Sociology of Work in Canada: Papers in Honour of Oswald Hall 9780773573932

Table of contents :
Cover
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Contents
Preface
Oswald Hall and the Sociology of Work
Part One: Historical Perspectives
An Overview of the Canadian Work Force, 1901 - 1971
Educational Policies and the Labour Force: An Historical Perspective on the Ontario Case
Part Two: Occupational Recruitment, Socialization and Subcultures
Institutionalized Stealing Among Big-City Taxi-Drivers
The Informal Behaviour of Infantry Recruits
The Name of the Game: Occupational Status among Professional Riders
Selling Real Estate: Redefinition and Persuasion
Professionalism and Marginality: The Case of the Ontario Funeral Director
The Transition from Student to Practitioner: The Making of a Chiropractor
Measuring Student Attitudes Toward Science and Scientists
Part Three: Work in Bureaucracies
The Underside of the Hospital: Recruitment and the Meaning of Work Among Non- Professional Hosptial Workers
Careers, Role Models and Politics of Higher Civil Servants in Ontario
Reflections on Work Organization Among Structural Steelworkers
The Nursing Role in General Hospitals: An Organizational Analysis
Part Four: Sex and Ethnic Inequality
Some Antecedents of the Occupational Aspirations of Ontario High School Students
Work, Technical Role Models and the Absence of Women in Academia
Inner Fraternity and Outer Sorority: Social Structure and the Professionalization of Occupational Therapy
Changing Aspirations and Roles: Middle and Upper Class Women Enter the Business World in Canada, India and Australia
Social Movements and Occupational Socialization: Quebec Nationalism and French Canadians in Advertising
Part Five: Power, Protest and the Polity
Occupational Adaptations to Environmental Complexities: The Case of Oil Scouts
The Takeover of Shawinigan: Symbol of Political Tensions in Canada
Militancy and Violence in Canadian Labour Relations, 1900-1975
Competition Policy and the Self-Regulating Professions
The Professions and Collective Action: Responses to State Control and Public Criticism
Part Six: New Authors
The Demographic Transformation of Canada's Work Force
The Boardroom and the Hospital's Power Structure
Canadians and Canadiens
Canadians and Canadiens Thirty Years Later
Revisiting Nathan Keyfitz
From One Transition to Another
Epilogue to Canadians and Canadiens
References to Part Introductions
Oswald Hall: Curriculum Vitae
The Contributors
Supplement

Citation preview

The Sociology of W o ~ in k Canada Papers in honour of Oswald Hall

The Sociology of W o ~ in k Canada/ Papers in honour of Oswald Hall Edited by Audrey Wipper

Carleton Library Series #I82

Carleton University Press Ottawa, Canada 1994

Warleton University Press Inc., 1994 Printed and bound in Canada. Canadian Cataloguingin Publication Data Main entry under title: The Sociology of work in Canada: papers in honour of Oswald Hall (The Carleton library ; 182) Rev. ed. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-88629-240-9(bound) ISBN 0-88629-241-7 (pbk.) 1. Hall, Oswald, 1908- 2. Industrial sociology. I. Wipper, Audrey 11. Hall, Oswald, 1908- . I1I. Series.

Carleton University Press 160 Paterson Hall Carleton University 1125 Colonel By Drive OTTAWA, Ontario K1S 5B6 (613) 788-3740

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Distributed in Canada by: Oxford University Press 70 Wynford Drive DON MILLS, Ontario, Canada M3C lJ9. (416) 441-2941

Carleton University Press gratefully acknowledges the support extended to its publishing programme by the Canada Council and the financial assistance of the Ontario Arts Council. The Press would also like to thank the Department of Canadian Heritage, Government of Canada, and the Government of Ontario through the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Recreation, for their assistance.

These papers are presented to Oswald Hall who has been an exemplary scholar, teacher, and colleaguefor over halfa century

The Carleton Library Series A series of original works, new collections and reprints of source material relating to Canada, issued under the supervision of the Editorial Board, Carleton Library Series, Carleton University Press Inc., Ottawa, Canada.

General Editor Michael Gnarowski Editorial Board Syd F. Wise (Chair and History) Bruce Cox (Anthropology and Sociology) W. Irwin Gillespie (Economics) Iain Wallace (Geography)

Contents Preface

S. D. Clark Oswald Hall and the Sociology of Work

Part One: Historical Perspectives

1

Douglas Rennie An Overview of the Canadian Work Force, 190 1 1971

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R . A. Carlton Educational Policies and the Labour Force: An Historical Perspective on the Ontario Case

41

Part Two: Occupational Recruitment, Socialization and Subcultures

71

Edmund W . Vaz Institutionalized Stealing Among Big-City Taxi-Drivers

75

Hyman Rodman The Informal Behaviour of Infantry Recruits Audrey Wi@er The Name of the Game: Occupational Status among Profes112 sional Riders Shirley S. Angrist 132 Selling Real Estate: Redefinition and Persuasion Christopher Beattie Professionalism and Marginality: The Case of the Ontario Funeral Director 146 M m j o y Kelner The Transition from Student to Practitioner: The Making of a 166 Chiropractor Constance Young McFarlane Measuring Student Attitudes Toward Science and Scientists 184

Part Three: Work in Bureaucracies

207

George M . Torrance The Underside of the Hospital: Recruitment and the Meaning 211 of Work Among Non-Professional Hospital Workers

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H a m q Rich Careers, Role Models and Politics of Higher Civil Servants in Ontario 232 Frank E. Jones Reflections on Work Organization Among Structural Steelworkers 253 Margaret Westley T h e Nursing Role in General Hospitals: An Organizational Analysis 266 Part Four: Sex and Ethnic Inequality

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Bernard R. Blishen Some Antecedents of the Occupational Aspirations of Ontario High School Students 290 Lorna R. Marsden Work, Technical Role Models and the Absence of Women in Academia 307 . James D. Maxwell and Mary Percival Maxwell Inner Fraternity and Outer Sorority: Social Structure and the Professionalization of Occupational Therapy Aileen D. Ross Changing Aspirations and Roles: Middle and Upper Class Women Enter the Business World in Canada, India and Australia Frederick Elkin Social Movements and Occupational Socialization: Quebec Nationalism and French Canadians in Advertising Part Five: Power, Protest and the Polity Terrence H . White Occupational Adaptations to Environmental Complexities: The Case of Oil Scouts Huntly McKay and Esmond Peck The Takeover of Shawinigan: Symbol of Political Tensions in Canada Stuart Jamieson Militancy and Violence in Canadian Labour Relations, 19001975 Sylvk Ostry Competition Policy and the Self-Regulating Professions

Rodney F. White The Professions and Collective Action: Responses to State Control and Public Criticism 469 Part Six: New Authors

485

Wawen E. Kalbach The Demographic Transformation of Canada's Work Force

487

Thomas G. Regan The Boardroom and the Hospital's Power Structure

504

Nathan Keyfiz Canadians and Canadiens Canadians and Canadiens Thirty Years Later

Guy Rocher Revisiting Nathan Keyfitz Jacques Henripin From One Transition to Another Denis Szabo Epilogue to Canadians and Canadiens

References to Part Introductions

559

Oswald Hall: Curriculum Vitae

56 1

The Contributors

565

Preface to Revised Edition A decade has passed since the first publication of this book. Happily Oswald Hall, now in his 86th year, is still in good health. Hans Bakker told me that he once, unintentionally, introduced Oswald as Osgoode Hall, to which Oswald replied: "I know I'm a venerable institution, but I'm not that venerable - not yet." His wit is as sparkling as ever, and he's engaged, as always, in deciphering the human condition with its foibles and lunacies. My generation of students had the good fortune to get to know, and to work with, the early sociologists. One mark of these pioneers, Oswald Hall, Aileen Ross, Nathan Keyfitz, Helen and Everett C. Hughes, was their lifelong love affair with sociology. Not for them the discarding of their sociological identity upon their official retirement - most took years "to retire" - and, even then, kept in touch with their former colleagues and students. And some of them never retired at all. At age 90, living in a retirement home, Aileen's Christmas note read: "I keep busy with my research," not surprisingly, on old people. The royalties from the first edition were donated to McGill's Department of Sociology to be used in helping graduate students with their research. They were combined in 1992 with other donations the Department received to establish an endowment that generates income for an annual award, known as the Oswald Hall Prize, given to the outstanding first year graduate student. The initial prize of $150 was won in 1993 by Andre Smith. The 1994 winner was Philippe Couton. Royalties from this new edition will be added to the endowment. The father of the sociology of work in Canada, as noted by Keyfitz, must surely be Everett Hughes. The McGill Sociology and Anthropology Department, Canada's first, was fortunate indeed in having Hughes in its formative years - he taught there from 1927 to 1938 - for he entrenched the fieldwork tradition and encouraged students to examine different work settings at first hand. He and Carl Dawson, the first sociologist at McGill, recruited a number of Hughes' and Herbert Blumer's students from the University of Chicago - Hall, Ross, Bill Westley, Fred Elkin and Bernie Meltzer who, in turn, encouraged ethnographic research. For his part, Hughes and his Canadian-born wife, Helen, collected data on Cantonville, a French-Canadian town transformed by the establishment of Anglo-owned and -managed light industries. His book French Canada in Transition (1943) remains a classic, having relevance for minority-majority relations the world over wherever indigenous people find their industries run by an outside elite. Hughes played an

xii PREFACE TO REVISED EDITION important role not only in English-Canadian but also in French-Canadian sociology through his association with Pere Georges-H. Levesque and the Social Sciences at Lava1 University. The Hughes family maintained their Canadian connections by attending our annual meetings and visiting Aileen Ross every summer at her farmhouse in the Eastern Townships. After I returned to Canada in the 1960s, from three years in East Africa, I was included in these visits marked by outdoor activity and vigorous discussions that sometimes became heated. (Aileen remarked after one such exchange that she had to take a sleeping pill to get to sleep.) Well into their seventies, Helen and Everett put me to shame by their prebreakfast swim in Lake Memphrkmagog after which Everett would prepare a hearty breakfast of bacon and eggs. The ten years that have elapsed since this book was first published have witnessed a number of transitions. Two authors have become university presidents: Lorna Marsden of Wilfrid Laurier and Terrence White of Brock. Sylvia Ostry has taken on the chancellorship of the University of Waterloo. And a generation of sociologists has retired: Bernie Blishen, Dick Carlton, Fred Elkin, Frank Jones, Connie McFarlane, Margaret Westley, Rodney White and Ed Vaz. Sadly, Huntley McKay is no longer with us to share the satisfaction of seeing, in print, this renewed tribute to Oswald Hall. Waterloo 1994

Preface One of the pleasures in assembling these papers in honour of Oswald Hall has been the enthusiasm with which the idea was received. T h e contributors wanted to write a paper for a man they very much admired. One contributor wrote, "I feel a great intellectual debt to Oswald, I would be delighted to contribute to a Festschrift for him. Another stated, "Oswald has certainly contributed some valuable insights and encouraged a great deal of very worthwhile research in the field of the sociology of work." And another wrote, "I appreciate your undertaking this task, in a noble cause, for a superb (and sweet) man." I n his course on the Sociology of Occupations and Professions given at the universities of McGill and Toronto, and later at the University of Guelph, Oswald focused his sociological eye on the many-sided nature of the work world. His lectures aroused the intellectual curiosity of students and encouraged them to research the varied aspects of work. Some of their thoughts and the findings of their research are presented here. As one of Canada's pioneer sociologists, Oswald Hall's contribution to the growth of sociology in Canada and his loyalty to the profession have been pervasive and enduring. When I asked Oswald what date he became chairman at McGill, he didn't know. His note explained, "At the time the job and the prestige were of an incredibly meager dimension. We were unbelievably unconcerned about rank and formal organization in those days. Were we ever naive! We thought that teaching and research were the main dimensions of university life. We didn't realize that tenure and salaries and pensions are the raison &%re for a modern university." And Oswald is still teaching and doing research, ten years after he officially retired. T h e considerable number of Canadian sociologists who have studied with Oswald, and who have done significant work in the field of the professions and occupations, are testimony to his influence as a teacher. His students remain active in teaching and research throughout Canada. Sociology in Canada was fortunate, especially in its early days, to have a scholar of Oswald Hall's stature. Through his personal contacts and research, Hall did much to gain respect and recognition from members of the more established disciplines for the fledging science of sociology. It was also Hall and his work that helped promote an understanding of sociology among the public. Oswald Hall's research has contributed much to improve our understanding of the world of work, especially his research on

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PREFACE

dentists, physicians and nurses as well as on hospital administrators, engineers, school teachers and the para-medical occupations. Above all, his work highlights what is sociologically relevant, and his efforts are invariably directed towards illuminating the more general forms of organization in which the particular social enterprise transpires. It is never specialized work that is important for him, but the social drama-the intricate network of social relationships and exchanges. Oswald's work is permanently valuable not only for what it tells us about physicians, nurses and dentists, but for what it tells us about the larger world of men and women. I must, however, limit my remarks on Oswald's contributions since the first paper, "Oswald Hall and the Sociology of Work" by Delbert Clark, Oswald's longtime friend and colleague (both of whom, incidentally, were born in Saskatchewan), admirably examines Oswald's intellectual and institutional careers, the major themes and questions that have guided his work, and his teaching and research influence on students. In bringing together these papers by Oswald's students and colleagues, this book provides a sampling of the various kinds of research undertaken in the sociology of work in Canada over the last forty years. The book is composed of a number of different papers, including a variety of styles and a range of perspectives, historical studies, statistical analyses, studies of specific occupations, papers on general issues and themes, and a position paper-what one would expect of a Festschrift. T h e focus of many of the papers reflect Osrvald's interests and ways of working. The medical and paramedical occupations are well represented by papers on occupational therapists (Maxwells), chiropractors (Kelner), nurses (Westley), and unskilled and semi-skilled hospital workers (Torrance). There are papers on the professions (Ostry, R. White) and semi-professions (Beattie), and on the sex and ethnic divisions in the labour force (Marsden, Elkin, Ross). Oswald engaged in much collaborative research. Hyman Rodman's study of army recruits grew out of a team study on the training of infantry recruits, of which Hall was the consultant, and directed by the late David N. Solomon of McGill University. Merrijoy Kelner's paper on chiropractors is based on a larger study of chiropractors undertaken with Hall and Coulter (1980). Oswald's concern with how other social structures impinge on the world of work led him and Bruce McFarlane to examine the passage of students from school to work. This resulted in The Transitionfrom School to Work (1962). Later, Hall and Richard Carlton, investigated how well our educational system prepares students for work in a rapidly changing society.

PREFACE

xv

Their report is published in Basic Ski& at School and Work (1977). Permit me one final observation. In working on this project, 1 have been struck by Oswald's insights into the nature of sex roles and by the number of women he encouraged to pursue careers in sociology, long before it became fashionable; he stands as truly "a man for all seasons."

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank friends and colleagues who gave of their time to , Carlton, critically evaluate these papers: ~ e o r ~~oer r a n c e Richard Bruce McFarlane, Bernard Blishen, Frank Jones, Jim Curtis, Rodney White, Shirley Angrist, Fred Elkin, Merrijoy Kelner, John Goyder, Susan McDaniel, Frank Fasick, Alf Hunter, Harry Makler, Lokky Wai and Bill Scott. Their comments have done much to improve the quality of the book. I am especially indebted to Ed Vaz for his help throughout this project. I also want to express my gratitude to Ursula Ortmann and Beverley Taylor for their untiring secretarial assistance. And to the patient, loyal contributors who endured, without complaining, enormous publication delays, my heartfelt thanks.

Oswald Hall and the Sociology of Work S.D. CLARK

I suppose it could be said that it was back on the farm in northern Saskatchewan that Oswald Hall first became a sociologist. He did not at the time, of course, think of himself as such. Indeed, I am sure he had no idea such a social science existed. His educational aspirations took shape within the framework of the high school curriculum. He was an excellent student. Knowledge to him as a high school student was something that came out of books, not from the observation of the world around him. It was the search for that which came out of books which led him to Queen's University. Yet how he came ultimately as a sociologist to engage in the search for knowledge could not help but be influenced by his experience of growing u p in a northern Saskatchewan rural community. It was a community, like many others in the West at the time, in which the struggle for survival came hard, not only for individuals but for whole population groups. Old-timers resented the intrusion of newcomers (of which Oswald's family was one), Protestants harboured a fear of Catholics, whites disdained their neighbours of Indian origin"Nitchies" and "half breeds" they were called-and no nice sentiments of tolerance found expression in the views held towards those Eastern European settlers-"Bohun ks"-who, having reached the limits of their settled community, were now pushing out and buying u p the farms in nearby areas. Deeply rooted social attitudes, prejudices if you will, formed themselves out of the social realities of life in a northern Saskatchewan rural community, and if the young man growing u p in this community, having gone on and become a sociologist, could look back and view objectively the processes of change going on, he was able to d o so with a sympathetic understanding of why people behaved and thought as they did. There was more still in the experience of growing u p in a northern farm community which left its mark on Oswald Hall. Out of that experience he developed a feeling for farm life which, I think it safe to say, has never left him; the round of daily chores, the shift through the seasons in the tempo of farm activity, the summer picnics and

xviii INTRODUCTION winter dances breaking the routine of farm work, the continuing close contact with nature and the elements in the bursting forth of spring, the wild storms of summer, the threatening frosts of autumn and the seemingly never-ending winter. Farm life made something of a romantic out of Oswald'Hall. It also made something of a radical out of him. There could be no easy acceptance of things as they were when from all sides the farmer appeared to be at the mercy of powerful interests outside: the Winnipeg Grain Exchange, the banks, the railway companies, even the merchants in the nearby towns. But the nineteen twenties, the years known by Hall on the farm, were years of great hopes rather than despair. William Irvine visited his home community, and such visits kindled the movement of agrarian radicalism that led to the development of the wheat pool and other cooperative efforts. and ultimately to the birth of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF). Oswald Hall could not help but share in the enthusiastic hopes of the people about him. Nor could he help but share in the feelings of despair which replaced those of hope among the people in his home community as that decade with its uncertain spurts of prosperity gave way to the unrelieved depression of the thirties. I suppose this change in farm fortunes had something to d o with Oswald Hall's determination to seek a university education. Young men with whom he had grown u p were leaving the farm to seek jobs in the city and ultimately to become part of Canada's large pool of unemployed. For Oswald, if the future held any promise, it lay in securing a university education. H e had distinguished himself as a public and high school student and, like so many rural young people of the day who sought to improve their lot, had gone off to Normal School and qualified himself as a teacher. Six years of teaching at a time when salaries were high provided him with the necessary financial means, and at twenty-two years of age, having completed extra-murally the first year of university studies, he set off to Queen's University. Here he met John Deutsch who, like himself, had found his way haltingly out of a northern Saskatchewan rural community to university. O n both men the experience of growing u p in such a community left its mark. T h e years at Queen's University were intellectually exciting. There was the opportunity to read extensively in, and explore the mysteries of, philosophy and economics. They were years in which no student could escape concern about the state of the world without, the deepening depression, the spread of fascism in Europe and the growing clouds of war. Overwhelming all concerns, from the point of view of the individual student, was the seemingly hopelessness of the future, once university studies were completed. Few jobs offered themselves for the university-trained person. After five years study at Queen's, from which he graduated in honours economics and

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philosophy, Hall was offered a fellowship at McGill University in the Department of Sociology. Here the demands made upon him as a student were radically different from those he had encountered at Queen's and he responded with enthusiasm. With C.A. Dawson and E.C. Hughes as his instructors he was led to explore that body of knowledge which came not out of books but out of the world of living people. H e became a field worker in the best sense of the term, not a simple gatherer of facts but a scholar probing the intellectually exciting facets of social life and human experience. Dawson's teaching gave him a grasp of the dimensions of sociological study; Hughes's opened u p for him hidden vistas which called for intellectural exploration. One could not be a student of Hughes and escape being caught u p in the excitement of intellectual inquiry, but neither could one be a student of Dawson and escape the spirit of dedication which he brought to sociological research. McGill made Oswald a sociologist. His master's thesis on differentials in family size in selected communities in Quebec and Ontario (1937) scarcely pointed the direction his research interests were to take, but it did offer more than a hint of the kind of sociologist he was to become. It was as a candidate for the doctoral degree at Chicago that he moved into the area of the sociology of work. For the two years during which he was a student at Chicago he worked his way through the course requirements and, in spite of time lost from hospitalization, successfully passed the comprehensive examinations. With no thesis topic clearly formulated in his mind, he went off to Brown University to teach. It was here his research interests took shape. Providence, Rhode Island, at the time was a city beset with social problems: extensive unemployment, ethnic divisions and the creeping process of urban blight. A concern with such problems was reflected in the Department of Sociology's courses. Hall reacted strongly against such a problem orientation. In Providence one interesting social phenomenon appeared to be the way the large Italian population of the community had by various devices managed to gain a foothold in New England and win for itself an acceptable standard of living. Consideration was given to a study of Italian lawyers, but an interview with one persuaded Hall that it would be distinctly unhealthy to get interested in how Italian lawyers managed to survive. He decided to turn to a study of Italian doctors. It quickly became apparent to him, however, that there existed a division of labour between Italian doctors and established practitioners and that it was not profitable to study one without the other. Together they constituted some sort of social system. Thus emerged the thesis which won Hall his Chicago doctorate, "The Informal Organization of Medical Practice in an American City" (1944).

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INTRODUCTION

Papers developed out of this thesis established Hall's reputation as one of the leading scholars in the field of the sociology of work. Underlying the thesis were two clearly formulated assumptions regarding the'nature of the sociological exercise. T h e first was that sociology had a stake in trying to comprehend the basic features of the work world, such as the associations of work, the emerging bureaucratic patterns and the advent of specialized occupations. T h e second assumption, closely related to the first, was that sociology had more to gain from the study of organization than from the study of disorganization. T h e thesis explicitly rejected the problems approach in sociology. . If the topic of the thesis met with no enthusiastic endorsement either by his colleagues at Brown o r by such Chicago "greats" as Wirth, Blumer, Stouffer and Burgess, it found strong support from Talcott Parsons, not yet carried away in efforts at system building, and from Everett Hughes, now a member of the department in Chicago. Support also came from a fellow sociological worker who Hall got to know at this time, William Foote Whyte. Street Corner Society was a demonstration of the value of looking at a social phenomenon such as a slum not as a form of social disorganization but as a form of organization. Four years at Brown University, followed by two years in the Department of Labour in Ottawa and then nine years at McGill University could appear on a curriculum vitae as the not unusual moves of a scholar seeking his place in the Canadian academic community. It was over these years, however, that Hall estabiished himself as one of the most influential teachers of sociology in Canada and one of the country's most productive research scholars. Teaching and research never became divorced in Hall's practice of the sociology trade. His influence as a teacher was made evident over the years he was at McGill in the staffing of Canadian universities with scholars trained by him: Frank Jones in McMaster, Bruce McFarlane in Carleton, Rex Lucas and Leo Zakuta in Toronto, Kaspar Naegele in New Brunswick and then the University of British Columbia, Jacques Brazeau in the University of Montreal, Audrey Wipper in Waterloo, to mention only some. But his influence as a teacher extended beyond those students involved in the daytime program of the university. Through the Institute of Industrial Relations he found himself teaching evening seminars for business heads. Beginning with an interest in learning something about labour organizations in their business operations, these students became excited about the peculiarities of their own organizations and the influences which fashioned their own careers. If his research interests gave direction to Hall's teaching, his

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teaching, in turn, spurred and broadened his research activities. Students working with him on master's theses extended the range of research in the area of the sociology of work, Jones with a thesis on the steel industry, Brazeau on French-Canadian doctors, McFarlane on sports organizers, Wipper on horse trainers, Lucas on company towns. Jones went on to do his doctoral degree at Harvard on the army, Naegele to study the organization of psychiatry and education, McFarlane to study engineers in England, Lortie to study lawyers and then school teachers. Aileen Ross, a colleague, turned to a study of the profession of nursing. In his own research activity at McGill, Hall became involved in work on the military with David Solomon of the Defence Research Board. Stouffer's massive study of the American soldier had pointed u p the significance of this area of research. But to Hall, Stouffer's approach was largely anti-organizational. For Stouffer, the organization frustrated the lives of the soldiers. He studied their "beefs" and how to offset them. Hall took "beefs" for granted; what interested him was how civilians developed commitment to a military life and how officers contrived a career in a military organization. In the later work of such sociologists as Morris Janowitz, Hall's influence was evident. Work on the military brought Hall into close contact with colleagues in other departments, in particular psychology and psychiatry. T h e contacts broadened with the extension of his research interests in the general area of the sociology of work. Besides George Ferguson and Donald Hebb in psychology, and E. Cameron in psychiatry, colleagues such as H.D. Woods and John Weldon in economics, Jim Mallory in political science, Maxwell Cohen in law, and Kenneth Hare in geography came to recognize the importance of and lend support to Hall's research activities and teaching. A small research study of Displaced Persons strengthened his associations with the Montreal business community, while increasing concern about the survival of such an educational institution as McGill University in face of the open hostility of a provincial government led him to turn to education as an area of research. Here again the interest went back to the problem of professional concerns and the growth of bureaucracies rather than to the problem of education as such. Two facts stand out in assessing Hall's role in the development of sociology at McGill University over the years he was there. T h e first was his capacity to gain for sociology recognition and respect from large segments of the university faculty. There was no hiving off on his part into one little corner of the university. He got to know people throughout the university and to win their good regard. T h e experience of growing u p in a rural community was almost certainly important in developing those personal relationships throughout the

xxii INTRODUCTION university. Something more than his capacity to make friends across a broad front, however, accounted for the strengthening position of sociology in the university under his leadership. In his teaching and research sociology was made meaningful to colleagues within the university and to people outside. It is here that is to be found the second important fact in assessing Hall's role in the development of sociology at McGill. He brought sociology down to earth, yet not in a way that diminished its scholarly significance. He could participate in conferences with fellow academics, businessmen, labour leaders, educationalists, welfare workers and gain a favourable response to whatever ideas he was advancing without in any way compromising his position as a university scholar. There was no selling out on his part to win plaudits from people who may have viewed with suspicion the science of sociology. It would not be diminishing, I trust, the role Oswald Hall played in the University of Toronto where he moved in 1956 to say that it was at McGill that he made his most significant contribution to the development of sociology in Canada. It was there that his teaching made its influence most felt in the staffing of universities across the country and it was there that was firmly laid the basis of his research on the sociology of work. Not that there was now, having located in Toronto, any settling back and resting on his laurels. Already, even before taking up his teaching duties, he became involved in a study of the community of Elliot Lake and in the years which followed there was no relaxing of his efforts to strengthen and expand the theoretical foundations of his research by probing into different facets of the work world. The field of health constituted a continuous, and the field of education a recurrent, interest of his. Occasional teaching in the College of Education led him to become concerned about the junctures between the educational system and the surrounding world of work he had studied earlier, and from this concern developed the study, The Transitionfrom School to Work (1962), done in collaboration with Bruce McFarlane, which has become a classic in Canadian sociological literature. Studies of the hospital administrator, of the dental profession, and of paramedical occupations represent only a few of the research undertakings Hall carried out over the years. Certainly publications of his such as The Utilization of Dentists in Canada (1965), The Paramedical Occupations (1970) and, with Richard Carlton, Basic Skills at School and Work (1977) offer only a hint of the wide range of his research activities. Largely hidden is the work he did for the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism (1967) over a three-year period, and little more known are the great number of consultative and planning reports he prepared for such public

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xxiii

agencies as the federal Department of Health and Welfare, various provincial departments of health and education, and professional bodies and university centres or institutes. Throughout, there persisted the close relationship between his research activities and his teaching. Whether it was a matter of conducting graduate seminars, supervising graduate theses, lecturing to groups outside the university, o r undertaking work which went under the title of consulting, the research scholar never ceased to be the teacher as the teacher never ceased to be the research scholar. It is not easy to unravel the various theoretical strands which have become built into Hall's sociology of work. Some of those strands can be clearly discerned in his early work on the medical profession, but as his research interests broadened new theoretical issues intruded. At n o time did he allow himself to become trapped within a theoretical system. Like Park and Hughes before him, he could not be fitted into a neat sociological category. Indeed, it is scarcely accurate even to describe him as a sociologist of work. The world of work has been his sociological laboratory, but it is how society is put together which has been his overriding sociological concern. A never-faltering intellectual curiosity rather than a rigidly formulated theoretical framework has largely guided him in his work. It was such a curiosity which led him very early on to look beyond formal structures, bureaucratic organizations and professional careers, and explore the margins o r borderlines that lie between such structures and the meeting points between different structures. It has taken a lifetime of work to build the empirical underpinning of such theoretical concerns, and the building is still going on. No assessment of Hall's contribution to the development of sociology in Canada would be complete without consideration of the role he played as a university faculty member. When he came into sociology in the early 1940s, the discipline had no great standing in the Canadian academic community. Outside McGill and Toronto, what sociology offerings there were in universities across the country were very much peripheral to the major programs of the university, and even in McGill and Toronto, among economists, political scientists, historians, philosophers and scholars in other fields, sociology commanded little regard. It was only tolerated because there were students who wanted courses in it. In his teaching and research, both at McGill and Toronto, Hall contributed greatly to the recognition of the significance of sociological study in such areas of the university as economics, law, political science, psychology, education and the health sciences. It was not only, however, in his teaching and research that he contributed to raising the standing of sociology within the university community and beyond. In his associations with fellow scholars, and with persons

xxiv INTRODUCTION outside the university, he won respect for himself as a person and thereby won respect for the discipline he represented. Elsewhere I have argued that the growing regard in which sociology came to be held in the 1950s and early 1960s was owing in an important way to the building of strong personal ties between members of sociology faculties and scholars in other disciplines,' and no one contributed more to such building than Oswald Hall. By his own testimony, the years he spent at McGill were the happiest of his university career. It perhaps has to be said that he never felt at home in the University of Toronto in the way he had at McGill. Such, indeed, is the almost inevitable experience of the university man moving from a university where he had dug deep roots. Yet it'was more than a move from one university to another which Hall experienced in the mid-1950s. It was a different kind of university that came into being as the decade came to an end. If he could look back with some nostalgia to the years he spent at McGill, those years aroused perhaps no greater nostalgic feelings on his part than they did on mine, though I made no move from one university to another. T o Hall it was such scholars as Dawson and Hughes who epitomized what a university truly was, to me it was Innis and Beatty. Economic growth and prosperity transformed the university from the kind of institution it had been in the 1940s to the kind it became in the 1960s. As a student of bureaucratic structures, no one was more aware of the character of the transformation than Hall. Nor was anyone more aware than he of what was happening to the university, and in particular the Department of Sociology he had helped build, as the 1960s gave way to the 1970s. The period leading up to his retirement in 1974, certainly could not be considered happy years for Hall, yet during those years there was no relaxing of his teaching and research efforts. And there has been no relaxing of such efforts in the years since. In the two years as a visiting professor at the University of Guelph, and in the research projects he has carried to completion since his Toronto retirement, Hall has demonstrated the range and extent of the contributions a scholar can make in his post-retirement years. As a colleague of Oswald Hall's over a great number of years, I have not found it easy to engage in an assessment of his work without feelings or sentiments of a personal character intruding. Such is particularly the case in speaking of his contribution as a university faculty member. I owe much to him, and that debt can scarcely be discharged by a cold, objective analysis of his work as a sociologist. Yet it would be unbecoming in a book dedicated to his work to depart from those strict canons of sociological objectivity. It is Hall the sociologist of work and not the friend of long standing that this paper is about.

OSWALD HALL AhiD THE SOCIOLOGY OF WORK

XXV

Note In a paper presented in a seminar at Carlet011 University, March 17, 1978, under the title "The Changing Image of Sociology in Canada."

References Canada. Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism. Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1967. Hall, Oswald. "A Comparative Study of Family Size and Co~npositionin Central Canada." M.A. Thesis, McGill University, 1937. . "The Informal Organization of Medical Practice in an American City." Ph. D. Dissertation, University of Chicago, 1944. . The Paratnedical Occupations in Ontario. Toronto: Queen's Printer, 1970. . Utilization of Dentists in Canada. Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1965. Hall, Oswald, and Richard Carlton. Basic Skills at School and Work. Toronto. Ontario Economic Council, 1977. Hall, Oswald, and B. McFarlane. The Transition from School to Work. Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1962.

PART ONE

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES

T h e two papers in this section deal with o u r labour force and o u r educational system over long periods of time. T h e last century has seen Canada transformed from a rural, pioneer society into a post-industrial nation with major changes occurring in lifestyles accompanying such structural transformation. T h e paper written by Douglas Rennie presents an overview of the labour force during the last hundred years. By focusing o n industry, occupation, sex and ethnicity, Rennie highlights some of the major trends that have taken place in the composition of the labour force. I n the nineteenth century the majority of the labour force was employed in the primary sector in agriculture, fishing, lumbering and mining. With the growth of industrialization, the dominant trend in the early half of this century has been a shift in employment from the primary to the secondary o r manufacturing sector. Farm mechanization (in which the Massey-Harris Company played a leading role), the use of fertilizers and pesticides, improved knowledge of farming techniques, better seeds and stock breeding programs combined to bring about a tremendous increase in agricultural and livestock production and a vast decline in the need for manpower. Modern technology also released a large proportion of the labour force from other primary industries (lumbering, mining, hunting), and many of these men entered the secondary and tertiary sectors of the economy. T h e other dominant industrial trend, particularly in the latter half of the century, has been a movement from employment in the manufacturing sector to employment in the tertiary o r service sector. Today this sector employs more people than the extractive, manufacturing and construction industries combined. One small illustration is the contemporary household replete with modern conveniences (dishwashers, door chimes, washing machines and clothes dryers), and today's lifestyles, which require automobiles, fast foods, beauticians and podiatrists. These keep a host of "specialists" in business dispensing their beguiling goods and services to an eager, dependent and ever demanding public. T h e number of papers in this volume on t h e service sector-taxi-drivers, chiropractors, occupational therapists, nurses, advertising personnel, civil servants, real estate 1

2

PART ONE: HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES

agents, funeral directors, teachers, professors, unskilled hospital workers and horse-trainers-partly reflects this trend. Canada is something of an anomaly compared to other western industrial nations in that our manufacturing sector is underdeveloped relative to the service sector. We have become a post-industrial nation with a weak indigenous manufacturing base. In some ways our industrial pyramid resembles that of a Third World nation where the primary sector (in the form of raising crops and extracting minerals) and the tertiary sector (the tourist trade) are dominant sectors with the country doing little processing or manufacturing of its raw materials. Instead it relies upon importing processed and manufactured goods. Much of our manufacturing as well as our natural resources are foreign-owned. (For example, even though there has been a Canadianization of the oil industry personnel, the industry itself is still about two-thirds foreign owned.) Like many Third World countries we engage in light industry, assembling parts manufactured in foreign lands. We are the only industrial nation with a major car market that has no indigenous auto manufacturing industry. Many household appliances such as television sets, radios, electric fans and refrigerators are foreign produced. Consequently, corporations' "marching orders" come from head offices located in such cities as Dallas, Chicago or New York, and these companies naturally give top priority to their own country's needs. Such lopsided development does not bode well for the long-range viability of our economy. Canada's labour requirements have changed drastically during this period from a need for physical labourers to a need for "brainworkers." Mechanization and automation have lessened the demand for unskilled work and put a premium on highly skilled, technically trained workers. Improved communications, computers, rapid transportation, among other technological changes, have promoted the expansion of markets and the growth of bureaucratic organizations with international networks. A prime example of this change are the multinational corporations. The growth of large corporations has had a devastating effect on the lifespan of small companies, many of which have failed to survive. Entrepreneurial businessmen have given way to salaried managers. Occupationally, there have been major shifts from unskilled to skilled labour and from blue-collar to white-collar work. In particular, this is evident in the vast proliferation of white-collar jobs in the fields of marketing, advertising, and telecommunications. T o keep pace with the economy's need for brainworkers, our educational system has greatly expanded. Higher education has been opened up to the general public through government-funded loans

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES

3

and scholarships. This was especially evident in the 1960s with the proliferation of community colleges, technical schools and universities. Richard Carlton's paper focuses on the relationship between educational policies and the labour force. It compares two periods (1846- 18'71 and 1946-197 1) of educational expansion and examines the ideologies which shaped policy during this time. It also explores some of the unintended effects of this expansion upon the school system relative to the labour market.

An Overview of the Canadian Work Force, 1901-19'71 DOUGLAS RENNIE

This paper echoes perceptibly the tones of Oswald Hall's social theory and sociology of work seminars at McGill in the late forties when Bruce McFarlane, Ed Var, Robin Badgby and the author were "badgered relentlessly" (Oswald's own favourite Phrase for what he stated that hefelt was his bounden duty). I n this way were Mum, Weber, Durkheim and Simmel probed. I n this way too was the world of the occupations and professions t u n e d inside out in what became later the Peter Berger fashion, as Oswald, with huge hand characteristically upraised and quivering, described how junior surgeons retired their seniors by remarking respeclfvlly on the skilful shakiness of their scalpel hands-r, in broad accents and slow precise words, how the tracing of immigrant workers required more the services of a detective than of a social scientist. Oswald undoubtedly brought to scholarship a light-hearted carefulness that wcis infectious. On the other hand he brought to social life a mock-serious mischievousness-such as when in downtown Montreal he demonstrated "drivermanship" (ci lo Stephen Potter) to the author, or when at a department picnic he hmonstrated how to throw a spit ball. The businessmen in his evening seminars (at which the author acted as raconteur) never quite knew how to take him. They recognized in him, as most do, "a man of many parts."

The work force of Canada has been much written about by sociologists from many perspectives: from the wide-angle view of the whole as well as from the narrow focus of single occupations or sectors of industry; for the country at large as well as for specific regions of it; over periods of several years as well as at particular points in time. A considerable portion of this work was done at McGill by Oswald Hall and his students and colleagues in the "Big Story" tradition of Everett Hughes. Another significant portion was done by Sylvia Ostry and her colleagues at the Dominion Bureau of Statistics (later Statistics Canada). This latter work includes the highly technical task of

OVERVIEW OF THE CANADIAN WORK FORCE, 1901-1971

5

achieving comparability of the census data over time and chronicling the history of changes and developments. Each of the following chapters in this book describes a piece (from these sources mainly) of the kaleidoscopic Canadian work world. T h e purpose of this chapter is to provide an overview of the work force itself as it has developed in the first seventy years of this century. Accordingly, the perspective must be wider-angled, panoramic and comprehensive. T h e general term "work force" will be used throughout to refer to both the "gainfully employed" and the "labour force" which have special meanings and were used by the census at different times.' T h e sources used are almost entirely official census data o r adaptations thereof.* T h e organization of work is conventionally viewed from two major perspectives. It may be seen from the perspective of the work actually carried on by the individual worker, such as lecturing to a class of students, diagnosing diseases and prescribing for their cure, o r preparing building plans. These kinds of work, partially at least, constitute the occupations of professor, physician and engineer, respectively. It is possible to group occupations such as the ones above, into the composite category "professional." In like manner, other groups of occupations having certain characteristics in common can be grouped as "managerial," "clerical," "labouring," etc. T h e particular occupation carried on by an individual, related as it is to that individual's education, income and lifestyle, is almost synonymous with socio-economic status-at least it is the best single indicator of such status. T h e proportional distribution of occupations, grouped by approximate status, indicates the balance of socio-economic levels in the work force and in the society of which it is a part. At the risk of over-simplification, occupational structure may be said to reflect the kind and degree of individual development in a society. T h e other major perspective within which work activity may be viewed is that of the industrial structure. An industry is the rational coordination of a number of occupations toward the production of goods o r rendering of services. This coordination and organization is in units called firms o r companies which are identified by the goods they produce o r the services they render-for example, manufacturing aircraft o r reporting the news. All the firms involved in a particular kind of enterprise constitute an industry. So then individual industries encompass in their organization many different occupations; for example, the aircraft industry encompasses engineers, accountants, salesmen, stenographers, machinists, carpenters and unskilled labourers. At the same time, specific occupations (for example, engineering), are parts of many different industries (mining, transportation, manufacturing etc.).

6

PART ONE:HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES

In the same way that individual occupations are grouped into categories, so are industries. One useful grouping of industry is into primary or extractive (agriculture, forestry, mining, fishing); secondary o r manufacturing; and tertiary or service. The industrial structure of a society, then, in terms of the proportions of the work force respectively in primary, secondary and tertiary sectors, can certainly shed light on the degree to which that society is an economically developed metropolitan nation, or a hinterland peopled by "hewers of wood and drawers of water." It is evident from the forgoing that the occupational and industrial structures are interdependent, since they are merely two different ways of assessing the same entity. In the discussion that follows, the major shifts in the industrial organization of the work force will first be presented. This will be followed by a tracing out of the changing shape of the occupational structure that has accompanied the change in the industrial structure. Then the sexual and ethnic divisions of labour in the work force are examined, as well as the age structure. The controversial question of the educational adequacy of the Canadian work force is raised, and lastly a brief discussion is offered on the relation of the work force to the rest of the society dependent on it. Statistical tables to illustrate the text will be found at the end of the article.

Changes in the Industrial Structure3 PRIMARY TO TERTIARY

The most striking change in the industrial structure of the Canadian work force over the past hundred years has been the shift from a predominance of the primary sector to a predominance of the tertiary sector. T h e primary sector declined in all industries except mining, the greatest decline being in agriculture. T h e tertiary sector grew in all industries, as did the secondary sector. The individual industries that grew most rapidly were service, finance and public administration. Trade grew "moderately" and transportation grew "slowly." These shifts are documented in Tables 1 and 2. Clearly the "net shiftsw4of -92.8 per cent agriculture and of +70.7 per cent for services, trade and public administration shown in Table 1 epitomize Canada's transition from an agrarian to an urban industrial nation. This transition has been rapid (relative to Europe, for example). It has been persistent, in that those industries that began growing early continued to do so, and those that were declining at the beginning of the period continued to decline. It has not been uniform, in that rates of growth (or decline) of the sectors have varied over the period.

OVERVIEW OF THE CANADIAN WORK FORCE, 1901-1971

7

As noted before, the major overall change is from a rural life style to an urban one. This shift is reflected in the social class structure by a widening of the middle and a narrowing of the base-a proliferation of white-collar middle-class lifestyles. This middle-class way of life is such that in numerous suburbs across the country few people mow their own lawns, shovel their own snow, o r even plant their own petunias, not to mention change their own tires (which operation has come to need hydraulic machinery). Since the sixties, the eating out in restaurants and the bringing in of "convenience" foods has become a prominent characteristic of this lifestyle, as have overseas travel and wilderness camping in luxurious recreational vehicles. This is not intended to be a comprehensive picture of contemporary middle-class life but merely a few samples of its quality that demonstrate the heavy demands that it makes on the service industry involving occupations such as gardeners, mechanics, travel agents, lawyers, doctors and engineers, and the consequent burgeoning of that sector. A more systematic reflection in the work force of the transition from agrarian to urban society may be had from the following analysis of changes in the occupational structure.

Changes in the Occupational Structure AGRICULTURAL T O W H I T E COLLAR

This is the most difficult aspect of the work force to compare over time, d u e to the large number of new occupations that have come into being and to the demise of others as industry and technology have developed and changed. Nevertheless, some comparisons and generalizations can be made.j Reflecting the industrial shift from primary to tertiary, the shift in the occupational structure is one characterized predominantly by a decrease in the proportion of the work force in agricultural occupations, and an increase in the proportion of non-agricultural occupations. Table 3 shows that whereas in 1881 the proportions were almost equal (approximately 48 and 52 per cent, respectively), in 19716 they were 6 per cent and 94 per cent, respectively. In other words, the proportion of the work force engaged in agricultural occupations has gone since 1881 from almost one-half to less than one-tenth. T h e tremendous shrinkage in the proportion of agricultural workers, moreover, has been accompanied by an increased productivity of the proportion still in the occupation (Dawson and Freshwater: 1975) as a result of the application of rigorous scientific and

8

PART ONE: HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES

commercial procedures. It is this scientific commercial ethos that is the nub of the change. It is an ethos that is city-centred and bureaucratic in its organization. One would expect, then, a restructuring of the work force in such a way that the smaller proportion of workers in agriculture would be compensated for by larger proportions in the professional (scientific) and clerical (bureaucratic) occupations. This is indeed the case, as will now be shown in Tables 4 and 5. T h e non-agricultural occupations include the gross categories of white collar, blue collar, other primary (i.e., other than agriculture), transportation and communication, and service. Of these, white collar has been the fastest growing, from 15.3 per cent of the work force in 190 1 to 41.5 per cent in 1971. For males, this white collar growth has been mainly in professional occupations. For females it has been in clerical, commercial, and financial. Next in rate of growth was the major category of blue collar occupations, more so for males than for females, and for males, mainly in manufacturing and in construction. Having noted, as major areas of change, the fact that the proportion of male professionals has increased, and that the society itself has become highly urbanized, industrial and bureaucratic, the question arises of whether there has also been a qualitative change in the conduct of professional life. Has the bureaucratic climate of society tended to bureaucratize professionals? Have traditional professional norms like personal autonomy created organizational strains? Has bureaucratization tended to proliferate professionalism by its emphasis on specialization? T h e fact is, as was to be expected, that a large number of practitioners of the traditionally "free" o r "independent" professions are now practising in corporate bureaucracies as members of company medical staffs o r corporation lawyers, chaplains in the armed services, directors of research and development laboratories and many other such positions. Even where the modern "free" professional does not cross over into the land of commerce o r government but remains within the native heath of the large city hospital or multi-versity, the conduct of professional life is directed, controlled and coordinated by administrators with quite different specialties from those of the professionals they direct. So, indeed, there are conflicts of loyalty which divide professionals in bureaucracies between "locals" and "cosmopolitans." In an interview for a study of job mobility, one anglophone, Toronto-trained lawyer in Montreal told the author that his reference group was the company, while for a francophone lawyer in the same company it was the law society. Had the interview taken place in a Toronto office, the situation might have been reversed. A medical man in the same

OVERVIEW OF THE CANADlAN WORK FORCE, 1901-1971

9

company spoke of the kinds of ethical dilemmas he had to choose between, such as when he sat on a promotion committee as a member of management and had to decide on the case of an otherwise excellent candidate who was however unfit for some medical reason which was confidential. Finally, the professional engineers were in the process of getting legislation passed to confine the use of the title "engineer" to professionals only. There are, too, the well-known staff-line conflicts which are increasingly being resolved in modern bureaucracies by wider decentralization of decision-making and functional autonomy. The doctor's dilemma and the lawyers' loyalties indicate the effect that the bureaucratic environment is having on the practice of these professions. Also, the case of the engineers and the general movement in large organizations towards greater autonomy for professional groups indicate the impact that the infusion of professionals7is having on the concept of bureaucracy itself. In effect, professionals are being bureaucratized and bureaucracies are being professionalized. In the area of the blue collar occupations particularly, in the white collar occupations somewhat less so, and even, most recently, in the professions as well, the development of strong, aggressive unions has been significant. The fact that the operation of modern unions is impersonal, legalistic and meticulous in the protection of specialties tends to increase the bureaucratic complexion of the work world in its least likely sector.

The Sexual Division of Labour T h e urban, industrial trend represented in the primary to tertiary shift in industry, and the shift from predominantly agricultural occupations to predominantly professional, clerical and commercial occupations, displays yet another facet in the greatly increased participation of women in the work force as a whole and certain occupations in particular. Clearly for modern Canadian women the market place is competing strongly with the hearth as a focus of their activity. In most cases, probably, this growing importance is merely an instrument for the enhancement, and even survival, of the family standard of living. O n the other hand, it must be recognized that for a significant number of women success in the work world is taking precedence over the family as the major source of goal fulfilment. This is suggested by the data in Table 6. Table 7 shows that the female component of the labour force has increased over the period 190 1 to 1971 from 15 to 34 per cent and the

10 PART ONE: HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES male component has decreased from 85 to 65 per cent. This approach to equality of proportions in the mix of the sexes has been steady and even, though not complete. T h e labour force, as a whole, is still predominantly male. However, there are certain occupations in the labour force which are so predominantly female that they could be called female monopolies such as stenography and typing, and nursing (both 97 per cent in 1961 and 97.4 per cent and 95 per cent, respectively in 1971); on the other hand there are male monopolies such as mining, logging and fishing in which there were practically no women in 1961 and 197 1, while in 1971 there were 2.1 per cent in logging. For females, there was growth in the service and in the transportation and communication categories. Contrary to the situation for males, few new professions opened up to women, but their longtime dominance in teaching and nursing was maintained. One noteworthy difference between the male and female work force is that whereas males tend to be distributed somewhat more evenly throughout the occupational structure, females tend to be more clustered in certain occupations. For example, in 1961, 91 per cent of the female work force was in the three major occupational categories of white collar, blue collar and service. Less than 10 per cent was in the other three categories taken together. O n the other hand (with the exception of the not stated category) no single category had less than 8.5 per cent of the male work force. Again in 1971, men were significantly represented throughout the work force while women tended to be concentrated (70 per cent) in the five categories of clerical and related, service, sales, medicine and health, teaching and related. This clustering of women in certain occupations, in contrast to the more uniform distribution of men, may be interpreted in a number of ways. Some take the position that there are certain occupations in which women excel because of certain superior biological aptitudes, and they therefore tend to be clustered in those occupations (Hutt: 1972). This interpretation receives little support in the current literature. An opposing point of view vehemently debunks any basis of biological difference in accounting for the male-female division of labour and attributes it entirely to cultural definitions of sex roles into which children are socialized and which are heavily patriarchal and male-dominant, thus skewing the occupational distribution into what proponents of the view feel is more properly called "segregation" (Armstrong and Armstrong: 1978). There are also the conflict theorists who see this slanted socialization as originating in the economic structure which requires a cheap and flexible pool of labour which women (due to their domestic responsibilities, their economic

needs and their integration into the larger consumption unit) are constrained to fill and have no immediate prospects of breaking out of because powerful individuals and groups have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo (Reagan and Blaxall: 1976).XYet others provide economic explanations based almost entirely on demand and supply (Meltz 1965) and Ostry (1967).9 AREAS OF FEMALE DOMINANCE

Ostry (1967) lists the twenty leading occupations in the 1961 female work force on the basis of their having 10,000 or more women. If a cut-off point of 50,000 were used instead, the list would be reduced to the following eight in order of their absolute size of representation: stenographers, sales clerks, maids and related services, school teachers, farm labourers, waitresses, graduate nurses, other production processes and related workers. If, using the same table of Ostry's, the arbitrary decision were made to call any occupation made up of 95 per cent women "female monopolies," such would be in 1961: stenographers (97.2 per cent), graduate nurses (96.2 per cent), typists and clerk typists (95.5 per cent), telephone operators (95.2 per cent), nurses in training (98.6 per cent), dressmakers and seamstresses (95.8 per cent), and babysitters (97.4 per cent). In 1971 the list would be: secretaries and stenographers (97.4 per cent), graduate nurses (95.8 per cent), typist and clerk typists (95.6 per cent), telephone operators (95.9 per cent). This list of "monopolies" does suggest credence for the "special talents" point of view, including as it does occupations requiring fine motor skills, tenderness, acumen for detail, tact and child care. On the other hand, these are mainly lower-status occupations, and when one notes further that in 1971 the weight of female representation in the category medicine and health was as nurses rather than as physicians and surgeons; also in teaching it was at elementary and secondary level rather than at university level, the "male dominance" and conflict points of view become persuasive. Clearly it is a complex problem and probably all the explanations above have some bearing on the result. MARRIED WOMEN IN T H E WORK FORCE

The large increase in the participation of women in the work force includes in great part married women. Of these, in 1973, 35 per cent were mothers (Table 10). As Table 8 indicates, the largest increases for married women as a whole were in the services, public administration, and finance industries. On the other hand there were declines for this group in manufacturing and trade.

12

PART ONE: HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES

The participation pattern of women in the work force is "two phase," with two peak periods, early adulthood and middle age, between which periods the majority remain at home and rear their families. Level of participation appears to be positively correlated with level of education and income from employment, and negatively correlated with husband's income and status (Ostry 1968).

The Ethnic Division of Labour ASSIMILATION

Table 12 indicates that over the fifty-year period of 1921-71 the British and French groups have constituted the vast majority of the Canadian work force--over three-quarters of it on the average (84 per cent in 1921 and 71 per cent in 1971). Also over the period the British to French ratio has been roughly 2: 1 (2.3: 1 in 1921 and 1.9: 1 in 197 1). In effect the British-French component of the Canadian work force, though consistently predominant, has declined somewhat in proportion to the other ethnic groups. Also the ratio of French to British has increased. The other one-quarter of the work force (getting larger since 196 1) is made up of some ten other ethnic groups which may be more compactly grouped as: Slavic, North European, South European, Jewish, Asian and Native Indian. The Asian and Native Indian together attained their highest proportion ever of the work force in 1971 and that was only 2.2 per cent. Accordingly the nonBritish-French component of the work force is predominantly European in origin. Its proportion in the 1971 peak year (to that date) was 27 per cent. Of the single groups making up this "European" component, the largest is German (6.8 per cent) followed by Italian (3.6 per cent), Ukrainian (3.6 per cent), Dutch (2.0 per cent), Scandinavian (2.0 per cent), Polish (1.7 per cent), and Jewish (1.6 per cent). This order, with the exception of the increase in the proportion of Italian at the expense of Ukrainian, has remained remarkably constant over the years. Order of size, however, must not be equated or confused with order of prestige ranking measured by the groups' proportional representationlo in a ranked occupational structure. When Porter (1965) so ranked the ethnic groups of Canada for 1931, 1951 and 1961, he found that the rank order maintained over that period was, roughly: 1) British and Jewish; 2) French, German, Dutch; 3) Scandinavian; 4) East European; 5) Italian; 6) Japanese; 7) Other .European; 8) Chinese; and 9) Native Indian. The ranking was rough because of the small percentages of non-British and French groups and also because

OVERVIEW OF THE CANADIAN WORK FORCE, 1901-1 971

13

only the top and bottom levels of the occupational structure were used and each group considered in the light of whether it was over- o r under-represented at the top o r the bottom. A more precise occupational ranking was done by Blishen (1970) for groups differing in nativity and period of immigration. T h e implications of the findings support those of Porter. T h e concern here, however, is not with the status ranking of ethnic groups but with composition of the work force by ethnic group. T h u s far the overall outline of this has been given, in which it has been indicated that some groups predominate in the choice jobs, others in the less desirable jobs. Somewhat more detail with respect to specific industries will be given below. T h e distributions of all ethnic groups in the work force (as a whole) were given above for the period 1921-71. No such distribution by occupation is available for that whole period. However, Kumar-Misir (1978) provides a distribution by industry for the five largest ethnic groups from 1951-71, which serves the purpose of giving an up-to-date picture of ethnic trends and changes in the structure of the work force. Tables 13 and 14 show these distributions. T h e salient features are as follows: for males, the British and the French over the period narrowed the gaps between their respective concentrations in agriculture (3 per cent to 1 per cent), trade (2 per cent to 0), public administration (3 per cent to 1 per cent), transportation, communication and other utilities (3 per cent to 1 per cent). T h e gap between these two groups widened in manufacturing (1 per cent to 2 per cent). German and Ukrainian males both came closer to the distribution of the total male work force, both of them being more concentrated in agriculture than any other group, the Ukrainians increasing in construction. T h e Italian male labour force in 1971 was 3.75 times as large as it was in 1951. It was therefore largely an immigrant work force. It is not surprising then, that the group showed marked deviation in its distribution from that of the total male labour force. In 1971, the group was most markedly represented in manufacturing and services. For females the British and the French again narrowed the gap between them as their proportional representation came closer to that of the total female labour force. German females made larger increases than the total female labour force in agriculture and finance and maintained their percentages in services, trade and transportation. Ukrainian females approached the total female labour force proportions in agriculture, finance and public administration. However, they widened the gap in manufacturing, trade and services. Italian females, like Italian males, greatly increased their absolute

14 PART ONE: HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES numbers in the work force from 1951 to 1971 (by more than seven times). Their distribution also increasingly diverged from the pattern of the total female labour force, particularly in manufacturing in which their proportion increased and that of the total female labour force decreased. They also increased their proportion in services, but to a lesser extent than that of the total. Their proportions in trade and transportation decreased more than they did for the total. In. summary, except for recent immigrants, the ethnic distribution in industry is becoming more uniform and, as such, is one sign of increasing structural assimilation in the Canadian work world.

The Age of the Work Force From the data in tables 7 , 9 and 16, median ages of males and females respectively were calculated11 for the years 1921, 1931, 1941, 1951, 1961, 1971 and 1975. They were as follows: Median Age (rounded to the nearest year)

Year 192 1 1931 1941 1951

Males 33 34 35 36

Females 25 25 27 29

Year 1961 1971 1975

Male 37 36 36

Females 33 32 33

It can be seen that for males there was a gradual but steady increase in the median age from 1921 to 1961 of four years overall. Also that from 1961 to 1971 there was a drop of one year. The overall increase from 1921 to 1971 reflects the increasing levels of education over the period (as may be seen from Table 15) and consequently older age at entry into the work force (see Table 16). T h e reason for the drop from 1961 to 1971 is not clear especially since, as Hunter (1981) has observed, university enrolment peaked at that particular period. One possible reason is suggested by Kalbach and McVey (1979) where they note that between 1961 and 1971, the post-World War Two birth cohorts began arriving in the labour force. It might be noted also that the median age of the population as a whole fell from 26.6 to 25.6 from 1961 to 1966 and recovered in 1976 to the 1951 high of 27.8 (Kalbach and McVey 1979). With the recent court decision making compulsory retirement at age 65 illegal, the general upward trend in the median age of males is likely to continue for some time. In regard to the median age of females, again there was an overall increase (of eight years) between 192 1 and 1961, and a slight decline from 1961 to 1971 (of one year), and a recovery in 1975 to the 1961

OVERVIEW OF THE CANADIAN WORK FORCE, 1901-1971

15

figure of 33. T h e increase in this case was due, in part, to the doubling of participation rates between 1921 and 1971 (Table 16), particularly of married women (Table 9), and also to the fact noted above that the participation of women in the work force is increasingly characterized by a second phase or stint after child-rearing has been completed. The implications of this increasing age of the work force are both positive and negative. On the positive side, the longer period spent in formal education should contribute to a greater maturity and competence of the work force. O n the other hand the older work force might be less flexible and innovative than a younger one might be. Also, later retirement could tend to restrict the career opportunities of younger people. Because of the baby "bust" of the sixties (and consequent probable mildness of competition in the job market of the eighties) as well as the emphasis on human rights (including those of the aged), an established latter retirement age and an even higher average age of the work force appear likely.

Educational Adequacy Canada has, over the period of her industrial development, depended heavily on immigrants to carry on the skilled and professional occupations. For this Porter (1965: 166) indicts the inadequacy of our educational system which, he says, has not fully met the demands of training for these occupations. S.D. Clark (1975) points out that for the century prior to World War Two, the Canadian middle class was a very narrow one with few opportunities for advancement due to the "hardness" of the frontier which necessitated political centralization and inhibited the widespread establishment of colleges (in the U.S. pattern). Furthermore, from the narrow middle class, which if it had been able to grow would have put pressure on the established universities, there was a consistent emigration to the United States, thus relieving the pressures for change that would otherwise have built up. Whether the cause lay in the educational institution itself, as Porter suggests, o r more ultimately, as Clark says, in the nature of the frontier, the sparseness of the population and consequent economic organization, the facts are, as shown in Table 15, that: (1) as late as 1971 over 27 per cent of the work force had less than Grade 9 education, and just under 20 per cent had more than Grade 13; (2) measured in these terms, women in the work force have, over the period 195 1-71, had higher levels of education than men; and (3) the educational levels of both men and women in the work force have consistently improved over the period. One may however question

16 PART ONE: HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES whether the overall level can be adequate for an industrial society in which nearly one-half has less than a high school education. Intuitively it seems not. An attempt will now be made to present a more reliable assessment. In the argument that follows, two assumptions must be made explicit. T h e first is that the occupational structure (that is percentage distribution of the work force in respective categories) is accepted as it is and no attempt made to hypothesize some ideal structure. Secondly, that in any modern technological society such as Canada, a minimum educational requirement for all professional and managerial occupations, as well as some clerical and sales occupations is a university education. T o assess the adequacy of the 197 1 levels in a more systematic and empirical manner, one needs, in addition to the occupational distribution of the work force (Table 5), the distribution by educational levels and some standards of basic educatiorlal requirements for each occupational level. This last is provided by Montigny (1978) and presented in support of the second assumption above. Class of occupation I.

Level of schooling required High (defined as):-

Managerial, administrative and related Technical, social and cultural Teaching and related medicine and health

Large proportion at university and university degree level and small proportion at less than Grade 9

11.

Average (defined as):-

Clerical and related sales

More equal proportions at all levels Low (defined as):-

111.

Other occupations

Large proportion at less than Grade 9. Small proportion at university and university degree

5% in occupation class (from Table 5)

57.7

T h e educational levels of the Canadian work force in 1971 were actually as follows: Per cent Less than Grade 9 Grades 9-1 1 Grades 12 and 13 Some University University Graduates (The median was 10.9 years of education)

27.3 35.1

22.8 7.2 6.9

OVERVIEW OF THE CANADIAN WORK FORCE, 1901-1971

17

Looking at Montigny's occupation-education requirements, at the table of actual educational levels of the Canadian work force in 1971, and at Table 5, one notes that the proportions of the work force at the respective educational levels fall somewhat short of the requirements for Class I occupations, in that the percentage of the work force in professional and managerial occupations in 197 1 was 16.9, while only 14.1 per cent had some university or were university graduates. However, since Montigny allows for "a small proportion" at less than Grade 9, and if one assumes that 2.5 per cent (that is, 16.6-14.1) is small enough, then it may be concluded that in 1971 the proportion of the Canadian work force suitably educated for Class I occupations was barely adequate. T h e educational adequacy of the work force for Class I1 occupations (clerical and related and sales), constituting 25.4 per cent of the 1971 work force, requires by Montigny's prescription that there should be equal proportions at all three levels - meaning roughly: 8 per cent with less than Grade 9, 8 per cent with Grades 9-13 and 8 per cent with university degrees or some university. If, further, one assumes that the 14.1 per cent of the work force with a "high" level of education is absorbed by the Class I occupations (as was done above), then clearly the educational levels for Class I1 occupations are inadequate. Furthermore, whatever percentage of workers in Class I1 occupations actually had "high" level education reduced the percentage of workers in Class I occupations by that same amount, and thus also the educational adequacy for that occupational cIass. This same tendency to inadequacy is increased when one adds the requirements for Class I11 occupations which include "a small proportion" at university level. Therefore if one accepts Montigny's criteria, which in effect prescribe that a minimum of 25 per cent of the work force have university level education, which is also borne out by Hunter's (1981) argument concerning the "style/ability" function of education and, finally, noting the predictions concerning the nature of the postindustrial society by such writers as Bell (1973) and Touraine (1971) in which the requirements for higher educational levels are stressed, then the conclusion is inescapable that the educational level of the Canadian work force is indeed inadequate.

The Work Force and Society PARTICIPATION RATES AND DEPENDENCY RATIOS

In no society does every single member of the society work productively to produce economic subsistence. Clearly the very young and the very old, for example, cannot work and are dependent for

18 PART ONE: HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES their subsistence upon those members who can and do work. So the population as a whole may be divided into two groups: those who work (the work force), and those not in the work force. T h e ratio of those in the labour force who actually work to all those who are defined as eligible to be in it is called the participation rate and is always somewhat less than 100 per cent. The proportion of those not in the work force to those in it is called the dependency ratio and is usually greater than 1, and represents the number of people supported by each worker. It is conventionally expressed on a "per 100" basis and is so shown in Table 17. This is a simple notion theoretically. However, the practical determination of this rate and ratio is complicated by the definitions of work and the labour force. Should the arduous tasks of the housewife, for which she does not receive an income, be defined as "work"? At what age is the income-earning child, or old person, regarded officially as being in the labour force - or out of it respectively? Are part-time workers in it, o r Native peoples? Such definitions are much influenced by cultural tradition and official convention, both of which are always changing. Table 16 shows participation rates for men and women separately, and for the whole work force, for selected age groups, from 1901 to 1971. It may be seen that male participation, though still high (76.4 per cent), has fallen by over 11 per cent, and female participation has risen 24 per cent. Though it is clearly premature to suggest that the society is becoming androgynous (given the existing sexual division of labour discussed above), it certainly is approaching a situation of equality of participation. I n regard to dependency ratios, Table 17 shows that from 187 1 to 1971 the labour force of Canada went from 1.2 million to 8.7 million and that this growth, though continuous, was not uniform from each decennial census to the next. The smallest growth (9.6 per cent) was in the decade of 1891-190 1, while the greatest growth (47.9 per cent) was in the very next decade of 1901-11. It may be recalled that the decade of the 1890s was one of deep depression and negative net migration. I n the following decade there was a dramatic upswing in the economy resulting from the European demand for Canadian grain, and the development of refrigeration enabling Canada to export meat as well. Because of the improved economy, the stream of out-migration was stemmed and the work force burgeoned. During the century, the population of the country grew from 3.7 to 21.6 million and for each decennial year it is possible to compute a dependency ratio. Table 17 indicates that the highest dependency ratio was 220 in 1851, that it fell slowly until 1941 when it reached 147, rose a little in 1951 and 1961, then fell again to 148 in 1971. It

-

OVERVIEW OF THE CANADIAN WORK FORCE, 1901-1971

19

would seem that the new era of affluence and abundance in which, because of the high productivity of the system, a comparatively few skilled people will be supporting the majority of the population, has certainly not yet dawned, and the trend, if anything, would appear to be in the opposite direction. Though it is not being documented here, it is safe to assert that the general level of living for families is rising, thus tending to require more family members to be gainfully employed. Also, with increased participation of women, families are smaller on the average. Both these trends would tend to reduce the dependency ratio.

Conclusion Though the foregoing is really itself a summary, it is nevertheless a rather long and complex summary. Accordingly, for the sake of clarity and emphasis, at this point an attempt will be made to repeat in even briefer form the most significant of the various changes documented, and to speculate on what these changes may bode for the future. One of the most significant changes in the Canadian work force over the last century has been the greatly increased participation of women. Whereas in 190 1 only 16 per cent of women participated, in 1971 40 per cent did. O n the other hand, male participation has fallen over the period from 88 per cent to 76 per cent. What of the future? Is female participation likely to continue to increase to the point where it is equal to, or even exceeds, that of men? Is the male participation rate likely to fall much more? Answers to such questions can be no more than speculation considering the imponderables involved. Nevertheless, given the present ethos of individualism and liberation it seems feasible to expect that the participation rate of women will continue to increase at least until it is equal to that of men. This is likely to take place sooner if there is a war o r other national emergency in which the work force demand is particularly strong. The male-female proportions in the work force generated by such emergencies have in the past tended to become permanent. On the other hand, during periods of depression and high unemployment in the past there has been a tendency for public opinion to disapprove of married women working whose husbands also had jobs. Whether such views are likely to be revived in the event of a depression in the future is doubtful since, for one thing, management of the economy has reached a level where depressions of that severity are less likely and, for another thing, public welfare is more highly developed and less of a stigma.

