Going to University:
Family Histories & Post-Secondary Credentialing
in a Cape Breton Working Class Town
Paper presented at the Higher Education Close Up Conference 2,
Lancaster University, 16-18 July
Jane McEldowney Jensen
131 Taylor Education Building
University of Kentucky
Lexington, KY 40506
859-257-1929
“The market based competition that characterizes the acquisition and disposition of educational credentials gives the process a meritocratic set of possibilities, but the influence of class on this competition gives it a socially reproductive set of probabilities as well” (Brown, 1995, xvi)
This paper presents, through the histories of two extended families, how experiences of education and work are intertwined in a community whose public record tells us mainly about the history of coal mining. Through these family stories, I show how educational aspirations and attitudes toward the efficacy of education have changed from one generation to the next in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia--a company town now facing the end of an industrial economy. The stories of Frank, a retired civil servant; Millie, a retired nurse; and conversations with their friends and families offer narratives that help build our understanding of education and social mobility in de-industrializing communities. This research paper places the discussion of post-secondary educational decision-making within the context of a local community.
The community studied is a coal-mining town on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. Although much of the island is rural, the area surrounding Glace Bay was developed in the early part of the twentieth century by large coal and steel corporations located off-island, first in Britain and later in central Canada. Unlike mining in Appalachia and the Alleghenies, local industry in Cape Breton has never been locally owned (Obermiller, P.J. and Philliber, W. W., 1994). Glace Bay is a company town populated by workers, dependent upon the vagaries of global coal and steel markets with a strong history of labor activism and economic upheaval. Over the last twenty years, the most recent owner of the coal industry in the region, a government entity called Cape Breton Development Corporation (DEVCO), has closed all of the remaining coal mines in industrial Cape Breton and the steel mill. Glace Bay is also known for its fishing industry, primarily in-shore fishermen who harvest lobster and, until recently, cod. The decline of cod stock in the Atlantic fishery has meant substantial downsizing of fishing in the area resulting in the loss of jobs for both fishermen and those who work in the fish packing plants. Economic development in industrial Cape Breton has shifted toward a “cluster” model concentrating on the potential petroleum industry, information technology, and heritage tourism.
I completed the main body of fieldwork for this study in 1995 with follow-up visits over the last five years. In 1996, Glace Bay became part of the amalgamated Municipality of Cape Breton along with a number of neighboring colliery communities. At the time of my fieldwork DEVCO was going through a process of turning over management of the mines and mill to local leaders, long after potential buyers had lost interest in Cape Breton coal or steel. While small groups in Cape Breton still talk about reviving the coal industry, this study is literally about the end of an era for an industrial region. Public histories of the town concentrate on its industrial past. Education and other social institutions are rarely mentioned except with regard to mining. In investigating the decisions individuals have made and the ways that the community talks about the possibilities of education, I uncover more of the cultural history of the town that increases our understanding of how Glace Bay residents see their future.
My research focuses on the ways that the people of Glace Bay have interpreted the modern ideology of achievement. An achievement ideology rewards individual aspirations for success and requires public confidence in the meritocratic potential of educational credentials for economic opportunity. The town of Glace Bay has a strong heritage of solidarity and self-sufficiency that simultaneously accepts the potential of formal education while publicly eschewing individual ambitions that compete with a perceived ethic of cooperation. How is this paradox of individual versus community ambition resolved? How is the hegemonic weight of an ideology of success born by a community that has been and continues to be economically marginalized? As requirements for educational credentials have changed over the last century, how has educational decision-making changed from one generation to the next? In what ways have community members’ understandings of self-improvement, family, community, and knowledge transformed as the economy has moved from an industrial to a service model and, more recently, to a knowledge-based global marketplace?
Cultural Production and Credentialing
This study draws upon two conceptual frameworks, cultural reproduction and theories of credentialism. These theoretical constructions overlap in the study of educational decision-making, especially in the ways individuals understand the efficacy of post-compulsory education. Studies of cultural production, such as Willis’s (1977) Learning to Labor and more recently MacLeod’s (1994) Ain’t No Makin’ It, demonstrate that public confidence (or a lack thereof) in education is an important variable to understanding the ways that the processes of education serve to reproduce social inequality. If individuals or groups of individuals, such as the lads in Willis’ study or the hallway hangers in MacLeod’s work, perceive education as useless or demeaning, then achievement is most likely to be low. After all, why participate in an endeavor that appears to disdain your cultural identity or the values of your family? The students and their families in these two studies are generally unsuccessful in school and work environments and the meritocratic tenets of an achievement ideology place the blame for that failure squarely on their individual weaknesses rather than other social factors. Proponents of resistance theory recognize that resistance to the authority of education is a response to an often-astute grasp of the inequalities inherent in the social system.[1] Thus strategies of resistance are understood as cultural production.
