This article focuses on the enduring significance of craft in the careers of Kent Royal Dockyard craftworkers and their sons and grandsons after deindustrialization. The closure of this naval shipbuilding and repair yard together with the subsequent move to post‐industrial employment did not end men's engagement with their craft practices. Instead, this developed into a ‘craft outlook’ defined by a motivation for performing actualizing labour that interwove paid and non‐paid work. Men's careers did not become individualized projects of self as collaborative intergenerational practices gave a long‐term narrative to their careers and lives. Therefore, three contributions are proposed to the literature on working‐class male careers and craft. First, an analytical framework is advanced that empirically distinguishes a ‘craft outlook’ from traditional manual trade employment. Second, a craft outlook reflected ‘whole life careers’ that were constructed from both paid and non‐paid work. Third, the concept of ‘human imprint’ is developed to recognize the generational affirmation produced by the transmission of craft practices.

The decline in manufacturing and growth of service based jobs has prompted many social theorists to argue that the ability of working class men to construct meaningful and rewarding careers is becoming ever more limited. Despite using the universal label 'working class' the experience of skilled working class men has been largely ignored. This article explores 26 work history interviews collected from 14 former Royal Dockyard tradesmen in South East England and 12 of these men's sons and grandsons. Findings from this research challenges the idea that most men were/and are passive victims of industrial change. By contrast, the majority of men in this study managed to carefully adapt to and navigate the transition from industrial to post-industrial work whilst still retaining a 'linear life narrative' (Sennett, 1998) to give meaning to their evolving careers and lives.

This article presents an intergenerational study of 28 skilled working-class men’s life stories of negotiating social mobility in the wake of deindustrialization. This contributes to emerging qualitative research that aims to build a framework that understands the personal tensions social mobility creates for individuals. In this study, the tensions that men experienced were not exclusively the consequence of ‘habitus clivé’, i.e. men feeling a dislocation from their working-class backgrounds as they climbed the occupational ladder. Men’s tensions also arose from internalizing the generational pressure to improve their occupational position. Pressed by these competing tensions, men developed a ‘ getting-on outlook’ over their careers, which meant that each generation pursued upward social mobility while also seeking to have the integrity of their working lives authenticated by their parents. To build on habitus, Bertaux and Bertaux-Wiame’s description of the ‘dual tension’ is advanced as a means to frame the conflict between belonging and individuality that social mobility provoked. This article suggests this ‘dual tension’ could be reduced by families in a process named ‘authentication’. ‘Authentication’ reflects intergenerational dialogues and practices developed by the younger generations to have their achieved status recognized as in keeping with their family background.

Objective This article considers the ambivalence generated in familial cohabitation where adult offspring have never left or have returned to live with their parents. Background Ambivalence is commonly used in psychology to describe contradictory emotions at the interpersonal level. Method A thematically analyzed ethnographic study of eight cohabitating families living in North Wales, in the United Kingdom, explored both generations' perspectives on cohabitation. Results Although our study found evidence of ambivalence at the interpersonal level, we suggest that this was drawn from a structural contradiction, namely, that although cohabitation was the result of structural issues, such as graduate underemployment and the affordable housing crisis, societal values labeled it the personal consequence of a failed adulthood. This caused these families feelings of shame and guilt that created a barrier blocking the interpersonal negotiations needed to develop more positive living arrangements and family roles. The generational contradictions in values of self, family, and society produced irreconcilable personal and political tensions. Conclusion This study concludes that two changes are needed to better negotiate ambivalence in family cohabitation. First, the social narrative that responsibilizes young adults for their failure to attain financial and residential independence needs to be challenged. Second, to address current structural contradictions, the social contract on the provision for family social care needs political renegotiation. Implications Building on the concept of sociological ambivalence, this article suggests that studies of ambivalence need to take a critical perspective that questions the structural forces that produce and constrain interpersonal familial relationships.