Abstract | Keywords | Export | Availability | Bookmark

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

The importance of training and education is on the increase. While the production of human capital is seen as a motor for a competitive economy, skills and expertise proof to be necessary for social mobility. Remarkably, in conceiving modern forms of apprenticeship, several mechanisms from the acien régime, seem to return. The difference between public and private initiative is disappearing, education and training is being confused, and in order to acquire generic skills as flexibility, communicability, self-rule, creativity and so on, youngsters have to learn in context. Even for maths, scholars now talk of situated learning. Before the advent of a formal schooling system, training took place on the shop floor, under the roof of a master. The apprentice not only worked but also lived in his masters house and was thus trained and educated at the same time. In cities, this system was formally complemented by an official apprenticeship system, prescribing a minimum term to serve and an obligatory masterpiece for those who wanted to become masters themselves. Traditionally, historians see this as an archaic and backward way of training, yet this book?s aim is to show that is was instead a very flexible and dynamic system, perfectly in tune with the demands of an early modern economy. In order to understand it fully, however, we should differentiate the informal training system organised via a free market of indentures on the one hand and the institutionalised system of craft guilds on the other. In Antwerp, early modern guilds had a project of emancipating their members. They didn't simply produce certain skills, but through a system of quality marks defended the honour of craftsmen. This is the difference with current practices. By representing hands-on skills as superior, guilds supplied a sort of symbolic capital for workers.

History of Antwerp --- anno 1500-1799 --- Guilds --- Apprenticeship programs --- History. --- Compagnonnage --- --Métiers --- --Anvers --- --Histoire des techniques --- --XVe-XVIIIe s., --- History --- 338 <09> --- Economische geschiedenis --- 338 <09> Economische geschiedenis --- Corporations --- Apprentissage professionnel --- Histoire --- Craft guilds --- Gilds --- Labor organizations --- Merchant companies --- Workers' associations --- Artisans --- Employers' associations --- Labor unions --- Apprentices --- Apprenticeship --- Programs, Apprenticeship --- Employees --- Societies, etc. --- Training of --- Belgium --- Antwerp (Belgium) --- guilds --- apprenticeship --- Métiers --- Histoire des techniques --- XVe-XVIIIe s., 1401-1800 --- Guilds - Belgium - Antwerp - History --- Apprenticeship programs - Belgium - Antwerp - History --- Anvers --- Apprentis --- Apprentissage --- Anvers (Belgique) --- 15e-18e siècles