20 PART ONE: HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES Another question concerning the participation of women in the labour force of the future is whether this participation, as it increases (which is what we are predicting) will continue to be clustered in a select group of occupations, or whether it will assume the more dispersed pattern of male participation. Again we can only speculate. If, indeed, there is any truth in the theory that because of biological and psychological differences women are better fitted than men for certain work roles (clerical, nursing, etc.) and vice versa (mining, logging, construction), then the present pattern is likely to continue. But the theory is a very controversial and, at present, unfashionable one. If the protagonists of uniformity as well as equality prevail, it is possible that in the future there will be no discernible division of labour whatsoever on the basis of sex. If such an outcome were actually to be the case, then the "two phase" pattern of female participation would give way to one of continuity and the whole pattern of family life and child-bearing would change. The other major change noted over the period is that of agriculture from being 33 per cent of the work force by occupation to being only 6 per cent, and the consequent proliferation of urban occupations, particularly of the white collar class. This has happened as a result of the development of business and mechanical technology which has made it possible to increase farm production and decrease the number of farm workers. This development has not reached the limit of its possibilities and to the extent that it continues to move towards that limit the proportion of the work force engaged in agricultural occupations is likely to continue to drop. There are of course other possibilities, such as the discovery of new food sources in the sea, from synthetics or from other planets. If these kinds of substitutes for farming were found and elaborately developed, it is conceivable that agriculture as it is now carried on could vanish and the ranks of fishermen, chemists and inter-planetary navigators swell correspondingly. A prediction somewhat less like science fiction is that the proportion of the work force engaged in agriculture is near its nadir and should level out at about 5 per cent for the next few decades. It has been noted above that the educational level of the Canadian work force has risen over the years. It has also been noted that the percentage at the highest level is not quite equal to the percentage in occupations requiring that level of education. The proliferation of universities in Canada over the past twenty years should go far to making up this shortfall. On the other hand, recent declining university enrolments across the country are likely to slow down the catching-up process. Canada has always been a country of immigrants. Some immigrants are more recent than others and the most recent are called "new"

OVERVlEW OF THE CANADIAN WORK FORCE, 1901-1971

21

Canadians. T h e fitting of new Canadians into the work force has been largely at two strategic levels in the occupational structure of the work force: at the level of the professions for which there has been inadequate indigenous education in the past; and at the lower levels eschewed by those of long-time Canadian lineage. It would appear that the period of massive waves of immigration is over and that even the moderate streams of recent years are declining. Does this constitute a problem for the work force? If, indeed, Canada's educational system is catching u p with the professional training needs of the country, the decline of immigration should not constitute a lacking at that level. It certainly will, however, at the lower level. Nevertheless, if a higher degree of structural assimilation is being achieved, as was suggested by the data on the distribution in industry by ethnic group, then the future might well see a Canada in which the lowest-ranked occupations, as well as the highest and those in between, are participated in equally by all, of whatever original nationality background.

Table 1. Long-run Changes in the Structure of Industry in Canada, 191 1-61

1961 Gaining industries: Services Trade Public administration Manufacturing Finance. insurance and real estate Transportation, communication and other utilities Forestry Sum o f all gaining industries' Losing industries: Agriculture Fishing and trapping Mining Construction Sum o f all losing industries' 'Includes industries not elsewhere specified. SOURCE: L. Kumar-Misir (1978).

Percentage increase

Net shift

Net shift m a percentage of total redislribution

b

b

!a 0 Y

s

OVERVIEW OF THE CANADIAN WORK FORCE, 1901-1971

23

Table 2. Growth Rates, Percentage Distributions and Contributions to Labour Force Growth by Industry, Canada, 1951-71 Growth rate

Distribution

Contributions

Agriculture Forestry Fishing and trapping Mines, quarries and oil wells Manufacturing Construction Transportation, communication and other utilities Trade Finance, insurance and real estate Community, business and personal services Public administration and defence All industries SOURCE: Kumar-Misir ( 1978).

Table 3: Percentage Distribution of the Labour Force, by Agricultural and Non-agricultural Occupation Group, 1881-1971 Year

Occupations

Agricultural occupations

Nun-agricultural occupations

"Includes persons on active military service. Note: The series is not strictly consistent throughout the period because of changes in classification but for the purposes for which the table is employed in this study this is not likely to be a major problem. SOURCE: Frank T. Denton (1967), and Perspective Canada (1974), Table 6.8.

8

: 'a",

.s5

-

P.

3; 8

0

OVERVIEW OF T H E CANADIAN WORK FORCE, 1901-1971

25

26

PART ONE: HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES

Table 5. Percentage Distribution of the Labour Force by Occupation and Sex, 1971 Occupation

Total

M

F

Managerial, administrative and related Technical, social and cultural Teaching and related Medicine and health Clerical and related Sales Service Farming, horticulture and animal husbandry Other primary Processing and machining Product fabricating, assembling and repairing Construction trades Transport equipment operating Other Not stated SOURCE: Montigny (1978).

Table 6. Work in Relation to Other Life Goals1 Persons in the labour force Male Female per cent Means to life goals: Work Church Family Friends Labour union These data are based on the results of the Work Ethic Survey question: "of the following five things, which allows you to get the most important goals in your life?" SOURCE: Perspective Canada 11, p. 128.

OVERVIEW OF THE CANADIAN WORK FORCE, 1901-1971

27

Table 7. Percentage Distribution of Labour Force, by Agea and Sex, 1901-71

Under Year

Total

20

65 and 20-24

25-34

35-64

over

Male

Female

Ages 10 and over for 1901-31 ; ages 14 and over for 194 1-61 ; ages 15 and over for 1971. b Includes Newfoundland. SOURCE: Frank T. Denton (1967).

i1

OVERVIEW OF THE CANADIAN WORK FORCE, 1901-1971

29

Table 9. Labour Force by Sex, Age and Marital Status -

--

-

Labour force Sex and age

1961(I)

1975

per cent Male: 14-19 years 20-24 years 25-44 years 45-64 years 65 years and over Total Female: 14-19 years 20-24 years 25-44 years 45-64 years 65 years and over Total Total

per cent

5.4

Labour force Sex and marital status

1961 per cent

Male: Single Married 0ther Total Female: Single Married Other Total Total 196 1 figures are unrevised annual averages Perspective Canada 11.

SOURCE:

1975 per cent

30

PART ONE: HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES

Table 10. Labour Force Participation Rates of Mothers, by School Attendance of Children, for Canada, 1967 and 1973 Percentage of women in labour force All women Women with only Women with only with children full-time pre-school school children children

SOURCE: Perspective

Canada I I .

Women with school and pre-school children

36

PART ONE: HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES

Table 16. Labour Force Participation Rates, by Age and Sex, 1901-1971 Year

Both sexes, 14years of age and ouer

Allages 14 and over

14-19

20-24

25-34

35-64

6 5 and over

Men

"Includes Newfoundland "15 years of age and over SOURCES: Frank Denton, The Growth of Manpower in Canada, 1961 Census Monograph, and Census of Canada 197 1, VIII, Table 9.

OVERVIEW OF THE CANADIAN WORK FORCE, 1901-1971

37

Table 17. N u m b e r o f Persons in the Labour Force, N u m b e r of Persons Not in the Labour Force, and Dependency Ratios, 1851-1971

Year

In the labour force

Aiot in the labour force

Dependency ratio

thousands 1,674 2,177 2,488 2.85 1 3,101 3,472 4,398 5,476 6,329 6,855 8,654 11,497 12,827 aIncludes Newfoundland SOURCE: Frank T. Denton (1967), and Census of Canada Bulletin Cat. No. 94-702, (1971).

38

PART ONE: HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES

I. In any use of census data covering a considerable period of time, the problem of comparability is major. In regard to the work force for the period under review, the significant changes were: definition of the concept, classes of people and areas of the country included, and the classificatory categories employed for occupations and industries. Details of these changes appear in periodic "Historical Bulletins" published by the census. For a single, concise statement, see Denton and Ostry (1967). 2. The tables presented will not have the precision of "balanced books." For the most part, historical tables are used, in which adjustments for comparability have been made by census statisticians. But more than one of such tables have to be put together, and sometimes entries have to be made from the original census tables. Accordingly, marginal totals do not always close exactly, and percentages do not always add up to exactly 100. The figures are close enough however that the patterns and trends described are within an acceptable range of accuracy. The 1971 classification of occupations is very different from all previous classifications, and there is not yet any historical table in which the 1971 data are adjusted for comparability with previous decennial censuses. The 1971 data are therefore presented separately. 3. This section is based entirely on Kumar-Misir (1978) who, in turn, builds upon the previous work of R.A. MacInnis (1969). 4. Briefly, a net shift, based on an intermediate step, is the difference between the actual 1961 value for an industry (shown in Column 2 of table) and the adjusted 1961 value (not shown). The adjusted 1961 value is found, in the first place, by multiplying the 1961 work force total by the 191 1 proportion in the work force of the particular industry, thus "re-establishing the proportionate industrial distribution of 1911" for the 1961 work force. (Kumar-Misir, 1978:7) In effect: Industry,,, Adjustedlaol = Work force,,,, x Work forcelgll Net shift = Adjusted,,,, - Actual,,,, 5. Those which follow and cover the period 1901-61 are based almost entirely on the 1961 Census Monograph CS99-550 by Sylvia Ostry. The more detailed focus on the period 1951-71 draws heavily on Census Canada Profile Study CS99-7 18 by Montigny. 6. Occupations in the 1971 census were classified into 486 unit groups which were telescoped into 22 major groups. For analytical purposes, the major groups were broken down as follows: 4 major categories (combining 12 major groups); 10 major groups (remaining after combination above); 1 not stated category; giving 15 classificatory titles for analysis. 7. As distinct from mere technical specialists without long academic training and no colleague group with a body of ethics to which they give their allegiance-which bureaucracies have always had. 8. The entire issue of Signs, v. 1, no. 3 (Spring 1976), edited by Martha Blaxall and Barbara B. Reagan, is devoted to "Women and the Workplace: The Implications of Occupational Segregation."

OVERVIEW OF THE CANADIAN WORK FORCE, 1901-1 971

39

9. Both Ostry and Meltz each also suggests other related but not identical variables. 10. Proporational Representation = % of ethnic group at occupational level % of tot. labour force at occupational level. 11. T h e formula used for these calculations was taken from: Herman Loether and Donald McTavish, Descriptive and Inferential Statistics (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1974), p.'127. It is - ~ d n= L mdn +(%N -Cumfmdm)W - fmdn Where L mdn is the lower limit of the category containing the median N is the total number of cases, Cumfmdn is the cumulative frequency up to but not including the frequency of the median category, fmdn is the frequency of the median category, and W is the width of the median category.

References Armstrong, Pat and Hugh Armstrong. The Double Ghetto: Canadian Women and Their Segregated Work. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Ltd., 1978. Bell, Daniel. The Coming of Post Industrial Society. New York: Basic Books, 1973. Blishen, B.R. "The Construction and Use of an Occupational Class Scale." CJEPS, 24, no. 4 (November 1958). "Social Class and Opportunity in Canada." Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology, 7 (May 1976). Clark, S.D. "The Post Second World War Canadian Society." Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology, 12(February 1975), pp. 30-3 1. Dawson, Donald A and David Freshwater. Hired Farm Labour in Canada. Ottawa: Food Prices Review Board, 1975. Denton, Frank. The Growth of Manpower in Canada, 1961 Census Monograph, CS99-556 Dominion Bureau of Statistics. Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1967. . and Sylvia Ostry. Historical Estimates of the Canadian Labour Force. 196 1 Census Monograph, CS-99-549 D.B.S. Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1967. Hunter, Alfred A. Class Tells. Toronto: Butterworth, 1981. Hutt, Corie. Males and Females. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972. Kalbach, Warren E. and Wayne W. McVey. The Demographic Bases ofCanadian Society, 2nd. ed. Toronto: McGraw-Hill, 1979. Kumar-Misir, L. Industrial Employment. Trends in Canada, 1951-1971. Profile Study, 197 1 Census Special Bulletin, CS99-7 16, 1978. MacInnis, R.M. A Consistent Industrial Classfi&ion of Canadian Work Force Statzjtics 1911-1961. Kingston: Queen's University, 1969 (Mimeo). , . "Long-run Changes in the Industrial Structure of the Canadian Work Force." Canadian Journal of Economics, 4, no. 3 (August 1971). Meltz, N.M. Changes in the Occupational Composition of the Canadian Labour Force, 1931-1961. Ottawa: Economic and Research Branch, Department of Labour. 1965.

.

40

PART ONE: HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES

Montigny, G . The Occupational Composition of Canada's Lubour Force. Profile Study, 1971 Census Special Bulletin, CS99-7 18, 1978. Ostry, Sylvia. The Occupational Composition of the Canadian Labour Force. 196 1 Census Monograph, CS99-550, D.B.S. Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1967. -. The Female Worker in Canada. 1961 Census Monograph CS99-553, D.B.S. Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1968. Porter, John. The Vertical Mosaic. Toronto: Universi!~of Toronto Press, 1965. Statistics Canada. Perspective Canada. Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1974. -. Perspective Canada II. Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1977. Touraine, Alain. The Post Industrial Society: Tomorrow's Sodial Historv: Classes, Conflcts and Culture in the ~ r o ~ r a m m e d k o c i eNew t ~ . York: ando oh ~ o u s e ; 197 1. Urquhart, M.C. and K.A.H. Buckley, (eds.) Historical Statistics of Canada. Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1965.

Educational Policies and the Labour Force: An Historical Perspective on the Ontario Case R.A. CARLTON

Many recollections of Oswald Hall, as a teacher, are entwined with my formative years in sociology at Toronto. One'classroomevent stands out clearly, however, as having a particular and lasting significance. Hall had puzzled all of us by assigning research monographs as reading for the graduate "methodology" course, and hud directed us to probe the relationship between theory and data. On this occasion, one of the students had the temerity to question this tactic by asserting that he couldfind "no theory" in the work under discussion-Hughes's classic monograph on French Canada. Suddenly, that gentle and even humour which war the trademark of Hall's teaching was swept aside ar a giant f i t pounded our seminar table like a gavel recalling our minds to order. "N-o theory? No theory!" Frank Maidnan, Chris Beattie, Marty Goldfarb and I gazed at each other, startled and subdued by this rare expression of outrage and concern. Patiently now, but with a force and clarity which I am sure none of us has ever forgotten, Hall extolled the intimacy of theory to thefieldwork. By example he taught us to see how theory guided and informed researchfrom within. With wry humour he pointed out the absurdity of those self-conscious "theory" preambles which so often remain extraneous or superfluous to the data whichfollow. In emphasizing the unity of the research process, Hall taught .us to look for theory in the focus and structure of the fieldwork itself, and to assess formal theoretical statements with due critical caution. Hall always communicated a sense of perspective about the larger and the smaller issues. W e knew when he was dealing with one of t h "big" issues and we stored up his thoughts on thesefor a lifetime of consideration. Perhaps that is what made him a great teacher.

Over the past few years, repeated national opinion polls have demonstrated that roughly one-half of all Canadians feel that they are not receiving "good value" for money spent upon education. What is 41

42

PART ONE: HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES

very curious about such a judgment is that it follows upon the most sustained and costly period of expansion in the history of our school system, carried forward with widespread enthusiasm and popular optimism. Yet current trends have provoked deep new doubts concerning both the wisdom of expansion and the guiding policies of its architects. This crisis of public confidence in education is rooted, in turn, in a whole series of related crises, including the phenomenal escalation of public sector expenditures in health, education and welfare, the transient but problematic demographic issue of declining school enrolments, and the apparent collapse of important linkages between education and the labour market. In an effort to contribute to o u r growing understanding of such issues, this paper will explore them from one narrow perspective: that of the relation of Ontario's educational policies to the labour market. Recent policies and their outcomes will be examined, first, through an historical comparison. Secondly, they will be reviewed in terms of some current implications for the labour market and the work force. T h e rhetoric of educational policy-making may articulate pedagogical goals of personal o r cultural enrichment, but the policies themselves most often defer to underlying economic realities. Moreover, the economic relevance of policy is a strong lever upon the rich resources required for educational innovation o r expansion. Economic pressures exerted through the labour market are thus promising avenues for the exploration of policy formulation and investment decision-making in education. T h e past quarter-century has been a period of unparalleled growth and change in education. What were the policies which informed this "schooling explosion?" How were they linked to the labour market? T h e task of finding even tentative answers to such questions will be made somewhat easier if we once recognize that while the scale of o u r schooling explosion is wholly new, the process itself is not. We have experienced quite similar periods of reform and expansion in the past. Table 1 provides estimates of total expenditure on public primary and secondary education in the Province of Ontario, 1855 to 1975. Three periods of dramatic growth are evident. T h e first, from 1850 to 1875, marked the extension of free schooling and the move into compulsory education through to age 14. T h e rate of increase for 1870-75, some 64 per cent, was not equalled for almost half a century, un ti1 demographic trends and the extension of compulsory schooling to age 16 produced a second wave of expansion in the period following the First World War. T h e years 1950 to 1975 embraced the recent, familiar and most dramatic period of growth. T h e first and last of these eras merit closer comparison. Neither was based solely on demographic trends; rather, they represented systematic efforts to

EDUCATIONAL POLICIES AND THE LABOUR FORCE

43

upgrade educational attainment for the whole population, through increased school retention. In the first instance, the aim was to compel1 virtually the whole population to remain through the primary sector, and to increase recruitment to the secondary levels. More recently, the effort was to retain the greater part of the student body through secondary school and to bring a much larger proportion into the post-secondary realm. Patterns of growth through these two eras are explored by means of selected indices in tables 1-3. Table 1. Gross Provincial Expenditure for Public Elementary and Secondary Education in the Province of Ontario, for Five-Year Intervals, 1846-1975. Year

Dollars

% Inc.

%Of GPP

SOURCE: Reports of the Superintendent of Education and the Minister of Education,

Province of Ontario, 1845-1975.

44 PART ONE: HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES

46

PART ONE: HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES

O u r investigation into the recent relations of education policy to the labour force will be carried out, in large part, through a comparison with the earliest period of growth. Moreover, in order to allow for the lag between policy formulation and implementation, we shall adjust backward to consider specifically the parallel periods 1846-7 1 and 1946-71. Historical comparison may be expected to lend some sense of aistance o r proportion, and to provide clues which contemporary biases and presumed familiarity might obscure within o u r recent past. We shall proceed by inquiring first into popular beliefs, theories and rationales-in short, into the ideologies which shaped policy in each instance. Some of the unintended o r unanticipated effects of expansion upon the school system itself will then be examined, insofar as they may eventually relate to the labour market. Finally, we shall sketch some of the outcomes of expansion in relation to the work force. Moving out of o u r comparative and historical framework, we shall locate some of the current discontents and crises with which o u r inquiry began.

The Policies and Ideologies of Expansion T h e ideologies which guided Ontario's two remarkable periods of school expansion are strikingly similar, despite the dramatic social and economic changes of the intervening century. Throughout both periods, the rhetoric of the school reformers was fashioned out of two fundamental themes: class mobility and human capital investment. Let us turn first to the nineteenth century. THE 1846-1871 PERIOD

At the base of Ontario's early system of grammar and common schools lay dual traditions well established by the 1840s. Grammar schools offered the classical education, preparing a male elite for entry to the historic professions. T h e common schools, by contrast, strove for a popular inculcation of Christian moral virtue and basic literacy amongst those respectable middle classes which provided a temperate, industrious, law-abiding and politically stable citizenry and work force. This "plain English education" (Report, 187 1, p. 34), with its emphasis on "that instruction and discipline which qualify and dispose the subjects of it for their appropriate duties and employments of life as Christians, as persons of business and also as members of the civil community" (Ryerson, 1846, p. 142), remained as the cornerstone of the system of free public schooling which developed over a thirty-year period. From 1807 grammar schools had been funded in part on a local o r

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denominational basis and in part centrally, from a fund allocated by enrolments. After 1816, the common schools began to develop, funded largely by municipal governments on several alternative bases: voluntary tithes, a ratebill o r per pupil levy upon families using the schools, o r a property tax unrelated to pupil attendance. By the year of Confederation, public support for grammar schools was twenty times greater than that of the common schools ($9 per pupil as opposed to 45 cents per pupil) and the accessibility of the latter was already severely compromised by costs which appeared prohibitive to many lower-income families. Despite the claim to complementary functions and curricula the two schools remained separated largely on a social class basis. It was the explicitly Christian character of the emerging statesponsored common schools which differentiated them from their New England prototypes, and which their architect, Egerton Ryerson, was compelled to defend continuously against both sectarian and secularist critics. Yet the religious rhetoric IY hich preoccupied the public did little to guide o r inform i h e radical transformations of school structure and curricula which accompanied rapid growth. These changes drew their impetus from quite other ideological wellsprings. In searching the roots of policy through this era, we shall draw heavily upon the influential writings of Egerton Ryerson. In 1844 Ryerson became assistant superintendent for Upper Canada, the secretary of the province being, ex officio, chief superintendent of schools. Ryerson shortly became chief superintendent, a post which he held until his retirement in 1876. Through his annual reports, occasional publications, correspondence and editorship of the Journal of Education, Ryerson articulated his developing rationale for the school system which he built in a very firm and personal manner. T h e man and the system are historically inseparable. T h e currents of democratization and class mobility surge through the writings of Ryerson and other mid-nineteenth century school reformers with growing force and vitality. I n his attack upon the ratebill system and his advocacy of free schools, as early as the 1840s Ryerson made the issue of class privilege and the estrangement of the social classes a pivotal argument. It [the Free School system] banishes the very idea o f Yauperistn fi-on1 the school. N o child comes there by sufferance; bur every one comes t11el.e up011 the grou~ldo f right (Reporf, 1848, p. 36). \That is taking place in our chief' cities will, I trust, be ~vitnesseciin the remotest nlu~licipalitieso f Upper Canada-the children o f the rich and g race o f life upon equal the poor meeting together. . . c o ~ n m e ~ l c i nthe terms, and cultivating feelings o f mutual respect and s)rtnpathy,

48

PART ONE: HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES

which . . . divest poverty of its meanness and its hatreds, and wealth of'its arrogance and selfishness (Report, 1852, p. 17).

None of the nineteenth century reformers really questioned the necessity or naturalness of the class structure, but they clearly wished to move its basis away from purely hereditary ascription toward an achieved or more meritocratic ideal. The personal qualities of mind, morality and manners which conferred the status of a true gentleman (or lady) were largely those which could be provided by an appropriate education. In turn, education and occupational access were to become "the fruit of labour and not the inheritance of descent" (Ryerson, 1842, p. 9). If democratic and egalitarian access to such education was central to the argument for free common schools, it became, as well, a firm ground for repeated attacks upon the exclusive grammar schools. The latter had been functioning largely as class-based alternatives to the common schools rather than as centres of any higher learning or true classical scholarship. The history of our Grammar Schools is one phase of class legislation and irresponsible government. . .the Grammar Schools were not established for the people at large but, for the elect and aristocratic few, .the respectable few and not for the people generally, who have never felt themselves under any obligation to support the Grammar Schoolsviewing them as badges and instruments o f their own inferiority and debasement, rather than agencies o f their culture and advancement (Report, 1867, p. 37).

.

One important dimension of the guiding ideology of democratization was its emphasis upon eduction as an instrument not only for the advancement of populations viewed as disadvantaged in socioeconomic or ethnic terms but as a means of attack upon the social problems of vice, crime and indolence popularly identified with such groups. T h e glad hand of education was extended to the poor, but it was expected to take a firm hold upon the social problems of the time. "Is it not better to spend money upon the child than upon the culprit-to prevent crime rather than punish it?" (Report, 1848, p. 38). Thus, where an educated population could be relied upon to be "enterprising, intelligent and industrious," an ignorant populace was seen as "therefore unenterprising, grovelling, if not disorderly" (Report, 1848, p. 38). Moreover, the virtue of education as a means of eradicating such social disorders was clearly that it was neither externally coercive nor transient in its effect; rather, it sought to make the poor, in a lasting way, "agents in bettering their own condition" (Ryerson, 1877, p. 151). Not only the poor, but the ethnic minorities were to be assimilated, through the schools, to the dominant modes of respectability. Thus, many of the school reformers viewed purity of oral and written

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English expression as a major goal of schooling, particularly in relation to class-related dialects such as the Irish brogue. Closely aligned with this commitment to democratize education as a means of class mobility, a second important ideological thrust centred about the belief in education as a crucial form of national economic investment. Whatever. . .tends to develope [sic] the physical resources of a country, must add to the value of property; and is not this the tendency of the education of the people? Is not education in fact the power of the people to make all the resources of their country tributary to their interests and comforts? (Report, 1848, p. 38). Education is a most potent instrument to prevent crime and develop the original and essential elements of the wealth and civilization of a people; for there is no instance of a people being wealthy and civilized. . .in the absence of education (Report, 1864, p. 26).

At first, mass schooling was seen only in very general terms as productive of a more industrious and reliable labour force, while the elite grammar schools were viewed as providing "those branches of education without which no country. . .can advance o r long retain its rank" (Report, 1857, p. 8). T h e grammar schools, linked by their classical studies to careers in the historic professions of law, the military, the clergy, medicine, architecture o r engineering, would ensure a supply of leadership for the sober labouring masses produced by the new common schools. Within twenty years, however, the bent of school reform had shifted radically: grammar schools fell progressively under stronger censure, as the relationship of education to the labour force came to be seen in much more egalitarian and complex terms. By 1867 Ryerson had cooled considerably toward the classical curriculum, which he saw, in any case, as a polite fiction in relation to the actual operation of most grammar schools. New pressures for a practical English education had arisen, on the one hand, from the grammar school entrants themselves, who were increasingly females and those products of the common school who were not seeking "professional" careers. O n the other hand, the rapidity of technological change and mounting concerns for Canada's industrial future demanded some response from the schools. I think the tendency of the youthful mind of our country is too much in the direction of what are called the learned professions, and too little in the direction of what are termed industrial pursuits. . .it appears to me very important. . .that the subjects and teaching of the schools should be adapted to develop the resources and skilful industry of the country. . .the merely useful and ornamental should be made to yield to the essential and the practical. . .I think it is essential that every child should know.. .the chemical and mechanical principles which enter into the

50 PART ONE: HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES construction and working of the implements of husbandry, the machinery of mills, manufactures, railroads and mines, the production and preparation of the clothes he wears (Report, 1868, p. 38). By 1870, despite conservative reaction from some of his fellow reformers (MacKenzie, 1868, p. 31), Ryerson had fully articulated a new goal for higher education: the practical, technical and commercial preparation for work careers. It was a plan for massively upgrading the Canadian labour force which was embodied in the "high schools," which were now introduced to supplant the grammar school. Emergent opportunities for the social mobility of the working classes were clearly recognized as a form of investment in the economic advance of the nation. T h e program of studies for the new high schools, proposed in 1870, was "such as is absolutely necessary for the advancement of the country,-in agriculture, the mechanical arts, and manufactures" (Report, 1871, p. 31), such as would educate pupils "not only for commercial, manufacturing and agricultural pursuits, but for fulfilling with efficiency, honour and usefulness. . .various public offices in the service of the country" (Report, 1870, p. 65). T o this end, a host of new subjects were introduced into the public (formerly "common") and high schools in the sweeping reforms of 1871, which also abolished the ratebill system, to make all schools "free schools," and enacted compulsory education laws. Mechanics, drawing, practical science, natural history, agriculture, vocal music and commercial instruction all made their appearance in the new curricula. T h e new subjects were designed not only to provide skills immediately applicable to the factory o r farm, o r to "practical work in the counting-house and other departments of mercantile life" (Report, 1871, p. 51), but were seen as catalysts which would enlarge the capacity of the populace for invention and entrepreneurial innovation. T o summarize, the radical shift in educational emphases and purposes which accompanied this first "schooling explosion" were guided by a strong belief in human capital-massive investment in a skilled labour force to be created by the democratization of education.

THE 1947-1971 PERIOD Demography, not ideology, initiated the unprecedented expansion of schooling in the years following the Second World War. Yet, once again, growth provided the opportunity for a radical reorientation of objectives, structures, personnel and curricula. Throughout the 1950s, the schools were largely preoccupied with their sheer numerical increases; energies were directed largely toward solving the unending dilemmas of school construction and teacher recruitment.

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Two interrlated problems, however, gradually moved into focus as the decade closed. First, educators queried what could be done about the "drop-outs," the majority of all secondary students who failed to complete the basic four year diploma program? "Technological changes have made it impossible for a pupil leaving Grades 9, LO or 11 without a diploma and a specific skill to obtain employment" (Robarts, 1961, p. 1). On another front, economists, planners and politicians were pondering the appropriate educational response to projections of industrial expansion, economic "take-off' and critical future needs for skilled manpower. During the post-\oar period it has become increasingly apparent that the future prosperity o f a nation will depend in large measure on its success in creating ancl maintaining an adequate supply of' professional, technical, managerial ancl other highly skilled manpower (Economic Council, 1964, p. 160).

The Ontario school reformers of the 1960s recognized the single bent of this dual problem: the call for a massive educational upgrading. The drop-outs would need motivation to complete the high school program and, in doing so, to acquire marketable skills. At the same time, more of the successful senior matriculants would have to be encouraged and enabled to undertake post-secondary careers, ensuring a renewable resource of engineers, managers and professionals who might virtually create wealth. Thus, four years before the highly influential appeal of the Economic Council of Canada for "the reduction of drop-outs in high school," and "tremendous expansion. . .at the university and post secondary technical school level" (Economic Council, 1965, p. 94), Ontario's Minister of Education had alleady announced the reorganization of the secondary schools to embody the dual goals of "preparation for higher education and the training and education of pupils more directly for employment" (Robarts, 196 1, p. 2). The five- and four-year streams of the "Robarts Plan," as it came to be known, aimed precisely at this twofold upgrading. The reorientation of the secondary schools after 1962 entailed enormous investment in the expansion of plant and teaching personnel for technical and commercial instruction, timed to meet the advances of the postwar baby boom, now working its way out of the elementary sector. In turn, by 1965, the new system of Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology (cAAT's)-geared directly to the labour market-was hastily ushered in to accommodate the first fruits of the four-year stream. At the same time, the university system was involved in expanding from the five institutions of the late forties toward the total of eighteen reached by the end of the decade. Promoters of expansion had foreseen the incredible scale of

52

PART ONE: HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES

investment required for "great enlargement of resources for education," but had offered the reassurance that "the rate of economic return to education is very high" (Ontario Economic Council, 1965, p. 94). Unlike their nineteenth century counterparts, the new wave of educational policy-makers could support human investment ideologies with reference to a burgeoning social science literature. Busy economists and sociologists produced a mass of data correlating educational achievement with income, at both individual and national levels. The substantial increase in human capital was then interpreted as a major causal factor in increased wealth and productivity. T h e implications for education were clear. In 1900 the human-capital value of the labour force (U.S.) was twenty-two per cent of all productive capital, but in 1957 it had risen to forty-two per cent of the total.. .investment in human resources by education is clearly becoming a major form o f investment in the modern type of economy (Schultz, 1961, p. 5 1).

Undoubtedly, the policies guiding school expansion were informed primarily by economic rather than humanistic ideologies. Nevertheless, there were other social concerns which also proved influential. The decades of growth were characterized in Canada, as elsewhere, by growing egalitarian sentiment, evidenced in successive civil and minority rights movements as well as the "common-man" themes of popular culture. Phrases such as "breaking the poverty cycle" were employed to describe the critical and presumably new role of the school in attacking social inequalities. Education was conscripted to combat the "mentality of poverty." "One might say that the solution lies in promoting middle-class values in the poor, and especially among their children" (Fleming, 1971, p. 37). Such phrasing clearly echoed Ryerson's appeal for the elevation of the poor to a respectable middle class. Yet the elevation of the poor and the amelioration of youth-related problems fitted snugly with the economic objective of increased retention. It was well recognized that while personal educational investment decisions might not be swayed by altruistic appeals to national betterment, they might well be shaped decisively by prospects of enhanced personal income and upward social mobility. Parents perhaps as much as children were strongly influenced by persuasive advertisements detailing those increments in lifetime earnings which would accrue from each additional year of schooling. T h e climate of expectations rose exuberantly. Extrinsic motivation alone, however, proved inadequate in surmounting established performance barriers. Following the pivotal Hall-Dennis report (Hall and Dennis, 1968), the tight streaming of the Robarts Plan was abandoned, labelled by critics as yet too

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53

inegalitarian and restrictive. Released now from the annual common accounting levied by external "departmental" exams in Grade 13, the credit system facilitated easier adjustments of pace and workload, as it concealed regional disparities. Secondary schools now accommodated more readily to the uneven products of a decade of experimentation in the elementary sector and succeeded in retaining an even larger proportion of pupils to be forwarded to the post-secondary institutions. T h e ideals of democratization and hopes for social mobility had become the brokers of human investment. In summary, the ideologies guiding school expansion over the past quarter-century were not essentially different from those which informed educational policies a full century earlier. What of the outcomes?

The By-Products of Expansion Structural and curricular changes accompanied each wave of school expansion. T h e schools were being invited to new tasks, and to a broader clientele. Yet many of the innovations intended as means, as merely facilitating, soon exhibited independent pressures and unintended consequences. Three such unexpected outcomes of reform and expansion were remarkably similar in each era, and had indirect but important influences upon the labour force. These trends were: the bureaucratization and professionalization of schooling; declining instructional standards and covert streaming; and the continued disadvantage of minorities. We shall, of necessity, examine these outcomes more carefully before turning to the labour force itself. BUREAUCRATIZATION A N D PROFESSIONALIZATION

Bureaucratization in the early Ontario school system can be readily documented. Originally, the system consisted of a very simple pattern reiterated throughout the province-the one-room school with a single teacher. Prior to 1846 these homogeneous units were administered entirely by the provincial chief superintendent, with the aid of two deputies and the good offices of local trustees and township clerks. Ryerson battled incessantly, however, toward both centralization and uniformity. The decrease in the number of school sections and schools, in contlection with an increase in the number o f pupils attending schools, augurs favourably for the progress of elementary instruction (Report, 1847, p. 5).

Eventually, centralization opened the way to an increased division of labour, and the need for new coordinating and administrative

54 PART ONE: HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES positions. Another small army of officials was generated by the superintendent's urgent demands for uniformity. The first object to be gained is uniformity of Text-books it1 each School, then in each County and then throughout the Province (Report, 1849, p. 8). A uniform and efficient method of examining and classifying teachers. . . to meet upon a common ground. . .and be judged according to their merits by a common standard (Ryerson, 1848, p. 8).

Standardized normal school examinations were promoted in 1851. In 1853 the grammar schools were chastized for their "utter absence of any recognized system or fixed standard of education (Report, 1853). Eventually, the absorption of the grammar schools contributed to system growth, as had the earlier creation of the normal and model schools and the move into public libraries (Report, 1850). Uniform plans for school buildings were developed and distributed, and the Educational Map and Public Library Depository was established after 1850. This growing bureaucracy of the Depository was created as a central wholesale source for standardized texts, globes, and other classroom or library supplies, in an effort to ensure provincial uniformity of educational aids and readings. All schools were expected to make their purchases through the Depository. Reports of the superintendent from 1846 through 18'71 exhibit an ever-growing preoccupation with legalistic, bureaucratic and internal administrative issues. By the early 1850s three separate major branches of the new bureaucracy were already in existence. Four hundred district reports were filed annually with the department, offering "the most extensive and minute statistics of each of the 3,300 school sections" (Report, 1852, p. 274). In 1850, the department had received a total of 1,180 items of correspondence, whereas only three years later in 1853 the number of letters had increased to some 4,015. Such indices are perhaps sufficient to clarify those trends which produced a large and porverful central educational bureaucracy well before the end of the first era of school expansion. Centralization featured in an equally important way in the growth of the education bureaucracy through the mid-twentieth century. The process began as one of gradual consolidation of the rural schools at the elementary level: by 1961 some 618 new central graded schools had already replaced 1,547 of the earlier one-room schools. By the following year, less than 6 per cent of Ontario pupils remained in ungraded schools (Report, 1962, p. xii). New graded schools encouraged specialization and created positions for administrators and support staff. At the secondary level, particularly after the program reorganization of 1962, larger composite schools with highly

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specialized plants and staff everywhere replaced o r overshadowed smaller local high schools. T h e administrative units were also changing shape in a centralizing fashion. Prior to 1964, smaller rural boards had been discouraged in favour of township units. With Bill 54, in 1964, township units were enforced as a minimum, although county units were provided for and encouraged. At a blow, boards were reduced in the counties from 1,850 to 423 in number and in the districts from 233 to 166 (Report, 1964, p. 3). Only a year later, Bill 8 8 imposed the larger county units, which, in the more affluent and urban areas, grew rapidly as central administrations in their own right. In the drive to power and expansion, larger boards now came to rival one another in personnel, budget, office architecture and scale of innovation. Quite abruptly, the uniformities of curricula, texts and teacher inspection, which had persisted since Ryerson's era, were made the jurisdiction of these new boards. In turn, they began slowly to amass their own coteries of curricula development specialists, researchers and consultants. Like a giant spider plant, the provincial ministry had set down swelling educational bureaucracies within every county and district of Ontario. While shuffling lower level tasks off to the new county boards, the central ministry had accumulated and reserved to itself a fresh array of higher level tasks: basic and long-range research, as opposed to smaller, applied board-level projects; policy development and interpretation as opposed to implementation and supervision; advanced teacher education as over against inspection and control; curricular o r pedagogical guidelines and consultation rather than concrete material development. Throughout the whole period of expansion, the central bureaucracy grew steadily despite the transfer of certain tasks to the boards. Moreover, the structure became more complex and differentiated almost annually. New branches such as professional development (1 957), guidance services (1960) technology and trades training (1962) and youth (1963) were only the first in a series of administrative subdivisions leading to a wholesale reorganization of the Department of Education in 1965, and to the eventual fragmentation into three separate ministries by the end of the expansion period. In 197 1, the Department of Education alone employed some 2,881 employees. At the beginning of expansion, school reformers and economic planners were thinking in terms of students; by the 1970s it was becoming apparent that the most remarkable and most durable sort of expansion was that of the education bureaucracy itself. Rapid growth creates possibilities for the mobility of occupations as well as individuals, and nineteenth century educators exploited dramatic opportunities for gain throughout the period of school

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PART ONE: HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES

reform. In 1846, Ryerson, in his first report, quoted a district superintendent who noted that "in several Townships, Schools were not in operation for the simple reason, that the services of no Teacher whatever could be obtained" (Report, 1845-46, p. 4). Another superintendent commented that "the supply of good teachers is not equal to the demand" (Report, 1845-46, p. 5). Scarcity created rising wages as it mobilized societal investment in upgrading. Two normal schools were opened in 1847, and by 1849 there were 542 normal school admissions, 326 of whom were former common school teachers. "School teaching," Ryerson argued, "is an art that requires to be both theoretically and practically studied and acquired. . .as much so as. . .the profession of law o r medicine" (Report, 1847, p. 18). The superintendent was concerned over the loose and variable certification of teachers by authorized school visitors (local clergy or councillors) and in 1848 proposed a standardized system for the examination and classification of teachers. By 1864, this threefold classification scheme already appeared as inadequate and the superintendent's report for that year urged limiting the use of third-class teachers, warning the.public of the "evils of employing cheap teachers" (Report, 1864, p. 20). Finally, in 1870, wholly new standards for teacher qualification were again introduced, together with a revised system of inspection. Meanwhile, teachers' annual average salaries had doubled for males and had grown by only slightly less for females (see Table 2). The Journal of Education for Upper Canada, begun in 1848, the introduction of regular educational conventions, the superannuation fund established in 1854 and the rhetoric of the apologists who expounded upon pedagogy as a growing body of technical expertise, all served the interests of "a large class, becoming larger every year, who desire to make [teaching] the occupation of a life-an occupation which calls for a range of acquirements and a height of qualification fully equal to that of the liberal professions" (Report, 1870, p. 41). Teaching became, in this first school explosion, an organized, licensed and legitimated occupation with distinct "professional" yearnings. In view of this initial thrust, it is somewhat surprising to note the relatively depressed occupational status of teachers by mid-twentieth century. While females had accounted for only one-quarter of all teachers in Ryerson's era, they now filled three-quarters of all school positions; female entry had held wages down (see Table 3) and had contributed substantially to this lack of mobility over the long run. As before, however, developing shortages became a strong lever for change. Reports of the Education Ministry for 1950 through 1960 note chronic shortages of teachers at the elementary level. "There continued to be a shortage of qualified teachers" (Report, 1949, p. 8).

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In 1950 alone, well over one thousand uncertified elementary teachers were fed into the schools on temporary "letters of permission" (Report, 1950, p. 9). By 1960 there were 6,730 prospective teachers enrolled in the one-year course at the teachers' colleges of the province, and the minister was able to announce a "turning point in the teacher supply situation as far as the elementary schools (are concerned)" (Report, 1960, p. iii). Indeed, steps were taken to turn back the tide of would-be entrants. "The increasing supply of teachers for the elementary schools has made possible the raising of academic requirements for entry to teacher training courses" (Report, 1960, p. 5) Yet, as the burden of the postwar demographic bulge shifted to the secondary setting, the problem was merely relocated. Moreover, it was exacerbated by the higher student retention trends and by the expansion of curricula into new instructional areas. While some 307 letters of permission were given at the secondary level as early as 1955, 1,290 were given in 1964 and a staggering 2,158 in 1967. "Emergency" summer courses were set u p to train prospective teachers, enrolling 1,272 in 1960, 7,222 by 1964, and 13,027 in 1966. In 1965, the minister had spoken of "a drive to find untapped sources of recruits for the teaching profession" (Report, 1965, p. xiii). T h e following year, the end was in sight, as the minister noted that "the rate of availability of university graduates is at present growing more rapidly than the population" (Report, 1967, p. 12). Summer courses were discontinued. By the end of the decade the problem was no longer one of turning on the supply, but, increasingly, of turning it off. Professional upgrading had, however, been an important feature of the whole expansion period. As early as 1949, the ministry had begun the "delegation of greater responsibility for curriculum development to teachers." The escalation of formal entry requirements and the new academic legitimation of pedagogy and school administration served to enhance teachers' claims to a "professional" occupational status. Stronger professional organization and new legislation backed this claim with expectations for salary advances, and teachers continued to press these demands with strike action even as scarcities turned into surpluses. In all, however, the gains were astonishing. During the quartercentury, the number of teachers grew by 450 per cent, and salaries by approximately 500 per cent. Teachers had become one of the most visible, vocal and powerful occupational groups, having virtual control over the largest economic undertaking in the province. Little has yet been said here concerning the facts of bureaucratization and professionalization in post-secondary sectors. In large part,

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PART ONE: HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES

the institutions here were wholly new creations: more than a dozen universities and an extensive system of community colleges all produced by school expansion, together with the new ministry superstructure. T h e side-effects of growth were perhaps even more evident here than elsewhere in the system. Large-scale and costly resources, once mobilized, began to exhibit the same expansive and protective tendencies found in other complex organizations. In the peak period of expansion, between 1964 and 1968, the full-time teaching staff of Ontario's universities grew from 3,166 to 6,685, more than doubling in only four years. Full-time student enrolment likewise doubled in the same period, moving from 43,485 to 87,295. At post-secondary level these indices had enormous significance in terms of the accompanying growth of paraprofessional, clerical, technical and even unskilled employments. T h e campus of the modern "multiversity" became a virtual city, surrounding the core of instructors and students with a host of counsellors, registrars, librarians, technicians, information officers, secretaries, clerks, groundsmen, police, firemen, housekeeping and food services personnel. Most of these were on the public payroll, as were the whole range of quasi-academics and semi-executives who populated the strange, new and costly world of university administration. All of this was above and beyond the enormous investment in physical plant. T h e community colleges grew in a manner hardly less spectacular, and had enrolled just under 40,000 students by the close of the expansion period, after only five years of existence. In overview, then, every sector of the educational system expanded in relation to its student population, but there occurred, as well, massive changes in the organization of the educational enterprise and in the occupational structures and self-images of the educators. We have sketched these briefly, and characterized the shifts as bureaucratization and professionalization: later, we shall identify some of their implications for the labour market. INSTRUCTIONAL STANDARDS

It is a paradox that school expansions aimed at upgrading should have the unforeseen effect of depressing academic standards. I n the short run, quantitative inflation seems to induce a qualitative deflation. This contradictory outcome was evident in both periods under consideration. Throughout the 1850s, the quality of instruction was closely linked to local resources: impoverished and sparsely populated areas could afford only poorly equipped, overcrowded schools and poorly remunerated teachers with minimal qualifications. Child labour was needed in the home o r on the farm, and attendance at such

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unattractive schools tended to be sparse. In turn, this increased ratebills, decreased parental support for tax-based free schools and curtailed provincial grants conditional upon pupil attendance. Such interdependence of inadequate pupil motivation and inferior instruction was amplified by the removal of economically advantaged pupils to the county grammar schools, a trend annually condemned by the chief superintendent. The unnatural and unpatriotic separation of the wealthier classes from the Common School, has caused its inefficiency and alleged degradation" (Report, 1848, p. 37). Thus is the Common School injured in its position; and influences are withdrawn from it which ought to be exerted in its behalf (Report, 1850, p. 22). Ryerson was clearly on solid ground in asserting that the most effective socialization for the poor would necessitate reintegration of the advantaged pupils, and their resources within the common schools. Yet the objections of wealthier parents were also valid insofar as they perceived immediate losses in levels of instruction and homogeneous peer socialization. Eventually, the reorganization of grammar schools, the entrance examinations and compulsory attendance laws combined to achieve Ryerson's goals, but it is doubtful whether the forced integration of those least motivated and prepared could have been fully offset by the simultaneous introduction of any favoured population elements. Quantitatively speaking, schooling was becoming universally available; qualitatively, the educational experience developed as highly variable. Critics had spoken of the "listless inactivity and stupor" (Report, 1852, p. 188) of the common school pupils, and of insufferably crowded conditions in shabby, poorly ventilated classrooms. T h e inadequacy of the instructors was a recurrent theme of the annual reports of the district superintendents, as illustrated by this comment from 1853: "If a man could get no other work o r was incompetent, he tramped the country in search of a school" (OECTA, 197 1, I. p. 1). While instructional standards did improve in many ways, the magic numbers of growing enrolments, budgets and administrative statistics never fully concealed continuing problems of quality. Clearly what had taken place was the transformation of a modest, traditional education for the predominantly Church of England elite into mass education. T h e necessarily rapid introduction of new elements into the ranks of both instructors and pupils apparently did damage conventional levels of attainment in many instances. Moreover, covert "streaming" by social class continued, partly as a function of socio-economic differences amongst districts, and partly through the con tinuation of private schools and academies for the privileged.

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PART. ONE: HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES

In our own time, the decline of standards has been much more openly and widely discussed, not only by critics but by the media, the public and many of the educators themselves. Moreover, declining performance levels are now being understood not merely as a consequence of expansion, but as a means whereby increased retention was made possible. Education could not be made compulsory at the higher levels, and had therefore to be made attractive. Risks of failure in the pursuit of extrinsic goals had to be reduced as the intrinsic satisfactions of schooling had to be increased, and these in relation to the least motivated and able prospective students. Only in these terms could massive retention be effected within a single generation. Standardized exams, year promotion systems and routinized failure quotas were abolished to permit the desired flow of students to the upper levels. "Interesting" and "relevant" courses supplemented more difficult offerings where they did not replace them, homework fell into disfavour, authority and discipline were relaxed, workloads lightened and the schools came progressively to reflect youth culture concerns for consumption and entertainment. For the whole system, one could say that concern for high standards o f performance tended to crumble as the philosophy of living superseded that of learning (Hall and Carlton, 1977, p. 252).

Students who might have lost interest, weakened in their commitment to hard work, o r otherwise become discouraged were motivated to continue in the new climate of easy achievement and high expectation. T h e best students were much as they had always been, for a covert streaming still existed informally in most schools; the poorer students were reaching very modest standards indeed, but were staying in the system rather than dropping out. T h e median education level was rising, but the structures which had traditionally encouraged and rewarded excellence were damaged as they had been a century earlier. DISADVANTAGED MINORITIES

T h e mobility of minorities was one of the cherished goals of those who promoted school expansion. Yet the disadvantages associated with stratification take on a quite different character for ethnic minorities. T h e very school reforms designed to accelerate socioeconomic mobility also threatened assimilation for religious and linguistic minorities, while denigrating and enfeebling their own competitive educational efforts. T h e expansion of schooling facilities and opportunities for the majority tended to augment the comparative educational handicap of the minority. Thus it was, for example, that Ryerson's school reforms, particu-

EDUCATIONAL POLICIES AND THE LABOUR FORCE

61

larly at the secondary level, dealt the Catholic minority a blow from which it has not recovered to this day. Catholic secondary schooling being excluded from the new high school system created in 1871, the Catholic community suffered both heavy financial burdens in maintaining elite private schools and reduced incentives in relation to use of the secondary system at all. Following the reforms of 1871, Bishop Walsh of London was prompt in identifying the consequences for Catholic schooling: It must be unnecessary to observe that the Separate School system o f Ontario is sadly deficient and incomplete, and hampered by legal obstructions that render its successful operation most difficul~if not impossible (OECTA, 197 1 , 11, Document H 10).

Nineteenth century Catholic ethnic minorities did not share as fully as they might otherwise have in the mobility occasioned by school expansion. Catholics, Jews, Mennonites and Franco-Ontarians were among the groups systematically disadvantaged by the second wave of expansion. In particular, centralization, specialization and new curricular diversity in commercial and technical areas created a competitive situation in which minority youth had to choose between the career opportunities offered in the new system and their ties to religion o r language in a restricted and frequently impoverished private setting. T h e Robarts Plan of 1962, for example, was never implemented fully in any Catholic o r French-language school of the province. The Robarts Plan. . .was too expensive for the separate high school to offer. . .the limited (Arts and Sciences) program can accommodate only a fraction of the Roman Catholic students, to say nothing o f those who must leave because their parents cannot afford to pay fees (NDP, 1969).

Franco-Ontarians were largely a casualty population in the large English composite schools where they flocked to the attraction of technical and commercial programs. In the province's area of heaviest French concentration, some 80 per cent of francophone secondary entrants failed to complete their four-year diploma program in the mid-1960s, at the height of the retention and expansion drive (Carlton, 1965). T h e only French-language alternatives were expensive private academies offering a traditional, almost classical curriculum. T h e benefits of the schooling explosion, it seems, were somewhat unequally distributed. School reformers thought and planned in terms applicable to the English-language majority, and to the public system: the effects of their policies upon minorities were largely unanticipated, and for some, virtually unnoticed. We have reviewed some of the consequential side-effects, so to

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PART ONE: HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES

speak, of reform and expansion policies. Abandoning the perspective of historical comparison, we will turn now to consider more directly the implications of these policies for the current labour force.

Some Effects of Recent Educational Expansion on the Ontario Labour Force From a wide range of possible labour force outcomes, it is possible to extract five trends of particular significance. While far from comprehensive, these will serve to illustrate the real difficulties of our expansion policies. OVER-TRAINING AND LABOUR FORCE SHIFTS

Clearly, the policies of both periods were predicated heavily upon beliefs concerning the direction of Canada's economic growth. In both instances, technology, the expansion of industry and of manufacturing, with the corollary maturation of research and design functions, figured importantly. These were embraced within an overriding belief in some impending "take-off' which might establish greater economic independence. Upper Canada, and later Ontario, was to grow out of its resource mentality and branch plant colonial status. In large measure, however, such anticipations of massive industrial and technical demands upon the labour force were proven inaccurate. Throughout both periods, the labour force of Ontario shifted steadily, not in the direction of the secondary sector but toward the service occupations (see tables 4 and 5). More highly educated personnel were indeed required, but not necessarily of the sort envisaged by the curriculum planners. Adjusting recent data to the classification system used in the nineteenth century census materials, we see either extremely modest growth, or decline, in the proportion of the work force engaged in industrial and related pursuits. Agriculture likewise declines after Confederation. Commercial, professional, and to some extent, domestic occupations, however, tend to increase. Professor Rush (1977) has provided a clear account of the recent shift to the tertiary sector, and Table 5 is drawn from his statistical summary. Here again the move to service occupations is dramatically displayed. Finally, the 1991 manpower forecasts of the Ontario government predict the major growth in areas of welfare, education, health, entertainment and personal service, all to expand by more than 100 per cent (McKeough, 197 1, p. 36). This report ponders the sorts of adjustments demanded of the educational system by the consumption

a

Table 4. Percent Distribution of the Canadian Labour Force, 1851-91, 1951-71, by Job Family. Year

Agricultural

SOURCE: Census of

Commercial Domestic

the Canadas 1851-61,

Industrial

Professional

Other

Census of Canada 187 1- 1971.

Table 5. Percentage Distribution of the Canadian Labour Force, 1946-70, by Industrial Sector. Year

Primary

Secondary

Tertiary

"Occupation and Education in Canada: The Context of' Political Economy," in R.A. Carlton, L. Colley and N.J. MacKinnon, eds. Education, Change and Sociely (Toronto: Cage Educational Publishing Limited, 1977).

SOURCE: G.B.Rush,

and entertainment society envisaged. Research and design, which were major concerns of the Economic Council's education policies in 1964, are projected at only 2 per cent of' the labour force by 199 1, an increase of only 47,000 jobs over a twenty-year period. Clearly, a number of'the premises for expansion, and the curricular directions espoused, were somewhat unrealistic, in the 1960s as in the 1860s. One outgrowth of these off-course policies is the phenomenon of overtraining. A central finding of Hall and Carlton's recent study of "Albertown" (1977) was that new employees such as clerks, tellers and factory workers made minimal use of basic literacy o r numeracy, and generally drew very little on any skills acquired through formal technical o r business education provided by the schools.

64 PART ONE: HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES In view of this vast gap between the efforts of the secondary schools to provide technical and academic skills, and their meagre application in the work world it can be concluded that much of the effort of the school to be technically useful is both ill-placed and costly (Hall and Carlton, 1977, p. 277).

Upgrading may have provided many work force entrants with expensive and irrelevant skills, even in the very modest sorts of employment acquired directly by high school leavers and graduates. At the highest levels, the educational explosion may be generating technology which reduces skill demands for occupations at lower levels. (Lockhart, 1977) OVER-TRAINING AND RECRUITMENT T O TEACHING The educational system has been absorbing a large proportion of its otvn product. . . . In the past few years, the increase in teachers at all levels from elementary to university has totalled about 6,500 per year. This amounts to about one-third the number receiving first degrees and, at the university level, has been absorbing virtually all the Ph.D.'s. If the retirements from the system are counted, the educational system has probably been taking up about two thirds of its own output (McKeough, 1971, p. 1).

Given these observations, it is clear that any cessation of system growth must necessarily have heralded a crisis in the occupational placement of post-secondary graduates. Professor E. Harvey's pivotal report on Educational Systems and the Labour Market (1974) attempted to document the weakening linkages of the post-secondary labour market after the mid-1960s. Harvey's data speak very directly to the decline in teaching and related careers: his arts and sciences sample was heavily composed of teachers, and exhibited a reversal of employment trends after the crucial mid-sixties, when teacher scarcities began to evolve into surpluses. It is clear that the schooling expansion itself created an enormous but transient market; when this inevitably and rather abruptly shrank, neither the climate of personal career decision-making nor the institutional mechanisms could adjust with sufficient rapidity to avoid a continuing and unhappy surplus (Lockhart, 1977). Dodge (1969) has estimated the rate of return for personal education investment in a variety of careers. By comparison with other occupations such as dentistry, with a return of 20 per cent, teaching showed the highest returns of all, at 70 per cent. Such dollar rewards combined with perceptions of job security, self-regulation, and other forms of real income continue to make teaching attractive, and help to explain some of the optimism of many young people plodding through the universities and teachers' colleges, despite the wide publicity given to job shortages. The flood gates are easier to

open than to close. Expansion, it seems, creates shortages, and the solutions to those shortages eventually give rise to the troublesome perpetuation of surpluses in the labour force. RIGIDITIES I N T H E SUPPLY O F EDUCATION

By 1969, ideology, as well as demography was bringing expansion to a close. I n a strange "gut" way the people of Ontario are questioning the explosion in expenditures and activity all in the name of education. . .the argument. . .that all educational spending is an investment, will simply no longer hold water (Pitman, Ontario Legislature Debates, 1969, p. 9221).

Consumption theories of education were already challenging investment theories; affluence and mobility aspirations were responsible for the increased consumption of education, it was argued, while wealth was now viewed as the causal factor in the income-education correlations. Shortages of labour which combined rather modest skills with high motivation and realistic expectations were already both anticipated and experienced. At the same time, the need to reorient over-supplied post-secondary streams and programs became fully apparent. It was time to apply the brakes and test the steering on the new educational vehicles. Expansion, however, had produced remarkable rigidities in the self-perpetuating educational bureaucracies and the tenured or unionized faculty streams. Professionalization had meant radical specialization. Teachers could neither be redirected amongst discipline areas, nor amongst the primary, elementary or secondary sectors. Nor, apparently, could they be released at all easily. Meanwhile, as the annual costs of education rose to almost $700 per capita for the country as a whole, economists and businessmen began to stress the urgency of restraint in the public sector, particularly in health and education services. As the number of civil servants increases, as well as those drawing their salaries from the public purse-the school teachers, the policemen, the civic employees of crown corporations, and so on-there will be more and more with a vested, if misguided, interest in the status quo. . . . Government must be encouraged in the strongest possible voice to halt the growth of the civil service, and then to take steps to reduce it. Government surely must be the ideal place for zero-based budgeting (Scott, 1977).

Confronted with such zero-based provincial budgeting, and still awed by the power of the school bureaucracies they nominally control, Ontario trustees have seen no alternative but to pass continued increments on to the taxpayers, thus inviting the ire of municipal politicians.

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PART ONE: HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES

Yet every crisis or new wave of criticism is met by a reaction involving more resources and more specialization. T h e response of educators to the labour market crisis, for example, is to add more career and vocational counsellors, more job search training programs, and additional research staff to explore the problem. New departments and personnel are added, and the certainty is that they will find themselves performing "essential" functions, whatever the future of employment trends. Responses to inadequacies in instruction are met with the same demands for new remedial specialists, more resources and new structures. Thinking is linear and seemingly irreversible. If the education system is viewed as a giant mechanism for generating a flow of labour constantly adjusted in quantity and quality to the changing patterns of development, then it should presumably be relatively flexible and adjustable itself. T o the contrary, there are powerful bureaucracies and well organized occupational groups capable of resisting any changes which appear as threatening to their vested interests. T H E CLIMATE OF EXPECTATIONS

Through educational expansion, upward social mobility was achieved by many, but came to be expected by many more. Even real gains o r achievements may lead to discontent, if expectations are still higher. In turn, this may contribute to unemployment rather than underemployment. The Provincial Treasurer has noted this possibility at the upper end of the skill spectrum. The present practice of holding people in their studies, to try to absorb a labour market surplus, is in the long run an unkindness as it will make the graduates less flexible. They will find it more difficult to accept anything but high level research jobs (McKeough, 197 1 , p. 39).

At the same time, there is a danger of upgrading so thoroughly, with such universally high expectations that the supply for lower level occupatio ns, often filled through immigration, may be inadequate. This has already occurred for certain seasonal employments in agriculture, and certain "dirty" jobs in industry. Recent data from employers of secondary school leavers also emphasizes concern for inappropriately high levels of expectation (Hall and Carlton, 1977, p.

270). School expansion was made possible by high aspiration and easy achievement, yet these characteristics may be carried over into job search and performance. The problem takes on political dimensions as well, in the groundswell of frustration and disillusionment which can accompany the apparently sudden closure of mobility opportunities for educated youth. Disadvantaged minorities figure importantly here as well. Franco-Ontarians are now appearing in greater force at

higher levels of education, but any subsequent mismatch of anticipations and actual occupational opportunities could be defined in a politically significant manner. In part, too, mobility may be illusory. If achievement standards are falling while mass attainments are increasing, educational credentials will eventually be devalued. Employers, reacting to oversupply and loss of confidence in educational quality, may upgrade entry requirements, while the skill demands of the position and its real value to the organization are not thereby changed. Employees will discover, then, that they have struggled collectively toward educational certifications which have provided few really new opportunities. Such an over-prepared worker may indeed be less adequately motivated o r less versatile in his career than the novice with a minimal personal investment in schooling. I n sum, the motivations and flexibility of a large part of the new work force may be strongly influenced by the mobility ethos of recent school expansion. THE WORK ETHIC

Closely associated with the climate of expectation is the whole question of work habits, and commitment to work as a socially and personally valued activity. Here in Canada I'm afraid we may have caught the U.K. disease. We want more and more, and to get it we want to contribute less and less. We have completely lost sight of the reasons why a standard of living improves. If we want more, we'll have to produce more (Scott, 1977). Work commitments. . .are decIining in duration, intensity o f effort and ego-involvement. We observed and reported such attitudes on the part of some growing segment of students and teachers (Hall and ~ a r l t o n ;1977, p. 270).

Schools are not the sole source of such value shifts, and in general they tend to reflect rather than initiate change. Nevertheless, the structural and curricular changes brought about by policies of expansion did reinforce the movement away fi-om a strong work commitment, and this is now a matter of growing concern in terms of the labour force. O u r recent poor productivity is related to other factors as well, but the commitment and accountability of new workers are critical for the provincial and national econotnies.

Conclusions In contrasting the two periods of school expansion, we have observed that underlying policies related to mobility and the labour force were only partially fulfilled in practice, were based on misjudgments

68 PART ONE: HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES concerning directions of economic growth, and were productive of unexpected and unwanted outcomes in both the school structures and the latent learning they provided. History has some lessons here for the ,planner. Economists, in the past, have been more inclined to approach education in quantitative than in qualitative terms: our experience suggests that the types of education provided may be more critical labour force inputs than the sheer amounts. Moreover, median levels may be raised, in any case, by altering the range of attainments as opposed to efforts to move the whole distribution upward. The latter sort of enterprise may adversely affect quality of supply while tying enormous and relatively inflexible forms of capital to the burgeoning school system. School expansion, it seems, should be undertaken with a much more careful anticipation of needs for versatility, and future adaptability, especially in relation to the effects of arresting sudden growth. We might wish, in future, to reconsider the assumptions that have placed schooling virtually entirely in the public sector. Is there no larger, regularized role for business, industry o r organized labour in the preparation or retraining of the labour force? Continual, dispersed decision-making might be more directly responsive to labour force shifts, and more susceptible of redirection when necessary. Finally, it is apparent that education is both consumption and investment. Thus, it is not necessarily the case that the same types of higher education will be sought in each instance. Then, too, returns on personal investment may be substantially higher than any societal benefits, creating demands for continually expanding school structures long past the point where returns on our public investment have declined drastically. T h e modest but inescapable conclusion from all of these reflections is that we must, in future, exercise far geater caution in the embrace of those investment theories and expansion policies which have proven so disoriented in guiding education systems toward our labour markets.

References Carlton, R.A. "Differential Educational Achievement in a Bilingual Community." A report to the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, Ottawa, 1965, (Mimeo). Dodge, D.A. "Education: Cause or Effect of Economic Growth." (mimeo, unpublish'ed, 1969). Economic Council of Canada. First Annual Review, Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1964.

EDUCATIONAL POLICIES AND THE LABOUR FORCE

.

69

Second Annual Review. Ottawa; Queen's Printer, 1965. Fleming, W.G. The Expansion of the Educational System. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 197 1. Hall, E.M. and L.A. Dennis, Living and Learning. T h e Report of the Provincial Committee on the Aims and Objectives of Education in the Schools of Ontario, Toronto: Queen's Printer, 1968. Hall, 0. and R.A. Carlton, Basic Skills at School and Work: The Study of Albertown. Toronto: T h e Ontario Economic Council, 1977. Harvey, E. Educational Systems and the Labour Market, Don Mills: Longman Canada Ltd., 1974. Lockhart, R.A. "Educational Policy Development in Canada: A Critique of the Past and a Case for the Future," in R.A. Carlton, L. Colley, and NJ. MacKinnon, eds. Education, Change and Society. Toronto: Gage Educational Publishing Ltd., 1977. MacKenzie, J.G.D. "A Plea for the Classics," in the Report of the Superintendent of Education for the Province of Ontario, 1868. McKeough, W.D. "Education in Ontario: Costs and Future Educational Requirements for the Labour Force," Queen's Park: Office of the Treasurer of Ontario, September, 197 1 (Mimeo). New Democratic Party. "The Financial Crisis in the Catholic High Schools," 1969. Ontario English Catholic Teachers' Association. (OECTA).A Documentary Hktory of Separate Schools in Ontario, 3 Vols. Toronto: OECTA, 197 1. Pitman, W. Address to the Ontario Legislative Assembly, in Legislature of Ontario Debates (28th Legislature), Tuesday Dec. 2, 1969. Toronto: T h e Queen's Printer, 1969. Prentice, A. The School Promoters. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1977. Reports of the Minister of EducationIChief Superintendent for Education, 1845-6 through 1971, Queen's Park, Toronto. Robarts, J.P. "New Opportunities in Secondary Schools." A Statement by the Honourable J.P. Robarts, Minister of Education, Toronto, 196 I. (Mimeo). Rush, G.B. "Occupation and Education in Canada: the Context of Political Economy," in R.A. Carlton, L. Colley, and N.J. MacKinnon, eds. Educadion, Clmnge and Society. Toronto: Gage Educational Publishing Ltd., 1977. Ryerson, E. "Report on a System of Public and Elementary Instruction for Upper Canada," March 26, 1846, in Hodgins, J.G., Documentary History of Education in Upper Canada, An Appendix to Report of the Hon. the Minister of Education for Ontario, Vol. 6. Queen's Park: Toronto, 1899. . "Inaugural Address at Victoria College," June 21, 1842. . "Report on the School Law of Upper Canada," 1848, in Copies of Correspondence Between Mernbers of the Government and the Chief Superintendent of Schools, Printed by Order of the Legislative Assembly, Queen's Park, Toronto, 1850. . Elements of Political Economy, Toronto, 1877. Schultz, T.W. "Investment in Education," in A.H. Halsey, J. Floud and C.A. Anderson, eds. Education, Economy and Society. New York: T h e Free Press, 1961. Scott, D. "Address to the Partners of Clarkson, Gordon and Co.," T h e Clarkson Company Limited and Woods, Gordon and Co., in Keeping Posted (House Publication), Oct./Nov., 1977.

