Learning The Hard Way: The Extent and Significance of Child Working in Britain

This article examines the extent and significance of contemporary child working in Britain, and explores some of its implications for the movement between school and work. It draws on data generated from two cohorts of young people in the Coventry labour market and argues that child labour is an important formative experience for many working class youngsters. Child working allows youngsters to gain experience of the social relations of production, helps structure subsequent occupational choice and provides important continuities between the social relations of schooling and adolescence, and those of the adult world of work. Without acknowledging such a contribution the article concludes that systems of vocational preparation for young people will be destined for, at best, only partial success.