“First, it's dirty. Second, it's dangerous. Third, it's insulting”: Urban Chinese Children Talk about Dirty Work

Abstract

Research on stigmatized work is based on western adults’ behaviors regarding objective work features. Our empirical study extends scholarship by examining urban Chinese children's meanings of work and occupations, particularly dirty work. Using hybrid inductive-deductive analyses of focus group and interview data from over 200 Chinese children, our findings explore their constructions of engineering as undesirable or socially stigmatized dirty work—dirty, dangerous, and demeaning or insulting. Although children perceived other work and occupations to have similar features, they did not consider engineering to be honorable, prestigious, intellectually challenging, or appropriate for their socioeconomic-urban position. Our study contributes to understandings of children's career circumscription and occupational socialization processes in cultural contexts and subjective understandings of stigmatized work.

Keywords:

• Meanings of Work
• Career
• Discourse
• Children
• Developmental
• Culture
• China
• Organizational Communication
• Socialization
• Dirty Work
• Stigma
• Engineering

Acknowledgments

This research could not have been conducted without funding provided by the Purdue University College of Engineering's INSPIRE (Institute for P-12 Engineering Research and Learning) program and the graduate students who helped collect data. The authors would also like to express our appreciation to an anonymous reviewer for suggesting the incorporation of literature on suzhi

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Brenda L. Berkelaar

Brenda L. Berkelaar is Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Texas at Austin

Patrice M. Buzzanell

Patrice M. Buzzanell is Professor at the Brian Lamb School of Communication at Purdue University

Lorraine G. Kisselburgh

Lorraine G. Kisselburgh is Assistant Professor at the Brian Lamb School of Communication at Purdue University

Wufeng Tan

Wufeng Tan is a freelance consultant

Yiwen Shen

Yiwen Shen is Associate Professor at the Beijing Foreign Studies University