Browsing by Author "Skulmoski, Lukas Kane"

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    Factors that Affect the Retention of Female Apprentices
    (2015-04-24) Skulmoski, Lukas Kane; Jubas, Kaela
    The purpose of this study is to help uncover reasons for women’s low participation rates in the field of skilled trades and apprenticeship in Canada. This thesis analyzes data gained through life history interviews with six recently graduated female apprentices, with the objective being to gain their insights on which experiences and factors may have helped contribute to their successes. This thesis offers an analysis of apprenticeship as a gendered space and process of work-related learning. Framed by concepts developed by Pierre Bourdieu, the findings suggest that the structure of the field of skilled trades and apprenticeship acts to reproduce gender through expected, or “taken-for-granted” characteristics of successful apprentices. The findings also depict skilled trades and apprenticeship as a field dominated by men and masculinity, but one in which the female apprentice can successfully practice by exhibiting a culturally-appropriate vocational habitus while maximizing field-specific capitals.
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    Learning Through Engaging in Women in Trades Introductory Programs
    (2022-11-10) Skulmoski, Lukas Kane; Jubas, Kaela; Guo, Shibao; Simmons, Marlon
    Framed by my interest in gender and work-related learning as viewed through a critical realist lens, and using a theoretical framework rooted in the sociological theorizing of Pierre Bourdieu, the case study described in this document examines what 13 participants in a women in trades introductory program (WiTIP) learned through their engagement in the program, and how they related that learning to their prior learning experiences. Analysis of participants’ descriptions of their WiTIP experiences, collected via semi-structured interviews, provides insights into why WiTIPs attendees rarely go on to enroll in apprenticeships upon program completion. Findings indicate that participants found themselves in an adult education program that turned out to be quite unlike what they had hoped for, yet one that still saw them learn a great deal. Though they reported being segregated from the real-life apprenticeship practices going on around them, which reinforced in them the longstanding social idea or, in Bourdieu’s terms, doxa, that women do not, and cannot, embody a skilled trades vocational habitus, their stories also indicate that the emotions elicited by their experiences in the program, many of which were negative, helped them learn a great deal about themselves, adult educational programming, and the broader social world.