Entering the Building: The Transformation of Professional Socialization and Intergenerational Relationships in Chantiers de l'Atlantique [1950-2005]

Based on the data of a sociological study conducted among three generations of workers of Chantiers de l'Atlantique, this article describes and analyzes, in a dynamic prospect, first, the changes in employment and labor in the shipbuilding industry over the last five decades (1950-2005) and, secondly, the changes in professional socialization and intergenerational relationships at work in the group of the metal-workers. On the basis of the postulate according to which the age and the generation are not sociological data in themselves but result from a singular social construction, our purpose is to show how the mode of production of the three working generations observed is directly related to differences in access to employment on the one hand, and to professional and organizational socialization on the other hand. [Copyright Elsevier SAS.]