Eichar assesses the impact of occupation on working class consciousness and political orientation in terms of the content of work experience. He uses job characteristic theory to clarify the relationship between occupation and class to test whether certain job characteristics influence the class consciousness and political orientation of workers.
Introduction The Conceptual Independence of Occupation and Class Occupational Self-Direction and Alienation Occupational Self-Direction, Class, and Authority Occupational Self-Direction and Class Consciousness Analysis of Work-Related Class Interests Analysis of Other Levels of Class Consciousness and Political Orientation Interpretations and Conclusions Appendices Bibliography Index
DOUGLAS M. EICHAR is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Hartford. He has published articles on worker consciousness and other topics in political sociology.
?Eichar's book explores a novel idea: the effect of immediate job
characteristics on working-class consciousness and political
orientations. Occupations and Class Consciousness in America is
elegantly written, modest in its claims, and balanced in data
presentation. . . . Eichar explores an important question of how
work influences class consciousness. . .?-American Journal of
Sociology
?Eicher merges conceptual and empirical analyses of social classes,
occupations, and political orientations into a carefully researched
portrait of worker attitudes in American capitalism. Using data
from the Quality of Employment Surveys (1970-), sponsored by the US
Department of Labor, the author attempts to clarify the always
popular and intriguing relationship between occupations and Marxist
conceptions of class by using the job characteristic' approaches of
industrial psychology and organizational theory. This effort brings
two traditionally disparate bodies of literature (and ideology)
together in a new and promising way. Rarely will good-faith
Marxists write about such topics as job satisfaction, motivation,
and occupational self-direction. Although the empirical
relationships between job characteristics and worker attitudes are
generally weak and inconsistent, Eichar's conceptual models are
fruitful and worthy of a look. Most appropriate for social science
research collections in academic libraries. Most likely users will
be graduate students and faculty.?-Choice
?This closely reasoned book focuses on job characteristics as a way
to account for the impact of occupation on working-class
consciousness. The intended audience most likely consists of
specialists of class and stratification research. . . . This is an
honest piece of work that operates within a Marxist approach
without seeking to challenge it. The book is very strong in
identifying the many problems of relating occupation to social
class and in bringing a wide body of appropriate literature to bear
on these concerns. Further development of the
alientation/self-direction idea with appropriate empirical
applications is definitely justified.?-Perspectives on Political
Science
"Eichar's book explores a novel idea: the effect of immediate job
characteristics on working-class consciousness and political
orientations. Occupations and Class Consciousness in America is
elegantly written, modest in its claims, and balanced in data
presentation. . . . Eichar explores an important question of how
work influences class consciousness. . ."-American Journal of
Sociology
"This closely reasoned book focuses on job characteristics as a way
to account for the impact of occupation on working-class
consciousness. The intended audience most likely consists of
specialists of class and stratification research. . . . This is an
honest piece of work that operates within a Marxist approach
without seeking to challenge it. The book is very strong in
identifying the many problems of relating occupation to social
class and in bringing a wide body of appropriate literature to bear
on these concerns. Further development of the
alientation/self-direction idea with appropriate empirical
applications is definitely justified."-Perspectives on Political
Science
"Eicher merges conceptual and empirical analyses of social classes,
occupations, and political orientations into a carefully researched
portrait of worker attitudes in American capitalism. Using data
from the Quality of Employment Surveys (1970-), sponsored by the US
Department of Labor, the author attempts to clarify the always
popular and intriguing relationship between occupations and Marxist
conceptions of class by using the job characteristic' approaches of
industrial psychology and organizational theory. This effort brings
two traditionally disparate bodies of literature (and ideology)
together in a new and promising way. Rarely will good-faith
Marxists write about such topics as job satisfaction, motivation,
and occupational self-direction. Although the empirical
relationships between job characteristics and worker attitudes are
generally weak and inconsistent, Eichar's conceptual models are
fruitful and worthy of a look. Most appropriate for social science
research collections in academic libraries. Most likely users will
be graduate students and faculty."-Choice
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