Showing papers on "Deskilling published in 2017"

Human capital formation from occupations: the ‘deskilling hypothesis’ revisited

Abstract: We use HISCLASS to code the occupational titles of over 30,000 English male workers according to the skill content of their work. We then track the evolution of the sampled working skills across three centuries of English history, from 1550 to 1850. We observe a modest rise in the share of ‘high-quality workmen’ deemed necessary by Mokyr and others to facilitate the Industrial Revolution, including machine erectors and operators. But we also find remarkable growth in the share of unskilled workers, rising from 20 % in the late sixteenth century to nearly 40 % in the early nineteenth century, caused mainly by falling shares of semi-skilled, blue-collar workers. Close inspection of the occupational structures within the main sectors of production suggests that deskilling occurred in agriculture and industry alike, prompted by land concentration in agriculture and workshop-to-factory changes in industry.

Inequalities and Agencies in Workplace Learning Experiences: International Student Perspectives

Abstract: National systems of vocational education and training around the globe are facing reform driven by quality, international mobility, and equity Evidence suggests that there are qualitatively distinctive challenges in providing and sustaining workplace learning experiences to international students However, despite growing conceptual and empirical work, there is little evidence of the experiences of these students undertaking workplace learning opportunities as part of vocational education courses This paper draws on a four-year study funded by the Australian Research Council that involved 105 in depth interviews with international students undertaking work integrated learning placements as part of vocational education courses in Australia The results indicate that international students can experience different forms of discrimination and deskilling, and that these were legitimised by students in relation to their understanding of themselves as being an ‘international student’ (with fewer rights) However, the results also demonstrated the ways in which international students exercised their agency towards navigating or even disrupting these circumstances, which often included developing their social and cultural capital This study, therefore, calls for more proactively inclusive induction and support practices that promote reciprocal understandings and navigational capacities for all involved in the provision of work integrated learning This, it is argued, would not only expand and enrich the learning opportunities for international students, their tutors, employers, and employees involved in the provision of workplace learning opportunities, but it could also be a catalyst to promote greater mutual appreciation of diversity in the workplace

A deskilling and challenging journey: the lived experience of Indonesian nurse returnees.

Abstract: Aim: To illuminate the lived experiences of Indonesian nurses who previously worked as caregivers in Japanese residential care facilities, by exploring the journey of becoming returnees. Background: The creation of bilateral agreements between Indonesia and Japan has facilitated the movement of Indonesian nurses to work as caregivers in Japan since 2008. While this decision raised concerns with regard to the degradation of nursing skills, little is known about this issue from the perspective of nurse returnees and how the experience affects their life. Method: A hermeneutic phenomenological method was employed for this study. A purposive sample of 15 Indonesian nurse returnees participated in this study. Semi-structured interviews were conducted in four of Indonesia's provinces between August and October 2015. Data were analysed thematically, supported by QSR NVIVO 10 software. Findings: Four key themes emerged from the data analysis: (i) returning home; (ii) going back to zero; (iii) walking through a difficult journey; and (iv) overcoming barriers. These findings described the lived experiences of nurse returnees when they got back to the country of origin. Conclusion: Indonesian nurse returnees experienced deskilling and struggled to re-enter the nursing profession or to find other non-nursing jobs. The significant impact of this migration on individual nurses with regard to maximizing the benefits of return migration deserves further investigation. Implication for nursing and health policy: The Indonesian government, jointly with other stakeholders, should develop a brain gain strategy to align returnees� expertise with the needs of the national labour market. The public-private partnership should be strengthened to utilize returnees in healthcare services. © 2017 International Council of Nurses

Deskilling and delanguaging African migrants in Barcelona: pathways of labour market incorporation and the value of ‘global’ English

Abstract: This article analyses the labour and social trajectories of seven multilingual and well-educated young men from Africa in the Barcelona area (Catalonia, Spain) over a 5-year period. Our data consist of life history interviews combined with ethnographic observations in a settlement non-governmental organisation (NGO). We adopt a critical sociolinguistic perspective on language and mobility which underlines the time–space dimension of migrants' emplacement and understands the value of global languages in relation to socio-economic and linguistic normativity regimes. Our findings suggest that English does not play a role in the local emplacement of these migrants, with the exceptions of the dwindling NGO sector and tourism in Barcelona. However, it indexes their transnational flows, connections and orientations. We argue that the ‘ideologies of integration’ of the NGOs examined background migrants' global language capitals while funnelling them into the non-qualified labour market. These agencies draw on tab...

