Care, Power, and Race: The Job Training Experiences of Low-Income Youth of Color

• Main Author: Souvanna, Phomdaen
• Format: Dissertation
• Language: English
• Published: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses 01.01.2022
• Subjects: Public policy; Sociology
• ISBN: 9798790633546

Job training programs for disadvantaged people have long been called on to increase opportunity by providing human capital and also been criticized for reinforcing inequality along class and race lines. While much research focuses on how job skills training impacts youths’ employment and earnings outcomes, very little examines the behavioral and cultural aspects of job training, i.e., the efforts to prepare youth to compete in the labor market by helping them acquire and exhibit attitudes and behaviors valued by employers. Most critically, the literature has not fully considered the intersection of power and race within youth employment programs.This dissertation asks: 1) What are the dominant discourses and practices in youth employment and training programs in the United States? 2) How do youth and staff conceptualize, understand, and negotiate with the dominant discourses and practices within youth employment and training programs? and (3) What roles do youth employment programs play in sustaining or challenging systems of inequalities? To answer these questions, I conducted a qualitative case study of a youth training program referred to in this dissertation as Building Youth Capital (BYC). BYC is a highly well-respected non-profit organization providing career preparation and internship opportunities to youth ages 18-24 in an urban city in the northeast United States. Specifically, the study examined BYC’s practices designed to produce youth who embody the personal qualities desired by the labor market. Data collected include one or more in-depth interviews with 27 program participants and 13 key program staff. Interview data was supplemented with observations of program activities and a review of program documents, as well as the broader literature on youth employment and training policies and programs.Data from the study indicate that BYC works within the existing structures by advising and, in some instances, demanding that youth conform to a set of cultural norms that dictate how youth must speak, behave, and interact with others in the American corporate workplace. In BYC, these cultural norms were transmitted to youth within the context of a caring environment that most youth describe as “like a family”. The authentic caring relationships built on trust and attentiveness between and among staff and youth position them as partners whose successes are dependent on each other. Foucault’s concept of governmentality was used in this study to explore how power and self-regulation were deployed through care. Data from this study suggests that the process of getting youth to conform to dominant cultural norms was not carried out through mechanisms of repression and overt control but through one of inclusion and affirmation fostered by a caring environment. Inherent within the care that staff provided youth was the desire to construct youth in the image of the ideal worker. Through this care, BYC staff were able to elicit in youths’ acceptance and adoption of “technologies of self” that functioned as ways for youth to regulate their behaviors and attitudes. These tools also reinforced for youth the belief that their social positions of inferiority can be remedied solely by acquiring job skills—particularly soft skills, working hard, and embodying white, middle-class dispositions.This research provides a timely addition to the literature on youth employment and training programs for youth of color. Findings from this dissertation have implications for all youth programs and policies seeking to improve the experiences of youth of color and, more broadly, achieve goals related to racial equity and inclusion. The study also provides insights into directions for further study.