WHERE DOES CLASS DISTINCTION BEGIN?

New Zealand Listener, Volume 15, Issue 374, 23 August 1946, Page 16

WHERE DOES CLASS DISTINCTION BEGIN?

[HE report by the Industrial Psychology Division of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research on the existence of "class consciousness" among manual workers and office staffs in factories, raised many questions which could not be answered here, even if this were the place to try. But we have made some inquiries concerning one particular aspect of the report among a group of persons who can speak with some authority. What we wanted to know was whether "class consciousness" of the type mentioned can be recognised as such in its early stages; whether it exists before young people enter offices or factories, and if so, how and when it begins. Those are very difficult questions, and it is probably not surprising that we received no very conclusive answers. But all those we went to did have something interesting to say on the subject. Here are their comments:

Girls at School W E explained to Miss N. G. Isaac, principal of Wellington East Girls’ College, that we sought answers to three questions: If class distinction existed, who started it, why, and when? "I can Say quite plainly that nothing of that sort exists in this school," she said. "Those are very difficult questions and I don’t see how I can answer them. Here, we don’t know what the parents do in the world; we don’t want to know. We take the girls as they are. When they leave they fill in a card which*‘has a line for that information, but much more importance is attached to their academic qualifications, characteristics and aptitudes. The parents’ circumstances are for the information of the Vocational Guidance Centre. But in many cases the girls slip straight from school into the positions they choose for themselves." The subject was an interesting one, Miss Isaac said, but she reiterated that class distinction simply did not exist at he school. ‘

| To show the trend of. preferences among girls leaving Wellington East College, Miss Isaac supplied us with some figures. During, or at the end of 1943, two girls went to the University College full time; seven went in 1945. The Teachers’ Training College absorbed 13 in 1943 and seven last year. Clerical positions seem to have held out the greatest attraction, for 59 took them up in 1943 and 54 last year. Nine girls became shop assistants in 1943 and five last year. Dressmaking and photography drew nobody either year, but hairdressing attracted six in 1943 and nine last year, and, also last year, one girl went farming. One, last year, became a factory operative. In 1943 seven went in for dental clinic, pharmacy, massage or nursing work, compared with five last year. It is seldom, Miss Isaac says, that girls go in for nursing immediately on leaving school. Three in 1943 and 10 last year went home. Some girls who took up clerical work did so with the intention of transferring to something else, like nursing, later on, and some with the idea of studying at the university and becoming more or less self-supporting in the meantime, Miss Isaac explained. The above figures did not include among those leaving any who continued their full-time education elsewhere. Attitude of Parents "FIRST of all I think it’s a very difficult thing to say where this thing begins," said J. V. Burton, President of the New Zealand Technical School Teachers’ Association, "and a lot of research would be necessary. But I think

one or two points stand out fairly clearly. I think it goes back to the attitude of the parents themselves. They have a tendency to guide their children away from factories. This is probably because, although factories are very much better to-day than they used to be, there still tend to be hangovers from an age when factory work was particularly unpleasant. "One suggestion made in the Department’s report, that career teachers might be responsible for. this attitude, is, I think, mistaken. I’d be very surprised if that were found to be true. I think career teachers make a genuine effort to guide children to the work most suited for them, but there again it is the parents who decide in the end. I suppose the remedy is that factory conditions must be made even more attractive, and the work made more interesting. "One general assumption among parents which I think is probably mistaken is that the prospects for advancement are not so good in a factory as in an office or white-collar job. I’ve heard it suggested that some parents might think that a daughter has higher marriage prospects if she is not in a factory. ~-

"One constructive point I ‘can offer. It seems that in the multi-course schools, where all kinds-of courses are mixedarts, commercial, technical, and so onand where the boys and girls in those different categories are all together, there is better understanding and tolerance, and a better appreciation of the work other pupils are going to do. These multicourse schools are increasing now." Effect of "Manpower" "1 THINK some workers met with snobbishness of a kind in factories during the manpowering days," we were told by a man with several years’ experience of industry and of the labour it employs. "Married women and others were directed into various jobs straight from their homes. Some of them did not like it. And there may have been some personal feeling on the part of womenand .men too-who, already in industry during the war, looked down on the manpowered workers. Their view probably was: ‘You wouldn’t come and heip us until you were made to.’" He told us of a case in one of the main centres in which a young woman had been for some years the drudge, although a member of a_ well-to-do family. "She was what I call one of the ‘Marys’ of the world," he said. "You know the sort of thing-‘Mary will do it-when anything had to be got, or enyone nursed. This Mary, as we can

call her, got a job in, an engineering" firm, core-making. It was a dirty job. I saw her a month or so later and asked how she liked it. She said that as well as making good money, she had never met a finer bunch of girls, and she had no intention of returning home. As far as I know she’s still there." The same man mentioned that the appointment of a "personnel officer" in a factory tended towards goodwill and the breaking down of. prejudices. A special officer of this type was becoming recognised as part of the modern trend

of industrial organisation. A true personnel officer, though, had to be sincere and not just a sort of spy for the employers, or an "agitator’ for the employees. Vocational Guidance "THEN we asked two vocational guidance officers what they thought. Often, they said, when a mother called with her daughter, seeking advice, the mother openéd with, "Of course I don’t want my girl to work in a factory."’ But, according to the legislation, any place where things were made was a factory, many of them doing high-class artistic work. If the girl had the inclination and the aptitude she might be sent to one of these places, and would return later saying how she enjoyed it. And she would not know it was actually a factory in the eyes of the law. Most boys and girls, they said, were embitious; they wanted positions that would lead somewhere. Dressmaking was attractive to many girls because of its benefit in later life, and the best place to learn it was in a factory. "There is a form of snobbery which is more or less understandable. We have the parents who say that they had a hard struggle, especi- ally in the depression days, and they want their children to have something better. Mother says, "Their father is only a labourer; I don’t want the boy to go the same way.’ And there is still a feeling that New Zealand is essentially a primary producing country and therefore secondary industry is in a lower grade." The two officers explained that their centre frequently met with children with no ideas about the future. Then, they

said, their psychological section-came into play. But the child was entirely free to follow its choice, aided by ad¥ice. "It might be better for everybody if we gave up half our time to brain work and the balance to manual labour," they added. From War to Peace "you are asking me to express an opinion on a difficult and important subject," was the answer of Miss Ethel Law, General Secretary of the New Zealand Y.W.C.A. "It is quite true that the various grades of work carry various differences in social status. Workers in the same firm very often hold different aspects of the work in different grades of ‘repute. During the war, however, work was dignified according to its essentiality. This meant that girls from different home backgrounds and different previous occupations were able to meet on the common basis of the war service value of their work, This should be true also in peacetime and the value to the community of any particular work should be the measure of the dignity of that work. "If every worker engaged in an in- — could be an intelligent participatof in the work of the industry and realise the full value of her work to the community, then each worker would earn, not only her. own self-respect, but also the respect of all the other workers whether these workers were engaged in the industrial processes or in the administrative operation of the work. The community at large should make up in esteem for the drudgefy of routine work and those who’ do rputine work should be given a sure conviction of their value to the community. "The raising of the school-leaving age to 15 years means that every young person now entering industry does so with a better educational background and any such young person is now more likely to be entering the industrial world by his own choice than compelled into it by force of circumstances. The higher educational status of every such young person means that he has a greater assurance of the respect of his fellow workers."