Deskilling revisited: Labour migration, neo-Taylorism and the degradation of craft work in the Norwegian construction industry

Abstract: This article discusses the effects of large-scale migration on work organization within major construction companies in Norway. Based on extensive ethnographic data in combination with descriptive ...

Returns to Postgraduate Education in Portugal: Holding on to a Higher Ground?

Abstract: In this paper we use a large official employer-employee data set to document and decompose the rising graduates postgraduates’ wage differentials in Portugal. Using a non-parametric matching exercise we disentangle two different sources of postgraduates’ relative earnings: higher wages within the same type of occupations and the access to better paid occupations. We further look at displacement and deskilling effects due to relative demand inertia as possible sources of the evolution of relative earnings. Our results show that both displacement and deskilling effects, particularly of graduates with only a first-degree, appear to be at least as important as direct productivity effects in explaining postgraduates premiums. We also conclude that the relative importance of the former has been steadily increasing overtime and that, on the contrary, the net creation of high-paying, postgraduateonly jobs has been relatively modest. This evidence suggests that postgraduate degrees have largely worked as a way of holding on to a higher ground.

Aging experiences of older immigrant women in Québec (Canada): From deskilling to liberation.

Abstract: This article examines experiences of aging of older immigrant women. The data are based on qualitative research that was conducted in Quebec, Canada with 83 elderly women from different ethnocultural backgrounds (Arab, African, Haitian, Japanese, Chinese, Portuguese, Romanian, etc.). The results on how such immigrant women deal with material conditions of existence such as deskilling, aging alone, being more economically independent, and the combined effects of liberation from social and family norms associated with age and gender in the light of the migration route, will be presented. For the majority, migration opened up possibilities for personal development and self-affirmation. The findings demonstrated the relevance of the intersectional approach in understanding the complexity and social conditionings of women’s experiences of aging.

The roman public building industry: challenging the terminology and application of post-Fordism

Abstract: The primary evidence from the Roman building industry under the period of the Empire (AD14-565) demonstrates that the high level of skill held by tradesmen (all building and construction workers were male) promoted worker control over their tasks and that this control was increased because of the various layers of supervision on the building site which effectively distanced managerial control from the workers at the site. This is contrary to the deskilling hypothesis put forward by sociologists and ancient historians writing about Roman workers. It also suggests that aspects of the French Regulation School and post-Fordist theses are more applicable to the Roman world of two millennia previously than to the globalized market conditions of the 1990s and later for which they were developed. This is also contrary to the ideas of what constitutes a pre-industrial society and pre-industrial modes of production.

Closing the Open Door? Canada’s Changing Policy for Migrant Caregivers

Abstract: This chapter assesses the shifts in Canada’s migration regime governing the admission of migrant workers for care. It focuses on the Live-in Care Program in effect between 1992 and 2014, highlighting the problematic nature of the program and noting regulatory changes to address the issues. On December 1, 2014, the LCP was replaced with two new pathways which reaffirm the program as part of a larger temporary worker program and cap the numbers transitioning to permanent resident status. Although care workers are no longer required to live in employers’ homes, requirements that no Canadian workers are available may create co-residency incentives. The changes also continue the likelihood that educated migrant caregivers work in low-level care jobs and risk permanent deskilling.

