The Storage and Transmission of Men's Non-Formal Skills in Working Class Communities: A Working Paper. NALL Working Paper.

A descriptive study observed the transmission of manual job skills from older to younger men in working class communities in Ontario and the effects of massive downsizing in industrial plants on this process. Current as well as previous ethnographic research was used. Some of the outcomes of the continual downsizing included the following: (1) the restructuring that destroyed many working-class communities also destroyed the social organization that stored and transmitted manual skills among men in working class communities; (2) within the workplace, the development of managerial technologies expropriated workers' skills and supported greater control of management over the work process and training; (3) the informal relationships among working-class men that were part of the community as well as the workplace were weakened by increasing technology, decreasing workforce, and managerial control; and (4) this process was gender-specific to men and included the transmission of values, such as anti-intellectualism and disdain for academic occupations. (Contains 13 references.) (KC)