Putting on an act: learning service behaviour in young women’s vocational education and training for hospitality work

Abstract

ABSTRACT Young people training for work in the hospitality industry learn that the occupation involves taking on a role in order to handle the emotional demands of guests. This article, based on Hochschild’s theory of emotional labour, focuses on young women’s experiences in the Swedish vocational education and training for the hospitality industry. The aim of the study is to analyse and critically examine ideas about good service such as putting on an act and how this role-play is shaped by gender. The data are derived from focus group interviews with 52 young women in hospitality training programmes. In these programmes, service behaviour ideas about what constitutes good service in terms of subordination, femininity and heterosexuality are normalised. The young women do not unreflectively absorb the conditions that service work entails. However, the education gives them little opportunity to gain knowledge about societal gender order and the possibility of understanding their life with that insight. One conclusion is that service behaviour in the form of putting on an act that students learn in vocational education and training is problematic, as it reinforces power hierarchies and leaves young women to single-handedly manage problems that arise in service work.