Project

Occupational health: shortcomings in the professional socialisation of apprentices

This research project focuses on the challenges of occupational health for apprentices and their socialisation in relation to it. It will provide findings on the various approaches to occupational health during vocational training, how occupational health knowledge is conveyed to apprentices, and the obstacles to their socialisation.

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In the Swiss context, where enterprise-based training plays a prominent role, the major challenge is a lack of documentation about the occupational health of apprentices. The statistics on occupational health nevertheless indicate that young workers, including apprentices, are more exposed to health risks, both physically and mentally.

If apprentices are not systematically included in statistics or scientific investigations, the health issues concerning them are often considered from the more general perspective of young people’s health, obscuring the status of apprentices and the constraints of workplace-based training.

The project aims to fill the gaps in the current level of knowledge about this issue and to understand both the various approaches to occupational health that coexist in the context of dual-track training and how health-related knowledge is conveyed – or not as the case may be – during apprenticeships.

By continuing on from previous research on vocational trainers (SNSF no. 100017_153323) and by adopting a sociological perspective, this project aims to extend the theoretical framework of the sociology of professional socialisation. The results will also provide key findings for the actors in the vocational training sector with a view to intervention in terms of risk prevention and reduction, and occupational health and safety.

Method

The project adopts a qualitative methodology based on statistics regarding occupational health, in particular regarding young workers (Federal Statistical Office (FSO), SUVA, etc.). A documentary analysis (legislative texts, regulations of the social partners and companies included in the study etc.) will provide an understanding of how occupational health is defined in the context of the dual-track apprenticeship and will supplement the prescriptive framework. As a key element of the project, semi-structured interviews will be carried out with 50 trainers (at vocational schools and in companies) in five sectors (hairdressing, commerce, construction, the restaurant industry, healthcare). They will be supplemented by observations in the companies. Finally, focus groups will enable comparison of the different approaches to occupational health by the various actors in vocational training – including apprentices, the apprenticeship commissioners and other actors in vocational schools.

  • The initial step  will focus on identifying the various approaches to occupational health (risks, level of danger, physical health, mental health) and their influence on the ways in which health-related knowledge is conveyed.
  • The second step will  determine knowledge-transfer methods by identifying how health is addressed with apprentices, in what forms, by who and at what points in time.
  • The third step will seek to identify the obstacles to socialisation in occupational health, which may be structural, social or symbolic.
Presentations