PART T W O

OCCUPATIONAL RECRUITMENT, SOCIALIZATION AND SUBCULTURES

Oswald Hall's students were encouraged to get out into the field and observe at first hand how the job gets done, in contrast to how it is supposed to be done. Being good students they took their professor's advice to heart: Ed Vaz drove a taxi, Hy Rodman ate, slept and marched with infantry recruits, Frank Jones worked on a construction site during a bitter cold Montreal winter, and I "mucked out," groomed and exercised horses. Shirley Angrist, though not working as a real estate agent, interviewed agents, observed meetings between agents and their customers, and accompanied them when they took their customers to see houses. Chris Beattie interviewed various officials of the Ontario funeral scene and conducted lengthy interviews with funeral directors, clergymen and doctors. This method of gathering data, handed down from Robert E. Park and Everett C. Hughes, emphasizes participant observation, getting the "feel" of the job, and letting the subjects speak for themselves. It stresses uncovering the interlocking network of informal norms, understandings and practices that develop among the workers on and off the job. It has produced studies rich in the "texture" of occupations that illuminate the diverse worlds of work in which people are employed, and provide insights into what work is all about. In examining the everyday activities of taxi-drivers, Vaz discovered that stealing is an institutionalized practice, and that the boss and his drivers had different definitions of stealing. T h e "speed" is the amount of money taxi-drivers give to the boss-owner at the end of their shift. Among the drivers it is expected that everyone will conform to this norm. A driver who cashes in less (steals too much) is considered "hungry." (This is comparable to Wipper's notion of the "hungry rider.") A driver who cashes in considerably more causes trouble for other drivers as he raises the owner's expectations. Vaz also explores the nature of the sanctions that help consolidate the norm and its functions for the work group.' Rodman's paper examines the ways in which the infantry recruit, facing new situations, adapts to his superiors and peers. Among these adaptive patterns are griping, believing the worst, sanctions against 71

72

PART TWO: OCCUPATIONAL RECRUITMENT AND SOCIALIZATION

leadswingers and the joking relationship. Rodman shows that the private-corporal relationship is reciprocal. Officially, privates take orders from corporals, yet corporals also take "orders" from privates. Hall will appreciate these papers that explore the unanticipated practices that develop among taxi-drivers and infantry recruits to combat the formal work structure. For as Hall stressed, the informal system is not to be neglected in understanding the various worlds of work. He found among physicians that the informal organization of established practitioners was a powerful means of social control. It strongly influenced the daily operation of hospitals, the allocation of positions within these institutions and the referral of patients to doctors. T h e careers of young practitioners were, in fact, largely dependent on the choices made by the core of established doctors (Hall, 1944). The ingredients involved in acquiring and maintaining status among professional riders is the subject of Wipper's paper. Riders who are highly esteemed by fellow riders must first be able to win major competitions. Additionally they must be all-round horsemen who, besides being able to "show" a horse, can both care for it and train it. Displaying courage, coolness and dedication, conforming to certain norms of sportsmanship and having autonomy are also valued by horsemen. Selling real estate is an occupation fraught with anxiety and strain, with tensions between ethics and deception, entrepreneurial and professional standards of success. The standards of success and the methods of conducting the work on a daily basis often are problematic. Because big money is sometimes involved, deception, dishonesty and various manipulative techniques are sometimes used by agents to complete a "deal." Shirley Angrist looks at real estate agents and examines some of the techniques they employ in doing business. The occupation requires little formal training, but a facility in interpersonal relations seems to be crucial. Agents often limit their clients' range of choices by emphasizing certain options, specifying their requirements while omitting some and overlooking others. Moreover, they can and d o redefine a buyer's conception of a suitable property in order to sell the houses listed with their company. Yet the selling process does not involve outright persuasion since the buyers must want to buy in the first place. The paper on funeral directors by Christopher Beattie looks at a service occupation that aspires to be a profession. Writing on this phenomenon, Hall noted: "Historically the most respected professions have been medicine, law, and the priesthood . . . . Over recent decades they have been supplemented by others: by a range of newer professions, by some premature professions, by some pseudo-

PART TWO: OCCUPATIONAL RECRUITMENT AND SOCIALIZATION

73

professions, and by some lowly occupations eager to lift themselves so as to share in the prestige that the professions enjoy" (1961: 100). Funeral directors, like real estate agents, find themselves caught between business and professional norms. While the occupation emphasizes the ethic of service-individual service to a client guided by unselfish interests-there is the constraint that funeral directors must maintain costly business establishments which entail meeting an array of monthly expenses. Additionally, the occupation has not been given a community mandate to be the sole arbiter in the disposal of the dead nor has it attained self-government, two important dimensions associated with the established professions. Although funeral directors meet certain professional criteria, they fall short on others. Beattie argues that funeral directors who approximate the professional model tend to be found in small, often family-owned businesses located in towns. Others who approximate the business model tend to be found in large firms located in metropolitan centres. This research demonstrates the use of the "ideal type" so popular in the 1950s and 1960s. T h e established professions are used as a model of what a profession should be and other aspiring occupations are compared with it. Merrijoy Kelner examines the socialization of chiropractic students, and identifies their assets and liabilities as they proceed from the role of student to that of practitioner. By delineating three distinct phases-initiation into the clinic, clinical experience, and the passage into practice-Kelner reveals how their training helps maintain the surprisingly persistent place that chiropractic holds among the healing occupations. An important aspect of the students' socialization is how to deal with the skepticism and hostility of influential sectors of the public, some of whom denounce chiropractors as fraudulent. The images that people hold of particular occupations can have serious consequences for recruitment into them. Over the past twenty-five years there has been considerable research on opinions and attitudes toward science and scientists. Underlying many of these studies has been the concern that the supply of high quality recruits to science might be jeopardized, largely because of negative public attitudes towards scientists and science. In her paper Constance McFarlane develops two instruments with which to measure attitudes toward science in general, and scientists in particular. Valid and reliable scales of this kind may also be helpful in other educational research by providing a barometer of the climate towards various scientific fields among potential recruits. Although Oswald Hall studied mathematics at Queen's and statistics under S.A. Stouffer at Chicago, taught math at Brown

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PART TWO: OCCUPATIONAL RECRUITMENT AND SOCIALIZATION

University, and worked for the Research and Statistics Branch of the Department of Labour, Ottawa, statistics has never dominated his research. In this sense McFarlane's analysis does not "fit" with his emphasis upon direct observation and reporting of data, although it does fit with his style that eschews dogmatism in the choice of research techniques and emphasizes using a variety of data to further our understanding of social phenomena.

1. A reviewer of this manuscript suggested that several papers should be dropped because they utilized "dated" data. He did not reject them for presenting old ideas or for being weak methodologically or for being "plain dull," but only on the ground that the data had been collected some time ago. Now if we were reporters of current events or opinion pollsters testing the political climate before an election such criticism might be warranted. But since the sociological task is something more than that, and since most of us would agree that data collected twenty, thirty, or even one hundred years ago can be every bit as valid and significant as data collected yesterday, depending, of course, on how it was collected and on what we do with it, I found his reason unacceptable. Does the reviewer really think that taxi-drivers, or for that matter, other workers no longer steal from their employers? Does he helieve that army recruits no longer have similar problems adapting to an authoritarian structure? And if these particular practices have disappeared, then what have taken their place? Or has the structure of work organization itself changed?

Institutionalized Stealing Among Big-City Taxi-Drivers EDMUND W. VAZ

Although I took a number of undergraduate courses in sociology at McGill, I could never get very interested in the subject. However, in graduute school, I attended Oswald Hall's seminar in sociological theory. Here things began to perk up sociologzcally. Hall's special charm was his sof-spoken, self-effacing manner of conducting the c h s , while tactfully interjecting critical, subtle insights and sociological glimmers on the to* at hand. A lot of work, much required reading, and good natured argument and discussion characterized each meeting. Always mindful of the many-si&d nature of social phenomena, Hall never let us forget what was sociologically relevant. Attending Professor Hall's seminar, and later reading his work, attests to the fact that he is indeed a "sociologist's sociologist." His successful effrt to uncover the unanticipated q e c t s of the social worlds he investigates, to relate their seemingly disparatefeatures and to @sent them in a broader sociologiGa1 framework, make him, I believe, a remarkably talented sociologist-one whom I have been pfivileged to know.

The world of the metropolitan taxi-driver is a way of life, a world of techniques, judgments, attitudes and relationships, and possesses its special ways of thinking, feeling and acting. It is a way of dealing with problems, defining situations and categorizing people. It generates its own social milieu garbed and distinguished by human overtones. It fosters its own customs and traditions, and furnishes its own rewards and heartaches. This is its ethos, the peculiar and colourful texture which is an intrinsic part of the occupation and an integral feature of its heritage. An arena of intimacy and collusion, it harbours its own secrets and trysts of which only the drivers are aware. Some form of deviance (deception, guile, trickery, cutting corners, theft) is part and parcel of all kinds of work. However, the particular form that deviance takes depends largely on the special activities in which people engage, the roles that they occupy and the work they do,

in addition to the norms that guide their conduct. Contrary to what people believe, deviance is seldom a solitary matter; nor is it rightly attributed to individual misbehaviour. The kind and form of deviance occurring almost always assumes shapes and patterns that betray its normative and institutionalized character. Among Montreal cabdrivers stealing is widespread and, like other forms of deviance, it is a firmly established, informal pattern of activity. The remainder of this paper will explore the normative and institutionalized features of stealing among these men. RESEARCH

For over four years (1950-55) the writer worked in Montreal as a part-time or full-time cab-driver. He worked for fleet owners (five to fifty cars) and small owners (one to five cars), and drove either "single" (24-hour period) or the day or night shift. This material was gathered on the job, talking in French and English with the other drivers, in the garage changing cars, at the corner restaurant after the morning rush, in a traffic jam shouting the "speed" to each other or simply waiting for a call with other drivers at a stand. Our informants comprised a "convenience sample" of between ninety-five and one hundred cab-drivers. Each level within the occupation was included in the sample. Information was obtained from the driver who worked permanently as well as the driver who merely drove weekends. The owner-driver was interviewed as well as the owner-driver who owned three or four cars. The writer interviewed the "bandit driver" (a driver who works for himself), and talked to drivers who drove for large or small companies. He also talked to company executives. Verbatim reports of all conversation were kept on the reverse side of waybill sheets. Personal experiences and impressions were similarly recorded. In addition, twenty formal interviews from the sample were conducted. Each interview lasted approximately two hours, and was held either at the writer's home or at the home of the cab-driver. Recent conversations with cab-drivers reveal that conditions have not much changed since this research was conducted. However, today many more drivers rent their cars (for a fixed price per shift or 24-hour period) rather than work for a 40 per cent commission of their total receipts. RECRUITMENT

The men who drive taxis have their roots in varied walks of life. Largely, however, the occupation is a refuge for persons who are tradeless, who have nowhere to work or who seldom work with regularity. Without any skills, and with little ambition, these men drive taxis because usually they are certain of employment. Cab-

INSTITUTIONAL STEALING AMONG BIG-CITY TAXI-DRIVERS

77

driving functions as a work haven for the youthful unemployed, the transient, the feckless, the disillusioned and sometimes the undesirable (F. Zweig, 1952). Once employed, however, some decide to remain, a career is born, a role accepted and an identity develops. T h e unskilled become skilled, the jobless employed and the shiftless grow stable. Unlike many occupations and professions in which a lengthy training period is required, taxi work makes no such demands upon its newcomers. Its occupational requirements are few, and the job of driving a cab is easily filled. Thus, the occupation finds within its ranks the flotsam and jetsam of urban life. Yet the elite of the work world, loosely termed professionals, occasionally must perform work other than that for which they were trained. Sometimes they select work where employment is certain, entrance requirements are negligible, and where social subterfuge is possible. Dentists, notaries, bank managers, sea captains and the like sometimes drive taxis. For these men cab-driving is temporary work-an occupational life-saver. There are still others who are anxious to augment their weekly income by doing part-time work. For these men-the milkman, the student, the office clerk, the bus driver and the stevedore-taxidriving holds a special attraction. Remuneration is surprisingly high and employment is usually assured. Others who enter the occupation often stem from occupations requiring similar kinds of skill. Finally, for the immigrant newly arrived in the country, o r for the worker who cannot obtain employment in his own field, o r who, for one reason or another, has been relieved of his job, or who is waiting between jobs (for example, the painter or electrician), the need for immediate employment is often pressing. Taxi work helps meet the contingencies of these workers. Table I shows that ten of the twenty-two taxi-drivers of whom we have this information have had seven or less years of formal schooling. Fifteen men have attended nine years or less of school. Three of the men interviewed attended tenth and/or eleventh grades. Table 1. Educational Background of 22 Taxi-Drivers in Montreal According to Ethnicity and Last Grade at School Francophone Grade

Anglophone Jewish Others

7 or less 8 and 9 10 and 11 University

5

5

2

2

0 1

Total

8

Total

10 5

2

0 1 2 1

10

4

22

1

3 4

78

PART TWO: OCCUPATIONAL RECRUITMENT AND SOCIALIZATION

Of the four taxi-drivers who attended o r completed university, one had received his degree in arts, another had completed three years in engineering but had left university in his fourth year. T h e remaining two were students employed as part-time drivers. DRIVERS AS A SOCIAL GROUP

T h e occupational experiences of the taxi-driver are not confined solely to the relationships that he has with his public. Although these contacts are important, the relationship with his employer and co-workers also shape his occupational behaviour. Although taxi work precludes continuous interaction among drivers, they are nevertheless in frequent contact. They meet in the garage at the start and end of each shift, they meet on the stands and in the communal restaurant. T h e garage is the meeting place where the cabbie picks u p his car, gasses up, changes cars, completes his shift and undergoes the strain of cashing-in to the boss. It is here that the good-natured give and take of occupational persiflage occurs. T h e daily experiences of the drivers (the jousts with the police, the drunk who wouldn't pay, the stupidity of non-taxi drivers, the out-of-town load) are relived and retold with the spontaneity, colour and emotion common to cab-drivers. T h e implicit jockeying for esteem is felt during these periods as each driver tries to outdo the other with a more adventurous tale. T h e clandestine thrust and parry of conversation is evident as the drivers inquire into, and partly determine the "speed" from one another.' T h e common experiences, the exchange of stories, the community of sentiment and emotional support offered by others plus their low occupational status relate the drivers to each other. By sharing the words, looks and gestures of his fellow workers the cab-driver enters into their experiences, by sharing their sentiments he acquires with them a common ground and enjoys a community of spirit and understanding. In this way drivers gradually acquire an image of themselves as belonging together, and the destiny of the individual driver becomes inseparably tied to that of other drivers. Understandably there is considerably more interaction among drivers employed by the same boss, and there develop standards of behaviour and expectations of what constitutes right and wrong behaviour. These drivers come to expect certain forms of conduct from each other which help guide their own actions. It is these shared expectations that regulate work patterns among them. Under such conditions behaviour becomes largely removed from individual discretion. Adherence to group norms reaffirms and routinizes the collective uniformities of behaviour within a particular group of drivers.

INSTITUTIONM STEALING AMONG BIGCITY TAXI-DRIVERS

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STEALING AS EXPECTED BEHAVIOUR

Within the occupation stealing is expected behaviour among drivers.* It is a normative part of the work and firmly rooted in the occupational folklore.' Not only do drivers insist upon it from co-workers, but bosses expect it of their drivers. Both drivers and bosses joke about stealing; when a driver is entitled to "cigarettes and lunch" it becomes his right albeit an informal one. Drivers sometimes boast about the practice, and in cases where stealing is not practised bosses sometime become apprehensive. 06s: Boss:

Why is a certain amount of stealing O.K.? Why? Well, if they [drivers] take their lunch and cigarettes it's O.K. You expect that. If they don't d o it you know something is wrong. But don't take everything. . .

06s: Boss:

Why d o they steal in taxi work? They are tempted too much. T h e r e is no control, they are tempted too much. But if you don't steal the boss will still think that you steal. They figure that you steal off them. That's the business, that's the way they figure and they feel. You've got to d o something.

Driver:

T h e othernight a guy comes in with his waybill and also an oil bill for 58 cents. He says, "What d o I d o with the oil bill? I don't want no coppers." So he takes his commission and leaves. H e couldn't figure out what to do. H e gypped himself. H e should have taken his commission and then deducted 58 cents from the remainder. I told Harold [boss] when he came in. So Harold said, "He stole it from me anyway." Just to show you how d u m b drivers can be.

The subject of stealing is usually treated discreetly between a boss and his drivers. A driver never admits to his boss that he steals, and a boss seldom accuses his drivers of stealing from him although he might joke about its practice. The reason is that the boss and driver define stealing in different terms. For the boss "two dollars" might be acceptable once the driver "brings me so much, you know what I mean." However, the driver's behaviour betrays a different definition of stealing. When drivers steal upwards of ten dollars a shift (on week-ends) this is attributable to more than mere luck.3 The data exemplify this: 06s: Driver:

How much did you make for yourself? Well . . . o n two nights I made $3 1 and the next night I made $28.

06s: Driver:

How much did you turn in? O n e night I gave him $19 . . . the other night I gave him $20.

Driver:

Last night I made $30, I cashed in $2 1. Saturday night I made $35 and I cashed in $21. I made $60 in two nights.

80 PART TWO: OCCUPATIONAL RECRUITMENT AND SOCIALIZATION Obs: Driver: 06s:

Driver:

You know what the boss wants, eh? O h yes, I know the speed-about $12- 15-that means I'm $5 over. So I make 40 per cent of what I cash, that's $8 plus $3-4, that's $12-13 and about $2 in tips. . . . . What d o you usually give him? I'm starting to drive regularly at nights soon. Well, if you drive seven nights a week I give him about $120- 125- 130. Sometimes a little less. You know you give him a decent amount. If you drive six nights I give him $105-1 10115. He's satisfied with that. They know we steal, sure they know. I give them a good week-end and they are happy.

The norm of stealing among cab-drivers allows for a range of behaviour. This is evident in what the drivers say and also what they d o on the job. Even drivers who did not abide by the norm knew what it was. T h e norm can be summarized in the following way: 1. A driver should not cash in much more than the speed otherwise he makes trouble for the other drivers. 2. A driver should not cash in much less than the speed otherwise he will be considered too "hungry." (This means that a driver must not steal too much.) In effect, for the drivers there exists "the possibility of a second world alongside the manifest world, and the latter is decisively influenced by the former" (Simmel, 1950:330). This world of secrecy is evident from the clandestine remarks of the drivers (meeting in the garage) about the speed for a particular shift. Propinquity to the boss requires careful communication between drivers. Hushed .tones between drivers working for the same boss reflect the need for secrecy in such matters. I n the garage after the day shift the following brief conversation took place: Obs: Driver: Obs: Driver:

How much did you cash in? Seize-$16 What did you make? (Hushed tones) Vingt-deux-$22.

Knowledge of a driver's total receipts for a shift is concealed from the boss. T h e amount that a driver cashes in to his boss remains the property of the group, and helps strengthen the norm. This guarantees secrecy for the drivers, enables them to steal, yet satisfies the monetary demands set by the boss.4 INSTITUTIONALIZATION O F STEALING

Norms have their genesis in the social experiences of group life. The emergence of norms within a group depends largely on the interests and goals of its members. Among cab-drivers stealing is not an occupational peccadillo, but a learned practice originating from their

INSTITUTIONAL STEALING AMONG BIG-CITY TAXI-DRIVERS

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work experiences. Homans suggests that no custom is self-sustaining, and the notion that obedience to a custom is automatic is false (1950:282). Conformity to a norm occurs and persists because there are people who will sanction those who violate the rule. Indeed, the sanction aspect-the application of sanctions for non-conformity-is a major dimension of the concept of institutionalization. Marion Levy writes as follows: A given normative pattern affecting human action in terms of a social system will be considered more o r less well institutionalized to the degree to which conformity with the pattern is generally to be expected and to the degree to which failure to conform with the pattern is met by the moral indignation of those individuals who are involved in the system and who are aware of the failure . . . differences of degree relating to the second source of indeterminacy will be referred to as differences in the sanction aspects of the institution o r its institutionalization ( 1 9 5 2 : 104).

Although norm violation evokes the displeasure of drivers, the data illustrate that no single sanction is used regularly by a group of drivers against those who violate the norm. This is understandable since unity and cohesiveness vary among different groups of drivers, and the solidarity of a group is always vital in determining the sanctions employed. This is because members of a tightly knit group tend to respect the norms, customs and goals that they share. The high rate of personnel turnover within the occupation weakens driver solidarity. General work conditions, for example, the mechanical condition and age of the car, plus a boss's attitudes toward his drivers strongly influence the turnover rate and cohesion among drivers of a particular employer. Yet stealing is so widespread among drivers that they are fully aware of group expectations, and realize the attitudes of other drivers toward deviants, and the deleterious effects of their actions on the group. The words "enemy" and "bug" directed toward drivers who violate the norm reflect their status in the eyes of the group. Driver: 0bs: Driver: Obs: Driver:

You got to be smart in this business. How? I've made $ 2 8 - 2 9 when the other fellas have only made $ 1 3 . But then you're a bug. What d o you mean? Well, if you give the boss $29 while the others only give him $13 he will want to know what's going on. You make trouble, you are a n enemy. . . .

W.F. Whyte has shown the difficulties encountered whenever a novice is introduced to a group (1943: 132). Unaware of group expectations the newcomer's acts are unexpected and disturbing. In the following excerpt experienced drivers condemn the actions of some new men. Cashing in more than the speed increases the boss'

82

PART TWO: OCCUPATIONAL RECRUITMENT AND SOCIALIZATION

standards of judgment thereby decreasing the stealing potential for the other drivers. If the remaining drivers are still able to steal they are forced to steal less. T h e following brief conversation took place in the garage after a day shift: Obs: Driver: Obs: -Driver:

How much did you make? $8. I only worked this afternoon. What about you? $16. [Pointing towards a group of three drivers]. Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen. [He paused and then said angrily] Goddamned fools, they are all new fellows. Eighteen! [Meaning $181. That's crazy!

If newcomers are to conform to group expectations they must be socialized to role obligations and group standards, and if they trespass the norms they must be cautioned and censured. In this manner both the norms and the drivers' commitment to the norms will be strengthened. O u r data reveal that the sanctions employed against offenders depend on the circumstances involved, and the solidarity of the particular group of drivers. Two kinds of sanction are used: verbal sanctions and physical violence. Verbal sanctions: T h e verbal reprimand is one method used to generate obedience to group standards. T h e driver who cashes in too much money is cautioned to "smarten up." In this way the novice is introduced to the expected patterns of conduct. Driver:

The fella that was on my car last week, the night man. He used to hand him $30 and $25. I kept after hirn but he said no. And he kept on cashing in waybills like that. I told him to smarten up but he kept right on. He was crazy. They don't last long.

Name-calling is another method used against drivers who violate the norm. O n e owner, speaking of when he was a driver said, "No, I never stole, T h e drivers called me a fool. . . ." Another driver said, "If you don't steal you're crazy." A stone's throw from name-calling is a more deadly weapon, the wisecrack. Though we have no data to substantiate this, the crushing force of the wisecrack at times likely contributes to bring drivers into line with group norms. Physical Violence: Where a number of drivers comprise a strongly cohesive group, sanctions are apt to be more severe. Physical violence may be exercised against the offender. Although physical violence is seldom applied, it reflects the measures to which a group will resort in order to enforce its norms. T h e following material reveals that both the threat of physical violence and violence itself are exercised against the deviant. In the first instance the driver is aware of the consequences of violating the norm and he conforms accordingly. T h e excerpt also exposes the action taken by the group against a driver who persistently violates

INSTITUTIONAL STEALING AMONG BIG-CITY TAXI-DRIVERS

83

group norms. Such evidence leaves little doubt regarding the institutionalization of stealing among these drivers. Obs: Driver: Obs: Driver:

Where did you first learn about stealing? It depends how much the other guys made. If you make $30 you give him $18 o r 20.1 knew if I handed him too much the other guys would gang u p o n me. How? Well, u p there it's all one clique. They are working day in and day out. They more o r less keep together. They did it to one guy. T h e guy was honest and he was handing in everything that he made. H e used to have a car of his own. So they ganged u p o n him and they told him that he better stop handing in everything that h e took in. "We'll fix you."

Physical violence is an extreme measure within a range of regulatory controls exercised by the group against one of its recalcitrant members. T h e following datum reveals that violence has been used against an offender. Obs: Driver: Obs: Driver: Obs: Driver:

I heard the other day that some of the drivers at Jack's ganged u p o n one of the boys because he was turning in too much. It's possible. There are some queer ones in this outfit. There wouldn't be any of that now because they are all working alone o n the cars. Driving single? Yes, except [car no.] 316 and 528. You know about three years back they beat u p a guy. Who? You know when Byron had her cars. T h e drivers beat u p one fella because he was giving her too much. There are some queer ones in this outfit.

LEARNING T O STEAL

If a group is to persist for an appreciable period of time it is essential that its members learn the formal and informal role requirements. This socializing process makes persons into group members and prepares them for role occupancy. When he first joins the group the behaviour of the novice is unpredictable, naive, incongruous. Learning the role of cab-driver involves incorporating the various skills, attitudes and subtle nuances of behaviour that are unique to the role. It requires both experience on the job and instruction from others. This social enterprise occurs through group participation, and includes the passing on of techniques, attitudes and sentiments. It involves the telling of tales, the solving of problems, and experiencing common adventures behind the wheel. Older drivers provide an important source of instruction for the recruit. Gradually, the novice grows consistent in his actions, reflecting group expectations. This informal education is best illustrated in the advice which an

experienced driver gives to the "cadet." In this case the new driver is taught how much to cash in. Driver I :

Driver 2:

Yesterday, before the cadet got the car, he asked me how much you can make. I told him you make $22 and cash in $15 and you have your tips. You got your commission and any graft you can make. Graft! H e probably thought graft was something to eat. It's no use handing him [boss] these big waybills.

Besides explicit instruction, the occupational recruit also learns while hustling on the street. In the garage mingling with the other drivers, at the street corner waiting for the light to change and the traffic to move, any place where taxis congregate, the new driver gradually, often imperceptibly, acquires the occupational veneer of his work role. In this way he acquires the appropriate attitudes, expressions, confidence and mannerisms besides learning the tricks of the trade. This socialization process is revealed in the following excerpts: Obs: Driver:

How d o you know what to give him? I ask the fellows. You hear the fellows talking in the garage and I give him the average. . . .

Obs: Driver:

What did you d o the first day that you drove? I think the first couple of times I gave in all that I made. After three o r four times, when I found out what the other guys were turning in, and that he wasn't checking the meter, I began doing the same thing.

Obs:

When did you begin handing in less money than you actually took in? About two months after I began working. Why didn't you start the first day? I didn't have enough experience and I didn't make good waybills. I was only making little waybills and the others were making $10 and more so I had to give him everything.

Driver: Obs: Driver:

Obs: Driver:

How did you come to learn about it? We would talk o n the stands and we would ask each other how much we had made. We would decide o n the stands how much to hand in. It depended o n what the speed was $10-12-13.

Whenever drivers get together the speed for the shift is usually the first topic of conversation. The speed emerges while drivers are on the job, and this information is communicated quickly among them. A casual reference to the state of the work is sufficient to indicate the speed to a driver. The following example taken from my field notes typifies a conversation between two friends employed by the same owner. As I was cruising slo.rvly about Ben's tonight, Johnny called to me and

INSTITUTIONAL STEALING AMONG BIG-CITY TAXI-DRIVERS

85

stopped his car. I pulled alongside and the following conversation took place. It was 2:30 a.m. 0bs: How much have got you in? Driver: $27. How much have you? About the same. 0bs: Driver: How much would you charge to Laval des Rapides? 1 don't even know where it is. Obs: Driver: About three miles past Cartierville. I charged him $4. Obs: That's O.K. Driver: I think I f-myself. How much are you going to give him [the boss]? I don't know, what about you? 0bs: Driver: 0bs: Driver:

$20.

Have you put your gas in yet? Yeah. I put my bucks in already.

The question arises concerning employer control of drivers. Traditionally, control is exercised by checking the taxi meter at the start and end of each shift. This information reveals the mileage travelled by the car which, in turn, is calculated against the receipts cashed in by the driver. However, the vast majority of bosses do not check the meters. First, a boss who owns a large number of cabs finds is excessively time-consuming to d o so; secondly, meters are often damaged which causes expense and trouble for the owner, and thirdly, bosses who check the meter find it difficult to hire drivers. Ironically, stealing helps maintain harmonious relations between the drivers and their boss. The boss controls his drivers by requiring a minimum of $2 per gallon of gasoline consumed by the car. If a driver fails to achieve the necessary $2 per gallon prior to finishing his shift (for example, his receipts total $15 while the car has burned eight gallons of gasoline) he will purchase a gallon of gasoline with his own money. Since one gallon of gasoline costs approximately 50 cents and is equivalent to approximately $3 waybill receipts, the driver can now cash in $14 to the boss, steal 50 cents and yet satisfy the boss' expectations of $2 per g a l l ~ n . ~ However, if the driver has had a "good" day and achieved a high waybill (for example, his receipts total $24 while the car has burned only eight gallons of gasoline) he may still purchase a gallon of gasoline for the car enabling him to steal even more than he has taken in above the speed. This, too, is learned on the job and is part of the recruit's education. Obs: How do you know that your boss wants so much per gallon? Driver: The fellas told me that he [boss] wants $2 per allon. Do you ever put gas in the car and pay for it rom your own Obs: pocket? Driver: Yes. Regularly. Obs: When did you first do this?

B

Driver:

About the same time that I didn't turn in all that I made. O f course I was more cautious at first.

Driver:

I made $22 on Tuesday, $18 on Wednesday, $20 o n Thursday. You see [showing me a little notebook] I keep account of what I take in. Where d o you make that kind of money? I cruise, I never stop,. I start at 5:30 in the morning and I never stop except for dinner. I go home and then I come out again. Some of the fellows eat on the cruise. I can't d o that. Last week my net take was about $88. I wonder what he'd say if h e knew. Who's that? Ike, the boss. Oh, you mean you haven't been cashing in that amount? Hell no, see here I keep account of what I take in and what I give him, here Thursday I took in $20 and I gave him $15. But what about the gas? O h , I throw in a dollar's worth early in the morning. T h e other day I hit good and I threw in a little more but when I came to gas u p there was only about a dollar's worth of gas taken. H e didn't say a thing. You see today [it is raining] I've got in $19.25, well, I'm good for about $22-25.

Obs: Driver:

06s: Driver: 06s: Driver: 06s: Driver:

On the other hand wxen a driver has enjoyed a "good" day he might keep a portion of his total receipts as insurance against the hazards of a slow day. He is now able to achieve the norm for both days which helps maintain his status in the boss's eyes and satisfy group expectations. 06s: Driver: 06s: Driver: 06s: Driver: 06s: Driver: 06s: Driver:

Have you ever worked for an owner? Yes. Have you ever given him less than you took in? I have taken in more. I never gypped him. H e was never unsatisfied. I've kept $5 for a bad day. Bad day? Yes, when I don't make very much, if I was too unlucky o r couldn't hit. I have a fair idea of what he wants. Does a lot of this go o n ? Yes, definitely. Why? I know, I've been told. I think it's O.K. Everyone is entitled to a bad day. Go ahead and d o it, we're not gypping him.

Homans has written that, "Once the norm is established it exerts a back-effect on the group. It may act as an incentive [in that] a man may try to bring his behaviour closer to the norm" (1950: 126). T h e norm pulls the individual toward the expected behaviour of the group. T o "make the speed" becomes imperative for the driver. Not only d o his own actions behind the wheel partly determine the speed, but he also must achieve the speed for his shift. It becomes both cause and consequence of his work. The significance of achieving the speed is revealed from the following conversation:

Driver: Obs: Driver: Obs: Driver: Obs: Driver:

I haven't had lunch yet. Why? I can't go to lunch yet I haven't made a waybill yet. Supposeyouhad$14inby1o'clock,whatwouldyoudo? I would go home and have lunch and then come out after. But now? I can't now, I haven't got a waybill yet.

Here the driver is concerned with achieving a certain minimum amount of money-that is, the norm. His words, "I can't go to lunch yet I haven't made a waybill yet" illuminate the importance of his attaining the norm. Once the driver achieves a "waybill"-that is, the norm or speed, his behaviour is influenced by his own requirements rather than by those of the group and his employer. In this way the speed helps motivate the driver on the job. JUSTIFICATION FOR STEALING

In the larger society stealing money is immoral, illegal and strongly condemned. Depending on the circumstances, resistance and punishment are brought to bear against the offender. Among taxi-drivers stealing on the job is not considered deviant behaviour. It is an integral part of the driver's role, and it is expected, condoned and enforced. In order to satisfy role obligations the cab-driver is expected to steal. The cab-driver's legitimation for stealing is in terms of his work experiences. Occupational requirements help neutralize any moral compunction felt by the driver regarding other criteria by which stealing is evaluated. This is reflected in the institutionalization of stealing besides the moral impunity with which the drivers regard its practice. 0bs: Driver: 0bs: Driver: 0bs: Driver: Obs: Driver:

How often d o you steal? Considering the cars I get and the reception I get with the waybill, I don't think I'm taking him for much. I'm giving him less than I actually earned. Why? I wouldn't make enough. Do you think it is stealing? It's never on my conscience. I've never taken 5 cents fron somebody else. I earn that money when I'm out all night. How much d o you take? I don't know because I don't keep track. I make about $28 and I give him $20-21. And I put gas in the car, I don't feel I'm gypping him. If anything goes wrong I've got to pay. When the lights went out I've got them fixed and I paid. If I left it u p to the garage he'd start yapping and raising hell. Instead of this I take his money and pay anyhow.

The following example shows that the ideal of a "good" taxi-driver

is someone who steals as part of his role obligations-a "steals with a heart." Obs: Driver: Obs: Driver:

driver who

What is your conception of a good taxi-driver? Somebody that stays o n the job. T h a t takes it easy on the car, doesn't drive too fast. If h e breaks a spring he will take it easy, doesn't goose her in first, and steals a little bit. What d o you mean "steals a little bit?" Well, if he takes in $19 he cashes in $16, and if he takes in $24 he cashes in $20-steals with a heart.

T h e justification that the individual offers for his action betrays the meaning which the conduct has for him. T h e cab-driver's definition of stealing is narrow, limited, and relates specifically to his work. By justifying his behaviour the driver mirrors the significance which he feels this practice has for him, and reflects his surrender to the new self-conception which requires incorporation of this value. Obs: Driver: Obs: Driver: Obs: Driver : Obs: Driver: Driver:

Do you think it's stealing? It's not stealing if he gives him a certain amount one day and keeps some for the next day. If he spends the money, he makes it up. Do you steal? No. Just in the wintertime. Can't make enough now [summer]. Why d o you steal? If I give him what he wants it's O.K. Even if I make $100 I give him $35 ant1 keep the rest. T h a t really isn't stealing then? No. Not if I give him what h e wants. Sometimes it's not really stealing like you say. You're holding back. You hold back to keep your waybill steady. If in the summer say you make $12 you hold back $3. T h e next day you might make $5 so you add $3. It keeps things even. If you bring him $14 one day and $8 the next he'll start hollering you got to be even.

Some drivers feel that it is their implicit right to steal. As one driver remarked insightfully, "When all d o it it's n a longer dishonest." Obs: Driver: Obs: Driver:

Do you steal? Yes. Everybody does, don't they? Do you think it's dishonest? I suppose in the true sense of the word it is, but the mores keep changing. When all d o it it's no longer dishonest.

Though the drivers' standards for judging stealing are not those of the larger society, the criteria they employ and the organization of their values are no less important. T h e potential amount that a driver can steal necessarily depends on his total receipts and the speed for his shift. If the driver has his own justification for stealing he also had his own definition of its abuse. If stealing is morally right in his terms,

then, by the same token, it can be morally wrong. Stealing becomes morally reprehensible when it is flagrantly abused. The actual amount that the driver steals depends largely on his relationship with his employer. As one driver remarked, "You gotta take him with a heart." The driver tempers his actions with consideration for his boss; he feels that he must not steal everything. Although the greater his receipts for a shift the more he can steal, he nevertheless feels that he ought to cash in more to his boss. In his terms once the boss "is happywBwith the amount he cashes in the driver is morally innocent of any wrongdoing. If the boss is a "good guy" yet a driver "takes him for everything he's got" then the driver is morally wrong. T h e standards by which the cab-driver evaluates the practice of stealing are diffuse (Parsons, 1949:190). It is his definition of, and feelings toward, his boss that govern how much he steals. The following data illustrate this clearly. Obs: Driver:

Obs: Driver: Obs: Driver:

Obs: Driver: Obs: Driver:

Obs: Driver: Obs: Driver:

What is stealing in your opinion? If the driver has no feelings towards the boss. He makes sure that the boss doesn't get much. You know you gotta take him with a heart-if it's there to take. If you make a big waybill and what you give the boss makes him unhappy, that's stealing. It's not stealing because 40% of that is your own anyway. You know it's a give and take affair. Do you keep track of the number of loads you make each day? I don't keep a waybill. How d o you know what to give him? I give him his average as anybody else does. I figure out the gas and I figure out what will make him happy. If I haven't enough I take a few dollars off. As long as it keeps him happy. At the end of the week it evens u p and maybe I'll have a few dollars over. What d o you think of stealing? It depends who you work for. What do you mean? Well, if you work for a boss and he treats you nice you shouldn't steal from him. But if a boss, sometimes it is his mistake, doesn't pay you in full or makes you pay for a tire o r something then you can't blame the guy for taking a meal and cigarettes from the boss. And he's working with a big responsibility. He's working trying to make the boss's living and his own living at the same time. Why shouldn't he take a 50-cen t meal. You really don't consider that stealing? No. What do you consider stealing? If you make $10 load and you say $5 to the boss. O r if you tell him you put in $2 of gas in the tank and you really put in $4. That's stealing.

CONCLUSION

Varied practices of restricting production o r of "putting on the brakes" are commonplace at all levels of the work world. Regardless of the formal rules and regulations that control workers on the job, an informal system of norms develops which governs the proper workload to be accomplished. Usually this refers to the refusal by workers to d o as much work as their employers believe they can and ought to d o (Hughes, 1952:425). Workers soon develop their own definitions of the proper levels of effort and product. In effect the informal norms help establish the limits regulating the quantity and quality of work to be completed. Thus we know that machine-shop workers systematically restrict quotas (Roy, 1952:427-442); workers in the Bank Wiring Observation Room of the Western Electric Company were guided by an informal code regulating their work output (Roethlisberger and Dickson, 1939); stealing is institutionalized among metropolitan taxi-drivers; policemen secretly smoke on the job and take their "breaks" in places hidden from public view; the kitchen staffs in restaurants and hotels often eat exceptionally well, and the wives of chefs and supermarket butchers serve the finest cuts of meat to their families. Similarly, university professors are notorious for beginning their classes ten minutes late and finishing five minutes early o r of making personal, long-distance telephone calls on the university service line, as are business executives who pad their expense accounts. In sum, it is noteworthy that what appears unique to the occupation of the taxi-driver is, in fact, found in many other sphere$ of work.

Notes 1. T h e "speed" refers to the average amount of money (receipts) the drivers have accumulated during a single shift. For example, when two drivers meet during a shift the immediate inquiry is, "What's the speed?" This asks how much money have you taken in? Knowing the speed enables a driver to judge his own receipts against the speed and establish whether he is above o r below the average. 2. A driver's share of the total amount registered o n the meter is 40 per cent. At the conclusion of each shift a driver is required to cash in to his boss all his receipts minus 40 per cent commission (if h e is being paid on a daily basis); if he is being paid o n a weekly basis the driver cashes in his total daily receipts to the boss. His weekly wage will be 40 per cent of the total amount he has cashed in during the week. Stealing is the practice of cashing in less than what is d u e the boss. For example, a driver might take in $18 for a shift yet he will cash in only $15 thereby stealing $3 for himself.

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3. The notion of luck is felt to be in the nature of taxi work and pervades the occupation. The cabdriver performs his work hoping that he will be "in luck"; when he has a bad day luck helps him account for his failure which, in turn, helps him preserve his self-esteem. It also helps explain the success of his co-workers; it is not that one driver is more skilled or deserving than another, the explanation resides in the mysteries of luck. 4. Rather than control his drivers by checking the meters on his taxis a boss will demand that each driver cash in a minimum of $2 for every gallon of asoline consumed by the car during a single shift. This is discussed more fully later in the paper. 5. The sums of money referred to in the data apply to wages and prices during 1950-55. 6. Roethlisberger and Dickson write that the external function of the Bank Wiring Observation Room Group was a "protective mechanism." They continue, ". . their behaviour could be said to have been guided by the following rule: 'Let us behave in such a way as to give management the least opportunity of interfering with us' " (1939:525). It may be said that the drivers, by keeping the boss "happy" with the amount which they cash in, protect themselves from his interference. In this way thay are able to steal and maintain their relations with their employer.

.

References Davis, Fred. "The Cabdriver and His Fare: Facets of a Fleeting Relationship." American Journal of Sociology, 65, no. 2 (September 1959), pp. 158-65. Homans, George. The Human Group. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1950. Hughes, Everett. "The Sociological Study of Work: An Editorial Forward." American Journal ofsociology, 57, no. 5, (March 1952), pp. 423-26. Levy, Marion. The Structure of Society. New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1952. Mead, George Herbert. Mind, Selfand Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1952. Parsons, Talcott. Essays in Sociological Theory: Pure and Applied. Glencoe: The Free Press, 1949. Roethlisberger, Fred J., and William J. Dickson. Management and the Worker. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1939. Roy, Donald. "Quota Restriction and Goldbricking in a Machine Shop," American Joumzal ofSociology, 57, no. 5, (March 1952), pp. 422-42. Simmel, Georg. The Sociology of Georg Simmel. Kurt Wolfe, ed. Glencoe: The Free Press, 1950. Sumner, William G. Folkways. Boston: Ginn and Co., 1906. Westley, William. Violence and the Police. Amherst: The MIT Press, 1970. Whyte, William F. Street Corner Society. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1943. Zweig, Ferdinand. The British Worker. Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1952.

The Informal Behaviour of Infantry Recruits HYMAN RODMAN

Oswald Hall gently helped me toward a career in sociology despite my foibles and naivete'as a student. One incident standr out in my mind. He hired me as a research assistant during the summer before my senior year at McGill, to work on a study of new Canadian immigrants and their occupational adaptations. For several weeks I worked in Toronto as an interviewer. His confidence and trust, the job and the pay, were heady stuff for an undergraduate. During my senior year I wrote a term paper on the data for Oswald's course, and he subsequently invited me to co-author a paper for submission to the Canadian Journal of Economics and Politicial Science. Committing a cardinal sin, I asked him how much they paid for an article. Although I cannot remember his reply, he apparently hid his surpfise and explained that they did not Pay for articles. Since I was trying to earn money by writing, I was not too interested in this unpaid venture. W e therefore went on to talk about other matters. It was not until several years later that I realized the honour that I had passed u p as a senior, and the equanimity with which Oswald accepted my strange attitude. I appreciate his forbearance on that occasion, and his tolerance and help on many others. Since I still a~tivelyregret not having published jointly with him, participating in this book's tribute to him is welcome indeed!

I spent three months in 1952 at a training camp with an infantry company of the Canadian Army.' Most of the time was spent with the recruits: training with them, drinking in the canteen, hanging around the hut, and resting between training periods. I went on a three-day leave with them, and carried my pack and tramped with them on three different schemes.' I ate in the same mess hall as the recruits, and slept in the same hut. T h e recruits came into contact with many privates, and with several corporals, sergeants and officers. They ate, trained, rested and slept on schedule, guided by formal rules and regulations. The rules specified when they woke up, when they had "lights out," and when 92

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they trained. But in addition to the expected military routine, I also saw the informal and unexpected. Many of the recruits' activities were unrelated to military behaviour, and some appeared to be opposed to military rules. These informal activities took place with striking regularity. It is true that the men turned out for training regularly, but they also griped regularly. And when a recruit would "squeal" o r "suckhole," his peers, predictably, would react hostilely. In this paper I shall briefly describe these informal rules and patterns of behaviour, and 1 will use a functional perspective to try to shed some light on the part they play within a military organization. T h e focus will be on the recruit's coping patterns with superiors and peers. The army is a bureaucratic organization. T h e total job to be done is divided into areas of specialization, or spheres of competence; authority is delegated to coordinate the work, thus giving the army a hierarchical structure; and formal impersonal rules have been established to insure the predictability of behaviour. These are characteristics of a bureaucratic organization (Weber, 1946 and 1947; Moore, 1951; Blau, 1968). The army, of course, is not alone in being organized along bureaucratic lines. Most modern corporate and political institutions are also bureaucratic. Specialization, hierarchical organization and formal rules are to be found, in differing degrees, in all such institutions. Since the Western Electric research program (Mayo, 1933; Roethlisberger and Dickson, 1939; Whitehead, 1938; Roethlisberger, 1941) many investigators (Whyte, 1948; Carroll and Tosi, 1977: 101- 108; Wilson, 1978:203-206) have pointed out the presence of emergent and unexpected rules of behaviour. They are unexpected in terms of the institution as it is formally organized. But the emergence of rules and behaviour which flow from worker interaction has come to be expected as an inevitable part of the total institutional organization, and has been termed the informal, as opposed to the formal, organization. AS a "total institution," the army has some special bureaucratic characteristics (Goffman, 1961). T h e recruits and privates with whom I spent most of my time are at the bottom of the authority hierarchy, and have no formal control over anyone. They are subject to their superiors' orders 24 hours a day. The civilian worker can quit his job; the army recruit cannot. T h e civilian worker contracts to d o a certain job; the army recruit can be told to do (virtually) anything. Leave is a privilege, and the recruit's leave can be cancelled if necessary. Sleep is a privilege, and when out on an overnight scheme, the recruit's sleeping hours are curtailed.

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The army recruit also finds that his peers are omnipresent. T h e recruit trains with his peers, eats with them, sleeps with them and goes on leave with them. An example from my field notes illustrates how this impinges upon the recruit's privacy: Sullivan surreptitiously placed some hair oil in his hand, under cover of his barrack box top, and quickly dashed it through his hair. O n e of the recruits saw this, and drew the attention of the others to it, saying, "Oh, you George!" T h e recruits laughed.

The Recruit Copes with his Superiors Several informal patterns help the recruit cope with the formal demands made by his superiors: believing the worst, griping, controlling the junior NCOS (non-commissioned officers), and punishing "leadswingers," "suckholes," and "squealers." BELIEVING T H E WORST

The recruits always expect the worst, displaying a firm commitment to Murphy's law. They believe that what they d o not want to happen will happen, and that what they want will not happen. Through "knowing the ropes*' they can ward off certain misfortunes. Beyond that, their pessimistic beliefs help them cope with the stringent and capricious controls that they face. They d o not trust good news until they actually experience it: Munro: Private:"

This is a fine holiday they give us, when they make us stay in the hut and work o n o u r kit. In the army there's no such thing as a holiday. Any holiday that they give you, you can expect that there will be sports o r some other kind of work.

The recruits defend their gloomy view by saying that the army can d o anything, and usually does. Samuel A. Stouffer et al. (1949:422-23; 426-29) discuss the attitudes of the men toward army promises. They point out, for example, that 76 per cent of the enlisted men questioned agree with the statement that "When the army says it will d o something the men want, most of the time it ends u p by not really doing it." Thus, being suspicious of good news, whether it is getting off a parade, having a holiday, or going to NCO school, insulates the recruit against disappointment. Further, unless the recruit is appropriately suspicious, he can be taken advantage of by his superiors: Corporal Trudel: Can anyone drive a truck? (Elton, Seguin, and Pepin indicated that they could.) Trudel (to Pepin): Come with me. Finlay: Oh, oh, there goes the old army game.

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It's like the guy who came around a n d asked who could drive. Somebody said: "I can clrive.""Well, then, drive this broom through the hut." A few minutes later Corporal Day came around a n d said: "It's just as I thought. H e has to drive the broom through the hut. You know what they say when you're in the army-you keep your mouth shut a n d don't volunteer for anything." Stuart:

Corporal Oliver: Carter: Oliver:

Who's ready for parade? I am. Well, Iio~v'dyou like to g o over to the office a n d get m e some 292s [headache pills].

T h e suspicion of the recruits includes a "don't volunteer" pattern. It insulates the recruit against the control exercised over him, and thus helps him to cope with formal demands. GRIPING

Griping also helps the recruit to deal with the restraining rules and demands of the formal situation. Although he complies with the demands made of him, the recruit frequently gripes about the rules o r about his superiors who enforce the rules. In this way, the recruit indicates his resistance to his superiors' demands. Griping a n d general negativism, in the first instance, were symbolic affirmations o f independence a n d strength, showing that t h e G.I. did not want to be considered a mere cog in the Army machine. T h e n , as it became a n almost universal mechanism to assuage and to hide a n almost universal hurt, griping came to be an earmark of social solidarity (H. Elkin, 1946:409).

As Elkin points out, griping can also serve as "an earmark of social solidarity." Insofar as griping spreads throughout the army and comes into general use, the recruit may gripe as a matter of course, without directing it at anything in particular: I passed Dollard a n d greeted him: Well, how's it going boy? Dollard: No tucking good at all. Observer: What's wrong? Dollard did not answer, but just looked at observer quizzically.

Dollard's quizzical look probably indicates that my question was not expected. His stereotyped griping remark is part of the social repertoire of greetings, and one is not supposed to take it literally. Two further aspects of the recruits' griping are informative. First, the gripes focus attention upon formal demands, and they deflect attention away from personal inadequacy. Recruits d o not talk about their personal inadequacies. They place a value upon being able to take care of themselves. Secondly, recruits continuously gripe about certain things (meals, shining gear, excessive marching, the camp's

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location, the army in general) and never about other things (rifle training, cleaning weapons). This gives us a clue as to what the recruit values-soldierly toughness (cf. Miller, 1958) and military combat. Private, behind observer, in meal line-up, does not take any soup. Observer asks why. Private: I never take any soup because it's like making love in a canoe-fucking near water. Collier: That's no church parade that we have here. You go to church handcuffed. Private: It's not a church parade-it's twenty minutes church and then three hours parade.

Most of the griping was about "chicken shitW--demands which the recruits considered senseless and unnecessary. The demands to keep their equipment shined and polished were most frequently labelled "chicken shit": Private:

In the First Batallion they even had to press their shoe laces. Imagine that. Well, if they start doing that here, this is one boy that's going on the loose. I've never been A W ~ L[Absent without leave] yet, but if they start that around here, I'm going.

Observer: Private: Observer: Private:

How do you like this outfit? There's too much chicken shit. Like what? Oh, shining, shining, shining. What's all that good for? Sure, I know, discipline. But it pisses a guy off.

The recruits also complain bitterly of the marching they must do, particularly on schemes, and they contrast it with military combat. For example, one remarked, "Ask some of the veterans what it's like when you fight. You don't have to go on fourteen mile marches. You didn't see any marching in the movies they showed us, did you?" CONTROLLING THE JUNIOR NCOs

In the infantry company we studied, the junior NCOS slept in the same hut, ate in the same mess hall, and drank in the same canteen as the men. Officially, the junior NCO retained his authority in these situations: he was a corporal off as well as on duty. Actually, however, this was not the case.J For example, though a private was officially expected to stand to attention before the corporal, when talking to him, this never occurred off duty. As the following interview excerpts indicate, the recruits demand that the corporal be one of the boys off duty, especially in the hut: Observer: Munro:

Do you expect the NCOS to be friendly to you? No, it's hard to say. Like on off-duty hours you don't expect

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them to go around and shout at you. You're human, you don't want guys yelling at you. Most of them are okay, only Corporal Oliver is like that. Corporal Nettle is a very good friend of mine. I worked with his brother for two years in civvy life, but I didn't know him until I came here to camp. . . . Him and Corporal Davidson are one of the boys. After four-thirty, after o u r day is finished, they're just like one of the boys. They might as well take their stripes off and throw them in the corner. They don't recognize the stripes at all. Observer: What d o you think of that way of doing it? Masterson: I think it's a very good way. Observer: Why is that? Masterson: Well, they get twice as much respect from the boys that way. Corporal Oliver is different. I have nothing against Corporal Oliver, but he's a soldier from sunrise to sunset. It doesn't matter where he is, what time of day it is, o r what he is doing, he's on the ball. But I don't think he gets half the respect from his squad as Corporal Nettle and Corporal Davidson d o from their squads. Masterson:

T h e recruits also expect that the junior NCO will not charge one of them unless he has to: Corporal Trudel had put Private 1 on charge, and a few minutes later Trudel was sitting on his bed shining his brass. Private 2: Would you lend me that brush when you're through with it? Sure. I'm not hard to get along with. It's just when the Trudel: guys start to yak at me that there's trouble. [Private I] just got too smart. I didn't want to put him on charge, but I had to. Corporal Day:

I was bending over his barrack box, after I told him to get up, tying my laces. He starts bitching about me, and I looked up and said, "You're on charge." He jumped back and looked at me-he hadn't even seen me! [Day laughs.] But I decided that it was too much trouble to march him over to the pisscan. [Day laughs again.]

The recruit is able to make certain demands of the junior NCO because the NCO lives with the men and is subject to their influence on a daily basis. Moreover, the NCO isjudged by his superiors based upon the recruits' behaviour, and he is therefore vulnerable to the recruits' influence. T h e junior NCO is "one of the boys" off duty, and he does not charge a man unless he has to. In this way, the recruit controls the corporal's behaviour, and eases the formal demands that confront him. This "corruption of authority," as others have called it, parallels the relationship between workers and their supervisors (or prison inmates and their guards) in many other settings (Sykes, 1958; Carroll, 1977).

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PUNISHING LEADSWINGERS

The leadswinger-the man who does not keep up in his work with the others-is disliked and punished by the recruits. In a discussion of leadswinging (referred to as "goldbricking"), Stouffer et al. (1949: 420-21) point out that 84 per cent of the enlisted men agreed that "most soldiers lose respect for a man who is always trying to 'gold brick'." During a group interview, on a scheme, there was some talk as to who gives the orders. Pepin: They just keep on going up. Observer: Going up? You mean going down. Who's at the bottom? Chorus: MTeare, privates always are. Masterson: But there's one thing lower. That's a fucking leadswinger. As was often the case, Greene could not keep the step, and after the usual drill period Sergeant Kingcraft kept the squad marching five minutes longer because of him. When over, the recruits cursed Greene, and several said that they would get him that night. They planned to throw him in the showers and to [literally] "blackball" him, and made no attempt to keep this information from Greene. At night they carried out their threat.

The formal rules were impersonal and had to be met. When one recruit did not keep u p in his training, the whole squad was likely to suffer. Peer control of leadswinging thus reduced the demands that superiors could make of the group. PUNISHING SUCKHOLES

T h e recruits disliked and punished the "suckhole" or "brownnosert'-the man who sought too actively to ingratiate himself with .~ was a deviant who "swung the lead," and those in a ~ t h o r i t yGreene Carter was a deviant who "suckholed." A recruit could seek to put himself in the good graces of those in authority in two ways. He could d o a lot of work (such as shining and polishing his equipment) to impress his superiors; or he could very eagerly take orders from his superiors. (As F. Elkin [1946:421] points out, "in reference to those soldiers who readily accept authority we notice a strong stigma.") Carter was guilty on both counts. Throughout the three months, without fail, Carter was always the first among the recruits to waken. Often, he was u p a full hour or more before everybody else, working on his equipment, and several times he stayed u p all night with work to do. Three times each day, morning, noon, and night, he polished his brass-more frequently than any other recruit in the company. For this he was disliked. Observer:

Which of the recruits d o you think will get to be NCOS?

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You know Carter? He does a lot of suckholing around. Finlay: Observer: What sort of' things? Oh, things like he always wants to be the righthand marker, Finlay: o r in the front row.

Others were also railed for doing too much work: Collier came into the hut and Sullivan asked him where he had been. Collier: In the dry canteen. Sullivan: I've been here, working all the time since you lefi. Collier: That's because you're a fucking brown-noser. After we had camped on the overnight patrol, Skeat took out his boots, after they had been drying in the fire, and he started to polish them. Private: Look at that guy there. He wants his hook [stripe]. Skeat looked up and the private continued: What are you looking for? Go on and brown-nose. Keep on working for your hook. Skeat ignored the remarks and continued polishing his boots. Later, Majeur started to polish his boots. Private: There's another guy that's working fbr his stripe. Majeur stopped polishing and stood up. Afier a pause he said, "I don't think I'll shine these," and he dropped his boot to the ground.

A recruit's too easy compliance with a superior's orders and army protocol also make him disliked by his fellows: Corporal Oliver comes around in the hut, inspecting the Inen by their beds. Oliver: Whose water bottle is that? Private: Mine. Oliver: Well, do up the strap. Oliver goes over to inspect Carter, who snaps to attention, parade-square style, and stands stiffly at attention. This is not done by any of the other men. Private (whispering): Suckhole.

T h e suckholes' hard work and eager obedience threaten other recruits because they raise officers' expectations. As a private said, "Well, the major came by, and he saw this bastard's kit shining, and he said, 'If he can d o it, there's no reason why you all can't d o it.' " T h e norm against suckholing is thus closely intertwined with the norm against "rate-busting", protecting the recruits against additional demands from their superiors. Such informal norms are widely found in work organizations (Carroll and Tosi, 1977: 106- 107) and protect workers against inflated production norms stemming from the excessively hard work of a few individuals. PUNISHING SQUEALERS

T h e recruits dislike and punish the squealer-the recruit who informs on his peers. Greene, who was showered and blackballed one night for leadswinging, was showered and blackballed again, the same

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night, for squealing. He had pointed out his attackers, Elkington and Thomas, to Corporal Oliver: When I returned to the hut later in the evening, Elkington called me over to his bed and said, "You missed a lot of fun. We got Greene again and threw him in the showers, and blackballed him. We got a tin of shoe polish and rubbed it all over." "We put it over his ass, too, for good measure," Thomas added.

In the interviews, the following hypothetical situation was set up to elicit the recruits' attitudes toward squealing: "Say all the guys were going to get CB [confined to barracks] or extra drill for something that one of the guys did, and they know who the guy was, what do you figure they would do?" The following responses are typical: Finlay:

Observer: Finlay:

Stuart:

Observer: Stuart: Observer: Stuart:

They wouldn't tell on the guy. We had that once. A guy was yawning. We were having LMG [light machine gun training] and a guy let out a big yawn. Corporal Oliver didn't see him, but he heard it, and he tried to find out who it was, but nobody would tell, and so he said he'd give all of us extra duty unless somebody would tell, but nobody did. Why wouldn't you tell on a guy? I don't know, you just don't d o that in the army. Maybe you'll d o that once o r twice, but you'd learn soon enough that the guys don't like it. Well, if they knew who it was to blame, well they wouldn't report him, they'd handle it their own way, and that can mean quite a number of things, a regimental shower for one, or a can of shoe polish and a brush. Applied in the right places. Yes. Well, why d o you figure the guys wouldn't report him? Well, they'd take the punishment. There's something about keporting a fellow you don't like, you just don't like to do it. I know I wouldn't like to d o it anyway, because you're feeling everyone is thinking that you're a suckhole o r something.

A no-squealing pattern is found in many groups (Shaw, 1930:67; Roethlisberger and Dickson, 1939:522, Westley, 1970-1 11-18) and serves to protect individuals in the group whose behaviour may be deviant. Numerous prison studies (Toch, 1977:165-67; Wilson, 1978: 193-94) have pointed out how widespread the norms against squealing or ratting are, and suggest that at least a minimal degree of solidarity among inmates and protection from prison officials is provided by this pattern.

The Recruit Copes with his Peers The recruit is thrown into contact with his peers when he joins the army, and he finds that their omnipresence imposes many restraints

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10 1

upon his behaviour. T h e recruits in the company we studied lived in a hut with approximately ninety peers, ate in a mess hall with approximately 350 peers, and shared the wet and dry canteens with many more. Wherever he turned, the recruit was faced with his peers, many of whom he does not know. How does the recruit adjust to his peers in this new and strange situation, where he has little privacy? Several informal patterns of behaviour, such as showing unconcern over personal problems, and the joking relationship, help the recruit cope with his peers. In addition, such patterns as griping and punishing deviants, discussed above in terms of their part in helping recruits cope with their superiors, also help in coping with peers. SHOWING UNCONCERN OVER PERSONAL PROBLEMS

T h e recruit does not show any great concern over his personal problems, thereby keeping what is personal and private hidden. Problems which the recruit is liable to face are physical sickness, mental depression and the threat of formal punishment. In all these cases, the recruit must not make an excessive show of his concern. Claghorn: Jesus Christ, you can't see a doctor around here. With my swollen eye I get poisoned. Rivers: Don't tell me your troubles. Tell them to the padre. Observer [later]: What happened to your eye, Claghorn? Claghorn: I got this on the train. It's goddamn sore, too. Rivers: Hey, Claghorn. Claghorn: Yah? Rivers: Tell it to the padre. Norton: Jackson: Norton: Jackson: Norton: Jackson:

You know, you're still on charge. T h e sergeant called your name last night. 1 don't give a fuck. He can call my name a dozen times around. Were you there last night when he called your name? No. You're on charge from last night then. I don't give a f'uck.

Of course, the recruit does not withhold the personal element in all situations. H e may confide to a friend, in privacy, out of the earshot of others, o r he may talk to someone like the padre o r the research observer, who are not going to enforce the informal norms. These conversations sometimes occur in the canteen, while drinking. T h e recruit's apparent lack of concern over personal problems also reflects soldierly toughness. T h e tough soldier does not complain about personal difficulties-he is not "chicken." T H E JOKING RELATIONSHIP

How d o recruits deal with their ubiquitous and intrusive peers? Cooley (1922: 146) has said:

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If one sees few people and hears a new thing only once a week, he accumulates a fund of sociability and curiosity very favorable to eager intercourse; but if he is assailed all day and every day he calls upon feeling and thought in excess of his power to respond, he soon finds that he must put u p some sort of barrier. Sensitive people who live where life is insistent take on a sort of social shell whose function is to deal mechanically with ordinary relations and preserve the interior from destruction. They are likely to acquire a conventional smile and conventional phrases for polite intercourse, and a cold mask for curiosity, hostility, o r solicitation.

In the army, the joking relationship is part of the barrier that helps recruits to cope with their peers. In the joking relationship6 the men interact by hurling obscenities at each other which are largely stereotyped, and largely of homosexual content, and each man tries to outdo the other. Although the interaction appears to be antagonistic, participants are not supposed to take offence. In the exchange the recruits interact with stereotyped phrases, working off some of the stress that stems from living and working at close quarters. Some typical examples are: Greene: Christ, who just shit in the place? Kinsman: It's just your breath blowing back in your face. Greene: Private:

Suck my ass, Private. All right, take off your hat and we'll see what we can d o about it.

The joking pattern enables the recruits to interact in a threatening manner without resorting to physical violence. It also provides a stereotyped escape route from a situation which is leading toward a fight. Collier takes Skeat's camera, with film in it and says: "There's one thing you have to watch. That's the groove here, not to let any light in." He then opens the camera. Private 1: You're spoiling the film that way. Collier: No, I'm not. Private 1: Sure you are. Collier: You want to bet five bucks I'm not. Private 1: What d o you mean, you're not? Collier: All this does is let one glare of light in. Private 2 comes over, hears conversation, and says, holding his genitals, "Here's a glare of light." T h e argument stops. Seaman (by Elton's bed): Come on, get the fuck up. Get the fuck out of here or I'll hit you. Elton: Seaman: Yah, let's see ya. Elton: I'm warning you. Seaman: Come on, let's see ya. You got a dirty yellow streak down your back. Elton: Suck my ass. Seaman (walking off): Well, move your nose over.

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Of course, the hostile interaction cannot always be sidetracked into a joking relationship. In the following exchange Edwards does not accept the invitation to enter into a joking relationship and to defuse the antagonism. Sullivan:

I tell you it's a mistake. I just threw my hat down and picked it up in a hurry. Edwards: And it happened to be on my bed? Sullivan: There were two hats on your cocksuckin' bed. How was I to know it was yours? Edwards: Some mistake that was. You took my bed for your bed? Sullivan: Go take a long suck o' my ass. Edwards: What's on my bed is mine-anyway it's not yours.

Generally, entering into a joking exchange was obligatory among the men, when the relationship was initiated by another, and Edwards, Greene and Kinsman, the three recruits who occasionally refused to enter a joking exchange, or who were unable to hold u p their end in the joking relationship, were among the low-ranking members of the group. These recruits also experienced difficulty in initiating o r maintaining a joking exchange with others: Private: Do you have half a buck? Greene: Suck my dick. Private (speaking seriously): Just invite me outside and say that. Greene: You invite me outside. Private: Okay, come on outside. Greene: Okay, wait a minute, I have to flnish my laundry. Private: You asshole.

The Recruit Escapes The recruit is thrown into a new and strange situation when he enters the army. He comes into contact with his superiors and peers, and finds that they impose many restraints upon his behaviour. Several informal mechanisms which help the recruit to cope with his superiors and peers have been discussed. But what of the recruit who cannot cope? If the recruit goes AWOL he temporarily evades the problem of coping with the army's demands. In addition to going A W ~ Lthe recruit also talk about going AWOL. He also talks about going on leave, getting a transfer, or getting discharged, all of which offer him vicarious escape. And he talks of going to Korea (during the Korean War) and coming back and getting out of the army. Escape is always possible, departure or discharge is always around the corner. GOING AWOL

Rose (1951:627-28) points out that the typical AWOL is not well

104 PART TWO: OCCUPATIONAL RECRUITMENT AND SOCIALIZATION

adjusted to the army: he is more neurotic, not as well adjusted to his outfit, and more critical of the army than those who d o not go AWOL. If going AWOL provides an escape mechanism for those who find adjustment to the formal situation difficult, then we would expect that most AWOL cases would occur early; as time passes, the recruit adjusts to the situation. This is what we found among the thirty-five recruits studied from the time of their assignment to the Wainwright army base through their basic training. Of eight AWOL cases, six occurred during the first quarter of the time that we spent with the recruits, one during the second quarter, one during the third quarter, and none during the final quarter. We would also expect that most of the talk of going AWOL would take place soon after the recruit enters the army. We found this to be the case, too. Of the thirty-seven references to going AWOL in my field notes, twenty took place during the first quarter of the time we spent with the company, nine during the second quarter, five during the third quarter, and three during the final quarter. Comments about going A W o L were often made in the following manner: "I'll fucking well go on the loose if. . .," or, "If. . ., this is one boy that's going AWOL." The typical condition for which recruits threaten to go AWOL consists of excessive demands that someone in authority might make of them. Going A W ~ Lunder certain conditions and talking of going AWOL under certain conditions are expected patterns of behaviour. As such, the talk serves a group-integrative function: Observer: Private:

Four o f the recruits just took off yesterday. I fucking well don't blame them. There's too much fucking chicken shit. We're C B ' ~today because our huts weren't gleaming. I'll fucking well take off too if things stay like this.