Making tax and social security decisions: lean and deskilling in the UK Civil Service

Abstract: Lean working has had a significant impact on the work skills of civil servants. This study examines the impact of lean specifically focusing on ‘decision-makers’, those civil servants engaged in deciding tax and social security claims. Using qualitative data from trade union members and stewards in two major government departments, this study found significant evidence of deskilling often in the face of dealing with potentially complex legal and factual issues. Using Mashaw's framework of administrative justice, the article argues that management's use of lean was evidence of an accelerated shift to a managerial model of administering tax and benefits where the administrative processes of decision-making become paramount at the expense of the quality of the decisions made.

Industrialization as a Deskilling Process? Steam Engines and Human Capital in XIXth Century France

Abstract: Was technological progress conducive to human capital accumulation or was industrialization a deskilling process? Our paper investigates the effect of the French industrialization process on human capital accumulation throughout the nineteenth century. The novelty of the research is twofold: (i) we explore the deskilling hypothesis for the whole process of industrialization by implementing a panel analysis; (ii) we introduce a disaggregated human capital perspective to examine changes in skills demand at different stages of the process. Our analysis builds upon a new comprehensive dataset providing an exhaustive assessment of the diffusion of the steam technology in France at the county (Departement) level over the 1839-1900 period. We use exogenous geographic variations as an instrument for the number of steam engines erected in each French department. We perform panel and cross-section regression analyses to compare the effect of technological change on basic vs. intermediate human capital accumulation. Our contribution reveals that French industrialization was not deskilling but that a shift in the type of the skills demanded occurred in the second half on the nineteenth century.

Survey of Future Railroad Operations and the Role of Automation

Abstract: In the past decade, freight rail automation systems have made significant advances. The objective of this work was to elicit ideas from the railroad industry about future automation systems and their impact on future operating configurations (such as the roles of human operators). A Dephi survey was administered in two rounds to industry leaders (Class I railroad managers and General Electric transportation senior engineers). The industry was generally found to be open to new operating configurations and to see increasing automation technology as key to achieving future benefits. However, there are significant concerns around training, deskilling, and the current development process. Several solutions to each of these problems were ranked by participants in order of perceived effectiveness. The implications for the development of rail technology and opportunities for future research are discussed.

From brain-drain to brain-gain : Interrogating migration, deskilling and return migration in contemporary Nigeria

Abstract: Using two governmental policies in Nigeria between 1986 to 1993 and 1999 to 2007, this chapter examines how non-migration policies in country of origin influence migration decisions, stimulate different layers of migration, and affect aspirations of migrants in country of destination. It examines how these non-migration policies impact on the phenomenon of migration. Advocates of the policy have pointed out that Nigeria's economy, especially the export sector, performed well within the first two years of its implementation. It was also argued that government's unfaithfulness in the implementation of the policy after the second year played fundamental roles in Structural Adjustment Programs (SAP's) inability to deliver economic progress at the long run. From the foregoing, it can be argued that while non-migration policies like SAP weaned internal and international migrations, National Economic Empowerment and Development Strategy (NEEDS), capitalizing on situations of deskilling, discrimination, and alienation in countries of origin, stimulated reverse migration.

“I am from nowhere”: identity and self-perceived health status of skilled immigrants employed in low-skilled service sector jobs

Abstract: Purpose The foreign-born skilled immigrant population is growing rapidly in Canada but finding a job that utilizes immigrants’ skills, knowledge and experience is challenging for them. The purpose of this paper is to understand the self-perceived health and social status of skilled immigrants who were working in low-skilled jobs in the service sector in Ottawa, Canada. Design/methodology/approach In this qualitative study, semi-structured interviews with 19 high-skilled immigrants working as taxi drivers and convenience store workers in the city of Ottawa, Canada were analysed using a grounded theory approach. Findings Five major themes emerged from the data: high expectations but low achievements; credential devaluation, deskilling and wasted skills; discrimination and loss of identity; lifestyle change and poor health behaviour; and poor mental and physical health status. Social implications The study demonstrates the knowledge between what skilled immigrants expect when they arrive in Canada and the reality of finding meaningful employment in a country where international credentials are less likely to be recognized. The study therefore contributes to immigration policy reform which would reduce barriers to meaningful employment among immigrants reducing the impacts on health resulting from employment in low-skilled jobs. Originality/value This study provides unique insights into the experience and perceptions of skilled immigrants working in low-skilled jobs. It also sheds light on the “healthy worker effect” hypothesis which is a highly discussed and debated issue in the occupational health literature.

