De l'indocilité au travail d'une fraction des jeunesses populaires.: Les apprentis et la culture ouvrière

Research on apprentices in two big public enterprises leads us to put in perspective the prevailing theses based on arguments about the rejection of the working-class heritage and the disappearance of forms of resistance among young people with working-class origins. Focusing on contexts of apprenticeship it sheds light on how apprentices cope with requirements related to situations at the workplace. Apprenticeship — an uncertain, contingent, unsteady position in the world of work — does not motivate these young people to identify collectively with other wage-earners; nor does it facilitate the acquisition of class consciousness. In this sense, it relates to a process of social rather than occupational integration. However apprentices reinvent traditional and/or new practices of resistance (opposition, evasion or pretending) that enable them to skirt around or even modify work-related requirements. Entry into the world of work, as well as the resulting pleasure or disenchantment, can be marked by feelings other than “disaffection” with labor, a sense of submission or individualism, or a fascination or identification with the middle classes.