Corporal Trudel: The girl I was going to marry, she was in a car accident, and she died soon after that. I tried to get leave to g o and see her, and they wouldn't give me leave. That's the only thing I have against the army. Skeat: Why didn't you go AWOL? (Corporal Trudel does not reply.)

However, though the recruits accepted going AWOL as legitimate under certain conditions, some of them indicated that they personally would not go AWOL. In all cases, this was explained in rational rather than moral terms. Several of the privates who had been AWOL were being paid field rates (about $5 per month) because of fines and payments for stolen clothing, and the recruits knew this. Their , sergeant told them, "It doesn't pay to go AWOL. You'll get C B ' ~and they'll fine you, and it'll be about three months before you'll see any

money." Later Hawley remarked, "It's no use going on the loose. It'll cost you more than it's worth." A private told me that he had been AWOL for three and one-half months, and had been given thirty-eight days in detention camp. Observer: Why did you go o n the loose? Private: I don't know, but I won't go again. Observer: Why not? Jeez, I'll be eight months without pay now. I have no pay for Private: the time I was AWOL, and I'm not paid for the time I was in detention, and I lost about two hundred dollars' worth of kit that I have to pay for. Everything except my rifle was taken. GOING T O KOREA

T h e recruits, in expressing their desire to go to Korea, ordinarily say, "1 want to go to Korea and to come back and to get out of the army." T h e emphasis upon getting one's discharge helps the recruit to cope with the immediate situation by stressing its temporary nature. As Davis (1948: 161) points out, "an existing situation is more tolerable if it is known that it will not last long." Some recruits and privates think not only of getting their discharge after their three years' service is up, but of getting it whenever they want to: I'm just waiting to hear from my wife, and then I'll get my compassionate discharge. I'll go u p and speak to the co [Commanding Officer] to get out. I have a reform record, I got a two-year sentence, and I shouldn't be in the army at all because of that. Private: Observer: Private:

Maybe 1'11 get a discharge. . . . How can you d o that? I have a bad kidney. . . . I went to a doctor back in civvy street, and he told me to have it out. Well, I didn't d o anything about it, but if I get an X-ray here, they'll have to take it out and I'll get my discharge. There are three things that I want. Either I want a transfer to RCEME [Royal Canadian Electrical and Mechanical Engineers], o r I want to go on draft, o r I want a discharge. But I don't want to hang around this hole. They're liable to put me o n draft after I've been here for two years and eleven months, and keep me in the army an extra year. And I want to get the fuck out.

T h e recruits give two related reasons for wanting to go to Korea. First, they see Korea as being an escape from a situation where unnecessary demands are made of them. Secondly, it is in Korea that the "tough solider" can see action. Observer: Private: Observer:

Do you want to go over to Korea? Sure. Half the fellas in the regiment would give their arm u p to here (pointing to his shoulder) to go. And I know why, too. It's just to get away from this fucking place. It could be worse when you're fighting in Korea.

Private:

It can't be much worse than this. A guy gets pissed off around here. I bet I know why we have all this chicken shit around here. It's just so that the guys get real pissed off, so when they go over they let it out on the enemy. Isn't that right?

On a scheme, three privates, who were in a mixed section with three recruits, were complaining, saying that they wanted to go to Korea. One of them said, "I came in to fight, not to be a Saturday night solider. I've done all this before."

As we have said, when talking of going to Korea the recruit usually talks of returning and getting out of the army in the same breath. As one man said, "I want to go over and get back and get my discharge."

Summary and Conclusions In the infantry company studied we saw recruits and corporals doing military jobs, giving and taking military orders, and following military rules. This was expected. But a good deal of the behaviour was unexpected in terms of the army's formal rules and regulations. We found that non-military things were being done, that non-military orders were being given, and that non-military rules were being followed. It was expected, for example, that the corporal would give orders to the recruit. But we also found the recruit giving orders to the corporal, who obeyed. This leaves us with the problem of making sense of the informal, unexpected, non-military behaviour. This led us to deal with another question: How does the recruit adjust to the formal army situation where he finds that the demands of his superiors and the omnipresence of his peers impose many restraints upon his behaviour? We attempted to show that the informal behaviour patterns are functional for the recruit in that they help him to adjust to his superiors and peers. The emphasis among the recruits upon believing the worst, and griping, as well as the demands made by the recruits upon the junior NCO, and the recruits' dislike for, and punishment of, leadsivingers, suckholes, and squealers, helped him to cope with his superiors and their formal, pervasive control. These patterns also contribute toward group cohesion. The formal demands made upon the recruit are impersonal and occasionally capricious. The emphasis upon believing the worst helps the recruit to prepare for the worst, such as any unwelcome, last-minute changes which his superiors may make. T h e emphasis upon griping helps him assert his independence by indicating his resistance to the formal demands. The recruit makes certain demands upon the junior NCO, the superior with whom he has the most contact. He expects the junior

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NCO to forget about his stripes off-duty, to act like one of the boys, and not to charge a man unless he absolutely has to. These expectations are largely met, thereby enabling recruits to limit the junior NCO'S control over them. T h e recruits dislike and punish leadswinging, suckholing and squealing and by controlling these activities among their peers reduce the opportunities and information that their superiors might use in order to make additional demands upon them. T h e emphasis upon showing unconcern over personal problems as well as the joking relationship helps recruits cope with their ubiquitous peers. Showing unconcern over personal problems also helps keep what is private hidden, and it promotes a degree of social distance among peers. Through the joking relationship, the recruit can interact with any of his peers. But insofar as this interaction is confined to the joking relationship, the recruit maintains social distance between himself and his peers. T h e interaction is stereotyped and rules out personal matters. Further, the joking relationship can be used to divert the conversation from personal and emotional issues, just as it is brought into play to avoid an argument o r fight. T h e recruits regard going A W ~ Las a legitimate way of escaping from the formal situation, and in this way the maladjusted recruit can escape. At the same time, the recruits' talk of going AWOLo r of getting a discharge makes it clear to them that their situation is temporary. They can escape, at best, whenever they want to, and at worst, when their three years are up. Roethlisberger (1941:73-74) points out the presence of undefined situations among the lowest-ranked workers in an organization by indicating that a formal organizational chart, while it refers to single positions at the management level, refers to those at the bottom level as a block of "workers." T h e formal organization of the army gives no indication of what the ten recruits, who make u p an infantry section, d o when they are off-duty. It leaves many situations undefined, and informal patterns of behaviour spring u p in these undefined situations-unexpected from one's knowledge of the strictly formal military organization-thgt help the recruit to adapt to the demands and pressures of peers and superiors. O u r theoretical knowledge about the development of informal norms and behaviour, as well as about group dynamics, organizational behaviour and many other social science areas is limited. As a result, we still invest an enormous amount of time in developing, discussing, and debating o u r conceptual approaches (Shaw, 1976: 405-408; Rodman, 1980). One criticism frequently made against the kind of functional approach used in this paper is its teleological

108 PART TWO: OCCUPATIONAL RECRUITMENT AND SOCIALIZATION weakness. T h e major error is said to be the illegitimate attribution of causality to ends o r purposes. Thus, if one says that a "no-squealing" norm protects the recruits from their superiors, and if one explains the norm's existence by the purpose it serves, that is an illegitimate teleology. How can the ultimate purpose cause the norm to appear? There is a possible way around this teleological problem. ~ t c o m e s from recognizing that emergent patterns develop within particular social contexts. During the developmental process, the new pattern may be shaped to fit certain needs within the social system, and, in that evolutionary sense, the new pattern's "purpose" is also its "cause." A great deal of detailed work is needed to delineate the process that is involved in this kind of evolutionary development. Despite a longstanding need this kind of work has not been done, and it is not even clear that the concepts or techniques for doing the work are available. I have suggested that these informal patterns help the recruits cope with their superiors and peers. Other work organizations, as well as other settings, such as prisons, also display the development of informal patterns within the context of a formal organization. It is perhaps more than coincidence that several major informal patterns develop within (or are adopted through diffusion by) so many different formal organizations. Norms against squealing and ratebusting, and patterns to control superiors are frequently found (Roethlisberger and Dickson, 1939:522; Westley, 1970: 111-18, 1505 1, 186-87; Jensen and Jones, 1976; Carroll and Tosi, 1977: 105-106; Wilson, 1978:5-7, 192-99). These patterns were found in the Canadian Army, except that the pattern against rate-busting was not fully developed, but was part of the pattern against"suckholing".This may be because the men in the army are not involved in the production of tangible items that can be counted, thus making it difficult for informal norms about appropriate rates of production to emerge. Singling out the emergence of informal patterns within formal organizations as a special area for further research could have several positive outcomes: 1. It is an ideal area in which to focus upon the evolution of new patterns. As a result, further work in the area can encourage the growth and assess the value of a functional approach that is not marred by teleological handicaps. 2. It is a rich area in which to study the comparative development of several major informal patterns, thereby adding to our knowledge of the functions served by these patterns, their mode of development, and the similarities and differences of the various types of formal organizations in which they develop.

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3. It is a novel domain in which to pursue a series of microsociological phenomena such as group process, interaction, exchange, and social meanings as these occur in the development of informal patterns involving peer and authority relations.

Notes 1. A Defence Research Board team of seven, consisting of one typist, two interviewers, three participant observers, and one research director, spent approximately three months studying thirty-five recruits and several NCOS (non-commissioned officers) of an infantry company of the Canadian Army. The author spent the final week as an interviewer, but the rest of the time was spent as a participant observer. Notes were typed as often as possible, usually once a day. As soon as possible after an event the author deemed important, he made a note of it, and it was from these short notes that the typing was done. This paper is based upon a master's thesis, "A Functional Analysis of the Informal Behaviour of Infantry Recruits and Corporals," submitted to McGill University in 1953. It was a government-classified document until 1973, when it was released from its confidential classification by the Defence Research Board of Canada. The material has been revised and updated for this book. Thanks are due to Frank E. Jones, Bruce A. McFarlane, Tom F.S. McFeat, Ted E. Rashleigh, and Audrey Wipper, the other members of the team, and to the late David N. Solomon, the research director. Oswald Hall directed the thesis, served as consultant to the Defence Research Board team, and provided invaluable assistance. I thank him for the knowledge he shared and for his tolerance and sensitive advice about this project as well as many other matters. 2. Military exercises carried out for training purposes. 3. Private is used to refer to any private, other than the thirty-five recruits specifically studied. The recruits' names are fictitious. The formal position of the recruit and private, face-to-face with their superiors and peers, and the informal behaviour patterns of the recruits and privates, are the same. 4. For a similar discussion of informal twistings of formal authority see Orvis Collins (1946), Roethlisberger and Dickson (1939), and Sykes (1958). 5. For a discussion of the attitudes of enlisted men toward those who "bucked for promotion" see Stouffer et al. (1949: 410-20). They point out that 67 per cent of the enlisted men questioned agreed with the statement that "most soldiers lose respect for a man who is always bucking for promotion." 6. For the purposes of this paper I am ignoring the distinction between joking relations among close kin as reported in certain societies and joking relations among co-workers (Freedman, 1977),and the somewhat related distinction between setting-specific and category-routinized joking relations (Handelman and Kapferer, 1972). Also see Bradney (1957).

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References Blau, Peter M. "Theories of Organizations." International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. Vol. 11, Macmillan, 1968. Bradney, Pamela. "The Joking Relationship in Industry." Human Relations, 10 (May, 1957). Carroll, Leo. "Race and Three Forms of Prisoner Power: Confrontation, Censoriousness, and the Corruption of Authority," in C. Ronald Huff, ed., Contemporary Corrections. Beverly Hills, California: Sage, 1977. Carroll, Stephen J. and Henry L. Tosi. Organizational Behavior. Chicago: St. Clair Press, 1977. Collins, Orvis. "Ethnic Behavior in Industry: Sponsorship and Rejection in a New England Factory." American Journal of Sociology, 5 1 (January 1946). Cooley, Charles H. Human Nature and the Social Order. New York: Charles Scribner's, 1922. Davis, Kingsley. Human Society. New York: Macmillan, 1948. Elkin, Frederick. "The Soldier's Language." American Journal of Sociology, 5 1 (March 1946). ~ l k i n Henry. , " ~ g ~ r e s s i vand e Erotic Tendencies of Army Life." Amnican Journal of Sociology, 5 1 (March 1946). Freedman, Jim. "Joking, Affinity and the Exchange of Ritual Services Among the Kiga of Northern Rwanda: An Essay on Joking Relationship Theory." Man, 12 (April 1977). Goffman, Erving. Asylums. New York: Doubleday, 1961. Handelman, Don and Bruce Kapferer. "Forms of Joking Activity: A Com parative Approach." American Anthropologist, 74 (Sept. 1972). Jensen, Gary F. and Dorothy Jones. "Perspectives on Inmate Culture: A Study of Women in Prison." Social Forces, 54 (March 1976). Mayo, Elton, Human Problems of an Industrial Civilization. New York: Macmillan, 1933. Merton, Robert K. Social Theory and Social Structure. Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1949. Miller, Walter B. "Lower Class Culture as a Generating Milieu of Gang Delinquency." Journal of Social Issues, 143, (1958). Moore, Wilbert E. Industrial Relaions and the Social Order. New York: Macmillan, 1951. Rodman, Hyman. "Are Conceptual Frameworks Necessary for Theory Building? The Case of Family Sociology." Sociological Qwlrterly, 21 (Summer 1980). Roethlisberger, F. J. Management and Morale. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1941. Roethlisberger, F. J. and William J. Dickson. Management and the Worker. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1939. Rose, Arnold M. "The Social Psychology of Desertion from Combat." American Sociological R e v h , 16 (October 1951). Shaw, Clifford R. TheJack-Roller. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1930. Shaw, Marvin E. Group Dynamics. 2nd ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1976. Stouffer, Samuel A., and others. The American Soldier: Adjustment During Army Life. (Vol. 1, "Studies in Social Psychology in World War 11.") Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1949. Sykes, Gresham M. The Society of Captives. Princeton, N .J. : Princeton University Press, 1958.

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'Toch, Hans. Living in Prison. New York: Free Press, 1977. Weber, Max. From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology. Translated and edited by H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills. New York: Oxford University Press, 1946. Weber, Max. The Theory of Social and Economic Organization. Translated by A. R. Henderson and Talcott Parsons, revised and edited by Talcott Parsons. London: William Hodge, 1947. Westley, William A. Violence and the Police. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1970. Whitehead, Thomas North. The Industrial Worker. 2 vols. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1938. Whyte, William Foote. Human Relations in the Restaurant Industry. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1948. Wilson, Stephen. Infomnal Groups. Englewood Cliffs, N.J. : Prentice-Hall, 1978.

The Name of the Game: Occupational Status among Professional Riders AUDREY WIPPER

This paper examines professional horsemen, more specifically riders of "hunters" and "jumpers," a little-known occupational group in the work world.' These people are employed to manage, train and .~ activities focus primarily on horse "show" a stable of h o r ~ e s Their shows where they compete in various events. In addition to furnishing opportunities for riders to meet and associate, these competitions provide the testing grounds where riders' reputations are established and around which careers are shaped. Amid the drama, excitement and work of horse shows, mutual understandings are built up and reinforced. The emergence of shared norms, common concerns and special ways of acting help make professional horsemen a relatively distinctive group.3 Occupations survive, in part, by "moulding" their members, indoctrinating them with characteristic habits, concerns, values and motives which help them meet the demands of their work. "To equip themselves for their work, people develop emphases, discriminations, attitudes, etc. Special preferences, dislikes, fears, hopes, apprehensions, idealizations are brought to the fore." (Burke 1935:58) Focusing on the central values of the occupation, one finds that the major dimensions involved in acquiring and maintaining high status are: winning consistently, being an all-round horseman, displaying courage, coolness, dedication and sportsmanship, and having aut ~ n o m yFor . ~ my purpose, status refers to the amount of prestige and honour that accrue to individuals in their occupational roles. High status indicates high rank on the majority of these dimensions, while low status indicates low rank on these dimensions. However, since reputations reflect one's rank on multiple dimensions, a number of combinations are possible. There are, additionally, the role requirements of dependability and honesty that are basic to role performance and r e p ~ t a t i o nBut . ~ since these traits are necessary to all occupational performances, they are not emphasized in this discussion. Although the analysis concentrates on the positive qualities affecting a 112

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reputation, we will also consider how reputations may be tarnished by violating particular norms of sportsmanship. Understandably these dimensions d o not embody categorically exclusive elements. Some attributes overlap while some subsume others. There is obviously a close association between being dedicated and consistently winning. Similarly, while courage suggests coolness, wherein for example, a pro may be known to have displayed courage while taking hazardous jumps, he may still get a visible case of nerves before an important competition. WINNING

A career as a professional rider (henceforth referred to as pro or rider)6 requires being able to win major events at the most prestigious shows such as the Royal Winter Fair, Madison Square Garden and Harrisburg. Other riders may exhibit more panache, but winning counts above all else. A pro's job, reputation and self-esteem largely depend upon him bringing home the "ribbons, silverware and cash." T h e following remarks made by different pros illustrate the importance of winning. You can tell a horseman7 by the horses in his barn, and you can tell a rider by the ribbons he has won. Every time we go into the ring we're supposed to bring out a ribbon. You know it takes the fun out of it. I think Bud is one of the best. He's riding winners; he rides hard. Obs: He says he doesn't ride for the ribbon. Pro: That's not right. All professional riders are out to win.

Riders who have style, but who fail to win, are not taken seriously by their peers. Speaking of a well-known pro (who subsequently went into coaching), another pro said: "Why, he gets upset if his little toe is pointing in the wrong direction-problem is, he never wins." In this game, losers don't count; they gain nothing but experience. Winning one major event is not enough to establish one's reputation: a rider establishes his reliability and reputation by winning consistently. Remarks such as, "You can always count on him for a good performance" suggest the importance of consistency. When a relatively unknown rider wins a major event, the question arises, "Was it a fluke or will he stay there?" Even top riders must maintain their reputations by winning. Winning regularly dispels the possibility that it was money o r luck that accounted for the win. Money can buy a superb horse which can carry a mediocre rider to victory, but a rider who makes mistakes such as taking a jump at a wrong angle or at a wrong pace can cause the

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horse to injure itself. In time, the horse may turn "sour" and show its dislike of jumping by "running out," "refusing" and "not trying," thereby decreasing its competitive value. Similarly, while luck may account for an occasional victory, its significance diminishes with consistently high performances. Another way of establishing one's claim to belong among the best is to turn a "second rater" into a inner.^ In the small world of professional riders such an action suggests that it was the rider and not the horse; "Jim was riding Comet and Mr. Dunahee, second-rate horses," recalled Dinnie Day, his wife, and "jumped them out of their shoes" (Wood, 19'76: 10). Behind winning consistently, there is the mastery of riding skills. "Seat," "hands," "legs," balance, and a sense of pace and timing involve skills essential to a winning performance. There is also the intangible quality of getting along well with horses--of being able to quiet the high-strung thoroughbred, of getting the best out of a wilful and erratic performer. A brilliant display of these skills is appreciated by pros and contributes to a pro being perceived as a "horseman's horseman" in contrast to the pro who is a crowd-pleaser because of his idiosyncratic mannerisms. T H E ALL-ROUND HORSEMAN

Stables of hunters and jumpers in Canada tend to be small family-owned establishments of four to eight horses with one man in chargeB9There may be several grooms to d o the "mucking out" (cleaning of stalls), grooming, feeding, and "cooling out" (walking sweaty horses until they are cool), but the pro is expected to train the horses, supervise their care and d o the showing. A large stable might employ a manager, rider, exercise girl and several grooms, but in the more common, smaller stables the pro finds himself doing a variety of horse-related jobs besides riding and showing. In this work, a narrowly limited specialist is at a disadvantage since most stables are not large enough to support him. What is required is the all-round horseman, the person with wide experience who can handle any task that may arise in the course of a day's work and who doesn't hide behind "specialization" when an extra person is needed to help out. A specialist can always be hired to show a horse. An owner may ride his horses in particular classes at horse shows like the "Owners Up" class, but the general practice is to have the pro d o the important showing. Pros may also be asked to ride a horse for another owner for which they receive a fee and/or a percentage of the winnings. (Some riders' contracts may specifically exclude them from riding for anyone except their employer.) A stable boy or girllo may d o the daily exercising, but the pro is

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likely to exercise the best horses. He "develops" the horse, correcting its "faults," and undertakes any special training that is needed. He must be able to gauge the amount of work to give the horse-when to ease u p on its training, when to push it harder-and how to get it to its peak condition for a major competition. A young horse needs time to develop and may be ruined if put into strong competition before it is ready." This kind of knowledge comes only from firsthand experience in the sport. If a pro has a reputation for having a "good eye" for horses he may be put in charge of buying. Being able to accurately judge a horse's potential is a highly valued skill. There is no lack of well-bred horses, but being able to pick out a future winner on sight at a sale is a skill only acquired through long association with horses, and some people even then d o not have it. This is another ability that clearly distinguishes the pro from the amateur. Owners who want to make it to the top in the show world usually rely heavily on the judgement of pros. An example is the Tally Ho Breeding Farm, where the owner hired Captain Equinsy and gave him complete authority to purchase the horses he wished. Another wealthy newcomer did not win any important events until he employed a pro to assist with the buying. A pro commented as follows: He's tops as a horseman. They don't come any better. You know he built up the Marsh stable. Marsh had to pay him for it, but when he got horses like Skipacross and Moonbeam he had the best. They brought him ribbons from Harrisburg and Madison Square.

Animal and stable management are an important part of a pro's work. This daily care involves many tasks whose importance are known only to horsemen. Horses are allotted different portions of feed and varying amounts of exercise and training. A pro bandaging a horse's swollen fetlock said: "You know it's the little things that count. They make all the difference in winning and losing." Such truisms as, "No feet, no horse"; "A horse is only as good as his feet"; "You can tell a horseman by the way he cares for his horses"; and "It's all in the feeding" denote the horseman's concern for these aspects of his work. Unless the veterinarian is a specialist in horses, pros prefer to look after their horses' minor ailments themselves. These men have much practical knowledge of sprains and other injuries common to the legs of jumpers. Vets appear to respect the pro's knowledge and their association is typically that of colleagues. A pro's tasks depend, to some extent, on his own skills and initiative. He continually faces new problems-varying from having to nail a shoe in place to stitching up a torn flank in emergencies-that require improvisation.

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The role requirements of a pro's job include having specific skills in training, showing and buying, in addition to performing a number of other tasks. Such work requires a versatile person. As one pro said, "Listen, they call me a rider. But that means everything. I groom horses. I clean them out. Everything." Another said: "They [owners in general] want someone to manage their places. One man to do all the mucking out and showing.'' Although pros' job contracts may clearly specify that they are not to do any "mucking out," they often have to do even that chore.12 COURAGE

The nature of competitive jumping means that pros constantly find themselves in risk-taking situations. They ride a variety of horses, some of which are especially difficult to handle, over big jumps. Their daily work brings them into contact with the dangers of horses' kicking, biting, rearing, bolting, shying and stumbling. Most riders who have spent many years around horses have suffered one or more serious accidents.13 Like other occupations where danger is inherent in the work, there are well-established norms which exhort toughness, boldness and courage.14These norms, which are differentially shared and internalized by horsemen in general, are of particular significance to professional riders because of their daily association with horses. There is a rich heritage of beliefs, going back centuries, that portray horsemen as bold, tough and intrepid. A horseman parodying Danton's famous "De l'audace, et encore de l'audace, et toujours de l'audace!" said that horsemanship is "boldness and boldness, and above all things boldness!" Will Ogilvie, well known in "horsey circles," called point-to-pointing (a race over fences) "A game made by the Gods for brave men's playing" (Williams, 1970:33). The first chapter in Colonel Rodzianko's book, M o h n Horsemanship., is entitled "Courage or 'Heart' " and it begins: "The courage or 'heart' of a rider is one of the most essential qualities in a horseman. I put this chapter before anything else in this book, because I consider it the most important" (Rodzianko, 1950:24). Maxims exhort: "He who has lost confidence can lose nothing more"; "He that would venture nothing must not get on horseback"; "Throw your heart over the jump and your horse will follow." Being around horsemen one hears phrases like "a fighting spirit," "a gutsy rider," and "he hasn't got the heart,"15 that make explicit the role qualities of the rider. The words spirit, guts and heart suggest qualities inherent in the individual, toughness, tenacity, and natural ability, that are not easily acquired. Riders who display these qualities are praised: "She's a nice rider, got plenty of courage;" "Tom Little

for a young chap is good, a fighting spirit.: Disparaging, sometimes scathing, remarks are made about riders who fail to display these qualities. Two different people commented about a "timid" rider, "He hasn't got the guts!" and "He's a n old woman. . . . You've gotta have it in your blood." Members of other dangerous occupations behave similarly. l6 Given the strength with which these norms are held, riders who are concerned about their reputations must be able to manage their emotions so as to appear bold and unafraid. This may involve "staging", and, if so, resembles the ironworkers who privately live in fear, but publically disavow it, and go to great lengths, by daring feats, to "prove" they are fearless (Haas, 1978). My data and interpretation suggest that pros, who are in their prime and who stay in the sport for years, are not afraid." Jockey Jacinto Vasquez, winner of the 1980 Kentucky Derby, put it this way: ". . .Jockeys always have one foot in the hospital and one in the cemetery. But we can't think what will happen if a horse stumbles. If an athlete has fear, he can't work." (Time,1978:33) Learning to accept fear is an important aspect of a rider's training. A riding master will say to his pupils, "You'll never be a horseman until you've fallen off a hundred times," indicating to the pupil who had a spill that she still has more to experience and more to learn. Since most falls d o not cause severe injury, it is normative among horsemen to immediately remount upon being thrown.18 If a jump caused the fall then it must be retaken. The prevailing belief is that if a rider doesn't get back on his horse, he may well lose his nerve. Since dangerous events are defined as routine matters within the sport, this helps riders "handle" the problem of fear. Yet not all falls are routine. Some falls are more serious than others and clearly test a rider's courage. After a fall that necessitated hospitalization, a question frequently asked about the rider is "How's his nerve?" Such a person knows that people are waiting to see whether he has "lost his nerve," and that his first ring appearance after recovery will be scrutinized to establish whether his confidence has been impaired. By displaying boldness, he conforms to this important norm and his repute remains intact. COOLNESS

Coolness, "grace under pressure," and courage are sometimes spoken of as if they were the same quality.lg I n an occupation where the members are frequently tested by competition and where success and failure are clearly distinguished and known to all involved, the members are subject to intense pressure and riders unable to stand the pressure are unlikely to last in this occupation.

118 PART TWO: OCCUPATIONAL RECRUITMENT AND SOCIALIZATION

Since jumping puts a premium on "steady nerves," calmness and composure are important and help pros handle the pressures of competition with a minimum of stress and anxiety. Failure to comply with these norms is penalized. Similarly, failure to display coolness in competition is also disparaged by jockeys. Marvin Scott writes: "Moral character is coolness in risky situations. The jockey who displays all the necessary skills in the morning workout but lacks coolness in the race is called a "morning glory" (Scott, 1968:26-27).20 Much of the pro's work involves competing in a series of contests-a set of recurrent fateful situations-over which he has limited control. Months of training, even years of work, rest upon a few minutes' performance. A horse can slip and fall during a competition, eliminating any hope of winning. In certain classes-much like downhill and slalom skiing-a fraction of a second can separate a winner from a loser, a fraction of an inch can mean the difference between a "clean" round and a "knockdown." Regardless of the hard work, skilled riding and excellent horses, success is never assured. Because so much hinges upon their brief round in the show ring, pros tend to "tense up" prior to their appearance. Given this tendency to nervousness with its serious consequences for their technical proficiency," pros try to maintain, or at least exhibit, composure. As in other sports they often attribute a case of "nerves" to their competitors claiming to have beaten them before entering the ring-probably a useful tactic in building self-confidence. Like other athletes, riders have good and bad days, times when they're on a winning streak and times when they're losing. One poor performance can be overlooked as simply a "bad day", but a succession of bad days raises questions as to whether a pro is in a serious slump and, if so, whether he can make a comeback. Since a pro is sensitive to these kinds of questions, they may increase his anxiety and make it more difficult to exhibit coolness. Success, in itself, brings even more pressure. Olympic rider Jim Day commented: "The hardest thing is to keep winning. The first victories were almost the easiest" (Wood, 1976:lO). Once established, a pro becomes a target for aspiring riders who are trying to establish themselves. He will be continually challenged by these talented upstarts who having much to gain take chances hoping to unseat him. In contrast, the pro gets proportionately little credit for each victory since it is expected of him and only maintains the status quo. DEDICATION

A phrase commonly used to describe horsemen is, "you've got to have it in your blood." An old pro, reminiscing about his former days of showing replied to the question: "Is it hard to get horses out of your

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blood?" "Can't get them out, that's all." A former groom advised the observer: "You shouldn't let horses get in your blood, a girl like you. There's nothing in it. You should get out of it." "Having it in your blood" denotes a number of qualities that pros may not clearly enunciate but clearly understand and respect. It implies a person who knows his or her way around horses, a person who can "handle" them. More than anything else, it singles out the individual who is fascinated by horses, captivated by them to the point of being addicted, like an inveterate gambler. Such a person appreciates their beauty and grace, sees each horse as a distinct personality, a stubborn, spirited being that can never be conquered but will cooperate with the individual willing to spend the time and lavish the care required to know it. People who are thus "hooked" are apt to spend both their working and leisure hours around horses. Pros see themselves devoted to their work because they love it and not because of monetary rewards. Groom: You really have to love it. If you don't, you let the place down, the horses down, everything. You have to have a real interest in it. Pro: Obs: Pro:

He won't pay more then forty [dollars] a week and room Yes, but you could make sixty in a factory.. But factory work isn't like this.

This love for horses also characterizes the trainers of harness horses. Fetterly reports: "Several years ago one of the first horse trainers I met expressed his feelings about training in this way: 'You've got to love horses to stay in this business; a guy who didn't like them would go crazy within a month or two if he didn't get out.' . . .Any person who sought to become a trainer simply for the glamour involved in it would likely leave the occupation within a short period of time, if he did not in fact truly love horses" (1976:9-10, italics mine). Showing horses in Canada has traditionally been linked with the upper classes and regarded as their sport. Although the sport has broader, middle-class support today, its long association with noble bloodlines (both human and equine) and royalist traditions result in it being perceived as elitist. Professional riders may not come from the moneyed classes (many d o not earn as much as skilled workmen), but they identify with the sport's elitist image and see themselves as a unique breed-sportsmen who engage in their favourite past-time while earning a living. Pros believe that it takes a certain kind of person to be a "career horseman" because of a number of factors, among them the hazardous work, relatively low wages, job insecurity and long hours.22 A person who qualifies has usually passed a number of tests such as making a comeback after a bad injury, a season of not winning, or the

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loss of a job. He has displayed courage and coolness. This person is willing to spend endless hours on bleak, cold days, far from the lights of the show ring, exercising, training and caring. This person is a serious horseman who can be counted on, year in and year out, to have his horses in good shape. This is a person willing to make sacrifices for, and a lasting commitment to, horses. In short, he is dedicated. A rider who demonstrates these qualities is considered to have "the right stuff," an idiom used by the first American astronauts to signify the qualities they considered necessary in an astronaut,23 and similar to, "you've got to have it in your blood." Pros reserve the latter expression for one of their own. It separates them, like an invisible wall, from those who ride for pleasure only, compete sporadically, o r are more interested in the social than in the technical aspects of the sport, in short "the dilettantes," who know nothing about the unspoken prerequisites of "having it in your blood." Faux pm committed by, and jokes about, "dilettantes" are told with relish. A groom related a story about a wealthy advertising executive who, in his later years, took u p foxhunting: Why one time I caught him going into the hunt club with his spurs on upside down. [He grinned when he said this.] He was glad when I noticed it. You know, the points up.

A pro stated: You've got to hand it to old Marsh [a new owner], he rides alright. Only thing he never takes the right course [in a show this causes the entry to be debarred]. When I see him go in, I'd bet you five to one, he'll take the wrong course.

The world is sharply divided, then, between those who "have it in their blood" and those who d o not. Perceiving themselves as a fraternity of superior horsemen helps pros compensate for the onerous and dangerous aspects of their work. Also, "having it in your blood" helps exclude "outsiders" in much the same way as a lack of money shuts out the socially ambitious from privileged wealth. Finally, it serves as a rationale for remaining in an occupation when there is no place else to go. As pros reach middle age or older, some feel unsuited for the life of showing. The strenuous schedule of training, days spent on the road and at horse shows, coupled with the possibility of disabling accidents, sometimes leads them to seek out other work. However, at this stage in their careers, pros may find few occupational doors open since their skills are not easily transferable. Low-status factory work with its long hours, monotonous regularity and little on-the-job autonomy is "far beneath them." They find themselves locked into the world of horses. They may take a job as a groom or a trainer, or they may even van and trade horses, although these jobs usually involve a drop in

OCCUPATIONAL, STATUS AMONG PROFESSIONAL RIDERS

12 1

both status and money. In short, pros tend to remain with horses, because "it's in their blood," and, as Oswald Hall would say, "selection by rejection." AUTONOMY

The degree of control pros exercise over the many different tasks that comprise their work varies considerably. Sometimes a pro makes important decisions on his own, other times decisions are made jointly with the owner, while occasionally he must follow the owner's orders. T h e domain of a pro's autonomy varies from hiring and firing members of the staff to a virtual carte blanche to purchase the best horses available. T o a large extent his freedom to select and buy horses will depend on his reputation for "knowing horses" and on the owner's knowledge and interest in his stable. If the owner has a genuine interest in horses, he is likely to have considerable knowledge and take an active part in their purchase. However, if horses are only a peripheral interest and he has little knowledge about the sport, then he often turns over their selection to the pro. Speaking of purchasing horses, a pro remarked: I look over all the horses [at a big sale in the U.S.], pick out what I like. Mr. Clark says whatever I say, goes. But I don't like that. I wire him and he flies down and we decide together.

Professional riders define autonomy as essential to their work; they consider it necessary for success and for esteem among their peers. They want to be free to exercise their own judgment unimpeded by the interference and decisions of non-professionals, T h e degree of autonomy available is often the major criterion in determining whether a pro will accept a particular job. Like businessmen and skilled craftsmen of the entrepreneurial type, pros pride themselves on their independence and freedom from organizational controls. Pros with high status, whose services are in demand, will typically settle only for a position with a great deal of control over their work.'( A few riders are so highly esteemed that they can name their own price. In this case, the pro decides whether a particular horse is ready to be shown, in which classes the horses should be shown and which shows the stable will attend. Generally, the more control a pro exerts over the decision-making, the higher his status will be.25Understandably, these variables are interdependent. If the owner is seen as knowledgeable, he'll likely have the pro's respect and their relationship may resemble a partnership. Nevertheless the pro will consider his knowledge and skills superior. A pro confidently declared: "A pro can beat an amateur any day. Why d o you think those people can know as much as people like Rough who

122 PART TWO: OCCUPATIONAL RECRUITMENT AND SOCIALIZATION spent his life with horses. They can't even bridle a horse the right way." Another pro stated: Well, those people may have it from the books, but they haven't the experience. Take Row [a new owner]. Now if he was smart like Marsh [another owner] and hired someone to build him up a stable, he might get places. For the amount of money he has spent.

Like other professionals, riders see themselves as the experts in the area of horses and dislike the interference of, or even worse, being controlled by laymen, in this instance, the owners.26However, since the owner holds the purse-strings; he is the one who can ultimately hire and fire, buy and sell, the horses on which a pro's livelihood and status depend. The problem of professionals being controlled by non-professionals and the tactics professionals employ to alleviate non-professional control has received considerable sociological attention. (Becker, 1951; Moore, 1970:87- 108, 187-206; Kornhauser, 1962.) Pros often see themselves at odds with owners on the values each places on the horse, on the place it has in their lives, and on its implications for their future. Pros appreciate excellence in horses and in riding, for their own sakes. When they compete they want their horse to be in top form so that they will not only have a chance of winning but will have the respect of their peers. Pros often feel that owners do not have the pros' and the horses' best interests at heart. They see some owners' interest in horses-associated with social prestige and meeting the "right" people-as frivolous in comparison to their own, for their livelihood and not the owners' depends on their horses' performances. Indicative of the strains and conflict that characterize pro4wner relationships are the sarcastic and disparaging comments pros make about owriers. A pro said of the owners: "All they want is the ribbons. Keep the ribbons coming." A groom remarked on the stable's expensive fittings: "Everything around here for show-nothing for us." A new exhibitor's tack room which displayed a large, freshly painted sign bearing the stable's name before any ribbons had been won, led a pro to remark: "If they'd spend as much time training their horses as they do fixing u p the tack room, they might win something." (A tack room is where bridles, saddles and other horse equipment is kept. It is a room used at horse shows for informal entertaining.) Pros would probably agree with Thorstein Veblen who wrote, "In order to gain and to hold the esteem of men, it is not sufficient to possess wealth or power. The wealth or power must be put in evidence, for esteem is awarded only on evidence." (Veblen, 1912:42)

SPORTSMANSHIP

Pros are caught up in a complex set of norms. On the one hand, they are expected to win major events regularly over the years. On the other hand, they must not be too ruthless about winning but must abide by the occupationally acceptable means of achieving success. In this section I will examine the widely accepted norm that a good sportsman should always have the best interests of the sport at heart, that is, he ought never to act so as to harm his horses, his competitors, other sportsmen or the sport itself. Although conformity in itself does little to enhance a pro's reputation, the breaking of this norm can certainly tarnish one. Two types of unsportsmanlike riders are examined-the "spoilsport" and the "bully." The Spoilsport: Small shows (the "unrecognized" and schooling shows) are for small-time competitors+wners of one or two horses which they show themselves. T h e small stable clearly has little chance of winning when pitted against the top horses ridden by professionals. These shows are defined as "fun" and "practice" rather than in terms of winning and prestige. They are considered occasions when ribbons should be widely distributed, and horsemen should meet their friends and enjoy themselves, as well as give their horses some practice. Sometimes a large stable with its string of champion horses and attendants will enter a small show and mar the day. Such a stable may be going to a big show the following week, and it merely uses the schooling show as a preliminary workout. By entering its horses in all the classes it cleans up on the ribbons, leaving the other competitors empty-handed, or with only fourth and fifth place ribbons. If a competitor leaves a show feeling that his or her efforts as well as money were wasted or that he was hopelessly outclassed and should send his horses to the "glue factory," he is not likely to compete again. If these shows are to continue, a sufficient number of competitors must derive satisfaction by winning a few ribbons. A large stable that took five firsts and the hunter championship at a minor show (even though its two best horses had been left at home), caused a groom to remark: He [the owner and, indirectly, the pro] gets himself disliked by coming to these shows. It makes it hard on the small competitor when he's faced with such competition. . . The worst thing you can encounter at these shows is the Hungry Rider-the guy who's out for all the ribbons.

Although acknowledged as one of the best riders, such a spoilsport was disliked for his acquisitiveness. T h e Canadian Equestrian Federation (the body governing competitions) has no rules that forbid large stables from competing in small shows. However, the expectations are that large stables will honour

124 PART TWO: OCCUPATIONAL RECRUITMENT AND SOCIALIZATION the informal rules that discourage their participation. Although these norms serve as guidelines only, their violation (e.g. rules that define the appropriate shows for pros to enter, and how much and how hard they should compete), results in a variety of sanctions such as the "cold shoulder," critical comments and snide remarks. A pro's reputation among horsemen, then, is jeopardized if he disregards the general welfare of the sport and spoils other sportsmen's fun. The Bully: A pro's mistreatment of a horse-for example, "pushing" a young horse so hard that it is permanently harmed or entering a horse in a strenuous jumping contest when it has a leg injury--casts a shadow over his reputation. A single incident is generally much less damaging than multiple violations, even though in each instance the rider's judgment may be questioned. If a rider is thought to have ruthlessly disregarded his horses' welfare, his reputation may be severely, sometimes permanently, damaged. Of a woman rider who made it into the top echelon, a horseman scornfully remarked, "Why she ruined three horses, rode them to death." Jim Day, a member of Canada's 1968 gold medal equestrian team, has been described as "brilliant," "the world's best," and "his timing is flawless." Dennis Whitaker, Chief D'Equipe of the Canadian Olympic Team, said that Day was, "A hell of a rider. Dedicated, gutsy and very successful" (Wood, 1976: 10). In 1977 Day was charged by the Ontario Humane Society with wilfully causing unnecessary injury to a horse. In training a difficult animal he had beaten it about the head and eyes with the bone end of his riding whip. A veterinarian testified at the trial that the horse had subsequently lost 40 per cent of its sight in one eye and had injured the other eye as well. Additionally, it had fifteen to twenty spur marks on its shoulders, three to five inch long welts on its flank and neck, and a bleeding nose. Day was acquitted by the judge who based his decision on an opinion given by Lord Coleridge in England in 1889, that it is acceptable to use force for the purpose of training an animal. (Two experts gave conflicting testimony at the trial on the "acceptable" level of harshness that can be used in training.) This judgment, however, brought cries of outrage from animal-lovers and some horsemen. T h e following letter, for instance, appeared in the Ontario Humane Society's magazine, Animals Voice: Sir: I fail to see any just cause for the apparent action of equestrian Jim Day. Let's face it, times have changed and the public doesn't have to put up with this unbelievable behaviour of a select few who say they participate in a gentlemen's sport. Donald G . FisheP7

Day had violated the rule that kindness, gentleness and patience should be used in training horses. While it may sometimes be

necessary to use spurs or a whip to discipline a horse, these are to be used moderately, as indicators of command to the horse, not as punishment. Cruelty is formally forbidden. The reaction was probably stronger against Day than against other riders because he was held in such high esteem, and expectations of him were correspondingly higher. He represented the middle-class youth who had made it, on sheer ability, into the top echelon of world riders in a sport dominated by big money. He was a hero who enjoyed a celebrity status, and was seen as a model for young, talented and not-so-rich riders. By displaying what many saw as a cruel side to his nature, Day had let them down, shattering their image of the gallant horseman, the "clean" and graceful Canadian rider out-jumping the world's best. The image of horses jumping for the sheer love of it paled beside out-of-the-ring images of horses beaten into submission by a sadistic rider. Now he appeared to be a bully with few scruples about maiming a horse. His superior riding ability only made the struggle appear more unequal-pitted against an armed rider, a defenceless horse emerged as the victim. Questions arose: Are these his training methods? How many other horses has he beaten? Tojust what lengths will he go to win? After acquittal Day said that he felt his reputation had been tarnished and that in the future, "I'll avoid riding difficult horses." His concern for his image apparently was short-lived. Two years later he was again charged with abusing a race horse he was training, found guilty, and fined $500 by the Ontario Racing Commission. With that action Day ceased to be a hero for many, especially the young people, and became a bully. Although heroes enjoy some privileges and are immune to certain kinds of criticism, being seen as a bully is too out of character with being a hero. Heroes are usually courageous and do not take unfair advantages of others-the very opposite of bullies who are associated with brutality, cowardliness and unfairness. "True'' horsemen love, not abuse their horses. Basic occupational values and role requirements had been violated, and the hero image damaged, probably beyond repair. The coup de grice for some of his admirers was that in a sport still defined as a "gentlemen's game" he had behaved most ungentlemanly. CONCLUSIONS

This paper has attempted to depict the central values in the occupation of professional rider. It has examined how riders perceive, define and evaluate each other's job performance. It suggests that the seven components discussed-winning consistently, being an all-round horseman, displaying courage, coolness, dedica-

126 PART TWO: OCCUPATIONAL RECRUITMENT AND SOCIALIZATION

tion and sportsmanship, and having autonomy--contribute significantly to esteem among professional riders. Further research might examine the relative importance of these variables, the way they interact and the extent to which they are individually associated with overall ratings of esteem. It would be interesting to know how prevalent these values are in other professional sports and occupations. Do professional golfers, skiers and tennis players place the same emphasis on coolness and autonomy as professional riders? How important are dedication and breadth of job skills among computer analysts, salesmen and secretaries? Comparative data would provide a basis for evaluating the generality of these values in diverse occupations. It is surprising that there has not been more research on what constitutes esteem in various occupations. For men, and increasingly for women, the work world occupies a large portion of their lives, and next to the family, the work group is probably the most important. People spend much of their lives in the struggle to gain the respect of their fellow workers. And the way they are rated by their peers forms a basic part of their self conception. Much of the research on ranking within occupations (i.e., esteem) has focused on such deviant occupations as prostitution and various forms of thieving and hustling,2Rrather than on occcupations where the bulk of the labour force is employed. If we are to gain a more intimate knowledge of both status and work, we should also be concerned about what brings honour and esteem in jobs that employ large numbers of white- and blue-collar workers.

Notes 1. I am indebted to Bob Prus and Ed Vaz for their critical comments on several drafts of this paper, and to Bill Shaffir for reading the final version. 2. "Jumpers" and "hunters" refer to horses entered in different types of events; they are not breeds of horses. Jumpers are exhibited in jumping competitions where the goal is to clear the jumps without knocking any down. Speed is sometimes a determining factor. Generally, a hunter is any horse that can be used in foxhunting. In horse shows there are various classes for different kinds and weights of hunters such as lightweight hunters, working hunters, etc. T h e ideal show hunter is nearly, o r all, thoroughbred. T o "show" a horse is to ride a horse in a class where competitors are evaluated according to criteria specified for that particular class. 3. T h e data for this paper come primarily from two sources: (1) An exploratory study of the occupation was conducted and reported in my master's thesis supervised by Oswald Hall. I worked for six months as a

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groom and exercise girl in two stables in the Toronto area. One stable had several horses and was involved in small-time showing. The other larger stable had an established reputation of excellence and employed a highly rated professional rider. Data were gathered through participant observation and informal interviews. In quotations, my comments are reported as Observer. (2) Data were also gathered informally during many years of riding in horse shows, foxhunting, and talking to horse dealers, huntsmen, grooms, riders, judges, trainers, and others engaged in the sport. All excerpts and quotations, unless otherwise stated, are from my thesis. All names cited from my thesis are fictitious. In cases already reported in newspapers or magazines, real names are used. Although collected during the 1950s, the data accurately portray the occupation today with a few minor changes as noted in the text. The intervening years have seen a large increase in the popularity of riding. Many large, well-run stables have been established, with the result that in some classes the large number of entries makes winning much more difficult. 4. The only somewhat comparable data I could find was on riders of saddle horses in the United States. "The respondents expressed varied opinions on characteristics of a good show rider. They mentioned ability to ride, good sportsmanship, love of the horse, understanding of horse psychology, love of the sport, an agile alert mind, intelligence, showmanship, courtesy, versatility, even temperament, willingness to work, readiness to obey rules, and poise. A neat, slim lithe body is also required. Muscular coordination coupled with a strong sensitivity to the horse are prime assets" (Clatworthy, 1981: 137-38). The designation "characteristics of a good show rider*' and the inclusion of both amateur and professional riders makes this question much broader than my focus on the major dimensions of status among professional riders of hunters and jumpers. 5. Pros with reputations as skilled horsemen who are known to be unreliable do not remain long at a job. Pros who turn up drunk for a big event o r are careless or otherwise accident-prone are of no use to a stable and are costly to the owners. A pro is also expected to be honest and trustworthy. The world of horse trading operates on the principle of caveat emptor. However, among the fraternity of pros, a seller ought not to take advantage of his peers. 6. For reasons of simplicity (to eliminate the cumbersome "he/sheWphrase), I will refer to professional riders as "he" since the majority of pros in Canada are men. This doesn't hold for other competitions, for example, in the Three Day Event, probably the toughest competition of all, three of the four members of Canada's 1978 world winning team were women. 7. In this paper the term horseman refers to people who ride hunters and jumpers. Many do not compete, but simply keep horses for riding. 8. The famous race horse trainer Hirsch Jacobs was renowned for buying cheap nags with bad l e g at claiming races (events in which any entered horse can be claimed for a predetermined price) and turning them into champions. His most famous acquisition, Stymie, purchased for a mere $1,500, became one of the most spectacular horses of all time, winning more than $900,000 in purses. 9. The essential difference between racing stables such as those of E.P. Taylor and the late Bud McDougall and stables of hunters and jumpers is that the former is a multi-million dollar business, while the latter is much

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smaller. In its best year a stable of jumpers is likely to break even. Since the purses are much less, hunting and jumping attract people with a sporting rather than a business orientation. 10. Stable girls are a relatively recent addition to Canadian stables. However, in England girls have long been employed in stables, and schools and courses operated where they were trained and certified. Until two decades ago, grooms in Canada tended to be unskilled men, sometimes farmer pros who had become too old to show or had been injured and had to leave the sport. Recently a number of Canadian schools such as the Humber College of Equitation have been organized to provide formal training in horsemanship. 11. In certain respects the development of hockey players is not unlike the development of horses. Sometimes youngsters are put into competitive games by their coaches before they are properly trained, and they never get a chance to correct their faults. This is especially true of youngsters who never learn to skate properly (Edmund W. Vaz, The Professionuliza tion of Young Hockey Players: Subculture of Hockey Violence., Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press, 1982). 12. It appears to be much the same among trainers of harness horses. They, too, even in fairly large stables, end up doing many tasks besides training and racing, such as the menial chore of mucking out (Fetterly, 1976: Chapter 2). 13. The only figures I have on accidents are for riders of saddle horses, a sport not nearly as dangerous as riding jumping horses. Among the saddle-horse riders, 61 per cent of the respondents indicated that they had been injured. Injuries ranged from back problems, fractured vertebrae, pelvises, ribs, noses, legs and arms to loss of an eye, a finger, facial disfigurement, dislocated shoulders, concussions and internal injuries such as bleeding and a ruptured spleen. The average length of incapacitation was 2.7 months (Clatworthy, 198 1: 136). Since these figures inc!uded both professionals and amateurs, and my study deals with professionals only, people whose occupation is working with horses, here is another factor that would lead to the expectation that the accident rate amo-ng riders of hunters and jumpers would be considerably higher. 14. Norms among miners on how to handle dangerous situations are discussed by Fitzpatrick, 1980. 15. In the boxing world there is a belief that some fighters possess a "fighting heart" which means never admitting defeat (Arond and Weinberg, 1952:462). 16. Construction workers who work high above the ground putting into

place the steel framework of high buildings and bridges have pungent phrases to criticize fellow workers who show fear (Haas, 1978:232-33). 17. Although fear may characterize all riders at some times, or be experienced by riders on a sporadic basis, it would be incorrect to assume that professional riders are continually fearful. Competition demands full concentration and nervousness impedes a rider's technical abilities. Riders have a fairly accurate assessment of the dangers in their work and they know that serious accidents can happen. Furthermore, since these are top riders, who have repeatedly proven themselves, they have confidence in themselves and their mounts. And the most successful riders have considerable autonomy in choosing the events they feel they might win. Hence fear is not an uppermost concern in riders' minds, to be repressed and managed, as Haas maintains is true for ironworkers.

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18. This is like punt return men on a football team who bounce up after being pummelled by the opposition and jog off the field as if they hadn't felt a thing! 19. For definitions of "coolness" among thieves and drug users, see Irwin, 1970:9- 10, 20-2 1; among miners, see Fitzpatrick, 1980: 145. Irish jockeys have a poor record of success in Britain's toughest and most dramatic steeplechase, the Grand National. According to one leading trainer, the Irish tend to lose their cool if they are doing well. "The next thing you know they're shouting tally-ho and throwing caution to the winds." The Globe and Mail, March 29, 1980. 20. Similar castigation occurs among prostitutes. A "candy ass" is a prostitute who can't stand up to the pressures of a police interrogation and blabs (Prus and Irini, 1980:61). 21. Among card hustlers, coolness is also essential to success. "Some very skilled mechanics, [theirjob is to manipulate the game equipment and to control the game's outcome], for example, may tense up in the dramatic atmosphere of the game and either won't switch the dice or make noticeably rigid movements." When a mechanic loses his nerve, crews are reluctant to use him in that capacity" (Prus and Sharper, 1977:38). 22. When I worked as a groom I had a room over the stable. One morning when the pro arrived he found that one of the horses had wrenched its leg during the night. "Didn't you hear anything?" he asked. The clear implication was that a "good groom" (even a sleeping one) would have heard, and responded to, any unusual sounds in the stable below. 23. The astronauts like riders also put a high value on success, coolness, courage, autonomy, and a wide range of skills (Wolfe, 1979). My thanks to Sid Gilbert for bringing this comparison to my attention. 24. In studying autonomy among drivers of harness horses Fetterly found that the higher a driver's status, the more autonomy he possessed, and that there was considerable variation in the level and kind of autonomy drivers exercised (Fetterly, 1976). 25. European-born pros with established reputations, often with a military background and gentlemen's manners, are more likely to be treated by their employers as experts and given more autonomy than are Canadian-born pros with a primary or secondary education who have acquired their learning informally through on-the-job training. 26. While riders make no claim to be professional in the sense of being members of the "true professions", they feel that they should have control over decision-making in their area of expertise. Among themselves, they repudiate the judgment of outsiders, but usually are not in a strong enough position vis-a-vis the owners to reject their decisions. Tension is likely to -i-esult,if the owners reject their pros' decisions in areas pros consider crucial to their own success. Their situation parallels that of the professional. "Autonomy. . .involves the feeling that the practitioner ought to be allowed to make his own decisions without external pressures from clients, from others who are not members of his profession, or from his employing organization. . . . If they [the practitioners] are strongly oriented to the professional role, obvious frustrations and tensions could ensue, [if not allowed to make the decisions]." (Hall, 1969:8 1-82) 27. Animals Voice, January 1978. See same issue for .other letters. The strength of the disapproval varied with the group making the judgment. Some fellow pros would probably be sympathetic to Day's action. Unruly

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horses can be dangerous and pros depend on horses for a living. They would probably argue, as did Jim Elder, that Day had taken the proper course of action. (Elder, a former team-mate of Day's, testifying on his behalf at the trial, had said that "the only thing you can do [with such a horse] is fight it out with him. If you relent, it just confirms his bad habits." (The Globe and Mail, August 30, 1977). At least that would be their public stand. 28. See for example, Sutherland, 1956:200-202; Letkemann, 1973:41-48; Prus and Sharper, 1977:36-38; Prus and Irini, 1980:61, 2 13-215; Irwin, 1970:s- 13.

References Arond, Henry and Weinberg S. Kirson. "The Occupational Culture of the Boxer." The American Journal of Sociology, 57 (March 1952), 460-69. Becker, Harold S. "The Professional Dance Musician and his Audience." The American Journal of Sociology, 57 (September 1951), 136-44. Burke, Kenneth. Permanence and Change. New York: New Republic, 1935. Canadian Equestrian Federation. Rule Book, 1978. Clatworthy, Nancy Moore. "Social-Class and Value Factors in Saddle-Horse Showing." Free Inquiry in Creative Sociology, 9 (November 198l), 135-38. Fetterly, Robert Gordon. "Owners and Trainers: Patterns of Establishing and Maintaining Autonomy in a Worker-Client Relationship." Ph.D. thesis, University of Toronto, 1976. n "Adapting to Danger." Sociology ojWork and Occupations, 7 Fitzpatrick, ~ d h S. (May 1980), 131-58. Haas, ~ a c k "Learning . Real Feelings: A Study of High Steel Ironworkers' Reaction to Fear and Danger," in Shaping Identity in Canadian Society, Jack Haas and William Shaffir, eds. Scarborough: Prentice-Hall, 1978, 227-44. Hall, Richard H. Occupations and the Social Structure. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1969. Irwin, John. The Felon. Englewood Cliffs N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1970. Kornhauser, William. Scientisls in Industry. Berkeley, University of California Press, 1962. Letkemann, Peter. Crime as Work. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1973. Littauer, V.S. Modern Horsemanship For Beginners. New York, Garden City, 1946. Lyon, W.E. Balance and the Horse. London: Collins, 1952. Moore, Wilbert E. The Professions Roles and Rules. New York: Russel Sage Foundation, 1970. Prus, Robert C. and Styllianoss Irini. Hookers, Rounders and Desk Clerks. Toronto: Gage, 1980. Prus, Robert C. and C.R.D. Sharper. Road Hustler. Toronto: D.C. Heath and Co., 1977. Rodzianko, Paul. Modern Horsemanship. London: Seley Service and Co., 1950. Scott, Marvin B. The Racing Game. Chicago: Aldine Publishing Co., 1968. Sutherland, Edwin H. The Professional Thief. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1956. Time, May 29, 1978. Vaz, Edmund W. 1982 The Professionalixation of Young Hockey Players: Subculture of Hockey Violence. Lincoln, Neb.: University of Nebraska Press.

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13 1

Veblen, Thorstein. The Theory of the Leisure Class. New York: Macmillan, 1912. Williams, Dorian. The Horseman's Year. London: Pelham Book, 1970. Wipper, Audrey. "The Occupation of the Professional Rider." M.A. thesis, McGill University, 1955. Wolfe, Tom. The Right Stuff. New York: Farrar, Strauss, Giroux, 1979. Wood, Wally. 'yim Day-A Prophecy Fulfilled." The Corinthian, July 1976.

Selling Real Estate: Redefinition and Persuasion SHIRLEY S. ANGRIST

Oswald Hall helped me become both a sociologist and a career woman. After I completed the B.A. honours in sociology at McGill, Oswald Hall, as chairman of the department, telephoned to say that I could now go on for a master's degree because there was a fellowship for which I was the perfect candidate. I explained my plaw to marry and h u e Montreal within a year and could not see starting graduate school at that time. Oswald Hall protested in his quiet but firm way, suggesting that it was a shame to give u p thefellowship. He urged me to begin graduate study and go as far as possible before leaving, perhaps completing the thesis off-campus, if necessary. So it was that I developed a tastefor the sociology of work and so it was that I undertook a study of real estate selling. Travels through the dense tomes of Talcott Parsons were lightened by the wry humour of Oswald Hall. Amidst the stimulating tulelage of a committed, supportive and inspiredfaculty, including Frederick Elkin and William Westley, I completed the master's flogram. It was the McGill sociologists who made a sociologist out of me.

The study of real estate selling reported in this essay was undertaken in order to better understand the nature of sales work. The research reflects the widespread concern of the 1950s that North America was succumbing to the newly powerful forces of selling both through sales occupations and through advertising. T h e underlying fear among many observers then, as now, was that people could be sold things they neither wanted nor needed. Would people buy a house or a car o r insurance because of free choice and personal taste or because the product was "sold" to them or pushed on them through deception? T o answer such a question it seemed important to study closely several selling occupations, to observe the selling process and salespeople at work with their customers. So this exploratory research on real estate selling was undertaken as part of a larger study of interpersonal persuasion that began in 1955. The larger study was 132

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initiated and supervised by Frederick Elkin, Oswald Hall and William Westley of the McGill University Sociology Department. The data on real estate selling stem from close study of one long-established and well-known company with a sales staff of twenty-eight, most of whom sold residential real estate, but about one-third specialized in commercial, industrial ana land sales. I conducted interviews with fifteen sales agents and seven customers who had recently purchased homes through this company. I also interviewed managers and owners of three companies, a newspaper reporter, several independent agents, and the secretaries of the Real Estate Board and the Real Estate Exchange. I accompanied some agents with their customers to see houses for sale, and observed meetings between agents and customers in the company's surburban office. In addition, twenty-two of the twenty-eight agents completed a questionnaire about their work careers and attitudes toward selling real estate. T H E GREAT SALESROOM

The image of society as a "great salesroom" implies a sizable cadre of salesworkers and a pervasive way of life for consumers, work organizations and society itself. Mills's (1953) "great salesroom" may be interpreted as a picture of a free market economy with buying and selling, demand and supply as major economic forces and with competition, persuasion and individual choice as major social forces. It may also be viewed as a picture of North American material values burgeoning in the post-World War Two boom. While this picture contains vivid truths, in typical Mills style it is dramatic, ideological and overpainted. Consider, for example, the participation of salesworkers in the labour force. In the United States, only 6.3 per cent of the labour force were sales workers in 1958; furthermore, this percentage remained the same in 1974. In Canada, salesworkers were 7.1 per cent of the labour force in 1961 and 6.9 per cent in 1973.' For both countries, these percentages are remarkably similar in their size and stability over time. These figures are ironic because they are so small and belie the pervasive role of buying and selling in North American lifestyles and values. There are other ironies. Selling is known as a high-risk and erratic occupation. This holds especially for insurance, real estate and travelling salespeople, but much less for store sales clerks. Salespeople have difficulty getting established and building a clientele. Even when established, there are slow periods with no money coming in. Yet they suffer less from unemployment according to figures for both Canada and the United States. Perhaps this is because of the high degree of self-employment and entrepreneurial quality of sales work. Whatever

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the reasons, the unemployment rates tend to be lower than that of the total labour force. For example, in 1973, the overall unemployment rate for Canadians was 5.6 per cent but only 4 per cent for salesworkers; in the United States in 1974, the overall unemployment rate was 5.6 per cent while salesworkers had 4.2 per cent unemployment. Selling has been changing in one interesting respect: it has become more peopled by women. In Canada, domen increased from 35 per cent of sales workers in 1961 to 40 per cent in 1973. The trend is similar but somewhat less sharp for the United States. THE INTERPERSONAL SITUATION

There are two basic determinants of the selling situation in real estate. First, although the use of real estate agents is common, it is still possible for potential venders to put property up for sale without the use of an agent. Thus, the buyer, in response to a newspaper ad, can deal directly with the vender-a situation which both vender and purchaser often prefer. The real estate agent is hypersensitively aware of this fact, and h e q g h t s it at every turn. As a result, the roles which he plays in the selling situation not only involve selling property, but also selling himself as indispensable to both parties: That's the uncertainty about this business. You don't know if they'll buy. Maybe they'll decide to buy next year. What can 1 d o if she goes directly to the buyer? I have no proof I showed her those houses.

Secondly, the immovable quality of real property is fundamental to the buying-selling situation in real estate. T h e product cannot be carried from door to door, nor can it be set u p within a concentrated area for display. In other words, it is the customer who approaches the salesman. This fact distinguishes real estate from other selling areas. I n fact, by the very act of approaching the salesman, the customer has indicated a desire, however rudimentary, to purchase property. T h e salesman, like the propagandist, "canalizes an already existing stream" (Huxley, 1946). "Once a customer has phoned you, then you can hold on to him." Through advertising or other influences, the customer is already "sold" on the idea of buying when she comes to the salesman. This may be so. But it is at this point of approaching the salesman that another phase of selling begins, the two final steps: "making the specific proposal and closing the order" (Mills, 1953). That is, the customer wants a particular kind of property, and it falls upon the salesman to find the property she is looking for, or one that comes closest. Both parties recognize that it is a direct face-to-face persuasive

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situation. All the preconceived attitudes of salesman and customer indicate this awareness. T h e salesman is trying to sell something and he sees the customer as persuadable; the customer wants to make a decision, and it can only be presumed that the time the decision is made to buy is in some direct way related to the salesman. The interpersonal situation for the salesman has two distinctive aspects: first, he is related to the vender who wants her property sold at the best possible price; secondly, he deals with a customer, a prospective buyer. Any individual can be both vender and buyer, or now one, now the other, depending on whether she is selling o r buying. The kind of persuasion that goes on between client and salesman is of a limited sort. T h e salesman can persuade a friend o r former customer to sell her property. He can persuade a client to list the property with his company; the salesman can recommend a particular kind of listing; finally, the salesman must frequently convince the vender to lower the asking price or accept some compromises. T h e relationship between salesman and buyer is the actual selling situation, since the buyer is the "one to whom the agent tries to sell property" (Hughes, 1931). Of course, the customer is not always singular, but may be collective, such as a family or business partners. IMAGE OF THE SALESMAN Interviews with people who had bought property from the salesmen studied reflected a consensus that the customer buys because she needs and wants to buy a property, and the one she bought suited her best: "We looked around for eight months. I must have seen sixteen different salesmen a n d a hundred houses. By the time we got this we knew what we wanted." This attitude seems to diminish the role played by the salesman; it implies that the salesman had nothing to d o with the sale. But the image the buyer has of herself is in direct contradiction to this image she has of the salesman. "The prospective buyer of real estate is half expectant and half afraid" (Hughes, 193 1). She mistrusts the agent. She goes to many agents inspecting the wares of each. And like the response to advertising, there is a certain discounting of what the salesman says. A customer maintains: They've got to make a sale, so it's understandable, but I've always felt you've got to watch them or they'll get you somehow. My friends had some bad experiences with real estate agents. In every such relationship the customer is aware that the salesman's intent is for profit. She is sometimes certain that she can manipulate the salesman toward obtaining better terms from the vendor; more

136 PART TWO: OCCUPATIONAL. RECRUITMENT AND SOCIALIZATION often she feels she must guard against misinformation by the agent: I'd say they're all the same. They want to make a sale and they give you a sales talk and high pressure you. That's their business, from Edmonton, to Ottawa, to Quebec, to Montreal. I saw them everywhere. They're all in a brotherhood.

Often, however, the buyer reports that the particular salesman she bought from was not like the rest. "He really sized us u p well. He was pleasant. He didn't high pressure us. We felt he was trying to get a house to suit us." Despite satisfactory dealing with one or two agents, the customer's negative impression of the real estate salesman may remain until she actually buys a house. Once the customer has bought she helps to justify the purchase by seeing the salesman as honest and sincere. And it is plausible that suspicion of the agent's trust would have prevented the sale. The customer justifies the salesman's usefulness: I'd say he helped crystallize and focus my ideas. I know what I wanted, but he pointed out the advantages and disadvantages of each house, and he said: "Now you must choose the one you want." He helped figure out the size of the mortgage according to what I told him I could pay, and he saw to it that the fire insurance was changed to suit the law. It had to be increased and the company took care of it.