The Decline of the Work Process in a Business Profession

Abstract: The accounting work is experiencing a general decline as a result of the situations of proletarianization, alienation, and deskilling.

Transformation of daily work practices as a consequence of information technology introduction: The case of medical licensing system

Abstract: The potential of work transformation as a result of Information Technology (IT) introduction has been long recognized by scholars and practitioners in the information system field. However, the relationship between technology and work practices especially in large-scale, i.e. national, is still poorly understood and somewhat understudied. To fill that gap, we extend a conceptual framework in this paper relating to work transformation in modern institutions to develop more insights into the interplay between IT introduction and daily work practice in the healthcare sector on a massive scale. This extension is empirically based on a case study involving the development and implementation of a cloud-based medical licensing system in a developing country. Apart from analyzing the case using five dimensions of work practice transformation including time and space separation, the requirement of new trust system, institutional reflexivity, concerns for deskilling and opportunities for reskilling and empowerment, the paper discusses three additional dimensions which are transformation negotiation, transformation diffusion, and transformation flexibility.

The Post-Truth Era in Government Evaluation of Major Projects and Policies

Abstract: Australian experience reveals an increasingly post-truth approach to economic evaluation, with governments ignoring or avoiding professional expertise when promoting their favoured projects and policies. Lack of formal guidelines for economic evaluation, such as those promulgated by Congress and successive American presidents, are a partial explanation. A concomitant hollowing-out of public service expertise in economic analysis has also occurred. More importantly, public sector agencies have even lost much of their capability to understand and assess evaluations carried out on their behalf by commercial consultants. An effective antidote to this deskilling would be the production and publication of analyses of major government policy and project proposals, as well as the development of a standardised analytical framework, reinforced with training for public servants.

Understanding the Neoliberalization of Education Through Spaces of Labour Autonomy

Abstract: In recent years K-12 school systems from New York to Mexico City to Toronto, serving vastly divergent students and communities, have been subject to strikingly similar waves of neoliberal policies by governments. A key manifestation has been the de-professionalization or deskilling of teachers. Organized labours response has been highly uneven geographically. Professional autonomy means a capacity and freedom of teachers to exercise their judgement in interpreting broad curriculum guidelines, into their day to day classroom activities. It is the primary obstacle to the further neoliberalization of education. The expansion of standardized instructional and evaluative techniques and technologies are necessary for opening new markets within schools and for weakening the collective power of teachers and their unions. Their proponents are limited by the existence of the classroom as a space of labour autonomy, run by experienced and highly educated teachers. Recognizing the significant crossover of policy at the North American scale alongside significant economic and political linkages, this dissertation centres on case studies in three cities, New York, Mexico City and Toronto. This dissertation assesses challenges to teachers professional autonomy from 2001 to 2016 across five dimensions of comparison. First are changes in governance, namely the centralization of authority, often legitimized by mobilizing policies from elsewhere. Second are policies which have shifted workplace power relations between principals and teachers, as with School Based Management programs that download budgetary, discipline and dismissal practices to school administrators. Third are the effect of standardized testing of students and teachers on the latters capacity to exercise professional judgement in the classroom through designing unique lesson plans, pedagogy and evaluation. Fourth is the creation of school choice for schools competing for enrolment and thereby funding, which has tended to perpetuate class and racial segregation. Finally, the ability of teachers unions to construct a multi scalar strategy is considered, including alliances with parents, communities and other sectors of labour. This dissertation concludes with recommendations for how teachers unions could respond to the challenge to professional autonomy with a stronger engagement on teacher practice and professional self-regulation.