While we can understand how strategies of resistance can result in low academic achievement leading to the reproduction of social stratification (intergenerational) and how this kind of social reproduction continues to subjugate marginalized populations, the negative consequences of under-education are increasing. In a post-industrial economy, post-compulsory credentials and the hierarchy of post-secondary programs are as important to a discussion of social reproduction and education as is schooling. It is not enough, in today’s economy, to successfully finish compulsory schooling. Further or higher education is now required for almost any kind of work—despite the fact that the nature of that work may not require more technical skill than before. What happens in this context to those individuals who resist the dominant culture’s institutional processes and as a result fail to acquire the necessary “tickets” for success in mainstream society?
Critical theorists studying resistance base their examination of education as a site of conflict on a Gramscian notion of hegemony where hegemony is both contested and accepted (Apple, 1982). Willis (in Foley, 1989) acknowledges the lived aspect of cultural practice, but does not offer a liberating solution of empowerment. He states
For me, the crucially interesting thing about cultural reproduction is how (really and potentially) critical resistant or rebellious forces become contradictorily tied up in the further development and maintenance of the "teeth-gritting" harmony of capitalist formations. (p.xi)
From Willis' perspective, our efforts to capture cultural practices as "living critiques and penetrations of dominant ideology" should be, in effect, efforts to understand how the cultural system "goes." Is this the only alternative? Is there no possibility for the transformative effects of education?
Indeed, what happens to those individuals who do go along with society’s rules, those who assimilate, who finish the programs, who acquire the credentials and who sometimes (and sometimes not) succeed. What happens to the ear’oles and the brothers, those students in cultural studies that followed the hegemonic success ideology? Unlike the Native-American students in Brayboy’s study who are conscious participants in the post-secondary credentialing game, most individuals who acquiesce to the increasing educational requirements of the new economy are not necessarily conscious of the structural inequalities inherent in that system.
This is, in fact, what defines hegemonic ideologies as “actively constituted…in a variety of specific places” (Apple, 1982, p.12). While conscious, in the Marxist sense, of their working-class identity, individuals seeking to survive in the “new economy” often do not see or are not conscious of the stratification of outcomes within post-secondary education. Gray (in Hogan, 1982) might refer to this as the way “subordinate classes follow a ‘negotiated version’ of ruling-class values” (p.37). What happens to those who succeed at school and manage to climb the ladder, if only a little? What happens to those who experience educational success, but fail to succeed economically? In places where deindustrialization has resulted in severe economic stress and education or retraining is offered as the solution, these questions are particularly important. In Glace Bay, as increasing numbers of each generation have achieved progressively higher educational credentials, concurrent economic success has failed to occur for all players. What explains this discrepancy and how is this differential success (or failure) interpreted within larger tensions between individual and community improvement?
Credentialism, introduced by Randall Collins in 1979 and later revisited by David Brown (1995) in his work Degrees of Control, provides an intellectual foothold for examining this problem. As a sociological study of how institutions work within the social system, credentialism examines the expansion of educational institutions and programs as the reproduction of social classes across generations. By directly examining the assumptions underlying a theory of human capital development, these scholars reveal the seductive nature of political rhetoric that heralds increasing educational achievement as a solution for economic development. Collins describes the primary driver for public acceptance of the expansion of post-secondary education and the certification it offers as the myth of technocracy--that increases in requirements for credentials are driven by the needs of new technology. Collins (1979) states:
…the Technocracy story does have some facts in its favor, and it is important to see just what they mean. One such fact is that existence of a very considerable amount of technological change over the last two centuries (indeed, even further back) with especially visible effects in the twentieth century on economic productivity and the organization of work. The other fact is the increasing prominence of education in our lives. p.3
In reality, he argues, most of the acceleration in requirements for credentials was caused by conflict among social groups over control of post-secondary educational institutions and competition for social status. Educational policy based upon the correlation of educational achievement to technical skill and therefore to economic success masks the ways in which the educational system continues to sort individuals and create social stratification. Brown critiques Collins’s emphasis on the conflict between ethnic groups, but agrees that educational expansion is rooted in a process of social conflict. Yes, government policy makers and stakeholders create institutions and programs, but it is the product of individual decision making that leads to attendance (or not) thus making educational decision-making a site of social conflict as well—a space in which hegemonic ideals are contested and confirmed.