The customer seems to be unaware that the salesman willingly does these things, for many of them are his responsibility. There are aspects in the buyer-salesman relationship which are perhaps universal, or at least they are typical of social interaction. Ethnic background, sex, social status are mutually judged and may easily affect the relationship and ultimately the sale. Thus, for the salesman, "the wife" who comes to buy requires a different kind of selling than "the husband." "The French Canadian" will buy only in certain areas, and more often than not objects to dealing through a salesman at all. There is then a mutual selection process. Just as the salesman prefers dealing with certain customers more than others, the customer prefers certain agents more than others: "Mr. Zem is a family man. He told us all about his children. We trusted him." HAZARDS I N DEALING WITH BUYERS

In the interpersonal situation there are inevitably innumerable factors of which one actor is not aware. There may be factors of which neither party is aware. Thus, the weather, car trouble, a mood, the time of day, month or year cannot be controlled. The salesman may be at a loss if he does not know what conditions bear upon the customer. A salesman tells of such an episode:

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I had a case where the price was $14,000. The offer was $13,800. Neither moved, neither buyer nor seller. The chap got tired and withdrew his offer and bought another house. Three days later the seller called me and said he'd take $13,500. Gee, I was mad! If the weather is nice, too many customers may want to go out. If the weather is bad, no one wants to go out and the day is wasted.

In some cases emphasis on the wrong point, such as playing u p a two-storey house to a man with a crippled wife, kills the sale, because of the saleman's lack of knowledge. And yet these are among the things he cannot know. Just as these contingencies may hinder a sale, they may also foster one. There are circumstances both external and psychological which affect interpersonal interaction. Personality factors are relevant variables. The salesman's personality pleases some, not others; some individuals may be more responsive to persuasion than others (Hovland et a!., 1953). Social factors such as family influence, aspiration and income also affect the situation. Aside from the factors of which one or both actors in a situation are not aware, there are factors of which the salesman is aware, but over which he has no control. He may know that the buyer can afford a better house than he has available among his listings; or the salesman may know the defects in a property which can detract from its salability. He tries to appraise the customer-in terms of needs, wants, knowledge and buying power. As Mills (1953) says: "The salesman must be a quick character analyst." But he is often hindered by circumstances he cannot control. SELLING AS REDEFINITION

The description and tabulation of techniques of selling which will follow exemplify the hypothesis that what occurs in the selling situation is not mere persuasion. Rather a process of redefinition goes on-a process in which the salesman attempts to redefine, to interpret and to manipulate the situation so as to lead to the sale of his product, in this case a particular property. The idea of redefinition is based on Thomas's and Znaniecki's concept of definition of the situation, "the way in which the individual interprets the situation so that he can act. . . . In defining it, different possibilities of behavior are present" (Blumer 1939; Thomas and Znaniecki, 1918). Here it is a question of the individual defining the situation so that he himself can act. In redefinition, the individual is manipulating the existing definition of another individual in his own interest. That is, the salesman tries to define the customer's desires in terms of the properties he has for sale; since the customer has her own picture and wants, the salesman has to mold these wants into

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more feasible ones: in other words, he redefines them for the customer. T h e following incident illustrates this: Customer: A resale is no good; they want to make money. I want a new house. Salesman: They may have landscaping done and that saves you money. Most of the land here is sold out. You'd have to go to Beaconsfield to get a new house. (The customer leaves. Salesman turns to interviewer.) Salesman: He wants a new house. If they start building in spring, he'll never have it in time for May. And we have no new projects. . . . That means he'll have to change his mind and consider a resale.

For the individual who only wants to live in a bungalow, though this type of dwelling may be beyond her means, it becomes the agent's task to redefine the situation so that the customer either borrows enough money for the downpayment, o r she resigns herself to a two-storey cottage at a price she can afford. By picking up major cues in the process of the relationship, the salesman gains knowledge whereby he can help the customer decide. Hughes (193 1) points out this function of the salesman "to win people from their old loves"; others define salesmanship as ". . . exercise of enough imagination to help the customer see the possibilities of the properties under consideration" (Weimer and Hoyt, 1948). There's the case where a man wants to buy. He looks and looks. It's up to you to find what suits him, and show him that this is the house. He may want a bungalow. Explain to him the benefits of a two-storey house. He thinks: Maybe so. . . . You've sold him on the idea of a two-storey house.

It cannot be said that successful redefinition by the salesman for the customer leads to a sale; for redefinition can be effected without making a sale, and a sale can be made without redefinition if the customer wants the exact house the agent is selling. The question we have been dealing with here in terms of redefinition is, What happens when two individuals are in an interpersonal selling situation? It is reasonable to suppose that the redefinition process can be mutual, that in interacting, the salesman and customer modify their images of each other. Perhaps in the process of persuading the customer to buy the agent takes various roles. For example, as mentioned earlier, he can act as a friend, adviser, negotiator. If redefinition has been effective, then some kind of "cognitive restructuring" has occurred "making the individual see new possibilities in achieving his goals" (Sarnoff et al., 1954). T h e individual may change her views concerning a particular building, decide that she can get along without a garage o r that a lakeside bungalow is better for her children than a house in the city. The agent tells the customer who asks about a garage: "Most people here don't have

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garages. We've been using block heaters on our car. . . ." This helps to reconcile the customer to considering the purchase of a house without a garage. Whether the customer ultimately buys a particular house from a particular salesman is not the test of redefinition. Customers commonly use many agents in looking for property. As pointed out earlier, the many variables which affect the situation prevent definitive conclusions concerning the effects of persuasion. Only insofar as the customer or client have changed or modified their goals through interaction with the salesman has redefinition occurred. The salesman phrases it this way: "It's surprising to see how many buy not what they set out to buy."

TECHNIQUES OF SELLING In spite of the contingencies which enter the selling situation, it was possible to identify and isolate some selling techniques. Many of these were described by the salesmen in interviews, more often these were observed from salesman-customer interaction. There is no attempt here to distinguish deliberate techniques, though many may be such. All imply a redefinition process. Manipulation of Time

The agent is particularly conscious of the relativity of time. He seems to develop a kind of intuitive awareness of the right or wrong time to act, as for example by: Creating suspense: The agent makes a property seem hard to get by telling the customer that many people want it, even though this offer may be the only one he has. He may claim that the vender is hesitant to sell. A salesman described the logic behind this: When you have the offer you start pulling away. "Let's see if I can get it for you." She begins to doubt if she can get it-she wants it. Maybe another agent took someone in to see the house. It may be listed with a hundred other agents. . You try and plant a little doubt in her mind so she won't waste time and get the offer through as quickly as possible.

..

In effect, this is a way of stalling, so that the property becomes more desirable to the customer for being hard to get (Lee, 1945). Thus, even though, at the outset, the customer may not have been too anxious for the particular house, she often decides that this must be a good property if so many other people want it. Timed pfessure: The salesman is sensitive to the "right moment." Timely action involves pressure on the customer to buy now. At the closing moment, the salesman has to tell the customer-this is the house you'want, this is the house for you, so sign now. You get her to sign at that point knowing yourself that it's a good buy. That's the honest

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part of it. A lot of salesmen just don't know that. That is the time to pressure her.

The salesman believes that there is a proper time to take advantage of the customer's readiness to buy. T h e agent hastens to define the skuation for the customer so that this house is the house, this is the right time and the price is right to buy. I n some cases the salesman prepares'an offer requiring only the customer's signature. In essence this is a means for effecting a sale when the course of circumstances seems ripe to the salesman.

Creation of Obligation Based on the theory of obligating the receiver, the agent gives of himself so as to foster business. The object here is to commit the potential customer to becoming an actual customer. What has been called going back after the sale is also a way of obligating the customer, by giving service and showing interest. The salesman makes the customer feel she ought to refer other potential buyers to him. The salesman defines himself as a professional interested in helping the customer, and by offering his service he both implicates the customer to buy and implies that referrals would be appreciated. At its extreme, this attitude is manifested in presenting the customer with a prepared offer. Seruice: This is a fundamental instrument. It is related to the self-image in that the salesman sees himself as offering a service. T h e conception of service is part of the myth whereby the agent minimizes the financial motive and stresses the importance of satisfying the customer: I'm not interested in selling a property to a customer merely for the sake of making the sale. After that they'll never be my customers again. A person has to be sold on the property himself before he buys it. I want people to be convinced that's what they want. I'd never cram a property down someone's throat because I'm interested in keeping my customer.

This is not to deny that the salesman serves the customer. Transporting customers to see property, availability, display of interest in the customer's case-all these indicate to the prospective buyer that her needs are the interest of the agent. It was claimed by customers who were satisfied that the salesman really had their interest at heart. Perhaps it is the skilled salesman who can give the customer this impression. And yet it is difficult to say whether the interest is false. Mills (1953) attributes the salesman with pretending interest in order to manipulate others. Just how pretended this interest can be is hard to speculate, for in the case of the salesman, he has to satisfy the customer in order to make the sale and therefore probably wants to satisfy the customer.

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Keeping the customer interested: The salesman defines a customer as one who indicates her desire to buy. Agents may call people on their list several times a week offering new listings for sale. The customer's interest in buying is thus continually stimulated so that she will not fade out and will come to this agent when she does buy: I'll give you my card. These houses go fast. Think it over seriously. You know, I can get to town from here quicker than I can take a streetcar from Snowdon downtown. I'll drive into town and see you and we can discuss it further.

Friendship: The cultivation of friendly relations is crucial for the salesman. This is in view of the potential of each person either to buy or to sell property. Salesmen say: "Friends of people you know or sold may give you business, if you treated them nicely and they were pleased," or: "My clients become my friends." If the salesman can make the customer feel that he is a friend working in her interest, the customer will trust the salesman and will buy more easily. Thus the agent tries to define himself as friend to the customer and he defines the customer as his friend. In spite of the agent's aspiration to professional status and the handling of property as an impersonal commodity, the fostering of friendly relations between the salesman and his clientele is important to the sale (Mills, 1953). Going back after the sale: For the salesman who seeks to broaden his clientele, the cultivation of people who have bought both adds to his reputation as interested in the customer and adds to his contacts for further business. A customer related such an incident to the interviewer: I asked him why he came to see us without even a request from us. T h e salesman said he wanted to see us satisfied. H e said the aim of the company is to please the customer. "I make a commission on this and I want to see you satisfied," he said. "You're in business, you may direct your friends our way when they want homes." I was very satisfied with the company and the salesman.

Here the salesman combines his interest in money with the interest of the professional in giving service. The salesman defines himself to customers as helpful and interested in their situation. Stressing the aspect of friendship, the salesman minimizes the negative stereotype and tries to get recommendations from satisfied clientele. Even though a customer has already bought, the salesman finds it pays to be friendly after the sale. Non-Response Part of the salesman's intuitive equipment is tact, so that he will keep silent where silence is beneficial (Hughes, 1931). A salesman explained: "Your ideas never jibe with those of your customer and

142

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you have to be careful what you say. It is better to keep quiet and say nothing." The agent tends to ignore criticism of a property, stressing only its good points and remaining silent in the face of argumentative objections. It was one of those old homes and we were looking through it. In one of the cupboards I noticed a mouse trap. Well, these are some of the things you have to keep quiet about and not mention.

This little anecdote also indicates the salesman's helplessness in the face of obvious shortcomings. Thus he must interpret the situation for the customer in a way which will foster the sale. I n essence, the customer is always right, the house has its limitations, and the salesman "must adapt these distinctive characteristics of a product to the peculiarities of the buyer" (Doob, 1935: 157). Manipulation of Symbols

It is said that salesmen are "those who dominate the communication processes of society by the creation and manipulation of emotional and aesthetic symbols (Caplow, 1954 : 65). This is possible only insofar as symbols are shared by those in the interaction situation. Salesmen stress the importance of "sizing up" the customer in order to see where she fits. "Motivating appeals" to the customer, taking into consideration her wants and aspirations tend to underlie the agent's choice of persuasion techniques (Hovland et al., 1953). T h e salesman explains: "I think the thing to realize in real estate is that you sell the satisfaction of a dream. People don't buy residential real estate logically." It is interesting to note that contradictions can arise in the selling situation as a result of the salesman's emphasis on opposing "motivating appeals." Thus, while demonstrating to the customer that this is the house of her dreams, the house she'll want for a lifetime, the salesman also plays on the fact that the house can easily be sold at a worthwhile profit. Thus, the property as sacred and the property as secular become alternatives for the customer. A further manipulative element of selling is the use of the "reference group" as a standard for redefining the situation, either positively or negatively. The concept of reference group has various dimensions: the salesman sets himself u p as "a married man," "a family man9'-thus stressing his reliability and trustworthiness by virtue of carrying a particular social status (Shibutani, 1955). O r the salesman notes the kind of group the customer is or wants to be associated with: "We had lived in Quebec City and our little lad had no English playmates, and my wife's from England. So we wanted a community we could fit into. Mr. Jones suggested the Lakeshore."

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O r the reference group can be used by the salesman as illustrative of what not to do. In the following case, because the salesman's company had no listings in the area, the agent tried to discourage the customer by defining the area as not suitable: Customer: Salesman: Customer: Salesman: Customer: Salesman: Customer:

How is St. Genevieve? Bad transportation. I don't care, I have a car. It's no good for children, the school is far. I have three children. Where is the school there? Cartierville. Hell, that is too far.

In the course of interaction between salesman and customer, the salesman tries to define the situation so as to foster the sale. He uses meaningful symbols to define a property, an area or a group as either acceptable or unacceptable to the particular customer. COMMUNICATION, PROPAGANDA AND REDEFINITION It is one of the functions of communication "to influence and direct other people and external events" (Reusch and Bateson, 1951: 17). Redefinition in this sense implies communication, for without shared meanings redefinition cannot occur. As Merton indicates, persuasion is two-way communication since it involves a high degree of social interaction with the persuader adapting his argumentation to the flow of reactions of the persons he is seeking to influence (Merton, 1946: 38). A breakdown in communication in the selling situation causes a kind of "boomerang effect" which not only does not aid selling but sets up resistance to persuasion (Merton, 1949: 275). This kind of miscommunication has been described both in relation to persuasion and to propaganda. The purposes of persuasion and propaganda are similar, the former directed towards an individual, the latter towards a group (Doob, 1935). In essence, both are communicative processes based on the same principles as redefinition (Parsons, 1951). The question of honesty arises concerning so subtle a process as redefinition. Salesmen define themselves as "honest" and "sincere." There is no quality stressed more in the self-image than honesty. And yet all the salesmen are aware of the difficulties which are encountered, for it can become ticklish to draw the line between what Hughes calls "sound persuasion" and "misleading enthusiasm" (Hughes, 193 1). After purchasing a property, customers sometimes claim they have been somewhat misled, as for example, a customer related: You know it's a funny thing; I can't speak too highly of the company, it's not the company, but the real estate system itself. It's the same all over. I've bought three times, so I should know by experience that the

144 PART TWO: OCCUPATIONAL RECRUITMENT AND SOCIALIZATION same thing happens all the time. They calculate $100 a month payment and I end up paying $180.

In some cases it would seem that the salesman either consciously or unwittingly creates "slightly false impressions" (Hughes, 1931). It would be unfair to say that salesmen are unaware of this problem. The conflict between making a sale and uttering the bleak truth faces agents early in their career. Both customer and salesman in the selling situation are aware of each other's goals-the one to buy, the other to sell. The customer wants a house, therefore she approached the salesman. It is up to the agent to find her a suitable house from the ones he has available. Here the selling actually takes place. As the salesman learns the customer's situation, financial and social, he endeavours to match house and customer. In this process, he does not directly persuade the customer to buy a particular house, rather he redefines the customer's conception of a suitable property so that he can sell what he has available. This can be called redefinition. CONCLUSION When I first read Mills's description of "The Great Salesroom" 1 was convinced that it applied not only to white-collar middle-class society in general but to sales occupations par excellence. In particular, when I undertook research on real estate selling, I expected to find that "the tang and feel of salesmanship" permeates every element of the occupation. Mills was partly right, but not totally. In the story of real estate selling presented here, the picture is more complex. It shows that selling is a misnomer for most of the behaviours pursued by real estate agents. Along with convincing, persuading or huckstering, salesmen provide information, offer available alternatives and redefine customers' preferences. The process may include deception, but the product is large, observable and vital. Customers exert the active role of buyer; they are not mere victims of the sales person being sold a "bill of goodsw-rather they choose a house. Research on real estate selling conducted in other cities during the 1960s and 1970s comes to the same conclusions as this study of real estate agents in Montreal during the 1950s (Cf., Boyce, 1969; Hempel, 1970; House, 1977). These recent studies suggest that while the Montreal study is old, the findings still appear valid. It is puzzling that, in general, there have been few studies of sales occupations, and in particular, there has been little research on real estate selling. Perhaps the time has come to move occupational sociology away from its over-emphasis on deviant occupations to more concern with common white-collar and blue-collar occupations.

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Notes 1. The U.S. data are taken from the 1975 Manpower Report of the President. The Canadian data are from the Canadd Year Book, 1970-71, 1973 and 1975, Statistics Canada. 2. To simplify matters, I refer to the real estate agent o r salesman as "he" because most agents in this study were men, and the vender and purchaser as "she" since most of these people were women representing their families in dealing with the agent.

References Angrist, Shirley Bloomstone. "Real Estate Salesmen: The Study of a Sales Occupation." M.A. Thesis, Department of Sociology, McGill University, 1955. Blumer, Herbert. "An Appraisal of Thomas' Znaniecki's 'The Polish Peasant in Europe and America,' " in Critiques of Research in the Social Sciences I, Bulletin 44. New York: Social Science Research Council, 1939. Boyce, B.N. Real Estate Broker Characteristics and Brokerage Operations in Connecticut. Storrs: University of Connecticut, 1969. Caplow, Theodore. The Sociology of Work. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1954. Doob, L.W. Public Opinion and Propaganda. New York: Holt, 1948. . Propaganda, Its Psychology and Technique. New York: Holt, 1935. Hempel, D. J. A Comparative Stud' of the Home-Buying Process in Two Connecticut Housing Markets. Storrs: University of Connecticut, 1970. House, J. D. Contemporary Entrepeneurs: The Sociology of Residential Real Estate Agents. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1977. Hovland, C.I., I.L. Janis, H.H. Kelly. Communication and Persuasion. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1953. Hughes, E. C. The Growth of an Institution: The ChicagoReal Estate Board. Society for Social Research of the Universit of Chicago, 1931. Huxley, Aldous. "Notes on Propagania," Harper's Magazine 174:(1946), 32-4 1. Lee, A. M. "The Analysis of Propaganda." AmericanJournal of Sociology, 5 1-52 (1945), 125-35. Merton, R. K. Social Theory and Social Structure, Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press, 1949. Mass Persuasion. New York: Harper, 1946. Mills, C. Wright. White Collar: The American Middle Classes. New York: Oxford University Press, 1953. Parsons, Talcott. The Social System. Glencoe, Illinois: Free Press, 1951. Ruesch, Jurgen and G. Bateson. Communication: The Social Matrix of Psychiatry. New York: Norton, 1951. Sarnoff, I., D. Katz and C. McClintock. "Attitude-Change Procedures and Motivating Patterns," in D. Katzet al. Public Opinion and Propaganda. New York: Dryden Press, 1954, pp. 305-12. Shibutani, Tamotsu. "Reference Groups as Perspectives." American Journal of Sociology, 60 ( 1955), 562-69. Thomas, W. I. and F. Znaniecki. The Polish Peasant in Europe and America Vol. 1. Boston: The Gorham Press, 1918. Weimer, A. M. and H. Hoyt. Principles of Urban Real Estate. New York: Ronald Press, 1948.

.

Professionalism and Mar inality: The Case of the Ontario Fun .a1 Director

& '

CHRISTOPHER BEATTIE*

Professionalism is identified as ideally consisting of a core of eight elements: (1) a practitioner pursuing a lifetime career of high prestige who encounters (2) a client with a problem and provides (3) tailored service guided by unselfish interests based on (4) systematic theory. The professional claims (5) authority over the client but, in turn, is subject to (6) ethical norms enforced by a self-governing occupational association. Professionals are part of a (7) company of supportive colleagues who possess (8) a community mandate reen en wood, 1957; Vollmer & Mills, 1966; Wilensky, 1964). The chief argument of this paper is that funeral directors demonstrate some of these elements of professionalism but lack others that subvert the winning of professional status.' In fact, the occupation is pulled by two opposing forces, the one a vision of itself as a profession, and the other a view of itself as a business that has to meet an array of monthly expenses. The individual practitioner in a small town fits more closely to the "ideal type" professional role than the practitioner in the large urban firm.2 With the growth of large-scale funeral establishments in metropolitan centres, a professional identity becomes more difficult to maintain. We will now examine the professional and non-professional dimensions in the work of a funeral director. *Based on the writer's M.A. dissertation done at the University of Toronto in 1964 and brought up to date in 1967, this article has undergone further editing by Judith Hudson Beattie, the author's widow, in preparation for its inclusion here. A special thanks goes to Bruce McFarlane for his suggestions, and for the following note on Christopher Beattie. Christopher, during the four years of illness which led to the handicap of first partial and later full blindness and his subsequent death, kept up his teaching, research and writing to the end. His article is included here in honour of Oswald Hall because of the influential role Hall played in the development of this young productive sociologist whose death at the age of thirty-six has deprived not only the students at York University but also the Canadia sociological community of a very able teacher, researcher and writer. i

146

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147

OCCUPATIONAL PRESTIGE AND CAREER PATTERNS

A profession is a full-time occupation with a lifetime career offering high prestige and pay. Since the student goes through a thorough period of adult socialization, identification with the profession is strong. Membership in a profession affects how a person deals with, or is dealt with by others--clients, colleagues, formal organizations, and friends. Professional status influences and limits activities in a large number of fields. It approaches being a "total status" in that it determines what a person can and cannot d o in many social settings. Since professional identity pervades nearly all an individual's interactions, it is difficult to escape from its control. T o extract oneself from such an identity would involve a self-transformation and the abandonment of many social ties. These are frightening processes to contemplate and usually are not even considered. There is a set of more or less clearly defined stages making up a career that take a lifetime to negotiate. Generally as one advances in a career, one acquires more desirable positions, and passage is usually related to age. A typical career is one in which a person receives training, then goes out to a locale where he puts his training into practice by providing service for the inhabitants. Others may move directly into positions of research, teaching, or administration foregoing the practice phase altogether. As Davis and Moore (1945) argue, the positions which have the highest prestige and rewards are those of greatest importance to the society, and those that require the longest training and/or special talent. In industrial societies, the professions fit these categories. Studies of occupational prestige in the United States by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) (1947 and 1953)3 and in five industrial societies by Inkeles and Rossi (1956) reveal that professions consistently receive high prestige ratings. But the rewards of the professional d o not approach exorbitance. Because of their primary obligation to serve the community interest directly, the accepted professions have had a strong tendency toward moderate financial reward. Such rewards are considered secondary to the honors bestowed for professional achievement in the community interest; they are sufficient for the appropriate style of life of the professional, but no more (Barber, 1963).

In the NORC studies of occupational prestige, the category of "undertaker" was midway in the ranking of ninety occupations. Asked about the general standing of the occupation in 1963, 16 per cent responded that it had an excellent standing, 46 per cent said a good standing, 33 per cent thought it of average standing, while 5 per cent found it below average or poor in standing. In comparison, the physician, minister and lawyer were felt to have an excellent standing

148 PART TWO: OCCUPATIONAL. RECRUITMENT AND SOCIALIZATION by 7 1,53, and 53 per cent respectively of the respondents. Among the occupations just above undertaker in prestige were farm owner and operator, trained machinist, electrician and railroad engineer. Also, it was noted in 1947 that undertaker was scored lowest by persons in the 14-20 age group, but was rated progressively higher by the older age groups. Thus, it is the members of an age group about to select an occupation that rank the undertaker the lowest. In Canada, there have been several attempts to gauge the social standing of occupations: Blishen's scale (1958) based on the 1951 census, Pineo and Porter's (1967) national survey of occupational prestige conducted in 1965, Blishen's (1967) revised index using Pineo-Porter findings and the 1961 census, and a further modified index developed with Hugh McRoberts (1976). The Porter, Pineo and McRoberts' (1977) analysis of the impact of the new occupation coding system for analysis of census results is also relevant. Blishen's first scale located undertakers in Class 4, in company with photographers, manufacturing foremen, office clerks, and motion picture projectionists. Although this scale is constructed from objective measures of income and years of schooling and thus does not tap prestige judgments directly, it does correlate above the -90 level with various studies in the United States and Canada which used subjective ratings, including the 1947 N ~ R scale. C On the Pineo-Porter scale that included some two hundred occupations and ranged from 0 (low) to 100 (high), funeral directors received a score of 54.9 which was about the same as computer programmers and social workers. This appears to be a slight increase in prestige over the 1951 rankings of Blishen. The apparent increase also shows up in Blishen's results, drawn from a regression equation between the Pineo-Porter rankings and 1961 census material on income and education for eighty-eight occupations which appeared in both. With the regression equation, Blishen was able to assign a score to the census title "Funeral Directors and Embalmers." This score locates it just below musicians and music teachers, nurses-in-training, and bookkeepers and cashiers. Again, this places it higher than the 1951 ratings. In the 1971 Census, "Funeral Directors, Embalmers and Related Occupations," which includes clerks and workers in funeral establishments, are to be found in the personal service occupations along with hairdressers, guides and baby-sitters. In their most recent socio-economic index based on 1971 data, Blishen and McRoberts found "Funeral Directors, Embalmers and Related Occupations" to have a score of 51.0 on a scale from 0 to 100. The rank of 155 places them just below aircraft mechanics and foremen in metal machining and processing, and just above bookkeepers and nurses-in-training. Although changes in income and education variables make comparison with the 1961 data

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difficult, clearly, funeral directors are in the company of occupations which have lower prestige than professionals.' Persons are attracted to funeral directing not because of its prestige but rather through occupational inheritance from one relative to another, or by chance. Funeral directors like to pass on the business from one generation to the next. Their advertisements often emphasize that there have been several generations of family service. A few directors mentioned chance factors that lead people into this occupation. The manager of a large firm supplied this account of his own experience. It was during the Depression and there weren't many jobs available, so rather than work 1 went back to school after the summer vacation. One of the first days of school a group of the fellows were talking over their summer jobs. One of the guys said that he had been driving an ambulance for a funeral director. I asked him who took over when he left and he said nobody had. So I went around and asked for the job and got it. In 1935, I received my embalmer's licence and joined [name of firm] in 1937. I became chief embalmer on one of the shifts and eight or nine years ago was appointed manager here.

The same pattern is seen in another account given by a director in a large establishment serving a primarily Roman Catholic clientele. When I was young I never thought of funeral service as a career. I went to college and worked for I.B.M. Then, I married the boss's [of a funeral home] daughter and here I am.

Not enough material on careers was gathered to permit a statement on career lines. It would seem, though, that a great many embalmers who aspire to become funeral directors have their ambitions thwarted.4 Essentially there are three channels open to embalmers striving to become funeral directors: (1) buy and operate your own establishment, or be a partner or part-owner of one; (2) manage an establishment for someone else; o r (3) be appointed a funeral director by the regular funeral director who desires to have more than one licensed person on the staff. In many cases these possibilities d o not become realities for embalmers. Dissatisfied with the long hours and low pay, they leave funeral service. It appears that they d o not strongly identify with this service. When the economic returns are insufficient, they go on to something else. O n the other hand, those who d o become funeral directors, particularly in the smaller centres, become closely identified with the occupation. Nearly all their interaction is affected by the fact that they are the funeral director. Like the general practitioner in medicine, they become involved in the community's social life during the period of gathering a clientele. Once established, it is difficult and risky to consider moving, so they become rooted in the community for the duration of their working lives.

150 PART TWO: OCCUPATIONAL RECRUITMENT AND SOCIALIZATION CLIENT WITH A PROBLEM

Every society has occupational specialists who handle those events that threaten the continued well-being of a person or group, or that appear too complex and perilous for a layman to handle. The medical specialist treats physical illness, the religious specialist attempts to assuage spiritual and moral crises. The lawyer aids a client who has become entangled in the legal system and who regards his position as insecure or threatened. Each of these historic professions ministers to a client who feels his present existence is encumbered by physical, spiritual or legal forces. The client of a professional may be either an individual or an organization. Teachers and ministers have long been established salaried employees of organizations. Lawyers and doctors, the traditional freelancers, are increasingly moving into organizational settings as company or hospital employees. However, even when an organization (school, college, congregation, hospital or industrial firm) is the client, the professional strives to maintain histher role as an independent, highly specialized server. Despite the often contradictory demands between the work establishment and professional norms, many professionals are able to use their specialized competence in an autonomous manner while pursuing a career within an organization. An important class of events wherein professionals play crucial roles are those "life crises" arising from the life cycle: pregnancy, childbirth, puberty, betrothal, marriage and death. At such times people feel they need the aid and support of a specialist trained to cope with such stressful matters. According to the anthropologist, Arnold van Gennep (1960), these transitions from one status to another are marked by rites of passage. The professional attempts to insure that the transition is a smooth one. As Hughes (1958:88) observed, the professional makes a life's work out of other people's crises. The emergencies of his clients make up the professional's daily routine. What appears as a unique occurrence to the client is for the professional simply another example of a class of events. When a person dies, his friends and relatives are faced with the task of disposing of the body in a socially acceptable manner. Most people are uncertain about the proper procedures for arranging a burial. They turn to the funeral director with their distressing problem, he being the most accessible institutional channel for handling the complexities of death. The funeral director is surrounded by professionals serving his client. On the one hand, there is the doctor and nurse from whom he receives the body. On the other, there is the clergyman to whom he

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passes the prepared body for burial. Close association with these fellow "experts in death" facilitates the formation of a professional identity. Also, because he regards his work as incorporating a semi-medical service-embalming-and a semi-religious servicecounselling the bereaved-his professional identity is further bolstered (Warner, 1959). PERSONAL SERVICE

A professional provides personal attention to the needs of his clients, there being no intermediary or middleman. The professional listens to his client's account of the problem, and then provides a service tailored to his client's requirements. If a professional is suspected of self-interest, he faces condemnation by the community and by his colleagues. He can be "self-sacrificing*' on individual, short-run occasions because of his realistic expectation that in the long run he will receive suitable monetary and psychic rewards. It is in his own long-run interest to serve the interests of his client to the best of his ability. There is a close bond between client and professional, unlike business relations where a buyer feels he can shift his trade elsewhere when a better deal appears. T h e relation is presumed to be of indefinite duration with intermittent interaction over a long period. In the business world the motto is caveat emptor, "let the buyer beware," but in the professional world it is credol emptm, "let the buyer have faith" (Hughes, 1963:657). T h e funeral director assists the bereaved in executing the funeral and burial arrangements. He tries to avoid the accusation of exploiting the grief-stricken and of charging all that the market will bear. For instance, in answer to charges that funeral directors have made a lavish funeral a new status symbol in Canada, funeral directors argue along the lines of this statement extracted from a newspaper advertisement: Some people view the funeral as a means to gain new status among their friends and neighbours. Status-conscious Canadians also find expression in other symbols as well as in funerals. Such situations may be to a funeral director's advantage, but they are not o f his making. H e is obligated to provide the type of funeral service demanded."

The funeral director would like to think that people put faith and trust in him. They dislike people who shop around or who come to make arrangements before the time of death. They regard such people as attacking the funeral director's personal integrity. Actually, the prevalence of shopping around is not great since once a funeral director is called, he comes almost immediately to take possession of the body, thus eliminating the possibility of further inquiries. The

152 PART TWO: OCCUPATIONAL RECRUITMENT AND SOCZAL.IZATZ0N client is almost compelled to have faith in the funeral director, for once the body is removed from the home or hospital, the funeral director can store it and prepare it in ways beyond the control of his client. The client can only hope that it will be treated in a manner appropriate to its worth. SPECIALIZED KNOWLEDGE AND TECHNIQUES

The professional is expected to master a basic body of esoteric knowledge and the techniques which accompany it. Techniques alone are not sufficient; the theory underlying the skill must also be acquired. For example, the medical doctor studies not merely the techniques and tools for probing the human frame, but also biology and chemistry. Likewise, clergymen and lawyers acquire a thorough knowledge of an extensive and codified body of lore. Before the novice meets the public, he must undergo a lengthy study of this lore on which the techniques are founded. In short, professionalism only develops when specialized techniques (surgery, religious ceremonial, courtroom procedures) are supported by a body of scientific law or historical doctrines. In addition, the professional is required to keep abreast of research in his field. The research does not necessarily test scientific theories; in law and religion, research involves assaying the historical roots or present interpretations of doctrines. The best location for training professionals is thought, at least in North America, to be the university. The professional typically undergoes an extended period of formal training usually in a university setting. Law, medicine and the ministry all require long school attendance at a university after the completion of secondary school. Professional education usually continues after the candidate has already received a first; university degree. The education of the Ontario funeral director, in contrast is primarily through apprenticeship. In 1965 the "articled student" served a two year apprenticeship interspersed with twelve weeks' attendance at the Canadian School of Embalming which used the laboratories and some facilities of the University of Toronto. T o be eligible to register as an articled student, a person had to (I) be at least 18 years of age, (2) have an Ontario Secondary School Graduation Diploma (Grade 12 or its equivalent), and (3)supply testimonials from two persons, not relatives, testifying to his good character. In addition, before completing registration a student had to obtain a sponsor, a funeral director who would be his "master." The funeral director and apprentice entered into a written contract under which the master agreed, in the words of the Embalmers and Funeral Directors Act, "to the best of his ability to teach and instruct the Apprentice in the science and practice of embalming and the business

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of a funeral director." Since then, the removal of the training function from the university influence to that of Humber College, a college of applied arts and technology, takes it even further from the professional ideal. A survey of the courses at the Canadian School of Embalming indicates that except for the science and medicine courses, most of the courses could be regarded as practical rather than theoretical. It would seem, then, that the training of funeral directors primarily involved learning the tools and techniques of the trade, and had only an incidental concern with a body of abstract knowledge. The course emphasis of the Canadian School of Embalming is revealed in Table 1. Table 1. Course Distribution at the Canadian School of Embalming, 1964 Hours of study Subject area Mid-term

Science and medicine Funeral procedures Body preparation Public relations Business and legal

Final term

Difference @nu1 minus mid-term)

79 19 27

12 3

SOURCE:Canadian School of Embalming, 1964 Course of Instruction.

The difference between the final term and the mid-term should be noted. As students came closer to the final examinations there was less emphasis on the theoretical subjects in science and medicine and greater emphasis on the practical side of funeral directing: body preparation, public relations and the business-legal aspects. Although the school used university facilities and teachers to introduce its students to scientific and medical subjects the main emphasis of the formal education was for practising funeral directors to pass on a body of techniques for preparing a body for public view, and a number of suggestions for operating a business and organizing funerals. The Humber College Funeral Service Education which has replaced the Canadian School of Embalming offers a similar course of study. There are four semesters of courses, the first two of twenty-nine hours per week in a combination of theoretical and practical courses, the last three by correspondence. As previously, practical experience in the college facilities and in cooperating funeral establishments is emphasized. There is more weight given now to the

154 PART TWO: OCCUPATIONAL RECRUITMENT AND SOCIALIZATION

behavioural sciences with courses in Psychology of Grief and Human Relations, but again the emphasis shifts, in the second semester, from theoretical subjects in science and medicine to body preparation and the business-legal aspects. As can be seen in Table 2, public relations seems to drop slightly, but this may reveal difficulties in interpretation of course titles. Table 2. Course Distribution at the Humber College Funeral Service Education, Toronto, 1979. Subject area

Credits 1st semester 2nd semester

Science and medicine Funeral procedures Body preparation Public relations Business and legal Be havioural sciences

9 3 4 5 2 2

Difference (second minus first semester)

3 4 10

2 6 4

SOURCE:Humber College Calendar, Funeral Service Education, Toronto, 1979.

AUTHORITY OVER CLIENT

,

T h e client may be superior to the professional in certain areas (wealth, political influence, age, education), but within the professional's special area of competence the client submits to his dictates. I n his specialty, the professional has complete authority. He defines what his client "needs," outlines a course of action, and it is only with trepidation that a client deviates from it. T h e authority, voluntarily accepted by the client, is supported by the general belief that the professional's more than adequate technical competence will be used for his client's benefit. The funeral director does not have the authority to lay out a plan that suits the "needs" of the client and from which the client ought not to deviate. Bowman describes the situation in these terms: "The undertaker has an impulse to conduct a 'nice' funeral and has his notions of the features entering into it. . . . T h e result is a distinct tendency to tell clients what they should to, o r what 'is being done,' or to attempt to interpret what outward forms the sentiments of the bereaved should assume at the funeral" (Bowman, 1954:179). His plans and predispositions, however, are often resisted by the client. What he says the client needs, may not be what the client wants. Although he may try to influence the client along certain lines,

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especially with regard to the type of casket and the order of the funeral service, the director must cater to the client's feelings and demands. The fact that the client rather than the funeral director has the upper hand in the transaction is recognized by the occupation. Under the heading "Freedom of Choice" in an advertisement, this statement appears: "The right remains that of the individual or family to select a funeral service of THEIR OWN CHOICE, at the price THEY WISH T O PAY, from the funeral director of THEIR CHOICE. No respectable funeral ~ funeral director would presume it should be o t h e r ~ i s e . "The director provides personal service, but the type and extent of the service is decided by the client-customer (or at least his consent must be gained) and not the director. INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY AND SELF-GOVERNMENT

As a consequence of the long period of formal training undertaken by the professional, he is expected to have internalized a code of ethics that governs his work relations. These "inner directives" are expected to become his working principles which will ensure the proper treatment of those with whom he deals, The classic professions have formal codes: the Hippocratic oath in medicine, the secrecy of privileged communication uttered in the confessional, the devotion of the lawyer to proving the innocence of his client. These codes stress professional obligation of the highest order, focusing on the protection of, and service to, the client-public. The codes of other work associations or trade unions, in contrast, are specifically designed to safeguard the interests of the association against encroachments by employers, competitors and government. T o regulate professional-client interaction, the occupation forms a voluntary association for the purpose of self-government. T h e independence of the professional is safeguarded by having his peers as the sole adjudicators of his work. By internal surveillance, the profession tries to ensure that its incumbents live u p to ethical standards. Thus the professional is responsible not only for acting ethically in his own affairs but also for ensuring that the work of his fellows is performed ethically so that it does not discredit the profession. The professional accepts control by the professional community in exchange for protection against the surrounding lay society. Two types of lay interference are avoided: mistakes at work are judged by colleagues and not the civil courts, and arbitrary client choices of which professionals to approach are counteracted by a referral system (Goode, 1957: 197-198). T o guarantee its control, the professional organization usually has laws enacted to enable it to be the sole authority in establishing canons of competence and in

156 PART TWO: OCCUPATIONAL RECRUITMENT AND SOCIALIZATION

licensing practitioners. In return for this independence, the professional association requires from its members a long period of training and a high standard of behaviour. It typically designs the course of training, sets the final exams for prospective professionals, enforces working standards, settles disagreements among its members, and decides on the punishment to be meted out to an erring member. The professional association may have a hand in publishing a scholarly journal or arranging conventions or in other ways maintaining lines of communication among its dispersed membership. Besides dealing with the profession's internal affairs, the association has external functions: to maintain or raise the prestige of the occupation in the eyes of the public, to make representation to government and private bodies concerning its members' interests, to encourage the "right sort" of candidates to apply for training, to supply information about the profession to the outside world, and so on. By performing these many functions, the association further buttresses its autonomy and monopoly of control. Ontario funeral directors are regulated by a government-appointed body, the Board of Funeral Services. Unlike the central professions whose regulations are formulated and discipline carried out by an executive regularly elected from among its members, the members of the Board of Funeral Directors are composed of five funeral directors, one not licensed and not active in the funeral business, and three members not licensees, all appointed by the Lieutenant Governor in Council. While the majority on the Board are funeral directors, the ,occupation has representative but not self-government. Interest in self-government has long been expressed by funeral directors. The impetus came from a dispute with the Board over advertising. In the fall of 1962 the Board announced that no billboard and no reference to prices were to be used for advertising purposes. Canadian Funeral Sewice, the national trade magazine, in an editorial titled "Rule By Decree" in November 1962, accused the Board of imposing unwanted regulations on the funeral directors in an authoritarian manner. As a result of this incident the Ontario Association of Funeral Directors instituted the Ingram Committee to revamp the formal structure. In its proposed legislation, the Board would become an elected one of seven members, each elected from a different region of the province. The Funeral Services Act, assented to December 16, 1976 by the Ontario government, contained no such amendment. In fact, in terms of self-regulation, funeral directors lost ground with this legislation. Previously, the Board was usually composed entirely of funeral directors. Now funeral directors had to submit to the rulings of a Board with three members from outside their occupation. However, even though the Board members are not

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elected, the regulation that exists is carried on from within the occupation, not by inspectors from an outside agency. T h e majority of Board members are aligned with the funeral directors, not with a neutral, governmental department. And the Board does have extensive potential power to police the occupation's internal affairs. In common with other would-be professions, Ontario funeral directors have attempted to propound a code of ethics, entry qualifications, and to regulate the practices of funeral establishments. The present code acknowledges obligations to the public and to fellow colleagues. Adherence to sound business practices and observance of the rules of fair competition are central themes of the code. COLLEAGUE RELATIONSHIPS

Entry into a profession is, at the same time, acceptance as a colleague. Colleagues are "the people who consider themselves subject to the same work risks" (Hughes, 1958:93). Towards his colleagues, the professional is expected to be cooperative and supportive. For this reason, professionals avoid competititive advertising.' When dealing with outsiders they attempt to present a front of unanimity. Among colleagues the ideal is one of harmonious solidarity. "The unspoken mutual confidence necessary to them rests on two assumptions concerning one's fellows. The first is that the colleague will not misunderstand; the second is that he will not repeat to uninitiated ears" (Hughes, 1958: 108-109). Colleagues form a tightly knit group pledged to support each other, especially against client o r community interferences. Among funeral directors the sense of being in the same occupation and of common plight is strong, but this situation does not engender cooperativeness. Firms in the same area regard themselves as competitors and each attempts to expand the market on which it draws. (Competition is somewhat diminished when some of the firms become typed along religious lines since they then draw on different markets.) Some firms run large advertisements in newspapers, supposedly to the detriment of other, non-advertising firms. At the time of a major disaster, several firms will pool their equipment and personnel, but under ordinary circumstances it is usual to bring in a freelance embalmer when short-staffed or to hire a vehicle if an extra one is required. No referral system exists through which certain funeral directors become specialists and steer cases outside their field to other practitioners. T h e free play of market forces prevails, there being no cooperative devices to spread the market so that new or struggling firms are supported. Although firms d o not cooperate in the handling of the client market, they d o come together when collective action to further

158 PART TWO: OCCUPATIONAL RECRUITMENT AND SOCIMIZATION

individual interests is required. Additionally, a common front appears when it is felt that city ordinances, government welfare services, and insurance benefits should be altered. COMMUNITY MANDATE

When an occupation presumes to tell society what is good and right for it in respect to a crucial aspect of life, and this presumption is granted as legitimate, then the occupation has a mandate and usually is regarded as a profession. According to Hughes, a mandate refers to the claim by members of an occupational group to define, for themselves as well as for others, the proper conduct of affairs falling within their work sphere and that claim is accepted by the community. "They also will seek to define and possibly succeed in defining, not merely proper conduct but even modes of thinking and belief for everyone individually and for the body social and politic with respect to some broad area of life which they believe to be in their occupational domain" (Hughes, 1959:448). For instance, physicians, in large measure, have given the community the criteria by which they measure good and bad health (a case in point is the manner in which mental disorders became defined as "illnesses") and have shaped the nature of the community agencies set up to deal with illnesses. The attainment of a community mandate indicates that a profession is fully accepted and its members are seen as the experts and advisers about a significant segment of group life. It is clear that funeral directors have not been granted a mandate to define the proper manner for dealing with dead persons. Certainly they are influential, but other powerful groups such as the clergy and the medical profession are opposed to many practices funeral directors would like to institute. For example, many ministers are opposed to having religious services in funeral chapels and doctors have questioned the utility of embalming. What the community has given to the funeral director is the right to levy what amounts to a tax on any person who has a dead body on the premises. But the community has not yielded the right to decide the appropriate treatment of the body. The idea of a "decent burial" is largely a religious concept, and the funeral director can do little to redefine and alter the practices-a religious service with a simple casket followed by interment-derived from this concept. The funeral director is simply not accepted as the sole arbiter on how the dead should be disposed of though he obviously influences fashions in last rites. MARGINALITY AND FUNERAL DIRECTORS

The occupation of funeral director embodies some of the eight

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professional elements in company with non-professional elements. On the professional side, the client comes to the funeral director with a problem-to dispose of a dead body in a socially prescribed way-that is too complex to be handled alone. The relationship between the funeral director and the bereaved is a personal one in which assistance is rendered by the practitioner to his client. Those funeral directors who work in less populous centres often develop a lifetime career providing high prestige and pay relative, that is, to the local area. On the other hand, this occupation clearly lacks five professional traits. It does not have self-government in that the members of the governing body are government-appointed, even though the majority are funeral directors. Nor do funeral directors undergo a prolonged formal education in an abstract body of knowledge. They can set limits on, and resist, the demands for services, but they are not imbued with the authority to have their will prevail over their clients' desires. The community has not assigned a mandate to them to define the correct procedures for disposing of the dead. Cooperative ventures among funeral directors are few. As well, it is generally seen as an occupation of middling prestige, particularly in urban areas, and entered, in many cases, not as a first choice occupation but through chance or occupational inheritance. Thus, the funeral director approximates the professional type on several dimensions but deviates on others. He is, in short, in a marginal status, lying near the boundary of a professional status, sharing some of its traits but not a sufficient complement to provide an unequivocal claim to that status. In addition, as we will discuss, the funeral director is led by business and bureaucratic demands into activities contrary to a traditional professional orientation. The funeral director is subject to pressures which conflict with his professional aspirations. The most obvious factor at odds with professionalism is that he must maintain the large and costly establishment in which he works. One funeral director described the situation in this way: Unlike the other professions, the funeral director provides his own environment in which he carries on his professional work. The lawyer has the courthouse supplied by the municipality and the medical doctor uses the hospital supported by the public. The funeral director supplies his own facilities, often at great cost. This presents an opening to say that he is in it for gain. It seems that he has to make a fast buck in order to keep up his establishment. This is the main problem for the funeral director.

The foremost responsibility of an owner or an employee is to serve and promote the interests of his organization, in contrast to the.

160 PART TWO: OCCUPATIONAL RECRUITMENT AND SOCIALIZATION

professional who is bound by a code of ethics and the norm of service to represent the interests and welfare of his clients. The urban funeral director requires a large building often with a chapel attached located on valuable property in the central area of the city. He is expected to have large and expensive vehicles to transport the family and coffin from church or chapel to the cemetery. It was estimated by one funeral director that of a bill sent out for a funeral service, 25 per cent would go for building maintenance and 15 per cent for automobile services. A funeral director must regularly make payments for fixed costs-salaries, property tax, building depreciation or rent, and automobile depreciation-no matter whether funerals are few or many. He must keep his establishment in good repair; tastefully furnished and decorated. All these expenses make it necessary to have a steady and substantial income. Of course, funeral directors claim, as d o all aspirants to professional status, that they serve the interests of their clients and do not seek economic advancement. An oft-repeated story among them involves the many times they have restrained clients who wanted an expensive funeral when there were other, more pressing, demands on their money. It is clear, though, that a funeral director works in a setting where there is considerable pressure to give primacy to the organization's rather than the clients' interests. In Ontario, a business approach to funeral arranging is being promoted by an organization, the National Selected Morticians (NSM), situated in the United States, which operates on the principle of choosing only one or two firms in each major community for membership. The NSM was founded in 1917 in order to promote profitable mortuary operations based on business principles. It regards itself as a fact-finding and research organization, but these activities are carried on primarily to serve its members in their efforts to secure an increased volume of patronage. In 1945 NSM set up the National Foundation of Funeral Service at Evanston, Illinois, as an educational institution to which members could come themselves or send staff people to be trained in business practices. Its orientation is that the relationship between the funeral director and thoSe he deals with is that of a seller and a buyer. The members are described by a non-member funeral director as "the biggest, most successful, most ruthless funeral directors in North America." Most major centres have two members of NSM,one Protestant and one Roman Catholic. Besides business pressures which conflict with professionalism, many funeral directors are also subject to the constraints of working in a bureaucracy (Blau and Scott, 1962:60-'74). As part of the bureaucracy, the director is embedded in a hierarchy of positions, with each position under the control and supervision of a higher one. Often the funeral director works as a manager of a firm subject to the

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owners' policies, his style of work being circumscribed by the aims of his superiors. Whereas, ideally, the professional's decisions are made in accordance with internalized standards, the decisions of the bureaucrat are governed by disciplined compliance with his superiors' directives. The funeral director, then, sometimes finds that his bosses' orders take precedence over his own standards of decency. Furthermore, if a bureaucrat's decision is questioned, the final judgment of whether he is right or wrong is made by a supervisor, but when the decision of a professional is examined, the right of reviewing its correctness falls to his professional colleagues. The work of the funeral director is not adjudicated by his peers who have the same specialized skills but rather by his superiors whose interests may be quite different from his own. T h e extent to which bureaucratic patterns can operate in funeral service is revealed in the structure of a Toronto firm. It is operated as a limited company with the stocks distributed among the two founding families. The company owns three separate self-sufficient establishments. In one of these establishments there is a funeral director who serves as a manager and a second licensed funeral director. In addition, there are three licensed embalmers who work on a shift basis, two student embalmers, a full-time bookkeeper, a secretary, a maintenance man, two men who work evenings as receptionists directing the flow of visitors, and an organist who is on call. A total of thirteen people are required to carry out the work of this one establishment. The funeral director located in this type of work setting must take account not only of the policies of the company but the efficient allocation of staff. He attempts to comply with dual expectations that are frequently incompatible: first, of administering a profitable organization in accordance with the wishes of its owners, and secondly, of providing a service guided by his own estimation of an appropriate funeral for his client. The confusion in occupational identity is reflected in the variety of titles in this field. "Funeral industry," "funeral service," "funeral trade," "burial company" and "funeral profession" are variously used by those in this type of work. As mentioned earlier, a factor that makes it difficult for the members to speak with one voice is the diverse work settings in which they find themselves. Polar types of work places have been investigated by Habenstein (1954, 1962) who labels them the "local funeral home" and the "mass mortuary." His findings are summarized in Table 3. Funeral directors in these different settings have different self-conceptions. The local funeral home is likely to provide the funeral director with the self-image of a professional person, a purveyor of an essential service to people who know him and respect his judgment. Working in a mass mortuary, on

162 PART TWO: OCCUPATIONAL RECRUITMENT AND SOCIALIZATION the other hand, contributes to a view of oneself as a businessman operating a firm for the prime benefit of its owners. Mass mortuaries tend to develop in metropolitan areas. I n 1971, of 1,255 "funeral directors, embalmers and related occupations" in Ontario, 655 worked in metropolitan areas with more than a third of those located in Toronto. Table 3. Polar Types of Funeral Establishments Fedure

Local funeral home

Mass mortuary

Service contact

Director is known-often several generations of service--clients deal with a specific person Serves a family known to the director Involved and concerned with community affairs

Director is not knownclients deal with a variety of personnel (diffuse contact) Handles a "case" divested of kin ties Community regarded as a market, a collection of customers Unlimited growth and profits Bureaucratic

Unit of operation Community orientation Establishment goal Personnel SOURCE: Adapted

Limited business goals Patrimonial retainers

from Habenstein, "The American Funeral Director."

Since the trend appears to be toward the mass mortuary type of organization, it is probable that in the future the businessman image will become more prevalent. A professional identity is difficult to sustain when a person is located in an establishment which attempts to coordinate the work of many individuals in order to mass produce a standardized product. Such appears to be the fate of funeral directors as they become increasingly involved in complex organizations, usually found in urban areas. There, their work activities will more and more be governed by business practices and ethics and less and less by professional practices and ethics. The more these large establishments prosper, the more likely it is that funeral directors will identify with the business rather than the professional community.

Notes 1. This study of the Ontario funeral director draws upon a variety of sources. A thorough scrutiny of the literature on funeral directors both sociological and journalistic was carried out. Back issues of the trade magazine, Canadian Funeral Service, published in Toronto were studied and several

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lengthy discussions were held with its editor. Also, of special interest was a book by a former Toronto embalmer who had become disenchanted with the Ontario funeral scene (Coriolis, 1967). Interviews were obtained with a variety of officials: an officer of the Ontario licensing body, an executive member of the Ontario Funeral Service Association, and a member of the executive of a regional association. Lengthy, unstructured interviews were held with several funeral directors, clergymen, and medical doctors. A secondary analysis was made of data gathered by Statistics Canada and by a market research firm commissioned by a voluntary association of Ontario funeral directors to study their membership. Additional information was obtained from the Canadian School of Embalming in Toronto. In the update by his widow the most recent data were supplied but the conclusions of the author required no modification. 2. In May 1963, a Survey Among Funeral Directors in Onhrio, (completed by a private market research firm, Gruneau Research Limited), provided some relevant facts about the position of the funeral director. From this survey, two extreme but common types of funeral firms emerged. At the one pole was the establishment handling an average of 30 adult services a year, located in a community of one to ten thousand in population, operated by an individual proprietor with one full-time and two part-time em loyees. At the other pole was the establishment arranging an average of 2r0 adult services per year, found in communities over thirty thousand in size, operated as a limited company with seven full-time and two part-time employees besides the funeral director. 3. This study was first executed in 1947. It was replicated in 1963; see Hodge, Siege1 and Rossi (1964). 4. In Ontario at the time of the original study, every funeral director was required to be a licensed embalmer, but there was a tendency, especially in the large establishments, for embalming to be relegated to a minor functionary who worked "backstage" and never emerged to receive the plaudits of the client. I n the past, embalming skill was considered the very heart of the funeral director's work. He regarded himself as a talented artist who took the lifeless, ugly, often diseased corpse and transformed it into an appealing sculptured object resembling a human being in calm repose. His chief purpose was to turn the unpleasant corpse into what was called in the trade a "memory picture." Like other artists such as painters, dancers, sculptors and singers, he sought to produce a thing of beauty that would bring joy to his clients. T h e funeral home, like the studio, art gallery o r theatre served the purpose of receiving the public and displaying a talent. (Sometimes the embalmer goes so far in restoring an emanciated body to its youthful state that family members fail to recognize it. O n one such occasion when the family ordered the casket closed, the embalmer was offended-no doubt, because he felt his artistry had not been appreciated [The Editor]). Lately, the artistry of embalming and restoring the dead has been shifted to a minor place in the hierarchy of tasks performed by the funeral director, or even allocated to a separate functionary. Now, "service for the living" has become the core of the funeral director's definition of his work. T h e contemporary funeral director does not work "on" the dead, he considers that he works "for" the living. Although there is no longer separate licensing for embalmer and funeral director, the distinction in terms of function remains. Some licensed funeral directors never take on the administrative functions and remain in jobs once filled by "embalmers".

5. "Facts About Funeral Service Every Family Should Know", Toronto Daily Star, December 14, 1963. 6. Ibid. 7. Recently a major controversy has erupted in the legal profession concerning the practice of some lawyers, advertising their various services. This, of course, runs counter to the long held traditions of referral, the professional assumption. of the clients' incapacity to judge the quality of services offered, and the norm that colleagues do not compete against each other.

References Barber, Bernard. "Is American Business Becoming Professionalized? Analysis of a Social Ideology," in Edward A. Tiryakian, ed., Sociological Theory, Values, and Sociocultural Change: Essays in Honor of Pitirim A. Sorokin. Glencoe, 111.: The Free Press, 1963, pp. 121-45. Blau, Peter M., and W. Richard Scott. Fmmal Organizations: A Comparative Approach. San Francisco: Chandler, 1962. Blishen, Bernard R. "The Construction and Use of an Occupational Class Scale," Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, 24 (November 1958), pp. 52 1-31. -. "A Socio-Economic Index for Occupations in Canada," The Canadian Revieu of Sociology and Anthropology, 4 (February 1967), pp. 41-53. Blishen, Bernard R. and Hugh A. McRoberts. "A Revised Socio-Economic Index for Occupations in Canada." The Canadian R e v h of Sociology and Anthropology, 14 (February 1977), pp. 7 1-79. Bowman, LeRoy Edward. "Funerals and Funeral Directors in the United States: A Sociological Analysis." Doctoral dissertation, Department of Sociology, Columbia University, 1954. Coriolis, (pseud.) Death, Here Is Thy Sting. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1967. Davis, Kingsley, and Wilbert E. Moore. "Some Principles of Stratification," American Sociological Review, 10 (April 1945), pp. 205-209. Goode, William J. "Community Within a Community: The Professions," American Sociological Review, 22 (April 1957), pp. 194-200. Greenwood, Ernest. "Attributes of a Profession," Social Work, 2 (July 1957), pp. 44-55; reprinted in Howard M. Vollmer and Donald L. Mills, Professionaliratim. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1966, pp. 10-19. Habenstein, Robert W. "The American Funeral Director: A Study in the Sociology of Work." Doctoral dissertation, Department of Sociology, University of Chicago, 1954. . "Sociology of Occupations: T h e Case of the American Funeral Director," in Arnold M. Rose, ed., Human Behavior and Social Processes, An lnteractionist Approach. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1962, pp. 225-46. Hodge, Robert W., Paul M. Siegel, and Peter H. Rossi. "Occupational Prestige in the United States, 1925-63," American Journal of Sociology, 70 (November 1964), pp. 286-302. Hughes, Everett C. Men And Their Work, Glencoe, Ill.: The Free Press, 1958. . "Professions," Daedalus, 92 (Fall 1963). "The Study of Occupations," in Robert K. Merton et al., eds. Sociology Today. New York: Basic Books, 1959, pp. 442-58.

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Inkeles, Alex, and Peter H. Rossi. "National Comparisons of Occupational Prestige," American Journal of Sociology, 6 1 (January 1956), pp. 329-39. National Opinion Research Center. "Jobs and Occupations: A Popular Evaluation," in Reinhard Bendix and Seymour M. Lipset, eds. Class, Status, and Power: A Reader in Social Stratification. Glencoe, Ill.: The Free Press, 1953, pp. 4 11-26. Pineo, Peter C., and John Porter. "Occupational Prestige in Canada," The Sociology and ~nthropology,4 ( ~ G b r u a r1967), ~ pp. Canadian Review 24-40. Pineo, Peter C., John Porter, and Hugh A. McRoberts. "The 197 1 Census and the Socioeconomic Classification of Occupations," The Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology, 14 (February 1977), pp. 9 1- 102. Toronto Daily Star. "Facts About Funeral Service Every Family Should Know," December 14, 1963. van Gennep, Arnold. The Rites of Passage, translated by Monika B. Vizedom and Gabrielle L. Caffee. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960. Vollmer, Howard M., and Donald C. Mills. Profe.xsionalimtion. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1966. Warner, William Lloyd. The Living and the Dead, A Study of the Symbolic L f e of Americans. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959. Wilensky, Harold L. "The Professionalization of Everyone?" American Journal of Sociology, 70 (September 1964), pp. 137-58.

3

The Transition from Student to Practitioner: The Making of a Chiropractor MERRIJOY KELNER

T o those of us who have had the privilege of working with Oswald Hall in the years since his offzial retirement, he has provided a n inspiring role node1 of professional. Lest any of w worry about what is in storefor us when the "OW' we are required to retire at 65, let me assure you that Oswald has continued to work as enthusiastically and productively as ever as a colleague on our study of the chiropfactic profession. His output was prodigious, setting the pace for the rest of us, and his experience and wisdom added sipijkance and depth to all our efforts. While muny people appear to grow more rid with age, Oswald seems never to lose his openness to new insights and fresh perspectives. He retains his lifelong capacity to rethink issues and to change direction in the face of convincing new evidence. Far from standing on ceremony as the senior scholar on the pfoject, Oswald insisted on being treated as "one of the gang." The younger, morejunior people on the boject were amazed to firrd that he related to them all as pfessional equalr, mver seeking special privileges or pulling rank. W e can only hope that when it is our turn to formally retire from our university careers, we can approach the youthful vibrancy and creative vitality that Oswald Hall has demonstrated as our colleague during the past many years. Oswald's own words perhaps best exemplqy his maxim for retirement: "There's nothing wrong with retirement, as long as it doesn't get in the way of your work." A good deal of attention has been paid by sociologists to the training of health professionals, particularly physicians.' Little analysis has been attempted, however, of the stages involved in the transition made by students in professional schools into the occupational roles for which they have been trained.* The crucial stages of the process which transforms yesterday's students into tomorrow's practitioners require delineation and description. 166

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The present article explores the borderline between school and practice by focusing on the experience of students who are being trained in Canada's only college of chiropractic-the Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College, located in Toronto. While certain aspects of the transition process described here are unique to chiropractic, other elements are experienced by all students who enter professional schools as neophytes, and later leave them as certified practitioners. The findings reported here represent one small part of a comprehensive study of chiropractors in Canada. T h e larger study encompasses analysis of the patterns of recruitment, education and practice which characterize chiropractors across the country. Data collected in order to describe the education of chiropractic students include: (1) field observations made at the college over a period of one academic year (1975-76); (2) interviews with a random sample of students from all four years of classes; (3) anonymous questionnaires answered by all students at the college; (4) interviews with all full-time and the major part-time faculty members; and (5) interviews with all members of the Board of Governors of the college. In this article, the data will be used illustratively only and will be drawn primarily from field observations and from student interviews.

The Transition Process The transition from student to practitioner begins when new recruits first step inside a professional school. Here they begin the technical preparation required for competent performance of their chosen occupation. At the same time, they are also groomed in the values and styles of conduct considered appropriate to their future role as practitioners. The intellectual base of theory and knowledge and the work skills entailed in their future job are presented to students in an increasingly intensive and sophisticated form as they pass through the various levels of training. Toward the end of their formal education, students are required to take on the role of interns or apprentices, as the orientation of their educational program moves from the theoretical to the applied. Upon completion of all the educational requirements, they are certified as competent practitioners, eligible to set about the business of establishing themselves in practice and acquiring a clientele. During the first years of practice, a number of practical problems arise associated with office management, income generation and the like. The last phase of the transition to successful practitioner involves developing a range of strategies to deal with these exigencies.

168 PART TWO: OCCUPATIONAL RECRUITMENT AND SOCIALIZATION

In this paper, attention will be concentrated on only one element of the transition process undergone by chiropractic students: the clinical experience of students who have concluded three of their four years of training and are ending their studies as interns in the outpatient clinic attached to the college. As these student-interns stand on the borderline between school and practice, we can trace their careers as they first enter the clinic, as they participate in patient care within the clinical setting, and as they emerge from the clinic ready to graduate as Doctors of Chiropractic. For the purposes of this analysis, we will attempt to identify the assets and the liabilities possessed by the students as they go through this transition process. In addition, three distinct phases of the process will be delineated: the initiation into the clinic, the clinical experience and the passage into practice. A basis question underlying this analysis is: How does the clinical experience contribute to maintaining the surprisingly persistent place that chiropractic has held in the healing occupations? In Canada, chiropractors have established practices right across the country, in both urban and rural centres, and have drawn their patients from all sectors of society. The number of practitioners is continuing to increase, the number of patients attracted to chiropractic treatment is continuing to grow, the number of applicants to the college is continuing to expand, and since the college raised its entrance requirements to at least one full year of university education (in 1975-76), the type of student entering the college is changing significantly. The current crop of students are better educated and more scientifically oriented than their predecessors and, as a consequence, are demanding a different kind of educational experience. All of this is taking place in an environment which is largely hostile to the notion of chiropractic as a legitimate form of health care. Large and influential sectors of our society have denounced chiropractic as fraudulent, and have questioned its right to persist. Yet this particular field of healing has not only survived, but is continuing to prosper. Much of the impetus for this persistence is generated by the college, and the analysis presented here of the ways in which 'the clinical experience prepares students for their role as practitioners should provide some insight into the mechanisms that have allowed chiropractic to overcome the lack of acceptance and outright hostility it has experienced since its inception.

The Setting The Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College (CMCC)is a private, non-profit enterprise supported, operated and controlled by the chiropractors of Canada. This makes the college quite distinct from the majority of chiropractic colleges in the United States which are

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operated on a proprietary basis. Since it first opened its doors in 1945, CMCC has functioned in isolation, unaffiliated with any universities, community colleges or other educational institutions. T h e college thus offers a relatively closed environment to its students; an environment which encourages the rapid assimilation of chiropractic's distinctive subculture. Located on two acres of ground in a suburban section of Toronto, the physical plant of the college is attractive and modern, though far from lavish. Since it was built solely from funds raised from and by chiropractors, the college is limited in the amount of space and the range of facilities available, in comparison with the more elaborately endowed educational institutions that have been erected through government financing. The outpatient clinic forms an integral part of the college buildings. In 1976, when we were making daily observations of students in the clinic setting, the clinic rooms were located in cramped quarters in the basement of the college. Since that time, the clinic facilities, while still in the basement, have been enlarged and improved, and a satellite clinic (also training students) has been established in another section of the city. In much the same manner as teaching hospitals, the clinic attempts to combine the sometimes conflicting goals of giving quality care to patients, and providing a sound learning experience for students. T h e clinic is staffed by a clinic director along with five other clinical faculty who have the ultimate responsibility for all patients, and are expected to supervise students in all aspects of patient care, including diagnostic workup, report writing, referral and consultation. Students d o not formally enter the clinic until the third of their four-year program at CMCC. Well before that, however, chiropractic students are exposed to the elements of clinical treatment. Even in their first year of training when the emphasis is on the basic sciences, theyare taught to examine and palpate the spinal column, and are introduced to the basic elements of spinal manipulation. Sixty hours of the curriculum in the first year and ninety in the second year are spent developing chiropractic techniques. Students practise their skills by doing spinal adjustments on one another, under faculty supervision. By the time they are admitted to the clinic, they have already learned a good deal about chiropractic techniques and are familiar with the major aspects of clinical treatment. As one part of their program in third year, students are permitted in the clinic as observers; they are present at neurological, physical and orthopaedic examinations, as well as the taking of case histories and consultations with patients. I n this fashion, they gradually become familiar with all the procedures. After successfully passing a

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clinic entrance examination, third-year students are each assigned to a fourth-year student-intern for supervision, and are gradually permitted to participate in the treatment of their intern's patients. Additional experience is gained during the summer, when third-year students are required to remain in the clinic. In the fourth year, student-interns undertake responsibility for treating their own patients, under the general supervision of the clinic staff. Since the average size of the classes at CMCC is at least one hundred students, the clinic is always ensured of having a good supply of student-interns on hand. The college requires that before students can graduate, they must spend a total of forty-four weeks working in the clinic, have treated at least thirty patients themselves, and be positively assessed for proficiency by the clinical staff. Fourth-year students must d o a complete write-up of every new patient, as well as a workup and a follow-up report on all patients. In addition, they are required to complete two full case presentations for peer review in clinic seminars. A standardized procedure for dealing with patients in the clinic is followed by all student-interns. T h e first step is to accompany the patient to the clinic supervisor for an initial interview; this is intended to screen out patients who have problems regarded as not suitable for chiropractic care. T h e intern then takes the patient into a treatment room where a complete life history is obtained, a physical examination is done, appropriate tests such as blood tests and urine specimens are conducted, and X-rays are taken if necessary. All these procedures are checked for accuracy by the clinic supervisors. While no treatment is undertaken at this first encounter, an appointment is arranged for future treatment to commence. The intern is then required to write up the case, make a diagnosis and outline a suggested treatment. These must be discussed with a clinic supervisor who may make additional or alternative suggestions. When the supervisor is fully satisfied with the projected treatment plan, he/she signs off the case, thereby authorizing the intern to begin care. At the next visit of the patient, the intern describes the problem, outlines the treatment plan and commences treatment; this is mainly by hand manipulation but also with the use, where appropriate, of adjunctive therapies such as electrical and heat treatments. T h e patient continues to visit the intern if it has been decided that a series of visits are needed. The sixth visit of the patient is the point at which clinical faculty assess the intern's efforts to date. A supervisor interviews the patient, discusses and evaluates the treatment given and participates in the planning of any future care that may be needed.

