IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/gender/v29y2022i5p1526-1541.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Occupational stigma among further education teaching staff in hair and beauty: Mild but challenging

Author

Listed:
  • Oonagh M. Harness

Abstract

This article explores how Further Education (FE) lecturers and trainers manage a mild stigma that socially taints their work through a discourse intersecting gender and class. To frame their experiences, I draw upon identity work tactics established within the dirty work literature. Through an interview and observational study, the potency of cultural imagery and discourse is shown to manifest as a stigma. This stigma differentiates those associated with hair and beauty work by imposing discrediting tropes pertaining to skill, class status, and social value. Lecturers and trainers become tainted by proxy through the association with an industry and interaction with bodies that are discredited through a gender‐class discourse. Through close proximal positioning to a tainted subject matter, FE lecturers and trainers rely upon esteem‐enhancing strategies to minimize discrediting assumptions. The students they teach may embody stigma through tainted attributes that signal working‐class femininity, yet they enable FE lecturers and trainers to minimize taint by drawing from an alternate discourse that celebrates upward cultural mobility and a more refined iteration of femininity. By broadening the landscape of stigma to recognize it as milder than its extreme theorization in dirty work, this article explores discourse and representation as a centralizing source of stigma.

Suggested Citation

  • Oonagh M. Harness, 2022. "Occupational stigma among further education teaching staff in hair and beauty: Mild but challenging," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(5), pages 1526-1541, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:gender:v:29:y:2022:i:5:p:1526-1541
    DOI: 10.1111/gwao.12847
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.12847
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/gwao.12847?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stephanie Schnurr & Olga Zayts & Andreas Schroeder & Catherine Le Coyte‐Hopkins, 2020. "‘It's not acceptable for the husband to stay at home': Taking a discourse analytical approach to capture the gendering of work," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(3), pages 414-434, May.
    2. Glen E. Kreiner & Blake E. Ashforth & David M. Sluss, 2006. "Identity Dynamics in Occupational Dirty Work: Integrating Social Identity and System Justification Perspectives," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 17(5), pages 619-636, October.
    3. Maya Christiane Flensborg Jensen, 2017. "Gender Stereotypes and the Reshaping of Stigma in Rehabilitative Eldercare," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(6), pages 656-674, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Zhang, Guanglei & Wang, Huaying & Li, Mingze, 2023. "“A Little Thanks Changes My World”: When and why dirty work employees feel meaningfulness at work," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).
    2. Bryant Ashley Hudson & Gerardo A. Okhuysen, 2009. "Not with a Ten-Foot Pole: Core Stigma, Stigma Transfer, and Improbable Persistence of Men's Bathhouses," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 20(1), pages 134-153, February.
    3. Wesemann, Henrik & Wincent, Joakim, 2021. "A whole new world: Counterintuitive crowdfunding insights for female founders," Journal of Business Venturing Insights, Elsevier, vol. 15(C).
    4. Nicole Carusone & Rebecca Pittman & Mindy Shoss, 2021. "Sometimes It’s Personal: Differential Outcomes of Person vs. Job at Risk Threats to Job Security," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(14), pages 1-15, July.
    5. Claudia Gross, 2010. "Spiritual Cleansing: A Case Study on how Spirituality Can Be Mis/used by a Company," management revue - Socio-Economic Studies, Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG, vol. 21(1), pages 60-81.
    6. Maya Christiane Flensborg Jensen, 2017. "Gender Stereotypes and the Reshaping of Stigma in Rehabilitative Eldercare," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(6), pages 656-674, November.
    7. Breit, Eric, 2014. "Discursive practices of remedial organizational identity work: A study of the Norwegian Labor and Welfare Administration," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 231-241.
    8. Harrison, Spencer Huber & Nurmohamed, Samir, 2023. "Dirty creativity: An inductive study of how creative workers champion new designs that are stigmatized," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 175(C).
    9. Lock, Daniel & Filo, Kevin & Kunkel, Thilo & Skinner, James, 2013. "Thinking about the same things differently: Examining perceptions of a non-profit community sport organisation," Sport Management Review, Elsevier, vol. 16(4), pages 438-450.
    10. Camille Gaudy & Christophe Godowski & Jonathan Maurice, 2022. "CSR auditing at a crossroads. What the auditors' daily experience teaches us [L'audit RSE à la croisée des chemins. Ce que nous enseigne le vécu quotidien des auditeurs]," Post-Print hal-03842902, HAL.
    11. Qiujia Lai & Gukseong Lee, 2023. "RETRACTED: An Exploratory Study of the Intrinsic Mechanisms of Occupational Stigma Consciousness, Career Development, and Work–Life Balance among Female Leaders," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(22), pages 1-16, November.
    12. Sharmeela Abdul Gafoor, 2020. "Workplace loneliness and employee creativity from a positive perspective," International Journal of Research in Business and Social Science (2147-4478), Center for the Strategic Studies in Business and Finance, vol. 9(6), pages 244-262, October.
    13. Albayrak-Aydemir, Nihan & Gleibs, Ilka Helene, 2023. "A social-psychological examination of academic precarity as an organizational practice and subjective experience," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 117269, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    14. Castelló, Itziar & Barberá-Tomás, David & Vaara, Eero, 2023. "Moving on: Narrative identity reconstruction after entrepreneurial failure," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 38(4).
    15. Bamber, Matthew & Kurpierz, John & Popa, Alexandra, 2024. "Denunciation and resistance in post-crisis sensemaking," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    16. Harris, Lisa Hope & Debbink, Michelle & Martin, Lisa & Hassinger, Jane, 2011. "Dynamics of stigma in abortion work: Findings from a pilot study of the Providers Share Workshop," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 73(7), pages 1062-1070.
    17. Lemmergaard, Jeanette & Muhr, Sara Louise, 2012. "Golfing with a murderer—Professional indifference and identity work in a Danish prison," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 185-195.
    18. Clarke, Jean & Holt, Robin, 2017. "Imagery of ad-venture: Understanding entrepreneurial identity through metaphor and drawing," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 32(5), pages 476-497.
    19. Eun-Suk Lee & Yonjeong Paik, 2023. "Sensemaking About the Organization–Occupation Relationship in Constructing Identification at Work: A Cross-Occupational Approach," SAGE Open, , vol. 13(2), pages 21582440231, May.
    20. Onno Bouwmeester & Tessa Elisabeth Kok, 2018. "Moral or Dirty Leadership: A Qualitative Study on How Juniors Are Managed in Dutch Consultancies," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(11), pages 1-22, November.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:gender:v:29:y:2022:i:5:p:1526-1541. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0968-6673 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.