Charles Bujold

Nonstandard Career Trajectories and Their Various Forms

A sample of 124 participants (62 men, 62 women) was used in this qualitative research study of people having experienced nonstandard work for the last 3 years. Those participants were met for individual semistructured interviews of approximately 2 hours in length. On the basis of a content analysis with the use of the NUD*IST analysis software, 4 trajectories and 14 subtrajectories were identified: ascending (constant progression, final recovery, uncertain outcome), descending (sudden drop, caught in a trap, long descent, noninsertion), interesting maintenance (accepted job insecurity, project continuity, new project), and uninteresting maintenance (bogged down, leitmotif, adapted, and 180 degrees). The descending and uninteresting maintenance trajectories were predominant, comprising more than two thirds of the participants. Differences were found between genders, age groups, and educational levels. The results are discussed with respect to the scientific literature and to the differences that were observed.

Travail à temps partiel chez un échantillon d'étudiant-e-s des niveaux secondaire et collégial professionnels *

Le travail a temps partiel souleve de nombreuses inquietudes au Quebec comme ailleurs, suscitant des reactions opposees chez divers intervenants. Cet article tente d’eclairer deux questions principales: (1) Existe-t-il des differences significatives entre les etudiants- travailleurs et les etudiants non-travailleurs quant a certaines variables socio-demogra- phiques et quant a certaines variables reliees au fonctionnement scolaire? et (2) Existe-t-il des differences parmi les etudiants-travailleurs selon le sexe, l’âge et le niveau d’etudes quant a certaines variables reliees a l’experience du travail a temps partiel de meme qu’a certaines variables reliees au fonctionnement scolaire? L’echantillon compte en tout 133 etudiants du secteur professionnel de la region de Quebec. Nos resultats demontrent que si relativement peu de variables ont permis de distinguer le groupe des etudiants-travail- leurs du groupe des etudiants non-travailleurs, plusieurs d’entre elles se sont averees discriminantes a l’interieur du groupe d’etudiants-travailleurs. Part-time work among students raises many concerns in Quebec and elsewhere, provoking conflicting reactions from different educational professionals. In this article, we attempt to clarify two main questions. First, are there any significant differences between working and non-working students in terms of several socio-demographic variables and some other variables linked to the student’s ability to function in school? Second, within the working- student group, are there any differences in certain variables associated with part-time work and other variables reflecting the student’s ability to function in school that can be linked to the students’ sex, age, and educational level? The study sample included 133 students in vocational programs in the Quebec City region. Our results show that although rela- tively few variables distinguish the working from the non-working students, there are several discriminant variables within the working student group.