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These rules and regulations are the basis of the organizational structure of the clinic environment. All fourth-year students must abide by them, even though they sometimes create considerable anxiety and tension, especially when students are forced to wait around for clinic supervisors to authorize the next steps in the procedure before they can continue treating their patients. In the setting of the clinic, the college provides chiropractic students with their only institutional opportunity to learn by observing and working under the supervision of senior colleagues. The clinical milieu is thus a critical element in the professional socialization of chiropractors. It is the place where neophytes shed their student status, and with the cooperation of their patients and under the watchful eye of the clinic staff, begin their transformation into practising chiropractors.

The Initiation into the Clinic The clinic serves as the bridge between the role of student and that of chiropractor. As students begin to actively participate in the care of patients, they can be thought of as possessing certain strengths and weaknesses which can either facilitate or hinder the transition process. One significant asset on the personal level is the early enthusiastic commitment most of them have made to a career in chiropractic. Recruits to the college generally arrive with a high level of interest in their chosen occupation. Some have been influenced by parents or other relatives who are, or have been practising chiropractors, and are thus able to provide role models to emulate, as well as useful advice on how to accomplish the goal of becoming a chiropractor. Others have been motivated by earlier experiences involving either themselves or someone close to them, in which chiropractic treatment helped to alleviate symptoms or cure conditions which had failed to respond to other kinds of health care. Once inside the closed atmosphere of the college, students soon absorb the values and norms associated with their future roles and develop a strong commitment to chiropractic. A fourth-year student recalling his earlier days at the college, told us that he felt he was part of the profession from the moment he entered CMCC. As soon as one is accepted, one begins to identify with the profession. . . . Each day exposes us to more chiropractic knowledge and brings me closer to my goal of becoming a chiropractor (SI55).*

On a structural level, some liabilities can be identified for chiropractic students who are beginning their clinical experience. These disadvantages are related to the isolation of the college from *SIsignifies student interview.

other institutional centres. The lack of contact with a university or community college has the effect of narrowing the perspective of the educators, and also of making it necessary to duplicate all the requisite physical facilities, such as laboratories, slides and books at the college. Similarly, lack of contact with conventional internship facilities such as those available to medical students restricts opportunities for learning and insulates students from exposure to other health workers and other health paradigms. Chiropractic students have told us that they would like to be able to care for patients in the emergency rooms and on the wards of general hospitals, but the isolation of chiropractic from orthodox healers brings with it a concomitant ban on access to hospital facilities. These psychological and physical restrictions limit the perspective and scope of chiropractic education, and reinforce its separation from other approaches to healing. This narrow focus is a serious handicap during the clinical experience, when students are concentrating on finding the most effective ways of healing sick patients. A particular concern expressed by a number of students is the uncertainty they feel in the area of diagnosis. At the level of doctrine, we can also see how the isolation of chiropractic from the mainstream of health care creates problems for students during their clinical training. The public is largely ignorant of chiropractic doctrine, although a growing number of Canadians appear to believe that chiropractic care can improve their health. In other words, although a significant segment of the public use the services of chiropractors, few understand the philosophy and principles that underpin chiropractic treatment. Nor is lack of understanding the major problem; large sections of the public entertain considerable scepticism about chiropractors, and describe them as quacks and charlatans. Faced with the stigma attached to their chosen occupational role, students at the college respond by closing ranks against outsiders. They learn to deal with stigma by ignoring or explaining away opinions and statements that challenge the basis of their chosen occupation. T o cope with the doubts and scepticism of the public, and often of their own intimates, students cling to the doctrines of chiropractic, accepting their assumptions and principles even where they conflict with those of other more widely accepted paradigms. While this process of looking inward rather than outward to other points of view serves to maintain the motivation and commitment of students, it also has the effect of cutting them off from important resources of knowledge in the "outside" world. When they begin to treat patients in the clinic, they come u p against the limits of their knowledge and abilities, and for some students, these limits (as in the ability to diagnose, for example) are the source of considerable frustration.

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The barrage of hostility and criticism directed at chiropractic tends to give students a sense of inferiority. Many of them express concern about whether the academic level of the college is high enough, and worry about the deficiencies in chiropractic research, as well as the lack of clarity and agreement they encounter in chiropractic doctrine. As they enter the clinic and begin to accept the responsibilities of patient care, these concerns often loom large. As one student said: The college and the profession aren't doing nearly enough to foster research. Medicine and other professions are now taking an interest in chiropractic, so we have to. . stand up to all this controversy (SI 66).

.

And another: We need to upgrade the education of chiropractic students by affiliating with a university and we need research to show scientzjkally that chiropractic works (SI58).

Practical problems also concern students at this stage of their development. Most of them express uncertainty and ignorance about the steps involved in setting up an office of their own. While some modest instruction is given at the college in practice development and office management, students nevertheless feel anxious about their ability to establish themselves as practitioners. A student who expected to graduate within two months told us that he felt "totally ignorant of business management" (SI 58). They learn that some practising chiropractors attend "charm schools" for weekends or week-long seminars, where techniques for attracting and maintaining patients are emphasized, but most students regard this type of course as too crass and d o not plan to enroll in them. Finally, on the technical level, students enter the clinic with several concrete assets. Since the first year of college, they have been studying chiropractic techniques and by this point they are familiar with all the major treatment modalities. Students start right at the beginning of their training to practise treatment techniques on one another, and help one another learn various skills, as well as the accompanying knowledge and doctrines. Most students have shared the learning experience with their classmates throughout their college career, and are well disposed to continue the mutual teaching by peers which is characteristic of the clinic experience. In the earlier years at CMCC students frequently complain that they have to learn most of the material on their own rather than in the classroom. This pattern of self-learning becomes an advantage for them, however, when they begin to work in the clinic setting where didactic teaching is at a minimum. Another asset is the emphasis that the college faculty have consistently put on treating the "whole person" rather than just an

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aching back or a headache. The importance of relating well to patients is stressed throughout the students' four years at CMCC, both in lectures, and more importantly, by the example of the clinic staff. During their third year as junior interns, students have an opportunity to observe patients being treated in the clinic, and they see the time and effort that clincial staff put into establishing rapport with them. By the time they begin their fourth year of training and start to treat patients themselves, these students have absorbed some of the social skills displayed by the faculty and have developed a degree of confidence in their ability to manage patients and to deal with them successfully on an interpersonal level. Looking at the students as they begin their fourth and last year of training at CMCC, we can now draw up a rough estimate of the net balance of "assets" and "liabilities" which they bring with them to the clinical experience. On the positive side, we find a high level of enthusiastic commitment to chiropractic on the part of most students. Further strengths are evident in the students' knowledge of the major treatment modalities, and their established pattern of working together and teaching one another. Finally, students have had the opportunity to observe the clinic staff displaying concern for and interest in their patients, and have picked up the emphasis on good interpersonal relationships which is a central characteristic of chiropractic treatment. On the other side of the ledger, some potential problem areas are apparent. T h e students' lack of contact with orthodox healers, university facilities and conventional intern facilities such as those available in hospitals, encourages a narrowness of orientation and a limited perspective toward the healing process. Public ignorance of chiropractic doctrine and widespread scepticism about the legitimacy of chiropractic care tends to foster a sense of inferiority among students regarding the academic level of their education, the doctrinal ambiguities apparent in the chiropractic paradigm, and the are uncertain inadequacies of chiropractic research. ~ina1l~'students and anxious about the practical aspects of setting u p an office and attracting and maintaining a clientele. As students in their fourth year take up their responsibilities as interns, we can see how these strengths and weaknesses affect the transition process.

The Clinical Experience The learning experience provided in the clinic is distinctly different from the earlier years at the college. The clinic is the place where students are finally able to test the validity of the education they have been receiving up to this point. In the clinic setting, the opportunity is

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provided to apply chiropractic doctrines, knowledge, and techniques to the pragmatic task of healing patients who seek help. When students find that patients are indeed helped by chiropractic treatment, the doubts and anxieties that may have been troubling them are allayed. Student-interns in the clinic are presented daily with instances where patients have selected chiropractic treatment as their preferred form of health care. With the realization that their training has equipped them to be of assistance to these ailing patients, comes the solid reassurance that only positive empirical results can provide. I have had very good responses from my patients and this has given me self-confidence. It also implies to me that my training here has been adequate (sr 59).

This reassurance, coming as it does in the face of a constant stream of criticism and doubt from influential sectors of society, is highly significant for chiropractic students. It generates sufficient selfconfidence to combat any sense of inferiority students may have had about their chosen vocation, and enables them to discount the stigma associated with it. Once they have had the experience of healing, o r helping to reduce pain and discomfort through application of chiropractic techniques and knowledge, the role of chiropractor is legitimated for them and they are well on their way to becoming practitioners. Reinforcing the confidence acquired from successful application of chiropractic care is the trust which patients place in the studentinterns who treat them in the clinic. In the eyes of the patients, these future practitioners are already chiropractors. The faith placed in them by their clinic patients helps students think of themselves as practising chiropractors, and thus hastens the transition process for them. T h e self-image of "student" is gradually replaced by a self-image of "practitioner," as patients consistently attribute chiropractor status to them. During the clinical experience students are involved in two distinct kinds of learning: they are achieving technical competence and they are also developing their social skills. The two different processes take place concurrently in the clinical setting, as students are provided with their first professional "hands-on" encounter with patients. With the exception of a few who have previously worked as chiropractic assistants, students need the clinical experience to cultivate their diagnostic and manipulative skills, and at the same time, to expand their ability to relate to patients on a one-to-one basis. Patients who seek care in the clinic return to the student-interns treating them only if they are convinced they are getting competent treatment. T h e ability to persuade patients to continue coming back depends not only

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on command of technical skills, but also on mastery of the human aspects of treatment. As one of the fourth-year students told us: It helps to let patients know that they are not 'guinea pigs' for us to practise on, and that somebody cares about them (CS 0004).*

Another emphasized that "you have to please the patient, otherwise they won't come back" (CS 0017). This same student stressed the significance of the personal relationship in treating patients and suggested that chiropractors, unlike doctors, regard it as important to inform their patients about their findings. He cited an example of a woman he had seen earlier that day whose hemoglobin count was low. He reported to us that he told her about this and that she was extremely grateful for the information, adding that her doctor had never mentioned it to her (CS 0017). This sensitivity toward patients' feelings is encouraged by the clinic faculty; a memorandum posted on the bulletin board tells students: An informed patient is your best practice builder. It also indicates your concern and empathy for the patient's condition (CS 0003).

During their experience in the clinic, fourth-year students learn to take X-rays and d o simple laboratory work, as well as practise their diagnostic skills and treatment techniques. They also develop their understanding of human behaviour and refine the interpersonal abilities required to deal effectively with their patients. Not only d o these two processes occur at the same time, they are clearly inter-related. As an intern told us: The ability to handle a patient psychologically is just as important as being strong [in order to do necessary adjustments]. If you know how to relax a patient by your manner, it makes it much easier to adjust them (CS 0030).

As interns responsible for the care of their patients, students are able, under the protected circumstances of the college clinic, to take on the role of practitioners. They learn what patients expect of practitioners, and also what other practitioners expect of them. They are afforded the opportunity to learn the appropriate roles, as well as to practise the necessary tasks involved in caring for patients who come to them for help. As Bloom (1963: 87) has observed about medical students, the internship (and residency) probably contributes more to the socialization of the professsional than any other experience. This is the period when the values to which students have been exposed are most likely to find their final internalized form and become the basis upon which the new practitioner begins to make decisions for himlherself. *CS denotes clinic series.

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There are important differences in the experiences of medical and chiropractic students at this stage, however. The patients seen by medical students in hospital outpatient clinics are usually the poor and the powerless who d o not have family doctors of their own. When needing medical care, they tend to drift into hospital clinics where they frequently spend hours waiting for the attention of the medical staff. It is understood in the teaching hospitals that patients, while deserving good care, are also obliged to assist students to learn the practitioner role. As a consequence, medical students spend less time and effort in developing interpersonal relationships with their patients and in "selling" them on the advantages of medical care. At the college clinic, however, there is more emphasis on presenting an attractive image to the public and treating patients respectfully. The clinic is located in an upper middle class residential area, away from the downtown core; patients are not restricted to those at the lower levels of the society, but appear to come from all strata. Making a good impression on the public is emphasized at the college, and this emphasis is evident in the way the clinic is run. Patients are always treated politely, the waiting room is attractive, no one waits very long for treatment, and the premises are clean and bright. As a faculty member commented: "We are trying to create a very positive first impression of the college" (FN 007).* Students incorporate this attitude and put a lot of effort into attracting and retaining their patients. The clinical experience is the final learning experience for students at CMCC (with the exception of the three or four students who each year choose to stay on and take a residency program). It is the period of transition during which students learn to think, feel and behave as practitioners. We have explored the advantages and disadvantages which s'tudents bring to the clinic, and have looked at the major elements of the clinical experience. Our attention now shifts to an examination of the characteristics of the end product of that experience-the graduate who is ready to become a chiropractor.

The Passage into Practice Completion of the clinic requirements means that students are eligible for their clinic examination, during which they are interviewed by members of the faculty on their clinical capaLilities and proficiency. Once they have passed this assessment, they are qualified to graduate from the college and to receive the degree of Doctor of Chiropractic. All that remains to be done before establishing themselves as *FN denotes field note.

178 PART TWO: OCCUPATIONAL RECRUITMENT AND SOCIALIZATION practitioners is to pass the chiropractors' licensing examinations, both at the national level and also in the jurisdiction in which the practitioner intends to open an office. As these graduates prepare to assume the role of practising chiropractor, what strengths has their -clinic experience provided them with? Clearly, the clinic creates chiropractors who have achieved technical competence in manipulative techniques. Students are not permitted to graduate unless the faculty are convinced that they possess sufficient ability to help patients. In addition to competence, however, the graduate has the advantage of self-confidence. T h e requirement that interns must treat thirty different patients during their clinic experience ensures that these future chiropractors have ample opportunities to develop their skills. As many of these patients appear to improve, students gradually become confident about their manipulative abilities and the results they can achieve. In turn, this confidence makes graduates capable of inspiring belief in their patients. Using the interpersonal skills they have acquired in the clinic, these neophytes should have little trouble gaining the trust of those who will be turning to them for care. The long weeks spent in the clinic treating a variety of health problems give them the skills and the assurance they will need to win the confidence of their future patients. As a graduating student remarked: "As a fourth year student I've ostensibly been a chiropractor in the clinic" (sr 59). Finally, the clinic produces graduates who are capable of convincing the general public that they have something valuable to offer in the way of health care. Most of the graduates will set up solo rather than group practices, working alone in offices and relying on patients to seek them out. In this type of practice, hospital referrals are non-existent, and since specialties have not been developed in chiropractic, colleague referrals are rare. Chiropractors must rely initially on their own ability to attract patients, and then on their early patients to send them additional ones. It is patients who shape a chiropractor's practice, and in order to succeed, new practitioners must learn to run their practices as economic enterprises that can compete successfully with other types of healers and also with other chiropractors. All interns are held responsible for obtaining their own patients. One method for acquiring patients in the clinic is the rotation board; each student's name is placed alphabetically on a rotation board and any person who walks in off the street is assigned to the next student on the board. Only a limited number of patients can be obtained in this way, however, and students must use all their persuasive skills and ingenuity to attract the requisite thirty persons. Students have responded to this challenge in the past by pressing their friends and

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relatives into service. The college, however, has recently discouraged this practice by ruling that interns will not be permitted to accept members of their immediate families as patients. Students are thus forced to develop the skills required to attract a clientele. The message is transmitted that in order to become chiropractors, students must not only acquire a sound base of chiropractic knowledge and skills, but must also develop their entrepreneurial capacities. Acquiring a clientele is the bridge to making a living as a chiropractor, and the clinic procedures encourage students to develop the type of abilities necessary for their future success. Informally, the clinical experience enables students to share information and opinions regarding the steps they must take to set themselves up as practitioners. During the period spent in the clinic, they trade suggestions about how to get bank loans, where to buy equipment, where to locate an office and how to plan their future practice. The early patterns of sharing knowledge and helping one another develop technical competence carry over into the final stages of their careers at CMCC as the graduating students assist one another to make plans for the future. This assessment of the strengths with which CMCC'S graduating students begin their professional careers tells us something about why chiropractic continues to prosper in Canada. The early years at the college give students a background in the basic sciences, in chiropractic sciences and in clinical studies. It is the period spent as a student-intern in the college clinic, however, that is the crucial one for the transition from student to chiropractor. The clinic experience provides future chiropractors with technical competence, interpersonal skills, entrepreneurial expertise, and last, but certainly not least, confidence in their ability to deal with patients, colleagues and the public at large. These varied elements come together to give a dynamic strength to chiropractic which enables it to prevail over scoffers and detractors. In the face of the highly elaborated body of scientific knowledge that has accumulated around the field of medicine, the chiropractic paradigm continues to achieve sufficient legitimacy to maintain itself. The clinic experience, by demonstrating to students that chiropractic "works," serves to convince these future practitioners of the legitimacy of the chiropractic paradigm. The clinic also furnishes graduates with the technical and social skills required to apply the principles of chiropractic when they establish themselves in practice. The continuing survival and growth of chiropractic is a consequence of several important elements including the style of work arrangements of established practitioners, the associations generated by chiropractors to defend themselves, the body of knowledge and

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theories which underlie chiropractic treatment, and the pathways which patients take to the chiropractor's office. By focusing on the transition process during the clinic experience, this discussion has dealt with only one area of the continuing struggle of chiropractors to establish a legitimate niche for themselves in the health care system of this country. In addition, consideration of the students' sojourn in the clinic has revealed something about the nature of the transition process. Three distinct stages have been identified in the transformation of students into chiropractors. First we have been students getting their initiation into the clinic as they acquire the appropriate set of beliefs and norms, and become familiar with the clinical techniques. Next we have seen students in their final year of college, delivering patient care in the clinic setting as they develop technical competence and enhance their social skills. Finally, we have seen the graduating students preparing to acquire a clientele and planning the steps they will take to set themselves up in practice.

Future Hazards A cautionary note may be in order, however, as we attempt to assess the strength of chiropractic in the future. Much of the success of the transition process described here is due to the commitment of the students to becoming chiropractors. The intensity of their identification with chiropractic helps students overcome the liabilities they bring to the clinical experience. Their commitment strengthens their resolve and heightens their motivation to learn the skills required to achieve competence in their chosen field. Recently, however, a significant change has taken place in the nature of the student body at CMCC. Since the college first opened, entering students have been required to complete a high school education or its equivalent. (Early records suggest that the interpretation of what constituted an "equivalent" was sometimes rather flexible.) In 1975 a change was introduced and admission standards were raised; recruits to the college must now have completed at least one year of a university education, .and have obtained credits in biology, chemistry and psychology. Plans are currently afoot to raise the entrance requirements again, to two years of university education. This upgrading of the criteria for admission is one element of a general strategy to improve the status of chiropractic. It has also had the effect, however, of introducing a different kind of student into the college. The newer recruits tend to be more critical of the learning experience they are getting at CMCC. Students who have attended

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large, government-financed, well-equipped institutions of higher learning find the college, by comparison, small, crowded and lacking in facilities. They also make invidious comparisons about the quality of the educational program, complaining of "a high school atmosphere," superficial treatment of course material, and insufficient intellectual stimulation. For these students it is not enough that chiropractic "works"; they want to know why it works. Increasingly, they are demanding answers that the faculty (the majority of whom have not been to university), are unable to provide. The administration and faculty of the college are finding it difficult to cope with this newer type of student. They recognize that the students are intelligent and well qualified, but they fear that they are not as genuinely interested in chiropractic as the recruits who came to the college in earlier years. A lot of [the university-educated] students see chiropractic as their third choice, after medicine and dentistry, and an easy way to get into the professions. Their motivation is financial security and the ego trip of being called doctor. . . . They don't seem to have internalized the special approach of chiropractic (FI8).*

Some faculty express resentment of the new breed of students: They're very demanding and spoiled by the system they have come through-the universities, with their facilities and funding (FI 14). They're expecting a non-tax-supported institution to provide all that a tax-supported institution can provide (FI 11).

Coupled with the strain of accommodating to the heightened expectations of university-trained students is the additional tension generated by a group of recruits who appear to be only marginally committed to careers in chiropractic. These "marginals" are drawn from the ranks of students who have delayed making any career decisions until completion of high school. They tend to enroll in university, take a number of science courses and hope that "something will work out." Lacking the exceedingly high marks now required for acceptance into most professional schools, some of these "undecideds" drift into chiropractic college with the intention of trying it out to see whether they like it. Unlike the more committed students, their identification with the role of chiropractor is weak, and as a consequence, their motivation to learn all that is required for them to become practitioners is reduced. This delayed commitment to a specific career appears to be increasingly characteristic of young people today. Fox (1974: 197-220) speculates that medical students in the 1970s, unlike earlier *FI denotes field interview.

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ones, are more likely to be "late deciders" for a career in medicine, with their decision coming as late as the second half of their undergraduate studies. T h e new medical student, Fox observes, may be unsure about becoming a physician even after entering the medical school program. If the number of students in this latter category increases at the Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College, the positive thrust of student enthusiasm for a career in chiropractic will be diluted, thus creating serious problems for the college in the future. I n addition to the pressures stemming from better educated, more science-oriented and less committed students, problems are also being created at the college by its rapid growth during the past decade, and by the continuing efforts of the administration to upgrade the quality of the educational program. It seems likely that the professional socialization of chiropractors will be characterized by some marked strains in the future. T h e transition from student to chiropractor may not be as smooth a process as it is at present. I n time, this can have a negative impact on the dedication and energy which chiropractors have consistently displayed in their fight to maintain an independent position and achieve a legitimate status as healers. As a newly emerging profession within the Canadian health care system, chiropractic will need the continued support of all its members. T h e success of the transition process in maintaining the present high level of commitment is a critical factor in the future fate of chiropractic.

1. Among the best known studies of the professional socialization of physicians are: Becker et al. (1961) and Merton et al. (1957). For a comprehensive review of studies on the socialization of medical students, see Samuel Bloom, "Sociology of Medical Education: Some Comments on the State of the Field," Milbank Memonhl Fund Quurterly,52: 143-84. 2. One significant exception to this neglect is an early article by Oswald Hall identifying the stages which characterize the development of medical students into successful practitioners. See 0. Hall, "The Stages of a Medical Career," AmericanJournal of Sociology, 53 (1948): 327-36.

References Becker, Howard S., Blanche Greer, Everett C. Hughes, and Anselm Strauss. Boys in White: Student Culture in Medical School. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961.

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Bloom, Samuel. "The Process of Becoming a Physician," Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 346 (reprint edition, 1963). . "Sociology of Medical Education: Some Comments on the State of the Field," Milbank Memorial Fund Quarterly, 52 (1965), 143-84. Fox, Renee. "Is There a New Medical Student?" Ethics and Health Care. Tancredi, Washington, D.C.: National Academy of Sciences, 1974, 197-220. Hall, Oswald. "The Stages of a Medical Career," American Journal of Sociology, 53 (1948), 327-36. Merton, Robert K., George C. Reader, and Patricia Kendall. The StudentPhysician. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1957.

Measuring Student Attitudes Toward Science and Scientists CONSTANCE YOUNG McFARLANE

Oswald Hall was a teacher of mine when I was an honours sociology student at McGill University in the early fifties. In those days the number of persons working as sociolopts in C a d was so small that one almost believed that a working sociologzst would have to retire in order for another to get a job; and none was near retirement age! Needless to say my parents were extremely pessimistic as tojob opportunities a f t r studying this strange new discipline and insisted that I take this poblem u p with the chairman, Professor Hall. I was told that I would have to make my own job-that I would have to bring a sociological perspective to jobs where no one had ever dreamed that sociology could help. He then went on to point out how sociology graduutes were making use of their special knowledge in the strangest of places--e.g., Audrey Wipper in riding stables, Ed Vaz driving a taxi. As many leaders know-and he certainly is a 1eaderdiffu:ulties often serve only to stiffen resolve. So it was in my case, I have continued to apply my sociological knowledge through the years whether it be in helping to locate sites for supermarkets, deciding which shampoo the public will like best, assessing attitudes to medication, determining patterns of radio and television use or, in raising children. It is, therefore, with deep gratitude that I thank Oswald Hall for his encouragement both at that time and through the years.

Over the past twenty-five years considerable concern over the status of science and scientists within our society has been evident, reaching a high point at the time of the Cold War and Sputnik, when it was felt that the western world was falling behind in scientific endeavour. This concern sparked a number of research projects on attitudes toward science in general and the scientist in particular. In most of these studies there was an assumption, explict o r implicit, that young people's attitudes toward particular occupations would have a bearing on the number and quality of recruits seeking entry to these occupations. O'Dowd and Beardslee (1960: 1) cite a number of studies

MEASURING STUDENT ATTITUDES TOWARDS SCIENCE

185

in support of this assumption (Riesman, 1953; Whyte 1957; Gillespie and Allport, 1955; among others). In addition E.C.Hughes (195 1) and Oswald Hall (1964) have shown the importance of one's occupation as an identifying characteristic of self. T o this extent, then, positive or negative attitudes toward an occupation, or images of the practitioner, when held by young people, can have serious consequences for recruitment. One of the first such studies concerned with attitudes toward science and scientists was conducted by Mead and Metreaux among high school students. They found that, while there is a positive image of science and scientists, there exists side by side an overwhelming negative one. Among the negative aspects were found the following: "His work is uninteresting, dull. . .he may work for years, he may see no results o r fail. . . . He is a brain; he is so involved in his work that he doesn't know what is going on in the world. He has no other interests. . . . He neglects his family. . . . He has no social life. . . . He bores his wife, his children and their friends.. . . He is never home. . . . He is always running off to his laboratory. . . . No one wants to be such a scientist o r to marry him" (Mead and Metreaux, 1957: 378). Remmers (1958: 28) in his Purdue Opinion Pool of high school students found "25 per cent think scientists as a group are 'more than a little bit odd'; about 30 per cent believe that a scientist cannot enjoy life or raise a normal family." Withey in studies conducted in 1957 and 1958 among the general public found that "the great majority (83 per cent) felt that the world is better off because of science. . . .T h e contributions of science to the armaments war were seen as the major area of bad effects of science." He also discovered quite a substantial proportion felt that science "makes our way of life change too fast . . . breaks down people's ideas of right and wrong. . ." and that "the growth of science means that a few people could control our lives." The scientist while he was seen as "well-meaning, brilliant and hardworking" was also seen as "off beat and peculiar" (Withey, 1959: 386-388). Allen in his study amongst high school students in New Jersey found that "while the image of the scientist. . . seemed favourable and constructive, substantial numbers of seniors (from 17 to 27 per cent) thought that scientists were too narrow in their views, too emotional, essentially magicians, and willing to sacrifice the welfare of others to further their own interests." In addition, "Nearly onehalf. . . thought that scientists displayed an almost irrational attachment to their work" (Allen, 1959: 16, 33). Beardslee and O'Dowd (1961: 997) using a modified semantic differential among 1,200 college students and comparing the scientist

186 PART TWO: OCCUPATIONAL RECRUITMENT AND SOCIALIZATION with other high-level occupations, found the scientist was viewed as "a highly intelligent person . . . individualistic and radical . . . socially withdrawn, indifferent to people, retiring, and somewhat depressed . . . low in social popularity . . . [with a] relatively unhappy home life and a wife who is not pretty." More recently Hudson (1967: 228-229) also using a modified semantic differential confirmed that the American view of the scientist was also held by high school-aged boys in England. There the scientist was seen as "dependable, hard and hard working" but as "leading dull personal lives." McNarry and O'Farrell (197lb: 75), again using a semantic differential in a study of 258 high school seniors in Canada, reported that the students saw the scientist as "more helpful, wise and important than the Industrialist . . . [but] still d o not see him as a particularly attractive human being." And Ahlgren and Walberg (1973: 188) in a study of 96 physics students in the United States using the semantic differential rated the physicist as "most remote from 'me'-he was perceived as being very important and mature, but very unfriendly." In addition to the many works on attitudes toward science and the scientist there have been numerous works and reports of the effects differing methods of teaching science have on attitudes, on recruitment to science and on the values and attitudes which might be considered friendly to the pursuit of science. In the late 1960s and 1970s there was also the feeling that dissatisfaction with science had been growing. Evidence for this focused on the public's concern about pollution and the other by-products of science which the public, by and large, does not distinguish from science itself and, as Spears and Hathaway (1975: 343) note, "the development [on the campuses] of a possible counter culture supposedly antagonistic toward the objective nature of science." These negative attitudes toward science in general and toward scientists in particular were seen as affecting recruitment to science and there was great concern that recruitment to scientific occupations and numbers of students electing to study science, especially physics, was falling off (Great Britain, 1968:6-35; McNarry and O'Farrell, 197la). All of these studies and reports attest to a great concern with the place and role of science within our society. But while there have been many attempts to diagnose attitudes toward science, at no time has a systematic attempt been made to develop a science-related formal instrument to measure such attitudes. T h e primary purpose of this research was to fill this gap, to develop an instrument which would measure the climate of opinion among young people toward science and scientists. This article details the steps taken in the development

MEASURING STUDENT ATTITUDES TOWARDS SCIENCE

187

of such an instrument and in testing it for validity. Finally, the content of the resultant scales is assessed and they are then used to diagnose student attitudes.

Development of the Instruments Four main sources provided inspiration for the development of the instrument: previous research in the field;' articles and reports of a wide range of pundits (journalists, scientists, social scientists, educators, royal commissions and government committees) who were trying to diagnose the reasons for the alleged current lack of enthusiasm for scientists and science; taped group interviews with local high school students; and, finally, of course, the author's own hunches and intuition on the subject. The first step in the development of the scale was to develop two questionnaires (one concerning science and the other concerning scientists) wherein the wide range of items culled from the various sources or composed by the researchers might be tested. It was decided that the instrument should be in the form of short statements with which the respondent could agree or disagree on a five-point scale. In all, forty-two statements concerning science and fifty-four concerning scientists were composed, concerning every aspect of attitudes toward science and scientists which the researchers felt might be useful in determining attitudes in this area. In each case roughly half the statements were positive and half negative. An attempt was made not only to keep the statements bias-free and unambiguous but also to frame them in language that high school students could easily comprehend. A pilot study with a class of thirty-five local high school students indicated no particular difficulties. The field research was conducted in the spring of 1973 in six high schools in three small cities in eastern Ontario. Cooperating principals were asked to administer the questionnaires to a broad cross-section of students in the academically oriented program of grades 11,12 and 13, the three final years of high school. The researchers supplied both written and verbal instructions to those responsible for administering the questionnaries. In total, 416 students completed a usable questionnaire, 229 of whom were boys and 187 girls. In background the respondents were fairly evenly distributed among three broad socio-economic categories: 33 per cent had fathers in professional and/or senior managerial positions; 26 per cent in white-collar occupations (technical, clerical, sales, small owner/manager); and 34 per cent in blue-collar occupations. Roughly half the respondents completed

188 PART TWO: OCCUPATIONAL RECRUITMENT AND SOCIALIZATION questionnaires concerned with science, the other half questionnaires concerned with scientists. Upon completion of the field work the responses to the forty-two statements concerning science and the fifty-four statements concerning scientists were each subjected to a Likert-type scale analysis, the purpose of which was to eliminate those items which were not internally consistent (Likert, 1967; Murphy and Likert, 1938:281-91). T h e Likert-type scale analysis was carried out in a series of steps. At each step those items which were least correlated with the remaining items measuring overall attitude at this point in time were eliminated. In the case of the science questionnaire five steps were performed eliminating twenty-eight statements, and in the case of the scientist questionnaire four steps were performed thereby eliminating forty statements. The remaining items in the Science Scale had positive correlations (r) ranging from .53 to .73, while the Scientist Scale ranged from .49 to -70. It was decided to stop the elimination procedures at the point when both scales reached fourteen items because they still- had high reliability and were deemed to be of a very practical and useful size. T h e fourteen item scales take less than five minutes each to complete and as such can easily be incorporated into other surveys. T h e reliability of the scales was measured by Cronbach's Alpha, a measure of all split-half scores possible (Cronbach, 1951). Both scales at each step of the Likert-type analysis had extremely high reliability scores, varying only from a high of .89 at the second step to a low of .86 at the final step.

Validity of Scales There are a number of ways od assessing the validity of a scale. T h e most obvious one, although perhaps the most subject to error, is the "face value" validity check. This method, as Phillips (1966: 159) notes, "involves an analysis of whether the measurement appears to get at the concept 'on the face of it'." A perusal of the content of the scales (tables 4 and 6) indicates that they have "face value." A second method of validation, criterion validation, was also used. This method determines empirically whether the scale correlates with something else that purports to be measuring the same or similar phenomena. A number of measures were included in the study to be used as criterion validity checks, namely the students' occupational choice and preference, number of science courses taken at school, and the semantic differential. A link between occupational choice and attitudes as measured by the two scales was found. Those with more positive attitudes to science

Table 1. Relationship Between Occupational Choice and Preference and Attitudes as Measured by the Science and Scientist Scales SCIENCE SCALE

More positive attitude'

Less positiue attitude1

Chi2 significance

*Open'occupation question Chose scientist Chose scientist or science related occupation2 Forced choice among six occupations3 Chose scientist Degree like working as scientist Like very much Like a bit Not like much Dislike very much N

SCIENTIST SCALE 'Open' occupation qwstion Chose scientist Chose scientist o r science related occupation2 Forced choice among six occupations3 Chose scientist Degree like working as scientist Like very much Like a bit Not like much Dislike very much N For cross tabulations respondents were divided into two roughly equal groups: those with more positive and those with less positive attitudes as measured by the scales under question. * Included in science related occupations were science teacherlprofessor, professional engineer, technician and technologist. 3 Respondents were forced to choose between six occupations, viz., business executive, doctor, professional engineer, school teacher, scientist, social worker. * Calculated on the dummy variable, i.e., those who had chosen the noted occupation were contrast~dwith those who had not.

190 PART TWO: OCCUPATIONAL RECRUITMENT AND SOCIALIZATION and scientists were more likely to view the occupation of scientist with favour. Three measures of occupational choice or preference were used and, as may be seen in Table 1, in only one instance out of eight did the Chi2 test of significance fall short of the 95 per cent confidence limit: the Pearson Product-moment correlation coefficients (r) for these data varied from .23 to .32 for the Science Scale and from .22 to -34 for the Scientist Scale. Another test used in the criterion validation process was "the semantic differential" which has long been considered a recognized instrument for measuring attitudes and images. I n this study a modified form of Beardslee and O'Dowd's (1960) scale items, which was in turn a modification of Osgood's (1957) items, was used. T h e correlations (r) between the Science Scale and the image of the scientist as measured by the semantic differential support the validity of the scale-those with more favourable attitudes toward science are more likely to see the scientist as being more cheerful (.26), more valuable (-25) and as having a happier home life (-21). The correlations (r) between the Scientists Scale and the semantic differential are stronger and more numerous. This is as might be expected because in this case both are a measure of attitudes toward scientists, whereas in the previous case attitudes toward science were being compared with attitudes toward scientists. Thus those with more favourable attitudes on the Scientist Scale were more likely to see the scientist as more attentive to people (.33), having a happier home life (.32), more concerned with the welfare of others (.29),more cheerful (.23), more sociable (.2 l), more reliable (.2 I), more concerned with practical matters (.20), wiser (.20), and more stable (.20). The final criterion variable, the number of science courses taken by the respondents, is the one that lends least support to the validation of the scales. As was expected, no relationship was found between having a favourable attitude toward science or scientists and the number of biology and general science courses taken (correlation coefficients varied from -.06 to -.03) because these are frequently the courses which arts students take to fulfill their science requirements or to round out their general education. The researchers were surprised, however, that little or no relationship was found between attitude and the number of chemistry and physics courses taken per year. There was some slight but statistically insignificant relationship between the Science Scale and the combined number of chemistry and physics courses (r.11) but no relationship whatsoever was found between the Scientist Scale and this measure (r.O1) (Table 2). This unexpected finding was the cause of considerable further analysis. It now seemed possible under these circumstances that the

MEASURING STUDENT ATTITUDES TOWARDS SCIENCE

191

Table 2. Correlation Between Number of Chemistry and Physics Courses Taken per Year and Science and Scientist Scales Science Scale -

Scientist Scale

-

r .07 .I0 .11

Chemistry Physics Chemistry and physics combined

number of chemistry and physics courses taken could be unrelated to other measures of partiality toward science, that is, that these courses were taken not because of a positive interest in science per se but for extraneous reasons such as timetable considerations, teachers' personalities, or peer group choices. Such was not the case, for some relationship was found between other measures of partiality toward science and number of courses taken. The three measures of occupational choice, free choice, forced choice, and "degree of liking to be as a scientist" had correlation coefficients of .17, .16 and .27 respectively, and stated interest in science subjects, as opposed to arts subjects, had a coefficient of -23 (Table 3). Because the relation was not as strong as one might have expected, some support is given to the hypothesis that quite a number of chemistry and physics courses are taken, for whatever the reason, by some students who were not particularly inclined toward science at the time of reporting. Table 3. Correlation Between Number of Chemistry and Physics Courses Taken per Year and Various Measures of Occupational Choice and Stated Interest in Broad Subject Groupings Chose scientist Free Forced choice choice

Chemistry Physics Chemistry and physics combined

Degree of liking to be scientist

More interested in science1

r

r .13 .13

r .16 .09

.20 .23

r .13 .22

.17

.I6

.27

.23

' Respondents

in this case reported they were more interested in science subjects as opposed to arts subjects or both equally.

A more telling reason for this lack of relationship between a favourable attitude toward science and scientists and number of chemistry and physics courses taken is to be found in the literature.

192

PART TWO: OCCUPATIOhrALRECRUITMENT AND SOCIALIZATION

Mackay (1970: 108) in a study of secondary school physics students in Victoria, Australia, in a before-and-after test over a two-year period found that, among other things, as they took more physics courses. . . "the students in the sample: (i) came to enjoy physics less, [and] (ii) became less likely to view scientists as normal human beings. . . ." This may help to account for this seeming anomaly in the present findings.

The Content of the Scales and Opinions Expressed I n order to clarify the meaning of the various statements and to shed light on the content of the scales a factor analysis of the fourteen items in each of the two scales was carried out. Each scale will be discussed separately below. SCIENCE SCALE

Three factors, with eigenvalues over 1.0, were identified in the Science Scale (Table 4). The first factor, which accounted for 78 per cent of variance found among the three factors, was labelled "uncritical acceptance." The responses loading heavily on this factor seem to centre around the belief that there has not been sufficient examination of "the disadvantages" or the "harmful effects" of scientific discoveries or of the "many new and useless products" that result from an uncritical acceptance of science. In a more general vein this axis of response includes the feeling that science has obtained too important a position in our society, that "too much money" is spent on science, that there is "too much emphasis on science," and that it has "too much power over our lives." The second factor, "generalized approval/disapproval," is not too dissimilar to the first but in it are concentrated the more generalized evaluative statements of acceptance or rejection of science. It is here that one finds statements to the effect that the "world is better off because of science" and science is "one of the most important forces working for good," that science "has done little for the average person," and "is held in too high regard"; plus the two items which also loaded heavily on Factor I, "too much emphasis" and "too much money" expended on science. "Generalized anxiety," the third factor, is quite dissimilar to the other two. This axis of response seems to be tapping the anxieties and subconscious fears which people have about science. Thus one notes a fear of "change," a fear of the "unknown," a belief that "questioning everything" may be the equivalent of opening Pandora's Box, and that "some things are better left unknown."

MEASURING STUDENT ATTITUDES TOWARDS SCIENCE

193

Table 4. Factor Analysis of the Science Scale'

(Loadings") 1. Science is too quick to point out the advantages of scientific discoveries without warning us about the disadvantages. 2. Science is not concerned enough with the harmful or dangerous effects of scientific discoveries. 3. Too much scientific effort is given to developing new and useless products. 4. Our society spends too much money on science. 5. There is too much emphasis on science in our society. 6. Science has too much power over our lives. 7. The world is better off because of science. 8. Science has done little for the average person. 9. Science is held in too high regard by our society. 10. Science is one of the most important forces working for good in our world today. I I. Too much scientific effort has been wasted on the exploration of space. 12. The willingness of science to question everything has some very harmful effects on society. 13. One problem with science is that it makes our way of life change too quickly. 14. Science frequently tampers with things that better are left unknown.

' The

Rotated Orthogonal-factor matrix (Varimax rotated factor matrix) of the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences, SPSS, Norman H . Nie, Dale H. Bent, and C. Hadlai Hull (New York: McCraw-Hill 1970). pp. 208-43. * Factors have been named: I - Uncritical Acceptance; I 1 - Generalized Approval/Disapproval; and 111 - Generalized Anxiety. "adings under .20 are not shown.

It may be noted in Table 4 that many of the Science Scale items have quite heavy loadings on two or more factors indicating that the statements are tapping slightly different nuances of similar or

194 PART TWO: OCCUPATIONAL RECRUITMENT AND SOCIALIZATION somewhat related meaning. Thus we see that "too much money" and "too much emphasis on science" load highly on both Factor I and 11, while "too much power over our lives" and "tampers with things better left unknown" load highly on Factor I and 111. These factors or concepts seem to be interrelated; generalized anxiety leads one to question the uncritical acceptance of science while concern over an uncritical acceptance is a more specific form of generalized approval or disapproval of science. A factor analysis of the original forty-two items contained in the science questionnaire supports the researchers' contention that the Science Scale is essentially measuring one dimension, albeit, various nuances of the dimension.* This analysis shows that all the fourteen Science Scale items loaded on the same factor, Factor I, which was called "worries about science" (loadings varied from .28 to .66). Only two of the scale items loaded more heavily on a factor other than on Factor I, and these two items, which were the only two positive statements that survived the Likert-type scale analysis, loaded more heavily on Factor 11, which was the converse of Factor I and was named "contributions of science." An examination of the opinions expressed on the Science Scale shows that generally attitudes are more positive than negative (Table 5). The items which drew the most favourable responses were the more generalized statements found mainly in Factor 11: "the world is better off because of science" (72 per cent agreed); "science has done little for the average man" (72 per cent disagreed); "science is one of the most important forces working for good" (53 per cent agreed): and "science is held in too high regard" (53 per cent disagreed). But, while these more generalized statements drew a large number of positive responses and relatively few negative responses, the items which clustered in the other two factors did not fare so well. Some considerable anxiety or fear of science is evidenced (albeit by a minority) in their responses to the statements which cluster in Factor 111, "generalized anxiety." Roughly one-quarter worry about science's propensity "to question everything" and "tamper with things that are better left unknown" (as opposed to roughly one-half who d o not feel thus), while more (44 per cent) feel that science "makes our way of life change too quickly" than feel the opposite (33 per cent). The greatest amount of criticism of science, however, was reserved for those items which loaded most heavily on Factor I, "uncritical acceptance of science." Nearly half (49 per cent) felt that "science is too quick to point out the advantages of scientific discoveries without warning us about the disadvantages," while only 16 per cent disagreed. Other items in this factor drew more favourable responses, with the positive responses running at 40-46 per cent and the negative

responses at 22-33 per cent. But, in spite of their minority status, quite a considerable body of opinion is critical of the untrammelled pursuit of science and feels that, perhaps, "too much money," "too much emphasis" is given to science, that "too much effort is given to developing new and useless products" and there is not enough concern "for the harmful or dangerous effects of scientific discoveries." At this point it is interesting to look at the items that survived the Likert-type analysis and thereby became incorporated in the scale and contrast them with those that did not. In the case of science, although there was a lot of criticism of the role that science had played in warfare, especially as it concerned the development of the atomic bomb, this was not one of the attitudes that was predictive of overall attitude toward science. Among the forty-two items included in the science questionnaire there were four items concerning science and war o r armaments-and each one drew heavy criticism-but not one made the Science Scale. This was also true of science and pollution. There was a fair number agreeing that science should be blamed for our pollution problems but this too was not predictive of overall attitudes toward science. THE SCIENTIST SCALE

Three factors were identified in the factor analysis of the Scientist Scale (Table 6). Factor I, which accounted for 82 per cent of the variance found among the three factors has been labelled "social responsibility". Here the axis of response was concerned with whether or not scientists were seen as "dedicated" to making "life better for the average person" or "concerned" as to whether their work "will help mankind or not." The qualities "wise, thoughtful" and "valuable" which were also important components of this factor appear to carry with them connotations of a person who is not only a hard-working scientist but one who "cares" about the "kind of changes their work brings about" and is interested "in the welfare of people." "Control of the untrustworthy" is the name assigned to Factor 11. This dimension is concerned with the need of society to control the activities of those who because of their power may act in an irresponsible fashion. Here one may also see a hint of the anxiety noted in Factor 111 of the Science Scale-a fear of people who "want to change things that should not be changed" and "who pry into things they really ought to stay out of." This fear of those who cannot be trusted points to the need for "control." Factor I11 of the Scientist Scale, "primacy of work," provides a picture of individuals whose work is paramount in their lives. Here scientists are seen as willing "to sacrifice the welfare of others," as

Table 5 (cont)

v~

9. Science is held in too high regard by our society. 10. Science is one of the most important forces working for good in our world today. I I. Too much scientific effort has been wasted on the exploration of space. 12. T h e willingness of science to question everything has some very harmful effects on society. 13. One problem with science is that it makes our way of life change too quickly. 14. Science frequently tampers with things that are better left unknown. Mean: Fourteen items

Negalive

Very

Pasitive

Neutral

10.1

42.9

3 1.2

14.8

1.1

13.1

29.8

22.0

23.6

11.5

4.7

28.4

22.6

33.2

11.1

14.7 9.3

40.8 37.9

18.3 26.0

18.3 20.8

7.9 6.0

posdive

' Respondents replied on a five-point scale: Strongly agree. Agree, Neither agree nor disagree, Disagree and Strongly disagree.

negdive

198 PART TWO: OCCUPATIONAL RECRUITMENT AND SOCIALIZATION Table 6. Factor Analysis of the Scientist Scale1 Factors2 I

11

111

(Loadings3) 1. Most scientists are deeply concerned

whether the work they do will help mankind or not. 2. Most scientists are dedicated to trying to make life better for the average person. 3. Scientists are among our most valuable workers. 4. Most scientists are wise, thoughtful people. 5. Most scientists do not care what kind of changes their work brings about; they are only interested in the work itself. 6. Scientists tend to be quite uninterested in the welfare of people. 7. Someone should control the kind of research that scientists work on. 8. Scientists are more likely than others to want to change things that should not be changed. 9. Scientists have too much power in our sociely. 10. Scientists often pry into things they really ought to stay out of. 11. Scientists are more likely than people in other occupations to sacrifice the welfare of others to further their own interests. 12. Most scientists are not concerned enough with the possible harmful effects of their work. 13. Most scientists are only interested in ideas and things, not in people. 14. Scientists are rarely interested in the arts.

-.59 -.54

-.21

-.51

-.23

- -29

- .5 1

.49

.37

.4 1

.4 1

.20

.36

.5 1

.40

.3 1

.5 1

-29

.4 1

' A factor analysis using SPSS orthoganal varimax rotated factor matrix with three factors with eigenvalues of .98 and over was conducted. See Nie et al, (1970), pp. 208-85. Factors have been named: I-Social Responsibility; I I 4 o n t r o l of the Untrustworthy; and, 111-Primacy of Work. hadings under .20 are not shown.

MEASURING STUDENT ATTITUDES TOWARDS SCIENCE

199

unconcerned about the "changes" and "harmful effects" wrought by their work and as living a life solely among "ideas and things" without an interest in "people" or "the arts'-research for research's sake is their motto. In the Scientist Scale as in the Science Scale many of the items have quite heavy loadings on more than one factor, perhaps for similar reasons. That is, the statements are capturing more than one dimension or, as is more likely, different facets of the same o r a closely related dimension. This is probably best exemplified by items 5 , 6 and 13 which load on all three factors. These items all carry with them the suggestion that work as an end in itself or "the primacy of work'' may lead to a lack of "social responsibility" and hence to the need for the "control of the untrustworthy." The factor analysis of the fifty-four items contained in the scientist questionnaire supports the researchers' contention that the Scientist Scale, like the Science Scale, is essentially unidimensional. This analysis shows that all but one item loads on Factor I which has been entitled "The Dr. Strangelove Syndrome" (loadings varied from .25 to .62).3 I n this factor are contained all worries, concerns and fears which people have about scientists. The opinions of the students to the Scientist Scale, as was the case for the Science Scale, are more positive than negative. The most favourable attitudes are expressed in those items which cluster around the first factor, social responsibility. Scientists are seen by a majority, with very few dissenting votes, as "being deeply concerned whether the work they d o will help mankind or not" (by 66 per cent); as being "dedicated to making life better for the average person" (by 57 per cent); as some of our "most valuable workers" (by 68 per cent); and, as caring about the "kind of changes their work brings about" (by 57 per cent). And even if a majority d o not think of them as "wise, thoughtful people," only very few (10 per cent) think they are not. While this generally favourable opinion of scientists as responsive to the welfare of mankind exists, there are certainly areas where the scientist is viewed with some suspicion. The greatest amount of negative opinion centred around those items which loaded most heavily on Factors I1 and lII-'bcontrol of the untrustworthy" and "primacy of work." Considerable mistrust, albeit from a minority, is shown for scientists who "want to change things that should not be changed" (by 37 per cent); "are not concerned enough with the possible harmful effects of their work" (by 31 per cent); "are rarely interested in the arts" (by 30 per cent); "are only interested in ideas and things, not in people" (by 19 per cent); and, "are willing to sacrifice the welfare of others to further their own interests" (by 18 per cent). These feelings, no doubt, lead to the belief, shared by a

Table 7 (cont.)

9. Scientists have too much power in o u r society. 10. Scientists often pry into things they really ought to stay out of. 1 1. Scientists a r e more likely than people in other occupations to sacrifice the welfare of others to further their own interests. 12. Most scientists a r e not concerned enough with the possible harmful effects o f their work. 13. Most scientists a r e only interested in ideas and things, not in people. 14. Scientists are rarely interested in the arts. Mean: Fourteen items

very

Pos-

positive

dive

Neutral

Negalive

Very negative

%

%

%

%

%

2

6.7

39.4

41.5

8.3

4.1

c

19.6

41.8

22.2

10.8

5.7

0

E

$

o,

Y

16.5

34.0

31.4

16.0

2.1

8.8

37.1

23.2

25.3

5.7

6.7

38.9

35.8

15.5

3.1

4.2 10.1

26.2 40.2

39.8 30.1

24.6 15.8

5.2 3.8

' Respondents replied on a five-point scale: Strongly agree, Agree, Neither agree nor disagree, Disagree and Strongly disagree.

B5 93 2

2

F

b

?!

s

?i

202

PART TWO: OCCUPATIONAL RECRUITMENT AND SOCIALIZATION

roughly equal number of assentors and dissenters, that "someone should control the kind of research that scientists work on" (Table 7). It is interesting to note some of the attitudes which were included in the fifty-four-item scientist questionnaires but did not survive the Likert-type analysis. In this instance it was found that there was a sizeable proportion of our respondents who saw scientists as "brillant. . . but a little bit strange," to have an "almost fanatical attachment" to their work, to be "high strung and excitable," to be "often quite radical," to be "odd, peculiar people," to be "shy and unsociable," not "interested in people," to be "unconcerned with practical matters," and unlikely to have "a normal home life" or a "wide range of interests outside their work." These negative images have also been reported in other studies and have caused considerable concern in some circles although the present study indicates that while they are held by respondents and may be important for particular diagnostic purposes thay are not t h most salientfators to measure overall attitudes toward scientists. Instead, the items which comprise the Scientist Scale seem to be concerned with the scientists' responsibility to question whether the things they d o will benefit mankind o r not, and it is only when they are suspected of not doing this-of putting their work ahead of these considerations-that any real concern arises.

Summary A considerable amount of research on opinions and attitudes toward science and scientists has been conducted over the past twenty-five years. Underlying most of these studies has been concern that the supply of high-quality recruits to science might be limited because of negative attitudes toward science and scientists. Despite the volume of research no systematic attempt appears to have been made to develop a science-related formal instrument for the measurement of these attitudes. The primary purpose of this research was to develop such instruments. To this end a large number of statements expressing opinions towards science and scientists were administered to high school students. A step-wise Likert-type analysis reduced these statements to two fourteen-item scales, one concerned with attitudes to science in general, the other concerned with attitudes to scientists. Both scales were tested and found to have validity and high reliability. The scales are of a practical size, they take only a few minutes to complete. As such they can be easily incorporated in other educational and occupational research thereby providing a barometer of the climate towards science among potential recruits.

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The content of the two fourteen-item scales was assessed using factor analysis, and a diagnosis of student attitudes was made. Generally, attitudes were found to be more positive than negative. I n the case of science the most favourable opinions centred around those statements which expressed generalized approval. Some anxiety o r fear of science on the part of a minority was apparent, but the greatest amount of criticism was reserved for those items which loaded most heavily on the first factor isolated, "uncritical acceptance of science," that is, the whole-hearted pursuit of science that does not stop to examine the disadvantages or possible harmful consequences of this pursuit. Opinions expressed in the Scientist Scale follow in a vein similar to those of the Science Scale. The largest amount of favourable opinion centred on those items which comprised the first factor "social responsibility," and scientists were seen as generally being responsive to their responsibilities towards the wider society. Where negative opinion arose it was concerned with the possibility that the scientists might make their work their primary interest and responsibility and hence, lead to the need for the "control of the untrustworthy." The Likert-type analysis showed that some areas of opinion that have traditionally given cause for concern (for example, the linking of science with atomic warfare and pollution and the image of scientists as unsociable and unstable people) are not as important as other elements in determining overall attitudes. This research confirms that these attitudes are indeed held by sizeable minorities of Canadian students as they are held by students in other parts of the western world, but they are not the most salient factors in determining overall attitudes. Other unfavourable opinions noted in previous studies are confirmed for a minority in Canada by this research, particularly those opinions which express anxiety or fear of science and the scientists' tendency to move into uncharted waters o r to make work paramount in their lives. Undetected until this study, however, is that very crucial and all-encompassing aspect of the overall attitude, viz., the twin concern that attention should be paid to the effects or consequences of scientific pursuits and that scientists must be responsive to the wider good of society.

Notes This paper is drawn from a larger monograph A Study of Tools for the Measurement of Student Attitudes Towards Science and Scientists, by Constance Young McFarlane and Bruce A. McFarlane, 1974. The research was'carried

out in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology ,Carleton University, Ottawa, under the auspices of a committee headed by L.R. McNarry of the National Research Council and supported by a grant from the Atkinson Charitable Foundation, Toronto. 1. A very extensive literature search, including not only published social scientific material, but also numerous reports of studies found in the educational and physical science journals, and unpublished Ph.D. and M.A. theses, was undertaken. An attempt was made to draw on the results and experiences of previous researchers which the present author felt would have a bearing on this problem. Thus, included in the instrument under development were many items, often in a modified form, drawn from other research notably, Allen (1959), Mead and Metreaux (1957), O'Dowd and Beardslee (1960), Remmers (1957) and Withey (1959). 2. A factor analysis using the SPSS orthogonal varimax rotated factor matrix with three factors with eigenvalues over 2.0 was conducted. See Nie, Bent and Hull (1970), pp. 208-43. 3. A factor analysis using the SPSS orthogonal varimax rotated factor matrix with three factors with eigenvalues over 2.1 was conducted. See Nie et al. (1970), pp. 208-43.

References Ahlgren, A., and H.J. Walberg. "Changing Attitudes towards Science among Adolescents," Nature, 245 (September 1973), pp. 187-90. Allen, Hugh, Jr. Attitudes of Certain High School Seniors Towards Science and Scientifu: Careers, Science Manpower Project Monographs, Bureau of Publications, Teachers College, Columbia University (New York, 1959). Beardslees, David C. and Donald D. O'Dowd. "The College-Student Image of the Scientists," Science, 133, no. 3457 (March 3 1, 1961), pp. 997-100 1. Cronbach, Lee J. "The Coefficient Alpha and the Internal Structure of Tests," Psychometrika, 16 (195l), pp. 297-334. Gillespie, J.M., and G.W. Allport. Youth's Outlook on the Future. New York: Doubleday, 1955. Great Britain. Enquiry into the Flow of Candidates in Science and into Higher Education. (Chairman, F.S. Dainton). London: HMSO, Council for Scientific Policy, 1968. Hall, Oswald, "Gender and the Division of Labour," Implications ofTraditiona1 Divisions between Men's Work and Women's Work in our Societ , The Women's Bureau, Department of Labour of Canada (Ottawa, 19J4). Hudson, L. "The Stereotypical Scientists," Nature, 2 13 Uanuary 2 1, 1967), pp. 228-29. Hughes, E.C. "Work and the Self," in J.H. Rohrer, and M. ~ h e i i feds., , Social Psychology at the Crossroads. New York: Harper, 1951. Likert, Rensis, "The Method of Constructing an Attitude Scale," in Fishbein, Martin ed., Readings in Attitude Theory and Measurement. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1967, pp. 90-95. Mackey, Lindsay D. "Changes in Victorian Physics Students during Two Years of Physics Study," The Australian Physicist, 103 (July 1970), pp. 103-109. Mead, Margaret and Rhoda Metraux. "Image of the Scientist among High School Students," Science, 126 (August 30, 1957), pp. 384-89.

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McNarry, L.R., and S. O'Farrell. A Report of the Activities of the CAP Study Group on Student Attitudes Towards Science and Technology, Report to the Canadian Association of Physicists (CAP), Mimeo., 1971 a. . "Student Attitudes Towards Science and Technology: A Report from the CAP Study Group," Physics in Canada, 27, no. 6, (197 1) b, p . 73-77. Murphy, Gardner, and Rensis Likert. Public Opinion and the indiv&al. First published, 1937; reissued, New York: Rusell and Rusell, 1967. Nie, Norman H., Dale H. Bent and C. Hadlai Hull, Statistical Package For the Social Sciences, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1970. O'Dowd, Donald C. and David C., Beardslee, College Students Images of a Selected Group of Profession and Occupations, Cooperative Research Project No. 562, Middletown, Conn., U.S. Office of Education, Wesleyan University; 1960. Osgood, C.E., GJ. Suci, and P.H. Tannebaum, The Measurement of Meaning, Urbana, Ill.: The University of Illinois Press, 1957. Phillips, B.S. Social Research: Strategy and Tactics. New Yor k: Macmillan, London: Collier-Macmillan, 1966. Remmers, H.H. "High School Students Look at Science," The Purdue Opinion Panel, Report of Poll No. 50 (November 1957), Purdue University, Lafayette, Indiana. . "Teenage Attitudes," Scientific American, 198, no. 6 (June 1958), pp. 25-28. Riesman, D., N. Glazer, and R. Denney. The Lonely Crowd. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1953. Spears, Jacqueline D., and C.E. Hathaway, "Student Attitudes Towards Science and Society." American Journal of Physics, 43, no. 4 (April 1975), pp. 343-48. Whyte, W.H. Jr. The Organization Man. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1957. Withey, Stephen B. "Public Opinion About Science and Scientists," Public Opinion Quarterly, 23, no. 3. (Fall 1959), pp. 382-88.

PART THREE

WORK IN BUREAUCRACIES

Ever mindful of the larger setting in which the particular work activity occurs, Oswald Hall was led to examine bureaucracy. A major theme in his study of work has been the growth of bureaucracy and the role of specialized occupations within such a structure. The advancing tide of bureaucratization has certainly had profound effects on the way in which work is carried out. T h e typical pattern of employment for professionals used to be that of the independent professional in an entrepreneurial role. As a fullfledged professional he was his own master within an associational framework of colleagues. Today more and more professionals, as well as other kinds of workers, find themselves employed in vast bureaucracies such as large research institutes, corporations, universities, hospitals and the civil service. Papers in this section deal with work in hospital, government, and industrial bureaucracies and suggestions are made for alternative ways of organizing work. The quality of the work experience in bureaucracies has been repeatedly criticized in the sociological literature.' The growth of gargantuan, impersonal bureaucracies with narrowly defined spheres of work has proven in many instances to be inefficient, and to provide alienating work experiences. The drive for organizational rationalization and systemization in the name of efficiency is alleged to have irrational overtones, and, in the process, the basic purpose of the organization gets lost. The stereotype of the bored, alienated assembly line worker with no control over his work has dominated much of the debate on the nature of industrial work. Employees who are located at the bottom of the occupational ladder are viewed in much the same light. George Torrance examines the degradation-of-work thesis among unskilled and semi-skilled workers in two Toronto hospitals, and arrives at more complex conclusions. His workers emerge as a moderately satisfied group; two-thirds reported that hospital work would again be their choice were they to start over. He found little evidence that the workers "perceived themselves as engaging in soul-destroying, demeaning work activities." T h e Marxian alienation hypothesis apparently does not apply to all unskilled worker^.^

207

208 PART THREE:WORK IN BUREAUCRACIES Hospital milieux provides varying opportunities for intrinsic gratifications. For instance, closely supervised kitchen work produces reactions among workers akin to those of assembly-line employees, while less closely supervised nursing assistants who work with patients find more satisfaction in their work. Hall also recognized the negative qualities of bureaucracies and the often alienating work experiences they provide. Of the public school system he wrote: "The modern school system is a massive bureaucracy held together by the mutual support of vested interests" (1977) which, like any complex organization, tends to resist change. He was interested in exploring ways to make bureaucracies more responsive to change, but being more sophisticated than many Marxists, he saw no easy solution. Turning from hospital to government bureaucracy, Harvey Rich in his paper "Careers, Role Models, and the 'Politics' of Higher Civil Servants" looks at the civil service in Ontario. Accompanying the growth of the welfare state during the post-World War Two period, with its vast expansion in social services and educational facilities, has been the growth of government bureaucracy. The rapid rate of government expansion had begun to decline in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the time of Rich's research. Rich examines patterns and processes of professionalization among civil servants, another subject of major interest to Hall. He investigates the careers of senior civil servants, looking at both their actual and preferred roles. His data on career patterns include the associational affiliations of civil servants, their mode of recruitment and promotion, their role conceptions, and the amount of inter-agency mobility operating within the civil service. He concludes that the problem of political control of the civil service in western democracies is essentially an insoluble one, and that each solution seems to generate new dilemmas and problems. Assuming that alienation is one of the major problems in work bureaucracies, two papers suggest alternative forms of organization that might increase motivation, satisfaction and on-the-job efficiency. Both Margaret Westley's and Frank Jones's papers emphasize what Jones calls a "personalistic orientation," that workers develop commitments, the nurse to her patient, the foreman to his men, and vice versa. Jones examines the organization of structural steel gangs where there is constant danger on the job. He notes that the foreman organizes the work gang by selecting "his" men, workers whom he knows through experience are able and trustworthy. The esprit de corps of the work gang is developed and enhanced by shared on-and-off-the-job experiences. This makes for efficient work organization. While this personalistic form of organization may lead

to discrimination against certain workers, Jones suggests that a modified version might be applicable in some kinds of work. The increasing bureaucratization and specialization of hospital work is criticized by Margaret Westley in "The Nursing Role in General Hospitals." (She cites survey data showing that each patient in a surgical ward saw an average of thirty-seven nurses within a five-day period.) An offshot of bureaucratic specialization has been the fragmentation of tasks. Today's nurse contributes only a small part to a patient's care; she seldom gets to know the patient, nor does she identify with the patient's treatment and recovery. Many nurses, who were originally attracted to hospital work because they assumed that it involved caring for people, lose interest in their jobs since the work fails to provide the satisfactions they want. Moreover, highly bureaucratized structures often fail to provide scope for the personalized care of the very sick. This kind of rigid structure and over-specialization make for social inefficiency and result in excessive and unnecessary organizational complexity. (Faceless bureaucracy and lack of job satisfaction may be possible ingredients in the increasing tendency of nurses to carry picket signs rather than thermometers, as witnessed in their militant strike action of the last decade.) The large hospital with its many specialists needs a position that coordinates the work of these diverse units. Westley suggests that the nursing profession may improve its declining status by establishing itself as a specialty in the coordination of health care, i.e., the humanization of patient care. Under this system each nurse would be responsible for five or six patients throughout their hospitalization. Given these conditions, perhaps the patient's morale would improve because they would have their "own" nurse, and, similarly, the nurses' morale would improve because they would be doing what they most enjoyed.

Notes 1 . The following publications attest to this major sociological position: J. W. Rinehart, The Tyranny of Work (1975); D. Bell, Wmk and Its Discontents (1970); R. Blauner, Alienation and Freedom (1967);H.L.Sheppard and N.Q. Henrick, Where Haue all the Robots Gone? Worker Dissatisfaction in the Seventies (1973); H.Braverman, "Labor and Monopoly Capital: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century" (1974). 2. Karl Marx used the concept of alienation in several ways. Torrance uses it in the Marxian sense of self-estrangement. Marx saw work as a medium for individual self-expression and self-fulfillment. Under certain conditions, however, work is not a source o f personal or social gratification but

2 10 PART THREE: WORK IN BUREAUCRACIES simply a means for physical survival, there being no intrinsic satisfaction from it accruing to the worker. Workers are then debased by their work and alienated from themselves. See Marx's essay "Wage Labour and Capital" for one of his best statements on the meaning of alienation.

