Ties that bind: US suburban residents on the social and civic dimensions of work

Abstract

This paper describes how individuals from eight middle class suburbs in the US expressed the social and civic dimensions of the meaning of work during interviews conducted for Boston University's Middle Class Morality Project. A modified grounded theory approach was used to analyze the interviews from this project, which incorporated aspects of both qualitative and quantitative research methods. The paper first examines where individuals located their social ties and discusses the recentering of social ties in work and work organizations among these suburban North Americans. Stories and talk of work are then analyzed to illustrate individuals' constructions of the civic and social meaning of their work. The conclusion considers more broadly how the movement of women into the formal labor force, the growth of nonprofit sector jobs, and the increasing prevalence of team-based organizations relate to these dimensions of the meaning of work. I suggest that culturally constructed divisions between the spheres of home, work, and community that emerged during industrialization may be weakening as the social and civic dimensions of work become more salient in a post-industrial era.

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