The Safety Dance: Risk Taking of Skilled Construction Workers

• In Event: 192 - Regular Session. Risk

Abstract

The sociology of risk taking traditionally links risk taking to masculinity. The dominance of masculinity in the sociology of risk taking, however, has recently come under fire. Recent authors argue that the focus on masculinity in explaining professional risk taking hides many other, often more important, factors like class and institutional background. Unfortunately, these scholars fail to explore how risk takers understand different types of risk. Relying on a series of interviews with electrical construction workers, I explore worker perceptions of various jobsite safety procedures to understand why electrical workers put themselves at risk. I argue that it is my respondents' craft identity that determines how they view different types of safety procedures; safety procedures in closer proximity to the profession's core tasks (Abbott 1988) determines the level of support the procedure receives from those within the profession.

Author

• Martin Kosla, The Ohio State University