The Underside of the Hospital: Recruitment and the Meaning of Work Among Non-Professional Hospital Workers GEORGE M. TORRANCE

I firJt met Oswald Hall in 1962, when, as a second-year undergraduute in "Soc and Phil," I took his seminar on the sociology of small groups at the University of Toronto. Since then I have known him in the roles of teacher, research supervisor, colleague, witty letter-writer and steadfast frknd in such varied locales as the Sociology and Behavioural Science departments at Toronto, the B. and B. Commission at Ottawa, the Ontario Committee on the Healing Arts, and the Torrancefamily kitchen in Winnipeg and Ottawa. It is impossible to summurixe in one paragraph the personal impressions of tweng years of association, much less to offer a n appreciation of his contributions to Canadian scholarship and Fblic life. Oswald remains a vigorous intellectual presence in my lije, especially as the accuraty of his insights into the hospital and medical worlds reveals itself constantly in my current work as a hosfipztulbased researcher.

At the close of his classic study on the relationship between industrial technologies and worker alienation, Blauner (1964: 186-87) called for a "sociology of industries" rather than a single-industrial sociology, to map out the full variety of work settings in modern society. I n particular, he called for studies of "blue-collar non-factory industries, white-collar work and employment in the service industries-work settings which are growing in numbers and importance" but which his study neglected. Since Blauner wrote, there have been many more studies of alienation and work satisfaction (Kohn, 1976; Sheppard and Herrick, 1972; Burstein et al., 1975; Kalleberg, 1977; among others) but it is probably fair to say that our image of the typical industrial worker remains that of the man on the auto assembly line or perhaps-a more modern version-the console operator in an automated oil refinery. Moreover, such a worker is, more often than 21 1

2 12 PART THREE: WORK IN BUREAUCRACIES not, conceived of as young, male, relatively well-educated, Americanor Canadian-born and a union member. Yet there are grounds to believe that someone working in a hospital, school, restaurant, laundry or government office may have an equal claim to the "typical" industrial worker today. Employment in the service industries, broadly defined, now outdistances employment in the extractive, manufacturing and construction industries. While the most notable feature of service sector growth has been the expansion of the professional occupations, Braverman (1974:382) argues that an equally interesting feature has been the growth of unskilled and semi-skilled categories such as janitors, charwomen, laundry and food service workers near the bottom of the occupational pyramid. In contrast to the factory work settings we know little about recruitment and careers, about the socio-technic structure of work settings, or about worker alienation and satisfaction in these large and increasingly bureaucratized fields on the underside of the service sector. The situation is exacerbated because the workers are likely to be women and/or recent immigrants, two expanding groups in the labour force. Existing studies of alienation and work satisfaction seldom pay more than incidental attention to these groups and, while it is often assumed that they have particular orientations to work which condition their responses, there is little evidence one way or another to test this assumption. The hospital industry in Canada is a key example of the growing service industries. In response to rapid technological change and increased demand for its services, the hospital industry has grown from slightly over 100,000 workers in 1954 to 375,000 by 1978. Bureaucratization has increased as hospitals have grown in size from an average of 99 full and part-time workers per hospital in 1954 to 328 by 1978 (Fraser, 1971:69, Statistics Canada, 197'7-78:20).There are more employees in hospitals in Canada than in such factory industries as auto manufacturing, oil refining, iron and steel mills, and pulp and paper mills combined. About 77 per cent of hospital employees are women, and immigrants form another large segment, particularly in big cities. We now have studies on hospital-based doctors, nurses, administrators and the new technical and paramedical workers. But the non-professional service workers-kitchen, housekeeping and laundry workers, nursing assistants, aides, orderlies and porters-have been generally neglected by research. Only one of the earliest studies of the general hospital (Burling, Lent and Wilson, 1956) mentions them to any significant extent. Although they make up from one-third to one-half of the hospital's substantial labour force and perform essential functions, they remain, in Badgley's phrase, the "forgotten men and women" of the health care team.

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2 13

Studies of low-level service workers in general consistently indicate that they are among the most disadvantaged in the modern labour force. Braverman states that they are drawn from "the pool of pauperized labour at the bottom of the working class population" and are "more intensely exploited and oppressed than those in the mechanized fields of production" (1974:282). Data on socio-economic status, occupational prestige and work satisfaction place them near the very bottom of the scale. These jobs are apparently viewed by society at large as among the lowest of the low, and carry a strong connotation of dirty and demeaning work. American studies place hospitals squarely in the "secondary labour market" where wages and fringe benefits are minimal, working conditions are bad, advancement opportunities are non-existent, and high turnover and low morale are endemic (Doeringer and Piore, 1971:197; Ehrenreich and Ehrenreich, 1973: 14). Whether Canadian hospital service jobs fit this portrait is open to question. The upgrading of Canadian hospitals under government health insurance may make the Canadian situation different, yet the wave of strikes and threatened strikes by hospital employees would seem to argue against this. Badgley (1975: 13- 14) among others has detected in these strikes a growing sense of alienation and relative deprivation as hospital workers compare their lot with highly paid physicians and administrators. Thus, both in terms of their own size and importance, and in terms of the insights they offer into the work place and class situation of larger categories of service workers in the modern labour force, some attention to non-professional hospital workers seems overdue. This paper reports on a small exploratory study of such workers in two hospitals in a large Canadian city based on interviews with a sample of 1 18 non-supervisory employees in the dietary and housekeeping departments, nursing and the central supply room conducted in 1975.

The two hospitals in the sample were chosen purposely for reasons of access, as were the departments we chose to concentrate on, although the latter are generally the biggest settings employing non-professionals in the hospital. The sample of workers to be interviewed, however, was chosen at random within each work setting according to a sampling ratio of approximately one in seven. The two hospitals were clearly atypical of Canadian hospitals in several respects. At 750 and 500 beds respectively, they were among the largest and most complex in the country. One was a Catholic hospital and did not have a service employee union, placing it in a minority group with respect to Canadian hospitals in general. A third point of peculiarity was their location in the downtown area of a city which is Canada's largest reception centre for immigrants. Since

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recruits for unskilled and semi-skilled jobs are drawn heavily from local labour markets, this location clearly biases findings on the social backgrounds of the workers toward a higher proportion of immigrants than would probably be found in hospitals elsewhere. Nevertheless, there are grounds to believe that personnel policies and procedures, and the organization and content of nonprofessional work in these hospitals, were similar to many others. Both had large dietary and housekeeping departments with similar technologies, organizational structures and divisions of labour. Within nursing and the central supply rooms, the job categories were more variable; one hospital employed unlicensed nursing assistants to perform highly-skilled roles, the other used less skilled aides only in non-professional roles. The sample categories in the two hospitals included female food service workers and male porters, cleaners and dishwashers in the dietary departments, female maids and male cleaners in housekeeping, female nursing assistants and aides and male orderlies and porters in nursing, and female assistants and male porters in the central supply rooms. With the partial exception of the unlicensed nursing assistants, these categories are fairly uniform in hospitals across the country. Our final sample consisted of sixty-eight workers at the larger hospital and fifty in the smaller. Taking both hospitals together, thirty-one of the sample members were employed in the kitchens, thirty-six in housekeeping, thirty-five in nursing and sixteen in the central supply rooms. Within nursing and the central supply rooms, fourteen sample members were unlicensed nursing assistants, four were nurse's aides, eight were central supply room assistants, twelve were orderlies and thirteen were porters.' In the following we concentrate on findings from four areas of the study: the social backgrounds of the workers and how they found their way into hospital jobs; the meaning of work qua hospital work; socio-technic sources of variation in work satisfaction among the major work settings; and the economic status and perceptions of the respondents.

Social Backgrounds and Recruitment Pathways Where d o the service bureaucracies in our large cities find recruits for their low-statusjobs? Previous American accounts of the recruitment pool for low-level service work in general and hospitals in particular suggest that these jobs are filled only by the most disadvantaged groups in the modern labour force (Doeringer and Piore, 1971:1971; Liebow, 1967:40-41; Burling, Lent and Wilson, 1956; Ehrenreich and Ehrenreich, 1973). For men particularly, the inadequacy of the

THE UNDERSIDE OF THE HOSPITAL

2 15

wages to support a family (and also probably the stereotyping of hospital jobs as "women's work") meant that only those with no other choice took jobs as orderlies, cleaners or dishwashers. Burling, Lenz and Wilson describe these jobs as being filled by "the handicapped, the aged, the derelicts" (1956:162-163) and "the alcoholics, the drifters, the psychologically-crippled" (p. 303). Ehrenreich and Ehrenreich characterize hospital service workers as ". . . economically marginal people, often illiterate or aged, who are paid barely enough for individual subsistance" (p. 14). We found some similarities, but several differences in comparison to the American accounts. In the aggregate, the sample members were older and had very low education levels in comparison with Canadian labour force norms. They also included among their number a fairly high proportion of physically frail or handicapped workers, consistent with the hospital's traditional role as an employer of last resort for the halt and the maimed of the community. The most notable finding, however, was the predominance of recent immigrants to Canada in the service worker ranks, with over 90 per cent born in other countries. Although these hospitals were situated in a major immigrant area, this proportion was still well in excess of the percentage of foreign-born (5'7 per cent) in the local labour market. Of the twenty-six different countries represented in the hospitals, the largest single group was the Portuguese, who formed a dense network within the kitchen and housekeeping jobs at one hospital. Many were members of families in which both spouses, as well as older children and sometimes uncles, aunts and cousins, were employed at the hospital. Other Southern European and Eastern European immigrants as well as West Indian men and women were also well represented in these jobs. In contrast to the American accounts, downwardly-mobile "skidders" and other members of a native-born urban lower class were virtually absent. These jobs now appear to function more as ports of entry to the Canadian labour market for recent immigrants than as havens for the "otherwise unemployable"-at least in large cities where immigrants are numerous. Moreover, the family characteristics and job historks of the people in the sample indicate a more stable work force than other accounts suggest. Almost two-thirds were married and most of the married had children. The majority had had relatively few jobs prior to joining the hospitals and had worked at least five years for their present employer. There was a sizable minority of long-term veterans in the sample with fifteen or more years of service in their jobs. The workers from different countries fell into several distinctive groups in terms of education, job training and language fluency. At

2 16 PART THREE: WORK IN BUREAUCRACIES one extreme were the Portuguese, Italians, Greeks and other Southern Europeans who were mainly of semi-rural backgrounds in their countries of origin, had very low education and training levels, and had little fluency in English when they arrived and not much more at the present time. The Portuguese, for instance, were primarily recent immigrants from the Azores who had come to Canada as sponsored immigrants, most having had four years or less of formal schooling. At the other extreme were the twenty-one West Indians and seven Asians who were younger, better educated and fluent in English. Most of the West Indians had at least some secondary education, many had some vocational training including nursing and domestic training. T h e Asians were chiefly from the Philippines and several had university degrees from their home countries.2 Between these two extremes were the older established Eastern European immigrants and the Canadians. Several of the former also possessed nursing qualifications from their home countries. Altogether about 25 of the 118 were classified as having some health occupation training or experience in their home countries. There were a variety of pathways into hospital work in Canada. T h e Southern European women, despite little experience of working outside the home before immigration, almost invariably started in to work on arrival in Canada even though, in many cases, there were young children in the family. They used contact networks of relatives, friends and neighbours either to obtain low-paying factory or service jobs in the city core or to move directly to hospital jobs. Great emphasis was placed on the rapid accumulation of family income to buy a house in Canada. "When we first come, we take any job to make money." Of those who started out in factories, most gravitated to hospitals quickly after lay-offs or finding the work too hard. The Southern European men tended to have longer periods as construction, railroad or farm labourers before moving to the hospitals. Lay-offs and job insecurity or, in several cases, construction accidents, were precipitating events leading to finding a hospital job. The West Indian and Asian immigrants in the sample also gravitated quickly into hospital service jobs in Canada, especially those with nursing training or experience. Some of the latter had jobs promised to them before emigrating. Several others started out as domestics in Canada, moved to work in nursing homes shortly after, then obtained hospital jobs.3 The Eastern Europeans in the hospital jobs were originally mainly political refugees, and many were the veterans of long years of service. Several of the women had stayed home to raise children before entering the labour market in Canada, a pattern similar to the Canadians who tended to be older women

THE UNDERSIDE OF THE HOSPITAL

2 17

reentering the work force. A few of these older women had attempted, and failed, to pass exams to obtain Canadian nursing credentials. The years of service of each group reflected different periods of immigration, the Eastern J?uropeans being the remnants of the first postwar wave into these jobs, the Italians and Portuguese arriving in the sixties, and the West Indians and Asians after the easing of racial restrictions in the late sixties and early seventies. There was a pronounced pattern of ethnic stratification among the various hospital departments and job categories. While all the jobs we sampled were classified as "non-professional," there existed some definite variations in skill and responsibility among them. This was tacitly recognized in hiring criteria and wage scales. Thus, orderlies, nursing assistants and central supply room assistants received wages about 10 per cent higher than the respective male and female rates for the other categories. Additionally, while language and educational requirements for housekeeping and kitchen workers were minimal, an ability to speak English and some high school education or previous experience were looked for among nursing assistants, aides and orderlies. In our sample, the Southern European immigrants were heavily concentrated in the less skilled and lower-paying kitchen and housekeeping jobs, while the West Indians and Asians tended to cluster in nursing assistant, orderly and central supply room jobs. The Eastern Europeans and Canadians, depending on their individual qualifications, were more evenly spread among the two types of settings. A few Southern European workers had moved into nursing department jobs, usually after starting out in other settings, and a number of West Indians and Asians were found in the kitchen and housekeepingjobs, but such people were the exception. The language and educational criteria in hiring, coupled with the lack of promotion and transfer channels after hiring, produced this distinctive ethnic clustering. The last point emphasizes that, to a large extent, the department and the job these workers were hired into were their fate as long as they remained with the hospital. Very few of the workers in the sample had enjoyed any internal mobility, even between jobs at the same level in other departments. Within nursing, most faced an impenetrable career ceiling unless they quit and took community college courses leading to Registered Nursing Assistant credentials. Although the kitchens and housekeeping offered a few supervisory positions, formal training at the community college level was increasingly required, which effectively .ruled out any chance of advancement for most of the people in the sample. On the evidence from these two hospitals, then, the service

2 18 PART THREE: WORK IN BUREAUCRACIES bureaucracies in our large cities now seem to rely extensively on recent immigrants to fill their unskilled and semi-skilled jobs (as well as many of their professional roles). The immigrant workers are from two streams: unskilled migrants from Southern Europe, and more educated people from Third World countries. Struggling to establish themselves in Canada, these workers accept jobs which Canadian workers shun. The pattern of relying on immigrants to d o the "dirty work," especially to staff hospital jobs, is not unique to Canada but apparently resembles that found in other advanced industrial nations.

Type of Commitment to Hospital Work Although hospital workers are depicted in the literature as a disadvantaged group, some sources suggest that they may display attitudes toward their work at variance with other blue-collar or unskilled workers. Etzioni (196 1:40) classifies general hospitals as "normative organizations" whose lower participants "are more normatively controlled than blue-collar workers in other industries" (1961:32). The Ehrenreichs add that "hospital workers commonly express a degree of commitment to service, to doing one's best, that would be beyond the wildest dreams of an industrial personnel manager" (p. 15). Studies such as Simpson and Simpson (1959) and Wessen (1958) also stress that lower-level workers tend to internalize the humanitarian service ideology of the hospital and to use it as the basis of a positive self-image. We asked a number of open-ended questions to investigate whether, through self-selection o r socialization on the job, hospital workers in these settings displayed normative or intrinsic commitments to their work. A question about original job expectations in Canada was used to probe the extent to which the hospital job represented an early commitment and a deliberate choice as opposed to chance o r lack of alternatives. Additional questions were addressed to the issue of whether hospital work as such, or the specific institution where they now worked, had any special meaning for the workers at the present time. The responses on original job expectations in Canada indicate that most of the workers in our sample had little pre-existing calling toward this kind of work. About 45 per cent stated that they had no specificjob plans when they came to Canada, but intended to take any kind of job they could find. Another 27 per cent, chiefly men, said that they were looking specifically for other jobs, usually in construction. A smaller but surprisingly large minority, concentrated among the West Indians and Asians, indicated that, while they came to Canada expecting to work, their main goal was to use the Canadian

education system to upgrade their education and training in order to qualify for skilled or semi-professional jobs. Only about 15 per cent stated that they intended to work in a hospital, and many of these were people with nursing training who hoped to have their credentials recognized and rapidly to move into their former occupations. Clearly, those with an expressive or skill-oriented predisposition towards healing work were a small minority. The sample was asked whether at the present time there was / "anything special" to them personally about working in a hospital as opposed to some other place. The largest and most definite reponse category was that there was nothing special about hospital work-it was just a job like many others. These responses were often accompanied by expressions to the effect that work is work wherever it is situated and the hospital environment made no difference. Almost 40 per cent of the sample gave responses of this kind. The second largest response category, 26 per cent of the total, replied that hospital work offered certain extrinsic advantages over other accessible jobs, chiefly that it was more secure and steady than other unskilled service or construction jobs and it was physically lighter than labouring work. Job security emerged as a particularly strong perceived advantage of hospital jobs.4 Again, these respondents indicated no normative or skill-based commitment to the work or the hospital setting. The remaining third of the sample, however, cited themes more consistent with normative or intrinsic commitments to work. About half of these cited occupational skills, careers or simply familiarity with the work, while the other half gave more diffuse service- or people-oriented responses. The latter ranged from highly elaborate to very simple statements, from claims of "helping suffering humanity and doing something for peace and love" to "feeling good from seeing people get better." In a few cases the respondents seemed merely to be mouthing the official ideology of the hospital; in most, however, the answers were expressed with a fair degree of conviction. The higher proportion citing intrinsic or expressive themes on this question indicates that the hospital provides modest opportunities for involvement to people who start without an early commitment to hospital work. Strong interdepartmental and sex differences emerged in the type of commitment expressed. At the extremes, whereas over 80 per cent of the women in nursing and central supply room jobs expressed intrinsic or service-oriented themes as special features of hospital work, only 11 per cent of the men in kitchen and housekeeping jobs did so. Evidently not only do the nurshg settings hold out much better opportunities for involvement and normative commitment than the other settings, but also the women workers are more able

220 PART THREE: W O ~ R E A U C R A C I E S than the men to grasp these opportunities and identify with the service themes.5 Although the numbers were too small for a conclusive test, it also appeared that the worker's country of origin had a minor independent effect with the highly educated West Indians and Asians more likely to cite expressive themes than the Southern European workers in similar jobs. That the opportunities for commitment were strongly conditioned by the work setting is indicated by the workers' responses to a question asking specifically how they felt about working in a place that treats sick people. The answers to this question fell into three categories: those who professed a definite liking for this feature of hospital work, those who saw it as having little relevance and whose attitude was indifference or mild tolerance, and those who expressed a definite aversion to having to work with the sick. The responses were again highly stratified by department and sex. Whereas almost nine-tenths of the women and half of the men in nursing jobs expressed a definite liking for this feature of the work, 44 per cent of the women and only 11 per cent of the men in housekeeping and kitchen jobs voiced similar sentiments. The predominant attitude in the latter settings, particularly the kitchens, was that they were seldom aware of this aspect of their work and, to the extent that it came to their attention, it was a matter of little personal feeling one way o r another. Only a small minority expressed actual aversion to working with the sick, most of whom claimed to have a "soft heart" or a "weak stomach." It might be expected that loyalty to a particular institution or its religious affiliation among the "home guard" might serve as an alternative source of commitment, particularly among the long-term employees in non-nursing settings. T o pursue this, we asked the sample whether there was anything special to them about the particular hospital and, in the case of the Catholic hospital, whether the religious affiliation made any difference. In both instances, professions of commitment were very limited. A few respondents mentioned the "atmosphere" of the hospital or loyalty to a particular supervisor, and a few more indicated attachment to "the sisters" as positive features, but most said that they had no particular feelings about the hospital where they worked. This was in contrast to the perceptions of some of the English-speaking department heads who stressed that religious piety was a strong motivating factor among the Portuguese and I talian workers. The data from our study, then, suggest a less romanticized picture of the motivation of hospital service workers than that painted by some accounts. For those in non-patient settings especially, hospital work was perceived largely in instrumental terms as an accessiblejob, distinguishable only from other blue-collar o r service jobs by, on the

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positive side, its greaterjob security and, on the negative side, the shift and weekend work entailed in its 24-hour, seven-day-a-week operation. Only for a minority, concentrated among the women in nursing roles, was it something more than this.6 These attitudes are probably more a reflection of hospital structure than of the capacities of the workers. There was a strong sense of being the "lowest class" in a rigidly stratified and segmented institution. Most respondents disclaimed any contact with, or knowledge of, the administrators and doctors-"esses seuhres multi altos" (those exalted personages)-who made up the institution's public face. One long-term veteran claimed never to have been upstairs all the time he had worked in the basement kitchen. In the hospital without a union, the failure to bridge the language and culture gap meant that some of the semi-literate workers were ignorant of their basic rights as employees and extremely fearful of arbitrary authority.' T o those separated by language and class from the upper world of the hospital, the wider institution and its healing mission were abstractions with which they could feel little identification.

Socio-Technic Variations and Worker Satisfaction General accounts of hospital worker alienation seldom differentiate among work settings. Yet both the socio-technic literature on industry (Blauner, 1964; Kohn, 1976; Shepard, 1971; among others) and our previous data on commitment suggest that substantial variations may exist in the rewards and punishments everyday work holds out to different categories of hospital workers. Moreover, studies of professional and semi-professional work settings in the hospital, while seldom employing the same framework as industrial studies, provide additional indications that socio-technic variations occur among workers at this level (Seeman and Evans, 1961; Coser, 1963; Simpson, 1973; Hall, 19'70). Although Burling, Lenz and Wilson's (1956) data are mainly anecdotal, their rich observations give many examples of such variations in the non-professional work settings. The skilled and more highly paid nature of most of the non-professional nursing jobs in these two hospitals led us to expect that they would rank well ahead of the other settings in employee work satisfaction. As to differences between the kitchen and housekeeping workers, our expectations were influenced by Burling, Lenz and Wilson's finding that housekeeping workers' low status in relation to nurses and their resulting social isolation made them the most demoralized workers in the hospital, well below those in settings like the laundry who worked on interdependent tasks (pp. 182-200).

222 PART THREE: WORK IN BUREAUCRACIES The actual variations in socio-technic structures between departments were substantial. In the kitchens, work revolved around the mass production of upwards of five thousand staff and patient meals a day. Involving a conveyor-belt type of technology, the work was fast-paced, repetitive, closely supervised and took place in an atmosphere of heat and noise. T h e housekeepers cleaned the patients' rooms and corridors, took out garbage and performed other menial tasks, but enjoyed relative freedom from close supervision. Nursing non-professional work varied according to setting and job category. While the nursing assistants, orderlies and central supply room workers performed relatively skilled tasks, the nurses' aides and porters had more routine jobs. With the exception of the porters and the central supply room workers, the nursing non-professionals enjoyed a fair amount of freedom from direct supervision, but on the other hand the work was more tightly scheduled and interdependent than in housekeeping. We asked the workers in the sample questions designed to tap their reactions both to specific facets of their work and to their job at large. The responses yielded some surprises in terms of our predictions about the rank ordering of the various settings. With the exception of a few workers in specialized jobs, kitchen work was mostly experienced as hard and unpleasant. T h e themes cited were bad working conditions, a hectic work pace, and unnecessary and harassing supervision. Complaints about oversupervision were endemic in both kitchens. The workers felt constantly under the gun and their reactions were similar to assembly-line workers in industry. Terms like "animals", "slaves", "machines" and "robots" cropped u p frequently to describe their situation. Several of the Southern European workers expressed frustration at their inability to talk back to the English-speaking supervisors-the only occasion in which language hampered them on the job. T h e kitchen workers' rating of specific job traits and their overall satisfaction were significantly lower than the rating given by workers in other settings. The housekeeping workers, in contrast, expressed a fair degree of satisfaction with their jobs. They recognized that their opportunity to use skills was minimal, and their tasks were often hard and tiring, but they found it interesting to observe the ward scene and they appreciated the relative freedom to set their own pace on the job. I n contrast to Burling, Lenz and Wilson's findings, they were not particularly affected by status considerations or the symbolic "dirtiness" of their work. In many cases, language differences seemed to insulate them from these symbolic connotations. Most seemed to enjoy distant but cordial relations with the nurses and patients. The housekeeping workers, especially the women, ranked high on the various satisfaction measures.

The nursing workers recognized that, objectively, their jobs were better than those in housekeeping and the kitchens. Among the nursing assistants particularly, there were some strong expressions of liking for the content of their work and of the gratifications to be derived from it. The men in orderly and porter jobs were less likely than the women to stress intrinsic themes but there was a general appreciation of their light, clean work. Whether as spectators o r participants, most nursing workers found their work interesting, especially those in dramatic settings like the emergency or operating rooms. Yet nursing work also had disadvantages. The nursing nonprofessionals perceived less freedom to set their pace o r to d o things their own way than the housekeeping workers. Many, particularly those with previous training o r experience, thought their skills were under-utilized. The male workers especially, but also some of the aides and assistants, expressed a sense of slighted status and of social isolation, sometimes with racial overtones.* Complaints about lack of recognition and respect, of being left out of things, of being treated as "invisible" o r "part of the furniture" were fairly common. The disruption caused by rotating shifts and working weekends was an almost universally voiced theme. Contrary to our predictions, then, the nursing workers ranked lower on overall job satisfaction than the housekeeping workers. The final rank ordering of settings placed housekeeping on the top, nursing second and the kitchens unequivocally the lowest. This pattern cannot be explained by socio-technic factors alone, but only by also taking into account the different basis of recruitment to the units and hence the different work orientations and expectations which the various subgroups brought with them to the jobs. T h e housekeeping workers were drawn from the same recruitment pool as the kitchen workers, mainly the Southern European immigrants with little education and fluency in English. In general, they had a labour conception of work, seeing it as a straight exchange of physical effort for money and having little expectation of advancement. In Goldthorpe's (1970) terms, their orientation to work was highly instrumental, geared toward the accumulation of income for family and property by whatever means possible. From the content of work, they sought only that it not be too punishing, either in terms of physical conditions or in terms of humiliating supervision. The actual differences on these dimensions between the kitchens and housekeeping resulted in the different rankings of work satisfaction. The kitchen workers tended to have relatives, friends and neighbours working in housekeeping, so comparisons were common, and kitchen work clearly emerged the poorer in the comparisons. The nursing non-professionals, in contrast, were drawn from the

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more educated West Indian, Asian and Eastern European immigrants. They had higher expectations from the content of their work, and also sought advancement more strongly. This was especially so for the nursing assistants, many of whom had extensive training in their home countries and who were seeking to move u p to their former level. Financial considerations prevented them from leaving their jobs for the full-time courses necessary to make this transition, and the night-school option was ruled out by the continual shift rotations they faced. Performing exactly the same tasks as the registered nursing assistants, and working side by side with them, the unlicensed assistants were paid considerably less and received fewer fringe benefits. Instead of comparing themselves with the kitchen o r housekeeping workers, the nursing workers tended to compare upwards with nurses and registered assistants and to see themselves as relatively deprived in comparison. Having noted the significance of internal variations, we should briefly return to the issue of alienation among the service workers. Judgments about their degree of alienation clearly depend on how the concept is defined and whether observers' categories or the workers' own categories are used. On several direct and indirect measures of work satisfaction, the workers in our sample, despite internal variations, emerged as a moderately satisfied group. Forty-one per cent stated they were "very satisfied" with theirjobs, 55 per cent that they were "fairly satisfied." Almost two-thirds stated they would choose hospital work if they were starting out all over again-a high proportion for low-status jobs. These figures, however, undoubtedly overstate the real degree of satisfaction, a fact attested to by the prevalence of responses to the effect that they had no choice but to take, and be satisfied with, what they had. Nevertheless, with the exception of some of the kitchen workers, there is little evidence that the workers subjectively perceived themselves as engaging in soul-destroying, demeaning work activities. In terms of observers' categories, the kitchen workers came closest to the classic profile of work alienation. They were powerless, the meaning of their fragmented activities for the wider functions of the hospital was obscure, they felt little sense of membership in a work community. In that there were few intrinsic gratifications and the jobs were little more than a steady source of (low) incomes, they were profoundly self-estranged according to alienation theory. Indeed, if a primarily instrumental orientation to work were used as the main index of alienation, (Shepard, 1971) most of the hospital workers in our sample would emerge as highly alienated. Yet, as Goldthorpe has shown, an instrumental orientation to work is consistent with a fair degree of job satisfaction among "affluent workers." The question is

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whether the same situation obtains among hospital service workers in much lower-paid jobs. We now turn to examine their economic status and perceptions.

Economic Status and Perceptions Hospital workers are sometimes cited as an example of the "working poor," the group which, despite full-time jobs, are not paid enough to clear the poverty line. Low wages rather than job content are often seen as the major negative feature of service jobs at large-they are simply not enough for a living, especially to support a family. (Liebow, 1967:40-41) Although the current alienation and work satisfaction literature tends to downplay the economic dimension, there are grounds to suppose it may loom large for workers in such low-paid jobs. Studies such as Anderson (1974), Nagata (1969) and Alberro and Montero (1976) suggest that pay rates may be a particular source of concern to recent immigrants who attach great importance to acquiring a stake for return to their home countries or for buying a house in Canada. We asked our sample a number of questions in order to examine how hospital workers got by on the money they made, how they perceived their pay and how pay perceptions affected work satisfaction. Wages in these two hospitals had risen with large increases, won in collective bargaining, the previous year. They ranged from $500-700 a month and on an hourly basis were well above the provincial minimum wage. Whether or not they cleared the poverty line depended on which definition was chosen: using the stringent welfare criteria, the yearly incomes were well above the poverty line even for large families; using the much more generous criteria advocated by the city Social Planning Council, workers supporting families of three or more would fall below the line. In comparative terms, while the wages were well below the average industrial or construction wage, they were equal to or better than the average service wage and especially to the wages offered to cleaners and kitchen workers in domestic work, hotels and restaurants.9 When we asked the workers in our sample to assess their pay, we were rather surprised to find that it was rated fairly highly. Altogether, 37 per cent of the sample rated it as "good," 56 per cent as "average," and only 7 per cent as "poor." The spontaneous comments which accompanied these responses indicated that the pay was not considered high in an absolute sense, but was good for the type of work involved. Typical responses were "For the amount of work we do, it's pretty good," "For the education we have, it's very good," and "I've nothing to complain about for what I'm doing and for my age."

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I n general, the responses did not convey any strong impression that the workers considered hospital jobs as badly underpaid. Such attitudes toward the pay were consistent with the labour conception of work held by many of the employees-that is, they equated the amount a job was worth with the amount of physical effort ("sweat") that was required. The men who had worked in construction, although previously earning about double the hourly rates, regarded their present pay as acceptable because of the trade-off for less "sweat." This gives another perspective to Anderson's interpretation that, because of the low wages, service jobs indicate relative economic failure among Portuguese immigrant men. The fact that less strenuous work is required, along with the steadier, year-round nature of these jobs, mean that they are not uniformly regarded as less desirable by the men themselves. Some insight into the hospital workers' relatively high ratings of the pay emerged when we asked questions about other family earners and total family income. A high proportion of the workers had working spouses, older children contributing to the family pool or had other sources of income such as from renting rooms in their houses. Almost 60 per cent had family incomes substantially above their hospital incomes alone, with some 13 per cent at the higher end reporting incomes over $15,000 a year. When family incomes were standardized by family size and compared with the Social Planning Council's poverty line, only 5 per cent of the hospital workers' families fell below the poverty line, another 15 per cent were less than $2,000 above it, while the remaining 80 per cent cleared the line by more than $2,000. Moreover, many of the hospital workers' families had acquired substantial assets in Canada. Although complete data were not available, many families were paying for, or had bought outright, their own homes. In this respect, there was an interesting difference in the financial strategies of the immigrant subgroups. The Portuguese, Italians and Eastern Europeans were particularly likely to stress home ownership, while the West Indians and Asians were less likely to d o so. This is obviously partly a function of length of residence in Canada, but also probably reflects real differences in future intentions about remaining in Canada and becoming citizens. Richmond (1974:33) cites data from surveys showing that Black and Asian immigrants, together with others whose mother tongue is English, were considerably less likely than other immigrant groups to become, or intend to become, citizens. This picture of relative prosperity due to multiple earners in the family contrasts somewhat with their image as "economically marginal people . . . paid barely enough for individual subsistence" (Ehren-

reich and Ehrenreich, 1973:14). When asked whether their family incomes "allows you to have a standard of living where you can get by fairly well on what you make and have most of the things you want without going into debt," some 70 per cent responded in the affirmative. At the same time, however, the immigrant workers' responses made clear that there were heavy sacrifices involved and that they were able to get by because they had a different standard of living from native-born Canadians. The responses, both positive and negative, were a litany of scrimping and saving, of doing without many of the consumption amenities like cars which middle-class North Americans take for granted. One Italian man stated that he got by fairly well but added that his family had only one meat meal a week. The pattern of both spouses working long hours at low-paid jobs to buy a house was perceived as a hard life. Moreover, for the substantial minority living close to the poverty line--chiefly women heading single-parent families and men supporting non-working spouses and children, it was a grim struggle to cover living expenses, let alone to dream of buying a house or indulge in other luxuries. The lot of the women in both groups who had housewife responsibilities seemed particularly hard. A large number reported that they were "bone-weary" or "worn out" and expressed concern for their health in the future. The hospital workers' economic perceptions were related fairly strongly to their overall job satisfaction. Whereas 60 per cent of those who stated the pay was good were very satisfied, only 30 per cent of those who rated it average and 14 per cent of those who rated it poor were very satisfied. While actual pay rates were only slightly related to perceptions of how good the pay was, family incomes and family margins over the poverty line had a somewhat greater influence. Although some single earners with dependants to support were dissatisfied both with their pay and their jobs, the success attained by most in reaching family economic goals provided a justification for what some saw as low jobs and a hard life. Intriguingly, there was little variation among the immigrant subgroups in the relevance of economic factors for job satisfaction.

Conclusion Non-professional hospital work is an example of the unskilled and semi-skilled service work fields which, paradoxically, are expanding in advanced industrial societies. In large city hospitals, nonprofessional jobs in housekeeping, the kitchens and nursing are likely to function as ports of entry to the Canadian labour force for

228 PART THREE: WORK IN BUREAUCRACIES immigrant workers. T h e immigrants tend to be drawn from two streams, unskilled sponsored immigrants from Southern Europe and more educated, English-speaking immigrants from Third World countries. The former choose these jobs because they are accessible or offer steadier and lighter work than alternative labouring jobs, and they are assigned to the less-skilled work settings like the kitchens and housekeeping where little patient contact is involved. T h e latter see the hospital jobs as a base for further mobility and are assigned to the more skilled nursing department settings. Different work milieux in the hospital hold out different prospects for involvement and intrinsic gratifications. Kitchen work is fragmented and closely supervised: it produces reactions to work similar to assembly-line work in industry. The easier pace and looser supervision of housekeeping work results in comparative satisfaction. While nursing non-professional work is more skilled and varied, the higher expectations of its better-educated workers and the frustration of their desires for upward mobility produce a mixed profile of satisfaction. Economic concerns are of major salience for the immigrant hospital workers. Because of multiple earners in the household, many of the workers in our sample achieved reasonable family incomes despite the low individual wages in these service jobs. T h e accumulation of income from low-paying but steady jobs toward the goal of acquiring a stake for eventual return to the home country or buying a house in Canada partially compensated for what most perceived as low jobs and a hard life in Canada. The life was often justified in terms of giving their children a good start in Canada. As Nagata (1969:63) observed of Greek working-class immigrants in Toronto: "All interest and reward lies in the future, often only in the future of the children." Our findings suggest that as a whole, hospital service workers are neither as highly alienated nor as deeply committed as different accounts suggest. T h e limitation of our sample to large city hospitals employing many immigrant workers clearly restricts the extent to which we can generalize to all hospitals in Canada, especially smaller institutions in outlying areas. Additionally, while some of these findings probably apply to service workers in other industries like hotels, building maintenance and food preparation, caution is obviously indicated in generalizing. The organizational ethos, structure and technology of hospital work is relatively distinctive. If we are to have a true sociology of industries applying to the growing non-factory settings as Blauner (1964) suggested, then further studies are needed of other service work settings and of the women and immigrant workers who predominantly staff them.

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Notes 1. For further details of sampling and methodology, see the author's Ph.D. dissertation for the Department of Sociology, University of Toronto, 1978. 2. The characteristics of the Southern Europeans and the West Indians and Asians in the sample correspond to those found in other studies. (See Sidlofsky, 1969, on the Italians; Nagata, 1969, on the Greeks; Anderson, 1974, on the Portuguese; and Ramcharan, 1976, and Turrittin, 1976, on the West Indians. See also Richmond, 1974, for general information on all groups.) Many West Indian and Philippine immigrants work in nursing, technician and other semi-professional jobs in Canadian hospitals (Hall, 1970; Torrance, 1970). These countries act as heavy exporters of students and skilled health workers to Europe, Britain and the United States as well as Canada. 3. See Turrittin's (1976) interesting observations about the pathways out of domestic work for West Indian immigrants to Canada. 4. The high valuation these workers placed on job security is perhaps ironic in view of the subsequent drastic cost-cutbacks which hospitals faced and which they responded to by cutting back on their service staffs to a disproportionate extent. Historically, while the wages were comparatively low, job security had been a salient characteristic of hospital employment. 5. This, of course, corresponds to the theory that women's role prescriptions emphasize expressive and nurturant values more than men's, and hence they may find it easier to verbalize these themes than the men. 6. Oswald Hall (1959) provides a similar, unromantic view of motivation and morale among hospital workers in a perceptive article comparing various occupational categories in the general hospital. 7. Some workers thought that collections being taken for birthday presents, funeral flowers, etc. were an official levy for unemployment insurance or other fringe benefits. 8. Although some strong complaints emerged, claims of prejudice and discrimination were relatively rare from the West Indian and Asian members of the sample. The facts that no direct question was asked on this topic and that the interviewers were white may have acted to inhibit comments, since other studies (Richmond, 1974; Ramcharan, 1976) report higher rates. Some covert racism surfaced in interviews with supervisors and other workers. Several of the former resented the West Indian workers' alleged tendency to "make trouble" and compared them unfavourably with the uncomplaining Portuguese. For an interesting insider's account of discrimination against West Indian and Asian hospital workers in England, see Wilson (1978). Although some of the practices cited there probably also occur in Canada, at least Canada does not now engage in the dubious procedure of exploiting student nurses from these countries and then shipping them home when they obtain certification (and hence higher wages). 9. These kinds of jobs may, however, provide extra income in the form of tips and gratuities, a factor not considered in data on wage rates. Moreover, this may not be reported on income tax returns. A few of the women in the sample who had worked at private cleaning cited income tax avoidance as one advantage of this kind of work.

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References Alberro, A. and G. Montero. "The Immigrant Woman," in G. Matheson, ed. Women in the Canadian Mosaic. Toronto: Peter Martin Associates, 1976, pp. 131-51. Anderson, G.M. Networks of Contact: The Portuguese and Toronto. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Publications, 1974. Badgley, R.F. "Health Worker Strikes: Social and Economic Bases of Conflict," International Journal of Health Smites, 5 ( 1975), 9- 17. Blauner, R. Alienation and Freedom. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964. Braverman, Harry. Labor and Monopoly Capital in the Twentieth Centuv. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1974. Burling, T., E.M. Lenz and R.N. Wilson. The Giue and Take of Hospitals. New York: Putnams, 1956. Burstein, M. et al. Canadian Work Values: Findings of a Work Ethic S u n q and a Job Satisfaction Survey. Ottawa: Information Canada, 1975. Castles, S. and G. Kosack. Immigrant Workers and Class Structure i n Western Europe. London: Oxford University Press, 1973. Coser, R.L. "Alienation and Social Structure: A Case Analysis of a Hospital," in E. Friedson, ed. The Hospital in Modern Society. New York: Free Press, 1963, pp. 231-65. Doeringer, P.B. and M .J. Piore. Internal Labor Markets and Manpower Analysis. Lexington, Massachusetts: Heath, 1971, Ehrenreich, John and Barbara Ehrenreich. "Hospital Workers: A Case Study in the New Working Class," Monthly Review, 24, 8 (1973), 12-27. Etzioni, A. A Comparative Analysis of Complex Organiuctions. New York: Free Press, 1961. Fraser, R.D. Canadian Hospital Costs and Effiiency. Ottawa: Economic Council of Canada Special Study No. 13, 1971. Goldthorpe, J.H., D. Lockwood, F. Bechhofer, and j. Platt. The Affluent Worker: Industrial Attitua'es and Behaviour. Cambridge: Cambridge University,Press, 1970. Hall, 0. "Motivation and Morale," Hospital Administration, 4 (1959), 6-20. . The Paramedical Occupations in 0ntario. Toronto: The committee on the Healing Arts, 1970. Kalleberg, A.L. "Work Values and Job Rewards: A Theory of Job Satisfaction," American Sociological Review, 42 ( 1977), 124-43. Kohn, M.L.. Class and Conformity. Homewood: Dorsey, 1969. "Occupational Structure and Alienation," American Journul of Sociology, 82 (1976), 111-31. Liebow, E. Tally's Comer: A Study of Negro Streetcorner Men. Boston: Little, Brown, 1967. Nagata, J.A. "Adaptation and Integration of Greek Working Class Immigrants in the City of Toronto," International Migration Review, 4 (1969). Ramcharan, S. "The Economic Adaptation of West Indians in Toronto, Canada," Canadian Review ofSociology and Anthropology, 3 ( 1976),295-304. Richmond, A. H. Aspects of the Absorption and Adaptation of Immigrants. Ottawa: Information Canada, 1974. Seeman, M. and J.W. Evans. "Stratification and Hospital Care: 11. The Objective Criteria of Performance," American Sociological Review, 26 (1961), 193-204.

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Shepard, J.M. Automation and Alienation. Cambridge: M I T Press, 1971. Sheppard, H.L. and N.Q. Herrick. Where Have All the Robots Gone? Worker Dkatisfaction in the Seventies. New York: Free Press, 1972. Sidlofsky, S. "Post-War Immigrants in the Changing Metropolis-With Special Reference to Toronto's Italian Population." Ph.D. dissertation, University of Toronto, 1969. Simpson, R.L. and I.H. Simpson. "The Psychiatric Attendant: Development of an Occupational Self-Image in a Low-Status Occupation," American Sociological Review, 24 (1959), 389-92. Simpson, J.H. "Hospital Services and Relations between Doctors and Nurses." Unpublished paper, Department of Sociology, University of Toronto, 1973. Statistics Canada. 1971 Census of Canada, Catalogue 94-672. 1971 Census of Canada, Catalogue 94-740. . Hospital Statistics, 1977-1978 Catalogue 83-232. Torrance, G.M. "Hospital Laboratory Technicians: Specialization and Career Patterns in a New Occupation." M.A. dissertation, Department of Sociology, University of Toronto, 1970. "The Underside of the Hospital: Recruitment and the Meaning of Work Among Non-Professional Hospital Workers." Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Sociology, University of Toronto, 1978. Turrittin, J.S. "Networks and Mobility: The Case of West Indian Domestics from Montserra t," Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology, 13 (1976), 305-20. Wessen, A.F. "Hospital Ideology and Communications Between Ward Personnel," in E.G. Jaco, ed. Patients, Physicians and Illness. New York: The Free Press, 1958, pp. 448-68. Wilson, Amrit. "Nursing and Racism," Spare Rib, 70 (May 1978), 6-9.

.

Careers, Role Models and Politics of Higher Civil Servants in Ontario HARVEY RICH

It was the taking of a coursefrom Oswald Hall i n the sociology of work that led to my "conversion" to sociology (from political science) and my subsequent decision to return to university full-time and Frsue graduate studies i n sociology. Oswald was very much attuned to the paradoxical and ironic side of social interaction and had a knackfor turning whut would otherwise have been rather routine, uninteresting matters into exciting discoveries by revealing an unexpected side to things. His lectures were richly interspersed with colourful anecdotes, so that even the dullest topics turned out to be rather interesting, much to our delight-and sur-e. Funeral directors, hospital administrators, nurses-in-training, construction labourers-however mundane an occupation may have appeared to w on the surface, Oswald had a way of shedding new light on it.

Elected politicians make the policy decisions and career civil servants carry them out. This continues to be deeply ingrained in our conception of democratic government. It is crucial to the survival of democratic government that competing teams of politicians, leading their respective parties, must appeal to the electorate at regular intervals for a mandate to govern. Moreover, a change in government can take place without the disruption of ongoing government services because career civil servants remain at their posts and continue to operate the evergrowing bureaucratic machinery. In this way, lip service continues to be given to the long-hallowed norms of the "neutrality" and "anonymity" of civil servants and to the principle of "ministerial responsibility." At the same time, more and more senior civil servants are willing to admit (anonymously, of course) that the gap between what is professed and what is practised grows ever wider. Virtually everyone who has written on this topic agrees on two points: (1) The traditional model of our parliamentary system of government (in the provinces as well as federally) has become grossly

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inadequate, particularly with regard to the increasing involvement of civil servants in policy development.' Admittedly, it is difficult to study key decision-makers in any of the major institutions of our society. But, the veil of secrecy, reinforcing the professed norm of neutrality (i.e., noninvolvement in "politics"), heightens the difficulty in gaining an understanding of the activities of civil servants at the highest levels of g ~ v e r n m e n t . ~ In this essay, I set out to provide systematic data on occupational careers and the actual as well as preferred roles of higher civil servants, as they themselves perceive them. The study is limited to the Ontario Public Service during the period ending in the early seventies. Granted, this falls short of providing the systematic empirical data we seek on the involvement of senior officials in the policy-making process. But, given the research difficulties referred to above, this is, I hope, a helpful contribution toward a clearer understanding of higher civil servants, both as an occupational group and as actors in the political system. A METHODOLOGICAL NOTE

-

The data reported and discussed in this essay were gathered as part of a larger project of research on higher civil servants in the Ontario government in the early seventies.3 Two categories of officials were delineated: a top stratum, referred to below as "Level 1" comprised all the officials listed in the "Senior Public Service Schedule." All the deputy ministers, chairmen of boards and commissions, assistant deputy ministers, and the more important branch directors are included in Level 1. Just below this small group, there is a larger group, made up of officials who, typically, report directly to the top officials and replace them when they retire or resign. This group is referred to below as "Level 2". Levels 1 and 2 contained the names of 111 and 288 officials respectively. Collectively, these officials constituted the administrative elite of the Ontario government in 1970, when questionnaires were mailed to all 399 officials. There were 271 completed questionnaires, a return rate of 68 per cent. In addition, unstructured interviews were held with 67 senior officials and 10 cabinet ministers. THE ONTARIO PUBLIC SERVICE: A BRIEF OVERVIEW

The 1960s was a decade of very rapid and large-scale growth in the Ontario Public Service. The number of classified civil servants grew by 94 per cent (from 32,000 to 62,000) compared to the much lower growth rate of the population of Ontario of under 25 per cent

234 PART THREE: WORK IN BUREAUCRACIES (Committee on Government Productivity, 1973:29). This case study provides a baseline from which to assess some of the adaptive processes in the movement from "small" government to "big" government. The data are based on conditions as they existed during the late sixties and early seventies. This was a period of transition in which the rate of expansion was beginning to decline, while the consequences of a vastly larger and more complex public bureaucracy had not yet become fully apparent. A reorganization of the administrative structure of the Ontario government took place during the seventies. I wish to emphasize that what follows pertains to the earlier transition period (1968-71); references to particular agencies and general administrative practices d o not go beyond the early seventies. T o avoid cumbersome problems of nomenclature, I have used the more recent names of government agencies wherever possible.

Occupational Careers INTER-AGENCY MOBILITY

Until well into the seventies, the single most prominent characteristic of the career patterns of higher civil servants in the Ontario Public Service was a very low rate of inter-agency mobility. I n almost nine out of ten cases, the individual's total career was found to be in the same agency. In Table 1, separate data are presented by rank category. Those in the highest-level positions (Level 1) have had slightly more inter-agency mobility than those in the lower level positions, but even in the former case, 86 per cent of all officials have had their entire public service career in one agency. Table 1. Distribution of Officials by Rank Category and Number of Agencies in which they have Served, Ontario Government, 1970 --

Number of agencies

-

-

--

-

--

Rank category Level I (Higher)

Level 2 (Lower)

One Two Three Total

The number o f cases in this and some subsequent tables is less than 271, the total number of usuable questionnaires. This is due to incomplete responses to some items in the returned questionnaires.

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ASSOCIATIONAL AFFILIATIONS

An examination of membership in professional associations reveals a pattern of great diversity with very little overlap from one agency to another. The exception is in cases where officials have a common professional status, for example, engineers in Transportation, Public Works and the Water Resources Commission. Still, in such cases the overlap is only a partial one, since in addition to the general professional association (in this case, for engineers), officials also hold memberships in a variety of specialized organizations reflecting their particular program area. Thus, Transportation engineers are members of roads associations. The largest common membership is in the Institute of Public Administration of Canada, an organization composed of individuals interested in public administration from either an academic o r practising perspective. Yet, only 11 per cent of the sample indicated membership in this organization. However, this was not because few officials belonged to professional associations; it is rather an indication of the spread involved. Almost one-half of the sample (49 per cent) stated membership in three or more professional associations. Fifty-four per cent indicated that they were active members of two or more professional associations. Thirty-eight per cent said they were an officer in at least one professional association. T h e lack of substantial common membership in at least one association reflected the extent of narrow professional specialization and a departmental as opposed to service-wide perspective among higher civil servants. This may also mean that management of specific programs rather than policy issues of a broad kind were of greater concern in the work of higher civil servants. Indeed, data on role orientations, to be presented below, support this view. CAREER PROFILES

About one-third of the sample entered the Ontario Public Service immediately after completion of their education. Forty per cent of the sample commenced their civil service careers within five years and 55 per cent within ten years of completing their education. For the entire sample, 28 per cent entered the Public Service at a senior level. But what are the trends over time? Has there been more recruitment of outsiders to fill senior positions in more recent years? Data collected at one point in time cannot be conclusive on this point. A higher proportion of those recruited at a later age after a prolonged career outside the public service would have retired or died in an earlier time period. Table 2 presents data showing the proportion that entered the Ontario Public Service directly after completing their education, and, for the rest, the field of activity in which they were engaged prior to entry.

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Table 2. Distribution of Officials by Principal Area of Activity Prior to Entry and Period of Entry into the Ontario Public Service, 1970 Principal area of activity prior to entry

Period of e d y Prior to 1951

1951-60

1961-70

Completion of education Gbvernment a) Federal b) Other provincial and local Business (mainly managerial) Professional a) Private practice b) University teaching c) Teaching other than university d ) Other public sector institutions Total

*Because of rounding, columns may not add u p to 100%

It is not surprising that only a small percentage, 4 per cent of those who entered in the latest time period, 1961-1970, entered directly after completion of their own education. It is unlikely that many would have attained a senior position so quickly after completing their formal education rather than after a prolonged career elsewhere. However, it is important in this regard, to note that 35 per cent of the sample entered the public service during this latest time period. I was informed by officials in the Civil Service Commission that there has been increasing external recruitment into senior positions in recent years. As was noted earlier, there had been little inter-agency mobility. This in itself would have accentuated the extent to which the rapid expansion of the 1960s, including new programs in existing agencies and the creation of new agencies, would have necessitated recruitment of outsiders. Also relevant to this point is the fact that a substantial proportion of Level 1 positions were being filled by individuals who had been in the service less than ten years. In better than two out of three of these cases, this was not due to a very rapid rise in the service, but to their lengthy occupational careers prior to their entry into the service.4 The Ontario Public Service had

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undergone considerable expansion during the eight-year period 1961-68. During the same period, the number of officials in the Senior Public Service Schedule (Level 1 in this study) increased by 73 per cent (from 64 to 111). It is interesting to note in Table 3 that over one-quarter of the officials appointed during the latest time period, 1961-70, occupied the higher status positions compared to only one-fifth of the officials appointed during 1951-60. One would expect that the reverse would be the case, that a greater proportion of those appointed in the earlier period would have attained the higher status positions. Clearly, many of the new positions created by expansion of government services in the sixties were staffed by new people. Another way of viewing this (from data not presented in this table) is that nearly one-third of all the higher status positions were held by officials who had been in the service less than ten years. Of the others, less than one-third spent at least one-half of their working careers in the public service. This supports the view that many positions were filled by outsiders instead of by promotion from within. This factor contributed to the lack of a sense of solidarity among senior officials, to be discussed further below. There are also indications, from views expressed by some officials, that it created a morale problem within the public service, chiefly among those in the upper middle levels. Given the very rapid expansion that took place in the 1960s, it is an open question as to whether large-scale recruitment of outsiders was necessary because there were insufficient numbers below the top levels considered qualified for the new positions. In this regard, it is significant that the establishment of a service-wide merit system was delayed until 1961-62 (Rich, 1973:82). It may be that a substantial proportion of those recruited earlier were not considered qualified for the top positions under the new personnel program. This view was held by many senior officials and some cabinet ministers whom I interviewed. There was also a substantial increase in the recruitment from business to senior posts in government. This was the expression of a deliberate attempt, during this period, to bring people with management experience in the private sector into the senior ranks of government. It is evident from Table 2 that while the proportion of new senior appointments in the sixties involving people coming from other government jurisdictions remained about the same as it was in the previous decade, the proportion coming from the private business sector almost doubled. PROFESSIONALISM AND THE POLITICAL PROCESS

Increasingly, the top administrative posts have been monopolized by those with professional standing in a particular field. This has

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Table 3. Distribution of Officials by Rank Category and Period of Entry into the Ontario Public Service Period of e n t y

Rank category Prior to 1951

Level 1 (Higher) Level 2 (Lower)

41% 59

1951-60

20%

80

1961-70

26% 74

Total

significant implications for the relation between the administrative process and politics. It means that professional judgments, typically presumed to be based on a body of "scientifically verified knowledge," have come more and more to compete with politically inspired decisions on the direction of policy. Some senior administrators, in the course of interviews and in written comments attached to questionnaires they had completed, have given evidence of a self-conscious awareness and concern about the relation between scientifically based professional judgments and the democratic process which prescribes that politicians elected by the people determine policy. Some administrators gave concrete examples of incidents in which there were judgments based on a scientific body of knowledge and political interventions which ran counter to these judgments. In some cases that were reported, such as aspects of the forestry management program, regional planning projects, o r the corrections program, it was claimed that this entailed what was considered by established professional standards to be expenditures of large sums of public funds in ways not conducive to the attainment of established goals. But the potential conflict between professional standards and political choices should not be overstated. By staffing the leading administrative positions and the lower-level positions leading to them with officials who possess certain specified professional qualifications, a critical political decision is being taken regarding a preference for the values associated with the profession in question. As Simon has pointed out, ". . .delegation [of responsibility] to a profession is one way for the political bodies to influence policy predictably. By selecting the profession where there is some choice, the political body can influence the values that will be implemented" (Simon, 1967:100). We can gauge the extent to which this has occurred by examining the qualifications of persons with main-line careers in the various agencies.

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But first, it should be noted how widespread was the distribution of professional qualifications. The range of professional expertise and specialization which Ontario senior public servants brought to their positions can be determined from data on the fields in which they had obtained their degrees. Of the 237 officials with university education, 37 per cent had degrees in science and engineering, 20 per cent in the social sciences and humanities, 11 per cent in medicine, 6 per cent in law and the remainder in other fields. Officials with law degrees were probably under-represented in the sample, resulting from the lower return rate for the Ministry of Justice. Most officials have had careers in one agency and based on a particular core professional activity. Thus, top administrative officials in a number of agencies have been, with few exceptions, persons with the appropriate professional background for main-line professional careers. In Transportation, it has been civil engineers; in Public Works, engineers and architects; in Mines, mining engineers and geologists; in Lands and Forests, foresters (and secondarily, biologists); in Justice, lawyers; in Education, teachers; in Health, physicians. This illustrates the diversity of professional interests among top officials. In some agencies in which there was not a clear-cut dominance of a professional field, it may be indicative of unresolved conflict and uncertainty about the major value premises underlying the programs undertaken. This would appear to have been the case with regard to the somewhat marginal position that professionally trained social workers and psychologists had in the Ministry of Correctional Services. There was a continuing tension in this agency between the custodial and rehabilitative perspectives with respect to those convicted of criminal offences and sentenced to prison. The custodial staff had traditionally provided the main career line in the ministry, leading up to superintendent of the various correctional facilities and head office administrative positions. An attempt was made to graft onto this structure, both in the field and at head office, a professional staff mainly in the social work and psychology fields. There had been a high turnover rate among the professional staff, which, a senior official explained to me, was due to a lack of acceptance of professional values and techniques by the largely custodial-minded operating staff. It can be quite difficult to change recruitment and promotion patterns to eliminate such tensions, and given the security of tenure which the permanent staff enjoy, it may take a considerable time to effectuate desired changes completely. Another example of such unresolved conflict was in the Ministry of Community and Social Services. In the past, there had been a great deal of emphasis in this department on investigative work with

240 PART THREE: WORK IN BUREAUCRACIES reference to applications for welfare assistance and on accounting and auditing functions. Here, too, some of the staff, including branch directors, were professionally trained social workers. This had led to a good deal of dissatisfaction by some of the latter over the dominant administrative style in the agency and the emphasis on paper work and budgeting. This, too, would reflect unresolved conflict over the basic mission of the agency. Here also a policy decision could be taken at the political level which would determine, through staffing changes, which professional values were to be dominant. A change can sometimes be attempted in the opposite direction, away from professionalization. Drabek reports one such attempt in the Ministry of Lands and Forests. A cabinet minister in the 1930s decided to use general administrators, the "gifted amateur" to fdl key field positions, rather than the professionally trained forester who had previously occupied them. Opening these positions to political patronage was also a consideration (Drabek, 1972:126-27, 134-35). It took that agency a couple of decades to completely restore professional hegemony over the field organization. While for those who wanted to implement changes requiring new personnel quickly ten years may be a long time, a considerable proportion of the sample of senior officials had not only entered the service recently, but a substantial proportion of these had extended careers elsewhere beforehand. Table 4 provides data on the proportion of officials in each rank category who had at least ten years of work experience prior to entry into the public service. Table 4. Distribution of Senior Officials by Rank Category and Prolonged Careers Elsewhere, Ontario Government, 1970 Prolonged careers (at least 10 yrs) prior to mtry

Rank category

Level 1 (Higher)

Level 2 (Lower)

Yes

No Total

As is to be expected, a higher proportion, close to one-half, of those in the lower-status positions had prolonged careers elsewhere, prior to joining the Ontario Public Service. It is surprising that as many as 38% of those in the top positions also had a prolonged career elsewhere before entering the public service. Many of these entered the service during the decade of 1961-70. These figures are surprising in view of the conviction held by many officials that not

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only was there little inter-agency mobility but that there was little direct entry by outsiders into senior positions. Our data do not support this view. For the entire sample, 55 per cent entered the public service without having a prolonged career elsewhere, while 44 per cent did have such a career, i.e., at least ten years' work experience prior to entry. Thus, it is reasonable to conclude that the ideal type of the bureaucratic career, based on entry immediately following completion of education and retention of civil service status until retirement, was only partially realized in the Ontario Public Service. The extensive and continuous influx of outsiders, especially at the senior levels, did militate against the formation of a sense of solidarity and strong group identity among senior civil servants. With careers narrowly prescribed within individual departments, typically combined with a narrow technical specialty in terms of education and professional standing, it is not surprising that there was not a strong sense of group solidarity in the senior levels of the service. This came out very clearly in the interviews I held with a number of senior officials. Some did not identify with the public service as such, but rather with a particular professional field which was reflected in their agency affiliation. For example, there were some senior officials in the Ministry of Education who viewed themselves as educators. The fact that they were civil servants was completely subordinate to their commitment to an educational program which they wished to advance. I was told that attempts to secure common dining facilities or a lounge for senior civil servants fell through because of lack of interest. A similar fate befell the attempt to establish a forum for discussion of common issues. The establishment of a professional institute for all civil servants with professional status failed through lack of adequate support. Many felt that they were already adequately represented by their non-civil service professional associations.

ROLE CONCEPTIONS Some systematic data were obtained, based largely on the survey questionnaire, bearing on role conceptions. I have noted in parenthesis the designation used to identify each area of responsibility in the tables that follow. This formulation represents a revised version of one developed by Bruce Hackett in his study of higher civil servants in California (Hackett, 1967). Respondents were asked to provide the following information: Below are listed five aspects of the work of senior public officials. All of them overlap to some extent, but do entail a distinctly different emphasis. In Column (1) rank these five in terms of the relative amount of demand

.

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each makes on your total time, energy and responsibility, at the present time, giving a "1" to the most demanding, a "2" to the next most demanding, and so on. In column (2), rank them a second time in terms of the relative amount of consideration you feel you should be able to give to each aspect of your work under ideal circumstances. (1) (2) Keeping up with technical, theoretical, and/or administrative developments in your programme area, or in other ways enlarging your professional capabilities. ("Professional Growth") -- Preparing answers to questions raised in the Legislature, drafting replies to letters for the Minister, receiving persons or delegations referred to you by the Minister, appearing before Committees of the Legislature, and providing information or explaining programmes to MPP'S. ("Ministerial-Legislative") -- Working with clientele and other interest groups and associations in receiving or providing information and explaining and promoting agency programmes. ("Clientele") - - Advising your political superiors o r working with other senior officials on policy development. ("Policy") - - General management of your department or other agency, division, branch or programme, and the direction of subordinates. ("Management")

--

I have tabulated the responses in Table 5, giving those items ranked first or second a " h i g h rating and those ranked third, fourth or fifth a "low" rating. Table 5. "Ideal" and "Actual" Responsibilities: Proportion of Officials giving High (First or Second Choice) rank to each of Five Areas of Responsibility, Ontario Government, 1970

% High rankingsfor: Responsibility "Actual"

"Ideal"

Professional growth Ministerial-legislative Clientele Policy Management

The area of responsibility ranked high (first or second choice) with by far the greatest frequency was "management." Most of the officials in the sample administered major programs. It is not surprising, given the data already examined, that "policy development" lagged behind "management" responsibilities. The educational and career experience of civil servants served to restrict their perspectives to management of a particular program. I here refer to the tendency toward narrow technical specialization and a career line bounded by the single agency to which almost all civil servants had been restricted.

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The professional and organizational commitments to which this gave rise was conducive to the development of a perspective in which policy was taken for granted rather than viewed as problematic and within one's area of responsibility. The position evaluation survey commissioned by the Ontario government in 1967 (Hickling-Johnston, passim) ranked senior positions on the basis of seven weighted factors. The highest weight was given to the factor titled "Impact on Policy-Socio-Economic." Yet neither for the entire sample reported in Table 5 nor for the highest-level officials (Level 1) in Table 6 did the respondents conceive of their responsibilities in this way. Since I expected a concern with policy to be somewhat closer to the "management" responsibility in frequency of high ranking for those in the top administrative positions, I have provided a separate tabulation distinguishing between Level 1 (higher) officials and Level 2 (lower) officials in Table 6. Table 6. "Ideal" and "Actual" Responsibilities: Proportion of Officials giving High (First or Second Choice) Rank to each Five Areas of Responsibility by Level of Official, Ontario Government, 19'70

% of High rankings for offxiuls in Responsibility Level I

Professional growth Ministeriallegislative Clientele Policy Management

Level 2

"Actual"

"Ideal"

"Actual"

"Ideal"

10%

24%

23%

47%

23 17 61 91

10

20

6

18

32

67

43

27 52

85

87

76

The small proportion of officials giving a high rank to the scope which their "actual" work requirements allowed for their professional development and the much higher proportion who ranked it high in the "ideal" rankings suggests that there was some dissatisfaction with the lack of sufficient opportunities for professional growth among senior officials. I expected that the emphasis on "professional growth" would have been greater among Level 2 officials who were most involved with applying professional knowledge and skills in their work than the Level 1 officials in the top administrative posts. This can also be followed up in Table 6. The sharp drop in the number of officials preferring a high ranking for the "ministerial-legislative" area of responsibility suggests

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that there was widespread disaffection with the demands on time and energy that these activities consumed. Some officials with whom I discussed the matter did express the view that the time consumed by preparing answers to queitions in the legislature for the minister, drafting replies to letters for the minister, and so on, distracted them from "more important" work. This view is consistent with the general process, which has taken place over the past several decades in constitutional-democratic polities, for power to shift from the legislative to the executive branch. Many senior officials with whom I spoke lamented this trend and considered it a problem rather than a blessing that the opposition parties in the legislature were becoming less and less effective in influencing policy development, or even presenting a good case for alternative policies in debates in the legislature. However, none had any suggestions as to how this process could be checked or reversed. "Clientele relations," which in most cases would involve interaction with representatives of interest groups, ranked in the middle in terms of the proportion of high rankings among senior officials, behind the general management and policy development responsibilities and ahead of the ministerial-legislative and professional growth responsibilities. This finding is not surprising, since it was evident from the interviews that many senior officials devoted considerable time to meeting with representatives of organizations of one kind or another that were in some way affected by the agency's area of operations. There was a slight decrease in the proportion of those who ranked this responsibility high in ideal terms compared to those who ranked it high in terms of the actual time and energy devoted to this responsibility. In the ideal column, responsibility for work with interest groups falls from third place to a poor fourth place, well behind the proportion giving high ideal ranking to professional growth. As expected, the proportion of high "policy" rankings in the first column ("actual") is substantially higher for Level 1 officials than it is for Level 2 officials. Officials at both levels indicated that a change in the direction of more attention devoted to policy would be desirable. A greater emphasis on professional growth was considered desirable by officials in both levels, but the emphasis was very substantially greater for the Level 2 officials. This would suggest that there may have been widespread dissatisfaction with the insufficient scope for professional growth at this level. Dissatisfaction from the activities associated with the ministerial-legislative area of responsibility was common to both groups. The activity itself was a somewhat more salient one in the role-conceptions of the higher-level officials. With respect to career types, it is interesting to note that a lower

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percentage of those with careers only in the Ontario Public Service gave high ideal rankings to professional responsibilities than did those who had a career in other governmental jurisdictions or in non-governmental positions. This suggests that more of those who entered the Ontario Public Service immediately o r soon after completion of their education either did not have or no longer aspired to achieve high professional growth in their work. T H E POLITICS OF HIGHER CIVIL SERVICE

From interviews with cabinet ministers (as well as doumentary evidence referred to in Note 2), it is clear that the political leadership in the government looked to the highest-ranking stratum of civil servants to give the highest importance in their work to their contributions to policy development. But many of these top officials did not view their responsibilities in this way. They perceived their responsibilities in the area of general management as having top priority. I was struck by a reluctance on the part of many of the highest-ranking officials I interviewed to ackowledge their role in policy-making. A small minority did relish their influence on policy matters, and some spoke disparagingly of the ineptitude of their "political masters." But, a far larger number regretted what they considered to be an abnormal and, hopefully, only temporary situation; their ministers were not taking the time to understand the issues and many were ducking the responsibility to pick one among the policy options presented to them by their deputy minister and persuade cabinet colleagues of its virtues. In effect, deputy ministers were often virtually carrying their ministers. And in a surprising number of cases, the ministers in question were aware of this and willing to acknowledge it. In interviews with them, they spoke of other pressing business: the lengthy cabinet meetings, the debates in the legislature, the need to look after their constituents back home. Whatever the differences in accounting for the situation, the outcome was similar. T h e ministers were dependent on their deputies, career civil servants, "to tell them what to do." Deputy ministers were becoming involved in making political decisions because of a vacuum of leadership at the top. A concrete example may be helpful. One deputy minister complained that he was continually being called upon to make decisions which his minister should be making. His minister would call him in to ask what should be done about a particular matter. It would be something involving a policy issue with political implications which the minister should decide. T h e deputy minister and other departmental officials had already done the background work. They had presented the minister with the alternatives and indicated the consequences that would likely result from implement-

246 PART THREE: WORK IN BUREAUCRACIES ing each alternative. When the minister asked (and this virtually always happened), "What should I recommend to Cabinet?" this deputy minister had been strongly tempted to say: "Mr. Minister, that is a political decision which only you and your cabinet colleagues can make. We have already done our work. You have all the background material that you need to reach a knowledgeable decision. But that decision is yours to make." At the time of our interview, this informant had not spoken in such terms with his minister. However, he did feel uncomfortable about the extent to which he was being drawn into making political decisions for his minister. This was not an isolated case. A principal recommendation of the first interim report of the Committee on Government Productivity5 entailed greatly increased central control over senior appointments and transfers at the expense of the principle of seniority. In my questionnaire, officials were asked whether o r not they approved of senior civil service appointments being made at the discretion of the government. T h e question was worded in this way: Some toplevel positions entail extensive participation in policy development and require a great deal of political sensitivity. Should appointment to these positions be made at the discretion of the government without regard for the promotion expectations of career officials?

