Karen R. Foster, Generation, Discourse, and Social Change

Abstract

Karen R. Foster, Generation, Discourse, and Social Change. New York and Oxon, UK: Routledge, 2013, 175 pp., $105.00 hardcover (ISBN 13:978-0-415-81766-0) Generation, Discourse, and Social Change is a welcome addition to the Routledge Advances in Sociology book series. It is small book --seven chapters and three short technical appendices--but punches above its weight and volume in its substantive contribution to and to workers/workplaces. The book opens with an oft-heard statement about younger want more. They always want (p. 1). This is uttered by a respondent in Foster's study of generational discourse in workplaces, but could have been said by any number of people of a certain age about younger generations. Yet, as the author points out, the picture of generational discourse, in reality, is messy. Management, psychology, and society in general seems to know about different generations and their approaches to work and life, yet little sociological research has actually directly and critically interrogated what is assumed to be true. Foster sets out to change that. By way of introduction, Foster lets readers know, in a sociologically nuanced way, that she will take the commonly framed presumptions about generations at work and check them against work-life stories of real she interviews. this way, she seeks to find what's going with generations and discourse at work. Her focus is on discourse, specifically on two levels: generation as discourse, by which she means that which constructs generations as meaningful in human life; and generational discourses, the way certain discourses such as those about work and earning, are linked to the idea of generation. Chapter 1, the question of what we think a generation is, is engagingly poked and prodded from the vantage point of extant sociological and philosophical literatures. Foster sets out then to let the concept emerge from her interviews. Chapter 2 lays down the parameters of her qualitative study, the central research questions, the data collection process, and the methodological approach which is carefully designed to match the sociological goal. Everything is questioned in this study: what work is, whether generational differences exist, what matters, what can be generalized, and what generations mean to sociology. The study draws on narrative accounts to enable insights to emerge from the stories told. The range of working interviewed is impressively diverse. It includes: hotel maids, CEOs, fishers, and ad writers, amongst others. fact, the list is even longer than the 52 interviewed since many have had more than one career or job. This is in the Studs Terkel tradition of what he called rogue sociology that led him to profound insights into working lives. Chapter 3 develops how generation as discourse emerges from the narrative accounts in two ways. First, generation as an axis of difference emerges when beliefs are expressed about older and younger at work having different attitudes toward work and earning. An example of this is one respondent who seized on the concept of credential arrogance, by which he meant that younger workers seem to think that their degree is sufficient to confer seniority at work. Second, generation as discourse calls upon historical time differences in relation to technology, shifting gender expectations, and a whole slate of sociohistorical changes. An example here is one older respondent who began many of his points with In our day ... suggesting that the present day was not his day. At the end of this chapter, the intriguing question is posed: how do the respondents' perceptions about generation map onto their working realities? Three generational narratives emerge from the stories respondents tell: ambivalence, faithful relations to work, and disaffection. …