The study of post-secondary education differs from arguments about schooling because, as stated above, individuals choose to continue to post-compulsory programs as opposed to being required to attend school. Post-secondary education automatically includes an element of agency because students of post-compulsory programs decide, for a variety of reasons, to attend. Why do individuals choose to continue their education? Why do community groups advocate for the expansion of post-secondary educational offerings? Why does the state invest in the continuing education of private citizens when the purpose is no longer public education?[2] The same processes of cultural production and reproduction that occur in schooling do occur in post-secondary institutions. The outcomes of educational achievement and economic mobility continue to provide evidence for the argument that schooling, whatever the level, reproduces the social structure, but how do the everyday processes of post-secondary educational aspirations affect that structure and make it dynamic?
Brown defines his socio-historical theory of educational credentialism as follows:
Whether one admires or despises higher education in the United States, the fact remains that the life chances of Americans are shaped by the educational system of the country. This point is reflected by the fact that disadvantaged Americans seek out educational advancement as a panacea for political and economic impoverishment and by the fact that privileged citizens seek to send their children to schools at least one step above the ones to which aspiring, poorer people send their children. The net result of this culture of educational aspiration has been expansion of the educational system, particularly in postsecondary education, and ever-increasing inclusion of otherwise power-bereft groups in stratified sectors of education. (1)
Brown expands upon Collins’s analysis of educational expansion as competition among ethnic groups in an important way. He describes the increase in employers’ desire for credentialed workers as a social process of organizational control. Organizations, especially corporate organizations, need to “reduce the uncertainty involved with some aspect of organizational work” in order to remain competitive (72). Post-secondary educational credentials may provide workers with some technical expertise, but more importantly credentials provide the claim that their holders will understand and comply with an organizational culture. This includes a preference for global or bureaucratic knowledge over local ways of knowing. Professional cultures override the personal and community value systems of their participants—at least they should, if the participant is to be successful. Brown argues that the potential of educational credentials to produce professional/bureaucratic workers is the main drive in a post-industrial society that needs more service and knowledge workers. This is a crucial point for my understanding of how educational credentialing can be detrimental to community development…in effect, professionalization can undermine what makes local culture valuable.
In summary, the achievement ideology emphasizes the meritocratic potential of individual effort and masks social inequalities that may affect that potential. Furthermore, in the political economy of the post-industrial era, the individual is called upon to take an entrepreneurial approach to seeking knowledge that will allow him or her to compete in a global marketplace. Institutions sell knowledge to the individual and the cost of that education increases as sources of public funding diminish. As a result, the onus of success falls upon the individual’s ability to become what Brown calls an “organization man” [sic], separating himself (or herself) from locally-based loyalties and acquiring the social as well as technical skills to manuever within the corporate world. The educational process indoctrinates a certain set of values but the credential is in itself a “claim” against potential economic participation. Post-secondary education therefore becomes a process and a commodity. In the neo-conservative political climate described by Lewis (2001), post-secondary educational institutions are being pushed to commodify education and the credentials they offer are often further stratified by “get educated and therefore rich” schemes of short-term training programs that boost enrollment. In the long run, what claims a credential holder might be able to make are subject to their ability to play the hierarchical system of post-secondary education.
The Increasing “Burden” of Education in Glace Bay
Throughout interviews with residents of Glace Bay regarding the history of education in the town, the expression "it's no burden to carry" was used often to refer to “getting your papers” (acquiring educational certification for a particular job or profession). Alternatively, the term was used to refer to seeking out knowledge for everyday life, such as consulting automotive manuals, reading novels, or learning the names of a nephew’s playmates. Education, broadly defined, was and is valued in Glace Bay with its high graduation rates and strong tradition of self-improvement through reading.
Going to university was never unusual for Glace Bay residents, even for the sons and daughters of laborers in the mine. Almost every family has a college graduate, in fact, a group of siblings in a Glace Bay family might include a corporate CEO, a coal miner, a nurse, and diesel mechanic living across North America. The “burden” of education, however, has become heavier. Over the past forty years, as coal mining has declined in the area, going to university has become a necessity rather than an opportunity. Differences between educational certification and everyday or on-the-job learning have increased, often at the expense of local knowledge systems.