Bringing the factory back in: the crumbling of consent and the molding of collective capacity at work

Abstract: Scholarship on worker collective action has followed activists' turn from labor process to labor movement, privileging external opportunities for protest and resources for organizing. Persuaded by growing appeals to examine the impact of capitalism on protest, I “bring the factory back in” to analyze how the recent restructuring of a Bronx factory's labor process shaped employees' capacities for sustained collective action. Employing participant observation and in-depth interviews within an extended-case framework, I trace the impact of worksite reorganization on shop-floor “games.” I argue that workers sustained a surprisingly long strike after a management offensive dissolved consent and unexpectedly generated a horizontal class realignment. Combining opposing labor-process perspectives, my account is predicated on the how the impact of deskilling interacts with worker behaviors patterned on preexisting hegemonic factory institutions. Though similar cases of hegemonic breakdown will not result in a resu...

McLearning and the So-Called Knowledge Society: An Essay

Abstract: This essay concerns “McLearning,” a neologism referring to education delivered through procedures, processes, and values increasingly analogous to those governing the delivery of American fast food. As the most technologically advanced factories have become post-Fordist in the past few decades, tertiary education has, perversely, more and more recognizably become a mass production factory. This essay does not condemn McLearning and notes that the signifier “university” has always been multiple, contestable, and fluid through time and across cultures. It does argue for critical reflection regarding the context(s) in which McLearning is appropriate and the means by which it might be best delivered, lest the value of advanced learning tout court be cheapened and damaged. Interwoven with the phenomenon of McLearning are three related notions. The first is that of the so-called knowledge society, a concept which merits reflection since enough time has passed to show that the utopian vision with which this term was associated in the 1990s was far from the reality that is emerging. The second is the relatively apparent, but generally overlooked, fact that while discussing knowledge, the central terms “data,” “information,” “knowledge,” and “learning” are used promiscuously, interchangeably and without consistency, resulting in a discussion in which the central phenomena are undefined. Finally, a bitter irony is noted: while the professorate is being deskilled in a metaphorical Fordist instruction factory, the theorists of deskilling and proletarianization have been, inexplicably, relatively silent regarding the applicability of their expertise to their own work lives.

Explaining Employers' Hiring Decisions: A Comparative Study of Employers' Risk Assessment

Abstract: In order to investigate the scarring effect of early job insecurity on future employment chances we have implemented a factorial survey experiment with recruiters based on real vacancies in Bulgaria, Greece, Norway and Switzerland. We contribute to recruitment research at least in three ways: First, the multinational design allows us to run comparative analysis across countries, which are carried out along the national dimensions youth unemployment rate, employment protection regulation and type of educational system. Second, we differentiate between two different forms of early job insecurity – unemployment and work experience in deskilling jobs, and we demonstrate that the sole focus on unemployment, as it is the case in the prevalent labour market research, is not sufficient in order to fully understand labour market outcomes caused by different forms of job insecurities. Third, since our sample consists of real recruiters who were hiring for current jobs at the time when the study was carried out, we provide a unique cross-country data set of high external validity. Our findings suggest that scarring effects of early job insecurity vary across countries and across occupational fields, and while scarring caused by work experience in deskilling jobs seems to be enforced by strong employment protection regulations, unemployment scarring seems to stronger where national unemployment is low. Further, the differences in recruiter’s evaluation across occupational fields indicate that signalling value of education may vary depending on specific sectors. Not at least, we contribute to debates around active labour market policies, arguing that measures aiming at quick labour market reintegration without consideration of job quality may not be the most sustainable solution, as work experience in a deskilling job does not lead to better recruiter’s evaluation.

