Youth Employment and Training Programs The YEDPA Years (1985) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
Social Context of Youth Employment Programs
Social Context of Youth Employment Programs
Pages 348-366
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 348... ...
The paper begins with a brief sketch of the early days of on-the-job training, in which ethnic whites negotiated the labor market. The social context of today's job-training programs is then described, based largely on the interviews.
|
From page 349... ...
They'd come in and they took a hold. The job training described above was common to various occupations, including carpentry, plumbing, and other skilled trades.
|
From page 350... ...
In this way schools, friends, and families provided important links to the workplace, informally shaping the work settings of the day along ethnic and cultural lines that reflected their neighborhoods, schools, and families (Hareven and Langenbach, 1978~. Sometimes vocational instructors moonlighted at a local shop, where they were "regular guys," but also where they could channel their able students into jobs.
|
From page 351... ...
Moreover, the structure of employment opportunities that had awaited the ethnic whites was declining as large numbers of blacks and Puerto Ricans attempted to negotiate the labor market (see Doeringer and Piore, 1971; Wilson, 1980; Hershberg et al., 1981~. Furthermore, the various social connections to the workplace that had been critical to the successful employment efforts of whites were largely lacking for blacks.
|
From page 352... ...
Doubtful of the basic potential of ghetto youths, they often relied on racial stereotypes in their dealings with them. But equally important, black trainees were often suspicious of their instructors, at times believing them to harbor racist attitudes and approaching them only with a certain amount of hesitancy and caution.
|
From page 353... ...
aspects of the trainee's manner of self-presentation aggravate the perhaps already negatively inclined instructor, who may be so inclined for his own group-identification reasons: it is very difficult to comprehend the influence of long-standing and real ethnic, racial, and class hostility in the current job-training setting. But it is an "outsider" class of youths -- black ghetto street boys and young men -- who by their life-style and demeanor, threaten white and even black instructors from the old working class, causing them to maintain a certain social distance in self-defense.
|
From page 354... ...
Their demeanor frequently evolves into a kind of arrogance that is often a defensive display, particularly when confronted by potential threats or challenges to their independence and "manhood." Such a demeanor is thought by many to be absolutely necessary to survive the mean ghetto streets. After years of such conditioning, a youth meets the job-training instructor.
|
From page 355... ...
Having themselves made it through hard work and much personal sacrifice, they may be inclined to be prejudiced against unemployed black youths. Their feelings may be manifested in an overzealous desire to turn out highly successful black youths, resulting in strong, and at times arbitrary, invocations of discipline in the training process.
|
From page 356... ...
As frustration and disappointment grow, the program also loses relatively mature participants who have a measure of discipline and often the motivation to succeed at using the program for obtaining a permanent job. In fact, this is the initial goal of many of those entering the program.
|
From page 357... ...
As they move on, the casualties leave behind in the program many youths who possess relatively little in the way of personal or social skills that will enable them to participate effectively in a jobtraining program. They leave behind those who are not so highly motivated, those with limited options, and the new recruits.
|
From page 358... ...
Now the director of my program went on to a multimillion dollar insulation program. He contracted his work out of Jersey, New York, and cities in this area here.
|
From page 359... ...
This is indicated in the following interview with a 21-year-old youth, who had been involved with "the program" and had worked in a related job for a year, but who felt he had really not advanced from where he started: Boy, these programs~were very misleading, 'cause they were very unsuccessful. Led the people to believe they would get permanent jobs.
|
From page 360... ...
The tendency is for the young black man from the inner city to either quit or socially "graduate" from a segregated urban school unable to read, write, or compute. Given the large amount of distrust for black males in the urban environment, he has little chance for permanent, gainful employment.
|
From page 361... ...
At this point he may see signs on bulletin boards at the community center about "job training." As he looks into this, he does so with some suspicion, for he personally knows few people, if any, who have obtained a permanent job through a job-training program. Yet with few employment options, he looks into the job-training program.
|
From page 362... ...
With their high aspirations and intermittent, often unrealistic, expectations, they are simply undereducated, untrained, and lacking in the nonphysical skills necessary for entry into labor markets with jobs for professionals. In a sense, minority youths are held accountable to values of physical work that
|
From page 363... ...
Many who would employ black youths share this lack of confidence and often a prejudice that the hard-core unemployed and their culture are truly not compatible with the work setting. Such attitudes represent major obstacles to the employment of youths after they have completed job training and, thus, are important considerations for the effectiveness of training programs.
|
From page 364... ...
The largest complaint among black youths seems to be that the programs fail to deliver permanent jobs. More attention must be given to this critical issue.
|
From page 365... ...
Piore 1971 Internal Labor Markets and Manpower Analysis. Lexington, Mass.: D.C.
|
From page 366... ...
Pp. 88-111 in Bernard Anderson and Isabel Sawhill, eds., Youth Employment and Public Policy.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.