Challenging transitions: trades and trade-offs for racialised youth in Canada’s mining industry

Abstract

This article examines the precarious learning-to-work transitions experienced by aboriginal youth in the Canadian oil sands mining industry. Drawing from an empirical case study of a mine-sponsored, pre-apprenticeship training programme, challenges experienced by programme participants, as well as their socialisation into the world of work are examined. As a group that is considered ‘at-risk’, aboriginal youth in resource rich regions are also vulnerable to being targeted as a source of racialised labour by companies who want to appease local resentment over land dispossession and environmental pollution occurring on traditional lands. Informed by the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu and the concept of ‘vocational habitus’, the inquiry critically examines the sets of dispositions that become embodied in training participants, which I argue align with the reputational risk management objectives of the sponsoring company. © 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

Keywords

Author Keywords

vocational education and training Bourdieu vocational habitus Aboriginal Canadian oil sands

Index Keywords

Author Affiliations

Department of Educational Policy Studies, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada

Funding & Acknowledgements

Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, SSHRC

This work was supported by the Social Sciences Humanities Research Council of Canada. I wish to thank Diane Hirshberg (University of Alaska, Anchorage), and two anonymous reviewers for providing detailed and useful suggestions that were used to improve this manuscript.

National Science Foundation, NSF

Grant: 1338850

This work was supported by the Social Sciences Humanities Research Council of Canada. I wish to thank Diane Hirshberg (University of Alaska, Anchorage), and two anonymous reviewers for providing detailed and useful suggestions that were used to improve this manuscript.

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Challenging transitions: trades and trade-offs for racialised youth in Canada’s mining industry

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