A surprisingly large proportion, over 40 per cent answered in the affirmative. What makes it surprising is that these positions have for a long time been regarded as the apex of the career public service, the rewards for competent performance in less senior posts by those who had committed themselves to a lifetime of service. In the two tables that follow, only those whose responses expressed unequivocal support o r opposition to removing top-level positions from the classified public service are included. T h e remainder expressed reservations of various kinds which made it virtually impossible to categorize their response one way o r the other; in short, they were fence-sitters. Table 7. Removal of Senior Posts from the Classified Civil Service by Rank Category, Ontario Government, 1970

Rank category Level 1 Support Oppose Total

Level 2

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Those who supported the removal of senior posts from the top rungs of the classified public service expressed strong feelings about incompetent officials occupying the highest posts because of undue emphasis on the seniority principle. Many stressed the need for much greater mobility between government and other sectors of the work world. Some wanted to limit incumbency in a high-level post to a five-year period, arguing that officials could not be expected to make a creative contribution to a particular program for a longer period than that. Those who were opposed to any significant change from the traditional career pattern expressed strong feelings about the demoralizing effects on the public service of bringing in outsiders. The career aspirations of lower-level officials would be very adversely affected. They also emphasized the importance of technical competence in these positions and the need to know the governmental administrative machinery. Table 7 shows that a substantially higher proportion of the top-level officials expressed support for the removal of senior posts from the regular career public service compared to lower-level officials. Table 8 focuses on the distinction between those officials who entered the Ontario Public Service at a senior level and those who did not. Officials who were appointed directly to senior positions and officials in the highest ranking positions were less prone to stress the importance of seniority in appointments to the top positions. They viewed exclusively within-service promotion to the top ranks decidedly more negatively than did those who had spent some time in lower level positions and then moved up into the senior ranks through promotions. Table 8. Removal of Senior Posts from the Classified Civil Service by Level of Entry of Official, Ontario Government, 1970 Entered the Fblic s h e at senior leuel Yes

No

Support Oppose Total

It is consistent with the data presented above that 43 per cent of those who opposed removal of senior posts from the classified public service had entered the Ontario Public Service immediately after completion of their formal education. It is understandable that those

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who worked their way u p the ladder after many years of service would be more inclined to give greater weight to the seniority factor in senior appointments. DISCUSSION

The data reported in this essay can best be used as a base line for comparative analysis. I wish to stress the tentative and hypothetical status of the generalizations that are sprinkled throughout the following discussion. An examination of the careers of senior government officials in Ontario in the early seventies revealed a pattern of narrow professional specialization, little inter-agency mobility, and few cross-cutting associational affiliations. The rapid expansion in overall size and the creation of many new agencies in the sixties was accompanied by an unusually high rate of recruitment of outsiders into senior posts. This constellation of career patterns has implications for the extent to which senior officials may be expected to be concerned with policy development as compared to general management responsibilities. The problematics of political control of senior appointed officials is linked to both their career patterns and role conceptions. In Weber's classic study of bureaucracy, he attributed the power position of permanent officials to two kinds of knowledge: First, technical knowhow in the widest sense of the word, acquired through specialized training. . . . In addition, the bureaucrat has offwiul information, which is only available through administrative channels and which provides him with the facts on which he can base his actions. (Italics in original) (Weber, 1968, 111: 14 1718).

The "specialized training" of which Weber wrote is typically acquired in institutions of higher education prior to entry into the civil service. We have had occasion to examine both the extent and range of professional expertise acquired through university studies. The "official information" of which Weber wrote is a function of day-to-day ongoing participation in the administrative process. This kind of knowledge is ideal-typically reflected in the permanent career of the bureaucrats. Considerable diversity in career patterns could be expected to weaken the sense of corporate group membership and collective interests among officialdom. It would also be conducive toward the development of a narrowly defined technical view of roles in contrast to a more broadly based view which includes the policy-making process as problematic and open to influence rather than as a "given." One significant issue is the extent of inter-agency mobility. Much mobility of this type would have enhanced the development of a

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service-wide perspective and the feeling of belonging to a select group, a corps of administrators. But little inter-agency mobility resulted in a more insular outlook, producing a sense of identification with a particular ministry and, in many cases, commitment to a professional group other than that of "senior government official." Another issue with regard to career patterns is the degree to which higher civil servants have had a lifetime career in the public service. Much direct entry into senior-level positions from other sectors of the work world rather than promotions from within would militate against the development of a group consciousness among higher civil servants. It may also produce conditions making for a morale problem in the service, particularly just below the top levels. Related to career patterns are associational affiliations, especially those concerned with occupation. These are of interest in that there may be little or much overlap in the affiliations of officials in different programs or agencies. Such affiliations contribute to the commitments and values which officials bring to their work. T h e amount of mutual interaction in associational settings o r separation into diverse affiliations is another important factor determining group consciousness and solidarity. We anticipated that the career patterns of civil servants would also have some impact on their role conceptions. Narrow professional specialization, a diversity of associational affiliations, combined with commitment to a particular program in one agency of government, would have definite implications for the extent to which officials were concerned with the development of basic policy. In this case, it resulted in more of a commitment to management responsibilities and a tendency to take policy for granted." The structure of government organization tells us much about the degree to which centralized controls are operative with regard to recruitment and promotion and other conditions affecting public service careers. T o the extent that individual agencies retain considerable autonomy in their operations, the likelihood of a common outlook and a sense of group identification developing among higher civil servants as a whole is thereby weakened. This also holds true for the issue of political control of the bureaucracy. If the bureaucracy is highly segmentalizqd, it is possible for the premier to maintain overall control through the cabinet without facing a competitor for control among higher civil servants who also have an operational base in powerful central agencies. Shortly after the completion of this study, the Government of Ontario began to implement a plan for the reorganization of the departmental structure as well as significant changes in the recruitment and assignment of senior officials. These changes were intended

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to result in greatly increased inter-agency mobility and the establishment of powerful central coordinating bodies to be manned by higher civil servants. The build-up of secretariats staffed by senior civil servants for the policy fields and other central organs of government also poses a problem of political control. If, previously, senior civil servants brought to their responsibilities insular and narrowly focused perspectives, the opportunity to be afforded large numbers of them to develop a broad government-wide outlook also risks the development of a challenge to the ultimate policy-making function of the cabinet. Administrators with a narrow departmental outlook and extra-governmental professional commitments may be easier to control from the top than the development of a corps of general administrators. T h e problem of political control of the bureaucracy in parliamentary democracies is essentially an insoluble one. It can be dealt with more o r less satisfactorily, but each attempted solution creates new dilemmas and problems. T h e proposed changes in the Government of Ontario were explained in debates in the legislature as aimed at preserving and strengthening political control over the bureaucracy. One of the new policy ministers justified the reorganization by summarizing the state of affairs which previously existed in this way: ". . .(T)he majority of the ministers simply had too much to do. They were turning into mere approvers of policies that emanated out of the civil service. . ." (Ontario Legislature, 1972:42 19). The outcome, for reasons outlined above, is uncertain. Another study ofathehigher public service in Ontario would make it possible to determine more conclusively the consequences of the structural changes for the career patterns and role conceptions of senior officials and the extent of their involvement in the policy-making process.

Notes I . For a comprehensive statement on the inadequacy of the conventional wisdom applied to the Canadian political context, see Kernaghan, 1976:432-56. A review of much of the relevant literature will also be found in this article. 2. There is evidence from documentary sources bearing on this issue. In a report shown to the author, a study commissioned by the Ontario government and carried out following consultations with the Premier and the Provincial Treasurer provided for "impact on policy-socio-economic" getting highest rating and "political sensitivity" the second-highest rating in ranking top civil service posts for the purpose of establishing salary

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3.

4.

5.

6.

25 1

levels (Hickling-Johnston, 1967:xxx). It is not surprising that politicians at the highest level of government were prepared to acknowledge (at least in a document classified as "Confidential") that senior career civil servants were heavily involved in the policy-making process, and that a sensitivity to political considerations in their work would have a crucial bearing on their value to the government. The empirical data reported in this paper was part of a research project supported by the Institute of Public Administration of Canada and the Research Committee of the University of Calgary. A more complete statement of the project would be found in Rich, 1973. A brief summation can be found in Rich, 1974. It is also significant to note the wide variety of occupational experience which those with prolonged careers prior to entry have had. Only one-quarter of these came from other government jurisdictions. Another quarter had careers (mainly managerial) in business and the remainder were scattered through a variety of professional careers in different kinds of work settings. This committee, composed equally of top government officials and senior executives of major corporations, was established December 23, 1969 by order-in-council ". . .to inquire into all matters pertaining to the management of the Government of Ontario and to make such recommendations as in its opinion will improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the Government of Ontario. . ." (Committee on Government Productivity, 1971: Appendix 1). In a letter to the author dated January 15, 1973, H. I. Macdonald, Deputy Minister of Treasury, Economics, and Intergovernmental Affairs (widely acknowledged as the top civil servant and chief policy adviser to the government at the time), wrote as follows: "While general management is still a critical function of a senior official in the Ontario Government, I think you will find that following the recent reorganization of the Ontario Government into policy fields, senior government officials are required to direct more of their attention to policy development."

References Civil Service Commission of Ontario. Annual Report. Toronto: Queen's Printer, 1961, 1968. Committee on Government Productivity. Interim Report No. 2. Toronto: Queen's Printer, 1971. . Report No. 10. Toronto: Queen's Printer, 1973. Drabek, Stanislaus. "The Ontario Department of Lands and Forests: 1941-1967." Doctoral Dissertation, University of Toronto, 1972. Hackett, Bruce. Higher Civil S m n t s in California: A Social and Political Portrait. Berkeley and Davis: University of California, 1967. Hickling-Johnston. "Position Evaluation and Compensation Plan: The Senior Public Service-Province of Ontario." Toronto, 1967. (Confidential). Kernaghan, Kenneth. "Politics, Policy and Public Servants: Political Neutrality Revisited." Canadian Public Administration, 19, no. 3 ( 1976), 432-56. Ontario Legislature. Debates, June 26, 1972. Rich, Harvey. "Higher Civil Servants in Ontario: A Case Study of an Administrative Elite." Doctoral Dissertation, Berkeley: University of California, 1973.

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"Research Note: From a Study of Higher Civil Servants in Ontario." Canadian Public Administration, 17 ( 1974), 328-34. Simon, Herbert A. "The Changing Theory and Changing Practice of Public Administration," in I thiel de Sola Pool, ed . Contemporary Political Science: Toward Empirical Theory. New York: McGraw Hill, 1967. Weber, Max. Economy and Society. Edited by G . Roth and C. Wittich. New York: Bedminister Press, 1968.

Reflections on Work Organization Among Structural Steelworkers FRANK E. JONES

I n choosing a to* for my contribution to this volume in honour of Oswald Hall, it seemed appropiate to describe the social organixation of work gangs in the steel erection industry, the topic of my master's thesis which was supemired by Professor Hall. Through his contacts with industry in Montreal, Oswald Hall provided me with an entry to the steel erection industry. With a limited idea of what a sociological perspective was, I did know that in Hall's view, it meant getting yourself into situations where the action could be observed, recording your observations and then trying to make sense of them. Accordingly, for several weeks I turned up at a building site at 7 A.M. and, except for occasional absences to attend classes, stayed till the end of the working day. Neither undergraduate nor graduate training had pfepared mefor these early morning sorties and for outside work during a Montreal winter. A more important concern than the discomfort associated with my data-gathering, however, was my uncertainty, lusting for some time, about what data should be gathered and what my observations, dutifully recorded, really meant. Although Oswald Hall did not believe in close supervision and therefore did not respond with precise instwtions, he gave great support by taking my work seriously, showing great interest i n myfield notes, reading them thoroughly and discussing them with me at length. Through his interest, he conveyed a very much needed sense of value to what I was doing, recognizing that this was what I needed more than direction.

T h e erection of the steel structure of a building, in the 1950s, required three basic operations: erecting the steel as specified by the design, checking that it is in plumb, and riveting the parts of the structure together. An observer would see men, under the direction of the foreman and assistant foremen, the latter known as "pushers," raising the trusses and girders, with the aid of hoists o r cranes, to form a structure. Some men would work at ground level, attaching

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slings, while others would work, at various heights depending on the design and progress of the work, guiding the parts into place and bolting them together. Separately, but in sequence, other men forming a plumbing gang would check that the structure was in plumb and make any necessary adjustments. Finally, riveting teams of four men each, working at whatever level required, would make the permanent connections between the parts of the structure. What an observer might not see immediately is the organizational context within which this work is carried on. Although bureaucracy is the usual organizational context of work in modern societies, other kinds of organizational structure are possible. The social organization of steel erection work gangs is one such alternative to bureaucracy. In this paper,' I describe the main features of that social organization and discuss its relevance to contemporary organizational alternatives to bureaucracy.

The Social Organization of Steel Erection Work Gangs THE DIVISION O F LABOUR From a structural viewpoint, a division of labour could be described-slingers, connectors, bolters, riveters (and a further specialization within riveting teams)-but such specialization of task could differ from the assignment of workers. A competent ironwork e l was expected to be able to perform all of these operations. Moreover, at the beginning and toward the end of a project, workers might be assigned any or all of these tasks. Specialization, then, was most apparent when a project was well under way but much less apparent in the early and final stages of the project. However, this statement requires some qualification. The work force on the two building sites and generally on other such sites throughout the Montreal area was ethnically differentiated: most of the ironworkers were either French Canadian or Canadian Indian,3 with only a tiny representation of other ethnic groups. An ethnic division of labour overrode the task division of labour. On the two projects I observed, Indians were perceived as riveters. This ethnic division of labour was further substantiated by information obtained from workers on these two building projects as well as from other company employees. In point of fact, a few Indians were assigned non-riveting jobs on these projects and as there were other projects where Indians composed most of the work force, they must have been assigned to all the tasks. Still, the stereotype of the Indian as a riveter prevailed.

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I n retrospect, this ethnic division of labour, may have helped me to recognize the underlying principle of work gang organization. As the Indian workers could certainly match their French-Canadian counterparts in skill and experience, I concluded that the ethnic division of labour had its basis in unjust discrimination, a consequence that ought not to result from the impersonality rooted in bureaucratic procedures. I was alerted, therefore, to look either for the distortion of such procedures o r for some different organizational principle. As a result, my observations of various aspects of work gang organization led me to the conclusion that in contrast to bureaucratic impersonality, the underlying structural principle of the work gangs was expressed in terms of an emphasis on personal commitments among the workers, both supervisory and rank and file. A dominant feature was the procedure for hiring o r firing workers. T h e overall responsibility at the project level was assigned to a foreman who had the right, in custom, to choose his own workers. Although this right was not unconditional-a chosen worker might not be immediately available, the project size might require a labour force larger than the number of workers a foreman could claim on a personal basis-a foreman could establish a work gang whose nucleus consisted of workers who had worked with him over the years. Thus, workers would be identified as Foreman X'S man and could expect, even if employed on another project, to be transferred to Foreman X'S project. When the demand for labour was at its maximum, the foreman would assign his workers to tasks on the basis of skill and experience: the more demanding, more responsible tasks to the more experienced men. But at initial o r terminal stages, the foreman laid off o r transferred men on the basis of his ties with them. Those whom he most trusted, who had worked for him longer, were more likely to stay with him but had to be content with a more general range of tasks, some demanding less skill than those assigned at times of peak activity." Although selection criteria, skill, experience and seniority were inextricably confounded with personal commitment between the foreman and his men it was apparent that selection was made on the foreman's judgment and not on impersonal records o r periodic systematic evaluations. Such a practice, although based in experience, could easily allow favouritism: given two able men, it was easy for a foreman to choose "his" man. Moreover, other evidence revealing the presence o r absence of personal committments be tween workers supported my conclusion that such personal commitments were of paramount importance. Thus where, on the basis of prejudice and discrimination, there were no personal commitments between foreman and workers, as in the case of the Indians, the hiring and task assignment procedures

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described above did not apply. Most of the Indians were hired at a stage when riveting operations were most prominent but were laid off as other tasks were completed and replaced by French Canadians who had been working at other tasks. In addition to the emphasis on personal ties in relation to hiring, firing and to the assignment of tasks, this orientation also regulated other activities at the work site. At lunch, for example, which was eaten in a warm shack, the French Canadians forming a circle nearest the stove, the Indians forming an outer circle, the conversation frequently turned to incidents which had occurred on past projects. Someone would tell a story about a foreman who was a great character, someone else would add an account of the same foreman's exploits o r tell of some other comparable character. At other times, the stories would focus on some spectacular event, usually accidents associated with the construction of well-known buildings-especially stories of miraculous escapes from falls from high levels. Among the functions served by these stories, such as the reduction of anxiety associated with dangerous work, the emphasis on the personal characteristics of well-known ironworkers served to associate teller and audience with the hero. The teller did not speak of "foreman" o r "ironworker" but of Joe Lalande, Albert Mongeon o r Tom Redoak. Moreover, those in the audience who were personally involved in the recounted exploits could'demonstrate their personal ties to the main characters, Drinking was another seemingly minor but regular activity on one project, occurring on the job most Friday afternoons. Someone would be sent to buy a bottle of liquor which would then be shared among a certain group of workers-the foreman and his team. T h e Indians were always excluded from this drinking group, as were other French-Canadian workers who had not established ties with the foreman. This same drinking group joined together occasionally for drinks after work at a nearby tavern. On another project, cohesion was expressed other than through drinking: the foreman granted pay advances to certain workers and not to others; in the face of an enforced rule forbidding workers entry to the foreman's shack, certain workers were permitted to warm themselves in the shack and to join the conversation. I concluded that the various social activities, such as the drinking and the shack and conversational privileges, served to reinforce the personal ties which had developed on the job over the years-between the foreman and "his" workers and among these workers themselves. Although there was certainly a degree of hierarchy, the foreman having clear-cut authority over his pushers and they over the rank and file ironworkers, there was certainly no clear division of authority; the foreman could overrule a pusher or take over authority

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from him in a particular operation. Moreover, although the foreman was subject to the authority of a managerial structure external to the project, he was given considerable freedom in decision-making. T h e project was seen as the foreman's responsibility.5 It would seem possible to adopt bureaucratic procedures by setting a clear-cut hierarchy of authority, by instituting hiring procedures and rules emphasizing performance with the objective of achieving impersonal decisions in relation to personnel selection and task assignment. However, such a bureaucratic structure was not evident. Why did management, which had established routine procedures, including an apprenticeship training plan and periodic performance tests of workers in the steel fabrication division, legitimize a personalistic6 organization in the erection division for the work gangs? At the time, my answer was that the predominance of personalistic organization as the social organization of ironworkers seemed to result from the conditions of the industry rather than from an explicit design of industrial relations intended to promote either efficiency or worker satisfaction. Although the technology was changing, construction in Montreal, especially as it concerned steel, was a seasonal activity. Moreover, the industry was subject to fluctuating demand. T o meet demand, however varying, the company required a labour force of a certain size consisting of experienced ironworkers. It was not so much that the technical skills were difficult to learn-very little formal generalized o r specialized training was required of ironworkers-but it was a dangerous occupation and experienced workers had developed the required skills for working at high levels and had overcome the related anxieties.' Danger was a constant element of the work: the possibility of falling from a height was ever-present but men also faced injury in operations in which heavy steel parts were in motion. Danger featured in the stories of the past, accidents occurred, experienced workers refused to work under conditions perceived as dangerous, such as when it was raining o r snowing. There was a high turnover of new recruits-voluntary or involuntary-resulting mainly from an inability to work at heights. Thus, it would seem important for the company to maintain a corps of experienced ironworkers on whom it could depend while augmenting its additional labour needs by hiring casual workers, some of whom might acquire the necessary skills and stay in the occupation. In addition, the company could recruit the Indians who were specialized as ironworkers. Whether the Indians worked in Montreal, elsewhere in Canada or in the United States, they had limited opportunities for employment in other occupations. Bureaucratic procedures could have been developed as a means of providing

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the necessary corps of experienced workers: if experience were equated with years of service, seniority might serve as the defining principle of an experienced core labour force; and if unconditional seniority was impractical, workers could be regularly rated on their agility, climbing ability, fearlessness and dependability as well as on their mechanical skills. T h e company, however, chose not to institute such procedures. Indeed, there is little evidence to suggest that an explicit choice was made. Given the foreman's heavy responsibility and the company's consequent heavy investment in him, it is reasonable to suggest that the foreman's judgment of a good worker would be more reliable than any impersonal procedure-he worked with the men day by day and both his own safety and his career depended on his judgments-and was the basis for institutionalizing the personalistic principle. This legitimation of the foreman's right to choose his own team allowed the foreman to surround himself with experienced, dependable workers and to provide these workers with security of employment as well as the confidence associated with an experienced foreman. While the workers were undoubtedly dependent for regular employment on the foreman's good will, the foreman was also bound to maintain appropriate role performance o r he would lose his workers to another foreman. Such an exchange of benefits could be expected to control the behaviour of the participants in the relationship. As I could observe within one company a bureaucratic model operating for one set of operations, steel fabrication, and a different model for another set, the projects of the erection division, I had some reason to conclude that organizational structure was determined by the nature of the activities carried on within the enterprise, specifically that work gang organization had emerged as a response to the fluctuating demand characteristic of the industry. Although I continue to think that organizational structure is not independent of the activities of an enterprise, I am ready to concede that other determinants may operate. Consequently, I would modify my conclusion that management legitimated personalistic organization solely because it served to maintain a skilled core labour force in the context of the special motivational problems associated with high steel work and to suggest that management may have believed that the work gangs, as organized, were more efficient than if they were organized in any other way. While neither I nor the company explored this possibility at the time, it is reasonable to conclude, given the company's dominant position in the industry, that its erection operations achieved an acceptable level of efficiency. Although the workers exercised no choice over work organization, neither did they complain about it nor express preferences for some other form of

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organization. Perhaps this was because their satisfaction was greater than it would have been in a bureaucratic structure. I have no evidence to test this retrospective analysis but if my speculations are not wildly out of line, work gang organization may be regarded as an operationally effective alternative to bureaucracy.

Relevance to Contemporary Interests in the Sociology of Organizations My analysis, initially and retrospectively, portrays work gang organization as an alternative to bureaucracy. As various alternatives to bureaucracy have emerged in recent years, claiming considerable interest among students of organizations, it is appropriate to consider if my analysis, although based on research of modest scope and undertaken some thirty years ago, has any relevance for these contemporary models. Before proceeding to such a consideration, it is necessary to attempt a brief summary of the main directions of the search for alternatives to bureaucracy. In some industrial organizations, innovations have been introduced with the objective of "enriching" work in the sense that a greater range and variety of tasks are assigned to employees; and, in some instances, employees are given responsibility for determining actual work procedures (see Bolweg, 1976: Ch. 3 for a general statement of principles underlying job redesign). The most familiar examples are the changes introduced by Volvo and Saab where, in some locations, assembly operations were rearranged to provide a greater number and variety of tasks to be performed by workers engaged in automobile manufacture, to allow for an exchange of tasks among workers and for choice in the way the tasks were to be performed. While some efforts at job enrichment have been attempted without changing existing technology, technical change, in other instances, has redefined jobs and promoted reorganization of the workplace. Probably the best known examples are represented by the technology broadly described as continuous Focess (Woodward, 1965) which is alleged to enrich jobs by eliminating monotonous tasks and by allocating substantial responsibility for the productive processes (Blauner, 1964: 167; but see Braverman, 1974). Although these examples represent changes introduced to the shop floor of large industrial organizations, the idea which rejects the principle of organizing work in terms of a specialized division of labour can be extended to a wide variety of work activities. Another prominent innovation in the organization of the workplace is directed to the decision-making structure and process rather than to changes in the

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task structure. These innovations8 in decision-making take a great variety of forms. They include the exhaustive responsibilities, as legally defined at least, in work organizations in Yugoslavia (Adizes, 197 l), the various forms of co-determination existent in European countries (Batstone and Davies, 1976) which vary in the extent that employees are informed, consulted or participate in decisions, and the works councils which are limited to informative or advisory functions. They could also include those instances where employees have become full or part-owners of industrial and service organizations. It is apparent, even from this brief summary, that work gang organization differs considerably from these various contemporary models. Neither job redesign nor industrial democracy could be associated with work gang organization. While most contemporary models have been consciously developed for ideological or instrumental reasons, it was my impression from conversations and interviews that work gang organization had developed more by trial and error than through rational planning. However, if job redesign o r models of industrial democracy are regarded as intended solutions to either problems of efficiency o r of motivation? work gang organization-an effective operating alternative to bureaucracy in terms of efficiency and satisfaction at a time when bureaucracy is the largely unchallenged model for the organization of enterpriselo-might have some relevance for contemporary innovations. For example, the personalistic emphasis on procedures for hiring, firing and for assigning workers to their tasks caused me to consider the remarkable tenacity of bureaucratic organization at the level of work operations where various models of modified decision-making structures have been implemented. Thus, within the spectrum that includes' the modest decision-making rights associated with codetermination in Western Europe and the exhaustive decisionmaking rights associated with workers' control as manifested in Yugoslavia, the substantive work of the organization is nonetheless performed within the context of a managerial or supervisory hierarchy, a conventional division of labour, with assignment on the basis of technical competence,-in other words, bureaucratic organization. Not only is this apparent from research on such organizations (Adizes, 19'71; Tannenbaum et al., 1974), it is also suggested by a tendency to evaluate such models in exclusively formal terms, that is, by directing consideration to formal decision-making responsibilities and to the extent that workers, in filling their decision-making roles, realize their formal expectations. This tendency to accept bureaucratic organization at operational levels11 is surprising since it has, potentially at least, harmful consequences for workers' control-

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resulting in a flow of power to the managers and promoting a disharmony of interests rooted in the division of labour. While its persistence is perhaps partly explained by an acceptance of a given state of technology as dictating workplace organization, it is also possible that where personal selection and task assignment are concerned, a concern for justice is prominent. Thus, although the impersonality associated with the use of rules and routine procedures may be seen as alienating, these rules and procedures may also be seen as constraints on favouritism which results in injustice in the distribution of employment, tasks and rewards. In this respect, there can be no doubt that work gang organization resulted in injustice for most Indian and for some non-Indian ironworkers. Nothing might be gained, then, if bureaucratic organization were simply replaced by personalistic organization. However, my conclusion that work gang organization, despite its failings, did measure u p fairly well on the criteria of efficiency and worker satisfaction reminded me that this was consistent with evidence from other research, mostly in the sociometric and human relations traditions, which associated efficiency and satisfaction with an orientation to the person and to personal commitments among workers. These positive consequences of personalistic organization, then, suggest that the possibility of incorporating it into a contemporary model, such as workers' control, might be considered. As the injustice observed in the work gangs may be one of several possible empirical outcomes, it might be useful to consider the nature of relationship between forms of authority structure and procedures for personnel selection and assignment. In fact, raising this issue reminded me of the tendency in the development of contemporary alternatives to bureaucracy to treat various aspects of organization as if they were independent of each other. I n general, job redesign models place little emphasis on changing the authority structure, while models which require changing the authority structure neglect matters of job redesign. This tendency, implied in my discussion of the retention of bureaucratic elements in substantive work operations, seems worth underlining as a weakness in contemporary work. Although I did not explore the relationship between authority structures and regulatory procedures in depth, it did seem to me that while they seemed to be independent of each other, the nature of their relationship might be determined by other variables. Even so, the relationship appears to be complex. Thus, an hierarchical organization or an authority o r decision-making structure that allowed for equal participation could adopt either impersonal or personal procedures.12 However, if decisions concerning assignment are made some distance from the area of operations, such as the shop

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floor, impersonal procedures are likely to regulate personnel selection and assignment. However, when decisions are made closer to the operational area and where participation is institutionalized, impersonal procedures may still be employed even though those involved may have knowledge of the persons concerned and of their personal commitments to others.13 Despite the apparent complexity of this relationship, it might be worth while in future work to attempt to establish the conditions which would produce different outcomes of distributive justice when participants in a work place have the right to choose their own work mates. Under conditions of free choice, an unequal distribution of benefits and deprivations might be expected as there is a tendency for sociometric stars and isolates to be identified. However, if there are constraints, such as a requirement that everyone be chosen for some work group or task, the scale of injustice might be reduced although not eliminated. Whether my reflections suggest the most fruitful way of conceptualizing the issue, the general direction suggested by the apparent operational success of work gang organization is to pursue ways of modifying those elements of bureaucracy which result in impersonality along with modifications in tasks and authority structure.

A Final Comment I have found it interesting to try to link my early research to recent developments in the sociology of organizations. But such retrospective exercises cannot substitute for new theory and new research directed to specific problems. Still, my reflections on my early research do call attention to an effective working model as an alternative to bureaucracy. Even though it is quite different from contemporary models, it does stimulate some thought on a few shortcomings in current approaches. While I would not recommend that a great deal of energy be directed,to reanalysis of past research, if it can stimulate new ideas and research, some effort should be made in this direction. It could also result infiller use of the relatively few empirical studies of organizations undertaken in Canada.

Notes 1. My analysis is based on data obtained by observation on two building sites in Montreal in 1949-50. The company responsible for steel erection on the site, a leader in the industry, provided access to the site by employing me as a timekeeper. Company officials and workers were aware that I was

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studying work operations. I also obtained data through interviews with personnel at various levels in the company and from company personnel records. Detailed discussion of data-gathering procedures and of my analysis may be found in my master's thesis (Jones, 1950). 2. The label used in the industry for this occupation. 3. The Indians belonged to the Mohawk tribe, residing mainly at Caughnawaga. They began working in high steel toward the end of the nineteenth century. Before long, it was recognized as a desirable occupation and the Mohawk community conferred high prestige on it. The Mohawks had a high reputation in the company for their skills but a low reputation for work habits. In the view of company officials, including French-Canadian foremen, the Indians could not be depended on to work regularly when work was available. However, the Mohawk, unlike the French-Canadian ironworkers, had alternate employment opportunities in the industry outside Canada. They were in demand in the United States and, as they could move freely across the border, they accepted work in the United States at approximately twice the hourly rates paid in Montreal. Community and kinship ties, however, motivated many to accept work in the Montreal area so that they could live at home for at least part of the year. 4. Variations in wage rates for ironworkers were almost non-existent. In 1950, the basic rate was $1.55 per hour although the foreman had the authority to pay "first class" workers an additional 10 cents an hour. In general, differences in earnings, in an industry vulnerable to considerable variation in demand, depended on duration of employment. 5. While there was necessary consultation with company engineers and with clients' representatives, the foreman's authority was considerable, 6. I chose the label "personalistic," to convey the basic principle underlying the social organization of the work gangs: an orientation to the person and to affectivity rather than to function. My analysis (Jones, 1950:Ch. 2) includes a formal description of personalistic organization seen in direct contrast to the bureaucratic model. A summary statement of the essential structural elements is given here. In personalistic organization, role expectations are determined partly by the role incumbent, the extent of incumbent definition being related to a superior's evaluation of the incumbent. Incumbent definitions encompassed task or qualitative role expectations as well as authoritative o r hierarchial expectations. Competence is judged on the basis of skills which are, in a sense, charismatic in that they are seen as dependent on inherited characteristics or on long experience rather than on skills seen as transferable to others through formal training. Communication is informal, direct and mainly face-to-face. Although remuneration is in terms of fixed salaries or wages, a system of perquisites may exist which permits certain individuals to be rewarded on a personal basis. 7. Agility, an ability to climb and no fear of heights summarizes the qualifications of an ironworker as stated by various incumbents of roles at all levels of the company. 8. Although some contemporary forms were introduced in early stages in the industrialization of Western European societies, all are considered to be innovations in the sense that they are prominent in the contemporary search for alternatives to bureaucracy. 9. Even where the support for change is consciously political-for example, where worker control is seen as a condition for the establishment of

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socialism or the elimination of the alienation seen to be a consequence of capitalism, the concern seems to relate to worker motivation even though the objective may be couched in terms of justice or the humanization of the work place. The complex relationship between efficiency and motivation is not explored here. Claims for the superiority of bureaucratic structure were being challenged by sociologists. Merton's essay on certain dysfunctional tendencies of bureaucracy had appeared (Merton, 1940) and work that he had inspired, undertaken by Blau (1955), Gouldner (1954) and Selznick (1949) was under way. It is possible that, as co-determination is implemented in Sweden, where there is an emphasis on employee decision-making at all levels of the organization, changes in task organization, in the organizational context of work operations and at higher levels of the authority structure will proceed together. The term "personal" as a qualifier of procedures does not carry the same meaning as its opposite, "impersonal." Although I do not do so here, greater precision might be achieved if the difference were expressed in terms of combinations of Parsons' value orientations (Parsons, 1951). Thus, impersonal procedures may be described as universalistic and affectively neutral and personal procedures as particularistic and affective. It is instructive that where workers become workers of industrial enterprises, through a takeover or by forming a cooperative, they may retain bureaucratic organization as the framework of day-to-day operations.

References Adizes, Ichak. Industrial Democraq: Yugoslav Style. New York: CollierMacmillan, 1971. Batstone, Eric, and P.L. Davies. Industrial Democracy: European Experience. London: Her Majesty' Stationery Office, 1976. Blau, Peter. The Dynamics of Bureaucracy. Chicago: the University of Chicago Press, 1955. Blauner, Robert. Alienation and Freedom. Chicago: the University of Chicago Press, 1964. Bolweg, Joel. Job Design and Industrial Democracy. Leiden: Martin Nijhoff, 1976.

Braverman, Harry. Labor and Monopoly Capital in the Twentieth Century. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1974. Gouldner, Alvin. Patterns of Industrial Democracy. Glencoe: The Free Press, 1954. Jones, Frank E. "Work Organization in the Structural Steel Industry: a Study of Industrial Organization and of Ethnic Relations Among Structural Steel Workers." M.A. thesis, McGill University, 1950. Merton, Robert K. "Bureaucratic Structure and Personality," Social Forces, 18 ( 1940), 560-68. Parsons, Talcott. The Social System. Glencoe: The Free Press, 1951. Selznick, Philip. TVA and the Grass Roots. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1949.

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Tannenbaum, Arnold S., B. KavCiC, M. Rosner, V. Mino and G. Wieser. Hierarchy in Organizations. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1974. Woodward, Joan. Industrial Organization: Themy and Practice. London: Oxford University Press, 1965.

The Nursing Role in General Hospitals: An Organizational Analysis MARGARET WESTLEY

Oswald Hall has a talent for the phrase or word which suddenly illuminates a sociological concept or a piece of social reality. These insights are usually shaped by wit and humour. When he was chairman o f Anthropology and Sociology at McGill, both disciplines were represented by only five people: Aileen Ross, Fred Elkin, Jack Fried, Bill Westley and Oswald. Departmental social gatherings were more frequent in those days than they are now and graduate students such as Rex Lucas, Peter Pineo and Audrey Wipper were sometimes included, as well as wives. I lookd fonuard to these occasions partly because ofthe p[earure of listening to Oswald discuss events or issues of the day in his epigrammatic, oblique way. He was, and is, a master of perspective by incongruence. It was at a departmental Party that Ifirst heard him use the phrase "selection by rejection" to define the process whereby people enter or advance in some occupations. The concept, o f which I was reminded while writing thefollowing article, was first applied to nursing administrators in the early twentieth century when most nurses married early in their careers, leaving only those who rejected, or were rejected in, the marriage market available for selection to the h i g h ranks of the nursing profession. Over the years, I have found that Oswald'sfresh delight in the solemnities and absurdities of human behaviour, his humour and his lean wit huve never failed him-nor his listeners.

Hospitals are faced internally with increasing specialization and professionalization among hospital employees, and externally with increasing pressures from the environment, characterized by rapid changes in medical knowledge and technology, and by demands from unions, governments and community groups to monitor their work. These factors are producing increasing complexity in organization.

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Meanwhile, nurses, who have had the coordinating function at the patient care level (where it is most important for the achievement of hospital goals), seem to be losing status and authority relative to other health specialists precisely when coordination is needed most. The purpose of this paper is to examine some of the research on organizations in general, and on hospitals in particular, which may suggest explanations and solutions for this paradox. We will examine four structural elements of hospitals that are relevant to our concern: their complexity, their authority structure, the nature of their task, and their relation to the environment. COMPLEXITY

Much has been written about the increasing complexity of hospital organization. Hospitals vary in size and complexity, but a large teaching hospital may have hundreds of different specialties represented in its organization. Strauss has described the modern hospital as resembling an assembly-line factory, where an army of different people, each performing distinct specialized functions descends on the patient, treating him as a collection of parts rather than as a whole being (1974:214). T h e nursing department of a large teaching hospital in Montreal recently found in a spot survey that each patient on a surgical ward saw, on average, thirty-seven different nurses within a five-day period. This is in addition to physicians, interns, X-ray technicians, social workers and clerks with whom the patient has personal contact. Moreover, this does not include the hundreds of other specialists in the laboratories, diet kitchens, and in the purchasing, maintenance, accounting and other departments with whom he or she may not have direct contact, but who play an active part in the care of the patient. AUTHORITY STRUCTURE

Unlike the assembly-line factory, there is no line of authority which is clear and relatively undisputed to coordinate the activities of these workers. Many are professionals or aspire to be; not only are they trained to make their own decisions in their work, but, as Mauksch points out, they belong to worlds which "have variously distinct norms and objectives, and variable linkages to institutions situated outside of the hospital" (1974:162-3). Thus, members of the nursing o r the medical world may make decisions concerning the care and cure of patients which the hospital administration may regard as contrary to the interests of the larger organization. Moreover, their loyalties to their professional groups may be stronger than to the institution. Until recently, the physician or the medical staff of the hospital had

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virtually unquestioned authority and dictated much of the work. The advent of government, union controls, the professional hospital administrator and the rise of other professional health care specialists have not replaced medical authority, but have led to multiple and often conflicting authority lines. As one Montreal administrator phrased it, "There are few organizations where those responsible for administering it have so little control over the people who do the work." This special problem in hospitals might be described as authority without sufficient knowledge and knowledge without sufficient authority (Thompson, 1961). T H E NATURE OF T H E TASK

In general the work is rationally organized with close supervision and impersonal controls, a specialized division of labour, a hierarchical authority system or systems of rules and formal roles, and a high level of record-keeping. Perrow (1970) and Woodward (1965) found that the nature of the task or technology imposes demands on the organization which must be met by an appropriate structure and that different technologies require different structures. They also propose that when the input (or the material and human resources with which an organization performs its work) is highly variable and unpredictable, bureaucratic forms of organization are dysfunctional because their rigidity does not permit sufficient flexibility in internal procedures. Hospitals have variable inputs both of patients and staff, unless it is a specialized hospital such as a tuberculosis sanatorium or a maternity hospital. Yet even in these specialized institutions there is considerable variability in the degree of illness, response to treatment, and characteristics of the staff. Hospital workers, especially the decision-makers such as the professionals, need sufficient flexibility in procedural regulations to provide customized care for patients whose conditions and responses cannot be predicted or controlled in advance. Insofar as the work of hospitals is technically routine, procedures can be set down and rigidly followed, as in health checks or admissions. However, to the degree that the work cannot be preplanned (since the hospital cannot turn down more than a small number of patients), cannot be postponed, and is essentially unpredictable, bureaucratic forms will be too rigid to permit effective work. RELATION T O T H E ENVIRONMENT

Emery and Trist (1969) and Burns and Stalker (196 1) have shown that when an organization is embedded in a rapidly changing

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environment, bureaucratic procedures are likely to be too rigid to permit adequate adaptation to the environmental demands. Hospitals find themselves constantly having to adapt to changing medical and technical knowledge and to social demands for greater control over health care. The environment on one hand demands flexibility and on the other fosters the growth of bureaucratic structures in hospitals. Two developments in recent years promote the control and coordination of hospital work through bureaucratic means. They are the increasing pressure for government and community control of health care, and unionization. (Even professional associations like the Canadian Medical Association have begun to act like labour unions.) Medicare and other government-run health plans have made hospitals largely dependent on public funds and therefore subject to the rules and regulations, and to the recording and monitoring of the civil service. In adapting to this pressure, the hospital must adopt more bureaucratic procedures, and in the process hospital administrators, who manage hospital-government relationships gain more power (Perrow, 1961). It is partly this process that has eroded the doctor's authority. Moreover, rapid developments in the health field, which generated other health professions and technical experts, have forced physicians to relinquish their position as sole decision-makers in making diagnoses and prescriptions, and to work with others as a team. Unionization has had the same effect. Among the professions unionization tends to end the exploitation of lower and middle level professionls while eliminating the "vocational" or intrinsic satisfactions attached to professional and social service work. In trying to make rules and regulations specifying pay and working conditions which apply to everyone, and which can be observed and monitored for purposes of enforcing contract terms, unions have reduced work to its lowest common denominator-its extrinsic or material rewards and physical properties. Professionals who were once committed and felt their work to be a source of pride and satisfaction, often seem as alienated from their work as the unhappy man on the assembly line.' We may hypothesize that professionals in this situation will tend to treat their work as a matter of putting in the required hours in order to obtain enough money to pursue more interesting objectives (Dubin, 1955). Between union contracts and government controls, hospital work is increasingly restricted by, and subject to, bureaucratic regulations. At the same time, rapid changes in medical knowledge and technology require that the hospital be flexible and ready to change its equipment and work processes. The effort of governments to control budgets and the quality and quantity of care plus the unions'

efforts to control work conditions pull the hospital towards bureaucratic rigidity. T h e conflict reduces effective patient care, and the commitment felt by hospital professionals. I n sum, a large urban general or teaching hospital is an organization that operates in a changing environment under conflicting pressures. Some of its tasks can be routinized; some cannot. T o staff the hospital requires a high proportion of professionals linked in unclear authority relationships. We might expect that such an organization will exhibit an unusual degree of differentiation (specialization of function) in dealing with the internal uncertainty of its organization and the external uncertainty of its environment. DIFFERENTIATION AND SUBGROUP GOALS

Organizational theory and empirical research have suggested that when an organization is highly differentiated (multiple subgroups or departments doing different kinds of work) the subgroups develop goals and perspectives of their own which may be in conflict with other subgroup goals and/or with those of the organization (Simon, 1964; March and Simon, 1967; Lawrence and Lorsch, 1967). Research on professionals in organizations shows that when the work force of an organization consists largely of professionals, this tendency is exaggerated because (1) such people constitute a sub-group that extends beyond the organizational boundaries and controls; (2) professionals draw all or most of their authority for decision-making from their subgroup membership rather than from their status within the organization; and (3) professionals base their decisions on specialized knowledge unavailable to the layman. Supervision by non-professionals is not only difficult but is often resisted by the professional as inappropriate (Hall, 1968; Goss, 1961; Kornhauser, 1963). However, administrators must try to control these centrifugal forces in order to achieve the general goals of the organization; for hospitals this is effective patient care. COORDINATION

In a study of forty-one U.S. hospitals, Georgopoulos, found that effective hospital functioning is dependent on its problem-solving capacity and performance of tasks (1974:28-32). These depend on six variables, which he defined as the organization's ability to (I) adapt to the external environment; (2) allocate resources as needed; (3) coordinate the required activities and functions; (4) integrate itself, i.e., to secure the cooperation, compliance, loyalty, and agreement on common purposes; (5) manage strain or tensions, and (6) and attain its goal defined as "patient care."

Since the relationship between coordination and integration and their combined relationship to patient care2 is of importance to this paper, let us examine Georgopoulos' definitions of integration and coordination: The ability to articulate, interrelate and regulate-to constantly coordinate, in time and space-the many diverse but related roles and interdependent activities of its many different staffs and members, and to regulate and synchronize different functions, so that the energies and efforts of all the participants always converge toward the solution of objectives. This is the problem of organizational coordination. The ability of the system to integrate itself. includes all necessary functions associated with the problem of integrating individual members into the organization and securing their cooperation and compliance, and the problem of integrating all parts of the social system with one another so that the total organization can achieve a certain overall socialpsychological unity and coherence. Development of common organizational values and shared norms, attitudes, and mutual understanding, which can serve to provide a common universe of discourse for the different groups and members, and to socialize and bind the members securely into the system, are all important in this area. This is the problem of organizational integration (pp. 28-29).

..

Georgopoulos concludes that many of the integration and coordination difficulties in the hospital are exacerbated by specialization, and that in general overspecialization makes for social inefficiency, since it results in excessive organizational complexity and unnecessarily high interdependence among unlike participants. He also finds that for effective organizational functioning in hospitals, social efficiency is probably more important than technical-economic efficiency, and that successful social relations among hospital employees cannot be mechanistically or routinely implemented, but require their voluntary participation. The most common methods of coordination for complex organizations are bureaucratic. Using the Weberian rational-legal model of bureaucracy, Hall found that the most frequently listed elements present in organizations and characteristic of bureaucracies are as follows: (1) hierarchy of authority; (2) division of labour; (3) rules; (4) procedural devices for work; (5) limited authority of office; and (6) the impersonality of personal contact (1963). The first four elements are important tools of coordination in most large organizations. However, generally, in professional organizations bureaucratic elements are relatively scarce, and likely to be ineffective in producing integration and coordination (Pugh et al., 1969). We have argued that despite these considerations, hospitals are presently organized on bureaucratic lines and that certain social control efforts are likely to increase the degree of bureaucratization. In addition, as Stinchcombe has shown, organizations tend to reflect

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the dominant value and practices of their time (1971). A prevalent idea in industrialized western societies is that the rational organization of work, including the routinization and specialization of tasks, rules and hierarchical authority, is the most effective and efficient way of organizing large scale activity. It is not surprising that hospitals, even without government and union pressures, have resorted to this model. The functional division of labour in most hospitals is partly a copy of the fragmentation of tasks which has occurred in industry in the effort to achieve increasing technical and economic efficiency. T h e result is that "Like the factory assembly-line worker, the hospital employee contributes to such a small part of the total care of an individual patient that he or she rarely has the satisfaction of knowing his patient and identifying with his treatment or recovery. Thus the hospital worker can become alienated from the ultimate goal of the hospital-patient care" (Strauss, 19'74:2 14). What this suggests is that hospitals have an immediate need for coordination. However, the usual bureaucratic means are inappropriate and unlikely to be effective because of the changing, unpredictable nature of the work, the varied kinds of workers, and the constantly changing hospital environment. Strauss's statement also suggests that bureaucratization may make any kind of coordination more difficult because it tends to alienate workers on whose commitment and willingness to cooperate (integration), coordination and, ultimately, patient care depends. T H E NURSE'S ROLE

Coordination is a major task of administrators. This they usually try to d o in the top echelon of offices through bureaucratic means. There are also teams of specialists caring for patients that function as a temporary system of nonbureaucratic, horizontal coordination. However, nurses are the only group in direct, continuous contact with patients. Although not trained for administrative duties until they work in a hospital, they actually do most of the coordinating work besides bedside care. T h e nurse is particularly suited to the role of coordinator because of her interest in working with people. Also, her training includes both medical and psychological knowledge and skills in caring for, and educating, patients concerning their own health. I n addition in her relationship with the physician she is the one who carries out his orders or sees that persons do. Mauksch noted that nurses have been expected to participate in the three systems of hospital work-care, cure and administration-and to absorb and reconcile their inconsistencies in translating these systems into patient care (1974:164). The nursing role can be described as one which

negotiates and mediates among the various hospital authority systems that deal directly with patient care. In spite of both the hospitals' need and the nurses' suitability for official responsibility for bedside care, it is unclear whether they will get the position. Doubts arise partly because of internal hospital resistance against giving up authority (particularly to a female occupational group); of budgetary restraints in a period of austerity which make change difficult; and because of elements within the nursing profession. STATUS OF THE NURSING PROFESSION

A predominant theme in recent literature on the nursing profession is that it is suffering a status crisis. The crisis centres around two difficulties: the lack of systematic theory of scientific nursing that is needed to provide authority, consensus and recognition of nursing vis-his other health specialties; and the accelerating development of specialization and technology in medicine. This has meant that many new professions, the paramedical specialties and technicians, have appeared to challenge and sometimes surpass the nurse's position in the hospital. For example, Blishen's socio-economic index places nursing below physical and occupational therapists and "other health professions," a category including paramedical and lesser branches of the health field (197 1). In his 1967 study Robson categorized physioand occupational therapy as high status occupations, and nursing was considered to possess medium status. In both cases the criteria used included the educational requirements for entry into the field and the average income of its members. Since most of these other health professions arrived later in the health field than did nursing, nursing's loss of status may be said to be relative to the other occupations. The nursing profession has stood still, while the others have moved up. Hall has pointed out that nurses have neither developed a body of knowledge or a theory of nursing functions, nor have they developed distinctive specialties of their own, being content to borrow from others. Moreover, Hall suggests that: On balance it seems that nursing has stood aside from both these two great changes impinging on our society [scientific and technical development and specialization] both of which are exemplified so dramatically in the very hospitals in which the work of nurses is now predominantly carried on. As a result, it is other occupations, once extremely modest and inconspicuous that are developing bodies of knowledge, special expertise and control over expensive equipment and are thereby gaining access to income, power and prestige in the healing field ( 1970: 13).

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Moreover, the authority of the physician is being eroded by government controls. Now he must share decision-making with other hospital specialists and deal with the increasing importance of hospital administrators (Georgopoulos, 1974; Perrow, 1965). Not surprisingly, the nurse, whose role t.raditionally has been a doctor's second-incommand and whose status was derived from their relationship, is also losing ground. There has been considerable pressure from nursing organizations to upgrade the profession. It has been proposed: (1) to raise the level of education needed for licensing and for positions on nursing faculties, and to work for more programs at the Bachelor's, Master's and Ph.D. levels in universities; (2) to encourage research and the development of nursing theory; and (3) to establish a career ladder that will provide ways for nurses to improve their status. Some progress has been made but it is exceedingly slow and, unfortunately, some of the efforts seem to have been counterproductive. For example, by urging higher educational standards "classes" of nurses have been produced: practical nurses, nurses assistants, registered nurses with and without B.A.'s, plus nurses with postgraduate specialties or degrees. These classes feel that their training and their work should differentiate them from others. Considerable energy has been wasted on this issue. Furthermore, in devising career differences upward mobility, (as in so many occupations) consisted of moving out of the practice of nursing and into administration. Many good nurses become poor administrators and cease to perform the work which first attracted them to the profession. The number of nurses holding academic degrees has slowly increased, but in Canada in 1975, of those registered nurses (RN'S) employed in nursing, only 9 per cent held academic degrees. The effort to encourage the development of nursing theory and basic research has been even less productive. This is primarily the preserve of academics at the Ph.D. and possibly the M.A. levels and is not likely to occur in any field without a supply of students trained in graduate schools. As of 1975, no doctoral program in nursing existed in Canada. Six universities offered Master's degrees and 203 students were enrolled in these programs. Since 151 were enrolled in 1971, this represents only a small growth. In the ten years from 1966 to 1975, only 50 Master's degrees in nursing were awarded. If we look at the particular field of study followed by these students, the picture is even more dismal from the point of view of research and theory building. Since 1971 there have been only four students whose major program was nursing research, and none has graduated by 1975. The number of students specializing in nursing education at the postgraduate level has dropped from 60 in 1971 to 45 in 1975 (Statistics Canada, 1976).

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However, this is a nursing problem, and not essentially a Canadian one. In the United States, the American Nurses Association reports that 15.2 per cent of RN'S have B.A. degrees (an increase of less than 7 per cent over ten years), but that 28 per cent will be needed in 1980. (American Nursing Association, 1976) At the Master's level or above, there has been only 1 per cent increase in the number of nurses holding these degrees between 1964 and 1974. The number of students studying for Master's or Ph.D.'s who specialize in teaching dropped slightly and only two students were specializing in research. More recently, there has been a sharp increase in applications for M.A. and doctoral programs in the United States, but this is apparently a result of the pressure by universities on nursing faculties to upgrade their qualifications combined with shrinking employment in education generally. Downs predicts that the new "professional doctorates" which these applicants seek will d o little to develop theory and research in nursing because these doctorates are more oriented to teaching and practice (1978). Our discussion of coordination and integration in hospitals raises the question of whether an emphasis on competition, power, and prestige is the best solution from the point of view of nurses, hospitals and patients. The slow progress being made in changing the status of nursing by urging nurses to work toward non-nursing goals suggests that many nurses are resisting this way of changing their profession's image. NURSING AS A CAREER CHOICE

What do women, who still represent more than 90 per cent of the profession, seek in becoming nurses? Studies are consistent on the question. Robson in a study of occupational choice among high schoolers found that girls who were planning to become nurses placed a high value on having a job in which they "can help people who are faced with human problems and suffering" (1967). He also found that 62 per cent ranked the good of society higher than family or self. This is higher than teachers or laboratory technicians (45 and 41 per cent respectively), but lower than social workers and missionaries (76 and 78 per cent). Other researchers report that women, in general, place social (including family), aesthetic and other "intrinsic" values higher than men in choosing occupations (Aldag, 1970; Allport, 1970; Turner, 1964). Corwin found that professionalization (i.e., an inter.est in research, theory building, higher academic degrees, specialization and autonomy) and bureaucratization conflicted not only with each other but with the service content of the nurses' role. For example, holding strong values inany of these areas tended to produce stress and make

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the nurse less effective in her role. The crux of the conflict he says is that "while nurses are supposed to want contact with the patient, they are rewarded for values and skills that do not require it" (1972:261). The picture that emerges is of women who chose nursing because it is an intimate, caring, social service occupation, but, once they are in the hospital they perform fragmented tasks which do not enable them to know their patients or to see the direct relationship between what they do and their patients' well being. Their only way out is either to leave nursing or to go into administration. Not surprisingly such a group is likely to be alienated and poorly integrated into the hospital organization. In fact, nurses are the most unstable group of professionals in the hospital. Approximately 40 per cent work only part-time. An astonishing number who get degrees or licences do not work in the profession. For example, in 1972 in the United States less than half of all registered nurses were employed in nursing. When they are employed in hospitals, they have high turnover rates, high geographic mobility, and tend to drop out permanently to take on families and other female obligations more frequently than other comparable hospital groups (Georgopoulos, 1974). Since this kind of behaviour is a common index of worker dissatisfaction, we may postulate that nurses are not as enchanted with their work as they and we might wish despite their recent gains in pay and working conditions. AN EXPANDED ROLE FOR NURSES?

Evidence suggests that the quality of health care does not diminish, and may even improve when the less specialized aspects of medicine are taken over by nurses. Runyan compared morbidity, hospitalization and consumer acceptability between chronically ill patients receiving care in decentralized facilities staffed by specially trained nurses, and those receiving care in a more conventional way in outpatient clinics (1975). He found that the nurse-run clinics were superior to the outpatient clinics on all dimensions. Lewis et al. reported significant differences in the reduction of disability and relative decreases in discomfort and dissatisfaction of patients seen in a nurse-run clinic, compared to those cared for by physicians (1969). Moreover, there were no differences in the number of deaths or in the severity of disease. The evidence suggests that it is highly doubtful that nurses can maintain their position in hospitals, much less overtake the newer health professions in prestige and autonomy. However, by stubbornly sticking to their basic interest in "helping people" and remaining generalists in the midst of specialization, nurses find themselves in a

position to fulfill one of the most needed functions in the hospital: the coordination of specialized activities in the interest of caring for the patient. Nurses have been performing this work on an ad hoc basis for some time, but as the need grows, this coordination of, and the responsibility for, primary care becomes increasingly important and should be built into the hospital's organization. There are signs that this may occur. Primary nursing has been spreading in the United States for the last ten years, and is now practised in hospitals in at least ten states. The basic idea is patient-centred, where the nurse coordinates and implements the complete care of the patient. Each nurse on each shift has five or six patients for whom she is totally responsible from admission to discharge. The nurse also plans the transition of patient care from the hospital to the patient's home or another facility. T h e responsibility and medical information concerning the patient is passed on from one nurse to another on each of the three shifts, assuring continuity of care (Nenner et al., 1977). Of course, this plan will encounter some difficulties and resistance. We cannot be certain that the reduction in the duplication of work, and the improvement in communication effected by primary care nurses, will make up for the cost of increased or better trained staff required for the plan. O n the other hand, the physician who often is threatened by this shift of responsibility for the patient, is said to be won over because of the improved communication that results from having one nurse responsible for his patient, the increased accuracy of the care, and the therapeutic value for the patient from having his/her own nurse (Nenner et al, 1977). Finally, a number of reports show that "the greatest reward of primary nursing is improved morale and personal growth among nurses who work in an atmosphere which promotes expression of the full breadth and depth of their professional skills. Each staff nurse can see directly the results of her individual efforts. This direct feedback fosters enthusiasm and concern to increase technical skills and clinical knowledge" (Bartels et al., 1977:29). If this statement is true, the.nursing profession may find this to be a better way to keep nurses in the profession, and to raise its status than the previous methods tried. T h e statement suggests that nurses in primary care assignments feel more committed to their work than they d o under the present fragmented work situation. If so, primary care may be a means to better integrate the hospital's largest group of employees, which in turn is a necessary beginning for effective coordination of patient care. In moving toward primary care plans the nursing profession may find a means of achieving nurses' personal goals for meaningful work and, at the same time, their

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increased responsibility can be expected to enhance the profession's prestige. From the point of view of the hospital, anything that increases the loyalty, commitment and integration of the largest group of employees will help achieve its goals of effective patient care. In addition, if this same group is in a position to provide comprehensive patient care, and is motivated and has the skills to do it, the hospital may, by making this change, help to solve the coordination of over-specialized activities. Primary care also offers a flexible form of coordination more likely to be effective according to both the hospital's technical and social systems, than the current bureaucratic ones.

1. The reader should note that Torrance's research, reported in this volume on the non-professional hospital staff, does not support this alienation hypothesis. [Ed.] 2. Coordination showed the strongest association with successful patient care with 76 per cent of fifty possible correlations at a statistically significant level. Integration was third in relation to patient care goals, but was strongly related to coordination with 63 per cent of possible correlations being significant.

References Aldag, J. C. "Occupational and Nonoccupational Interest Characteristics of Men Nurses." Nursing Research, 19 (Nov.-Dec. 1970), 529-34. Allport, G. W. et al. Manual Study of Values, 3rd ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1970. The American Nursing Association. Facts About Nursing. Kansas City, Mo., 1976. Bartels, D., Vivian Good and Susan Lampe. "The Role of the Head Nurse in Primary Nursing." The Canudian Nurse, 73 (Mar. 1977), 26-30. Blishen, B. R. "A Socio-Economic Index for Occupations in Canada." In Blishen et al., Canadian Society: Sociological Perspectives, 3rd ed. Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1971. Burns, Tom and G.M. Stalker. The Management of Innovation. London: Tavistock Publications, 1961. Corwin, R.G. "The Professional Employee: A Study of Conflict in Nursing Roles." In R. M. Pavalko, ed., Sociological Perspectives on Occupations.Itasca, Ill.:. F . E. Peacock Publishers, 1972. Downs, F. A. "Doctoral Education in Nursing: Future Directions." Nursing Outlook, 26 (Jan. 1978), 56-64. Dubin, Robert. "Industrial Workers* Worlds: A Study of the Central Life Interests of Industrial Workers." Social Problems, 3, no. 3 (January, 1955), 131-42.

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Emery, F. E. and E. L. Trist. "The Causal Texture of Organizational Environments." In J. E. Li tterer, ed., Organizations: System, Control and Adaptation, 2nd ed., 2 vols. New York: John Wiley, 1969. Georgopoulos, B. S. "The Hospital as an Organization and Problem-Solving System." In B. S. Georgopoulos, ed., Organization Research on Health Institutions. Institute for Social Research. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1974. Goss, M. E. "Influence and Authority Among Physicians in an Outpatient Clinic." In Amitai Etzioni, ed., A Sociological Reader on Complex Organizations, 2nd ed. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1961. Hall, Oswald. "Social Change, Specialization, and Science." In M. Q. Innis, ed., Nursing Education in a Changing Society. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1970. Hall, R. H. "The Concept of Bureaucracy: An Empirical Assessment." American Journal of Sociology, 69 (July, 1963), 32-40. "Professionalization and Bureaucratization." American Sociological Review, 33 (Feb. 1968) 92- 104. Kornhauser, W. Scientists in Industry. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1963. Lawrence, P. R. and J. W. Lorsch. Organization and Environment. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967. Lewis, C. E. et al. "Activities, Events, and Outcomes in Ambulatory Patient Care." New Enghnd Journal of Medicine, 280 (1969). 645-49. March, J. G. and Herbert Simon. Organizations. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1967. Mauksch, H. 0. "Patient Care as a Perspective for Hospital Research." In Georgopoulos, ed., Organization Research on Health Institutions. Mechanic, David. The Growth of Bureaucratic Medicine: An Inquiry Into t h Dynamics of Patient Behaviour and t h Organization of Medical Care. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1976. Nenner, V. C., E. Curtis and C. Eckhoff. "Primary Nursing." Supervisor Nurse, 8 (May 1977), 14-16. Perrow, Charles. "The Analysis of Goals in Complex Organizations." American Sociological Review, 26 (December 1961). - . "Hospitals: Technology, Structure and Goals." In J. G. March, ed., Handbook of Organizations. Chicago: Rand McNally, 1965. . Organisational Analysis: A Sociological View. London: Tavistock Publications, 1970. Pugh, D. S., D. J. Hickson and C. R. Hinings. "An Empirical Toxonomy of Work Organizations." Administrative Science Quarterly, 14 (March 1969). Robson, R.A.H. Sociological Factors Affecting Recruitment Into the Nursing Profession. Report to the Royal Commission on Health Services. Ottawa: Queen's Printer, 1967. Runyan, J.W. "The Memphis Chronic Disease Program: Comparisons in Outcome and the Nurse's Extended Role." Joztrnal of the American Medical Association, 23 1 (1975), 264-67. Scott, W.R. "Professionals in Hospitals: Technology and the Organization of Work." In Georgopoulos, ed. Organization Research on Health Institutions. Simon, H.A. "On the Concept of Organization Goal." Administrative Science Quarterly, 9 (1964), 2-22. Statistics Canada. Nursing in Canada: Canadian Nursing Statistics. Ottawa: 1976. Stinchcombe, A.L. "Social Structure and Organizations." In Marshall W. Meyer, ed., Structures, Symbols and Systems. Boston: Little Brown and Co., 1971.

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280 PART THREE: WORK IN BUREAUCRACIES Straus, R. "Hospital Organization From the Viewpoint of Patient-Centered Goals." In Georgopoulos, ed., Organization Research on Health Institutions. Turner, R.H. "Some Aspects of Women's Ambition." American Journal of . Sociology, 70 (Nov. 1964), 27 1-85. Thompson, Victor. Modern Organization. New York: Knopf, 1961. U.S. Public Health Service, Division of Nursing. Nurse Training Act of 1964: Program Review Report (Publication No. 1740). Washington, D.C.:U.S. Government Printing Office, 1967. Woodward, Joan. Industrial Organization, Theory and Practice. London: Oxford University Press, 1965.

PART FOUR

SEX AND ETHNIC INEQUALITY

The five papers in this section demonstrate the salience of sex and ethnicity in the division of labour, factors emphasized by Hall in his own studies of work (1962, 1964, 1968, 1971), and in the research he directed for the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism (1967) that documented the ethnic disparities in education, income, wealth and power. Hall's longtime interest in ethnicity and work is reflected in his own graduate studies. His Master's thesis explored the differences in family size in selected communities in Ontario and Quebec (1937): His Ph.D. research on Italian, Irish and Old American doctors in Providence, Rhode Island, compared their careers, their relationships with the formal structure of the hospital, and their informal practices in the medical community (1944): The dbminant group in Canadian sdcietv has- always _ --.L------ -------1.-.' been composed eiiie3ti-ally of white, Angl(ySaxon, ---- Protestant - - ---. --males who -i-tri5l0-the country's institutions-the political, economic, ------ -- major -Fi;ligious, educational and military (Porte'r, 1957, 1965; Clement, - - -physically or culturally, for instance, 1975). Groups which differ native peopliis, Japans3 C a n a d i ~ e s ~ e canadlz$s ch and wbinen, a r e releeated to a subordinate position since they lack Dower -- - --- ----- - - ------. ' --.---.-.-*.-. - -arid-&6 -.-*.-,,._ - t ; ~ ~ . & - d < ~ ~ e s ~ i i sm e 6 i s of the dominant gro;p, to positions .-.. -- - - -.- - . ofHpower,privilege and status. -- --- The participatbn--of women in the labour force has increased greatly during the past century. However, to the extent that-women -. . service are integrated in the economy, it is mainly in the low-paid sect&~b