Teachers under military control: The Brazilian experience, 1964-1979

Abstract: In the 1960s, Brazil was involved in a progressive transformation in which discussions of popular culture movements and literacy campaigns gained political traction. Nevertheless, demands from international investors, widespread fear of social reform and a smear campaign against the President, among other factors, led to a coup in 1964. This article investigates changes in the working conditions of teachers under military rule from the perspective of critical educational studies as advanced by Michael Apple. The period covered begins in 1964 with the coup and ends in 1979 with the first steps towards greater political openness. The data was collected from the proceedings of the National Congress, from the annual reports of the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics and from other scholarly literature. The results indicate an intensification of teacher's work and a deskilling of their activities. Teachers, however, did not behave as passive observers but resisted the dictatorship both inside and outside the classroom.

Drivers of industrialisation: intersectoral evidence from the Low Countries in the nineteenth century

Abstract: In this paper, we trace the causes of regional industrial development in the nineteenth century Low Countries by disentangling the complex relationship between industrialisation, technological progress and human capital formation. We use sectoral differences in the application of technology and human capital as the central elements to explain the rise in employment in the manufacturing sector during the nineteenth century, and our findings suggest a re-interpretation of the deskilling debate. To account for differences among manufacturing sectors, we use population and industrial census data, subdivided according to their present-day manufacturing sector equivalents of the International Standard Industrial Classification (ISIC). Instrumental variable regression analysis revealed that employment in the manufacturing sector was influenced by so-called upper- tail knowledge and not by average educational levels, providing empirical proof of a so-called deskilling industrialisation process. However, we find notable differences between manufacturing sectors. The textiles and clothing sectors show few agglomeration effects and limited use of steam-powered engines, and average education levels cannot adequately explain regional industrialisation. In contrast, the location of the fast- growing and innovative machinery-manufacturing sector was more influenced by technology and the availability of human capital, particularly upper-tail knowledge captured by secondary school attendance rates.

Returns to Postgraduate Education in Portugal: Holding on to a Higher Ground?

Abstract: In this paper we use a large official employer-employee dataset, which includes almost the whole universe of business firms, to document and decompose the rising graduates postgraduates' wage differentials in Portugal. Using a non-parametric matching exercise, we pay particular attention to differences in the assignment of these two groups of workers across occupations and tasks. This allows us to disentangle different sources of postgraduates' relative earnings and look at the creation of postgraduate jobs. We further look, however, at displacement and deskilling effects due to relative demand inertia as possible sources of such evolution of the relative earnings. Our results show that both displacement and deskilling effects, particularly of graduates with only a first-degree, appear to be at least as important as direct productivity effects in explaining postgraduates premiums. We also conclude that the relative importance of the former has been steadily increasing overtime and that, on the contrary, the net creation of high-paying, postgraduate-only jobs has been relatively modest. This suggests that postgraduate degrees have largely worked as a way of holding on to a higher ground in the labour market.

Nightcore and the Virtues of Virtuality

Abstract: Nightcore is a previously academically unexamined music scene, which exists entirely online and operates as a unique micro-subculture within the broader context of internet-based electronic music. A scene born on the internet in the early 2000s, nightcore has recently experienced something of a surge in popularity, and now refers most broadly to hyper-fast dance music with pitched-up vocals, which is based around sped-up tracks lifted wholesale from mainstream pop, rock, and EDM, often, but not always, with additional original production. Nightcore is remarkable both for its DIY attitude to deskilling electronic production, lowering the barrier to entry for producers to a point of near-nonexistence, and for its internet-centric, yet profoundly social approach to track dissemination and community. This article traces the history and present-day status of nightcore, providing brief multidisciplinary analyses of tracks and production styles from a musicological, feminist and accelerationist perspective, and examines, from a primarily observational ethnomusicological viewpoint, nightcore communities and live ‘shows’ which take place solely online and gear themselves towards listeners and producers from all over the world. Since this article represents the first piece of academic research into nightcore, it is by necessity broad in its scope. This article hopes to prompt further research and discussion both within the genre itself, and more generally around online musical communities and the work created within them.