toemployers.

As older workers, many of the individuals were quick to doubt their ability to learnnew skills unless these skills were directly relevant to everyday work. Whilst many ofthe older workers had, early on in their careers, been committed to training andwanted to learn job-related skills, later in life, their outlook had changed: they ‘alreadyhad the skills’ they needed, or felt that learning was ‘no longer for them’. In practicalterms, then, and with lifelong learning dominating the current policy discourse, it iscrucial to ensure that the learning opportunities available for older workers meet theirneeds and are relevant to their careers as they approach retirement. We have arguedhere that older workers do not easily see the value of acquiring new skills, particularlythose learnt through formal training. Moreover, if ‘an individual’s beliefs and concep-tions about knowledge and learning… influence their approaches to learning’ (Pillayet al., 2003, p. 96), for policy to be effective it will be crucial to influence the heartsand minds of older workers so that they can fully benefit from opportunities forlifelong learning.

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Notes

1. The data for this paper emerges from an ESRC project From Young Workers To Older Workers:Reflections on Work in the Life Course (R000223653).

2. Of the 157 original respondents traced, 97 were interviewed, 50 refused to participate, 5 weretraced but had emigrated, and 5 were traced but died before they could be interviewed.

3. However, in terms of learning other aspects of adult life and working, such as time-keeping,appropriate workplace behaviours (and some inappropriate ones as well), as opposed to job-specific skills, there is some evidence to support Lave and Wenger’s notion of legitimateperipheral participation and for the role of older workers (see Goodwin, in press).

Notes on contributors

John Goodwin is a Senior Lecturer and Head of the Centre for Labour Market Stud-ies, University of Leicester. His research interests include young workers and thetransition from education to work; biographical methods; and the history of soci-ology. He is currently working on articles exploring issues such as youth transi-tions as ‘shock experiences’, ‘fantasy and reality’ in the transition to retirementand he is co-authoring a book entitled 50 Key Concepts in HRM (Sage, 2007). Heis also undertaking research for a biography of the Leicester sociologist IlyaNeustadt.

Henrietta O’Connor is a lecturer in employment studies at the Centre for LabourMarket Studies at the University of Leicester. Henrietta has research interests invocational education and training, particularly young workers and school to worktransitions and older workers transitions to retirement. She has also publishedwidely in the field of research methods and she is currently writing articles on thesecondary analysis of qualitative data and online methods.

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Researching 40 years of learning for work: the experiences of one cohort of workers

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