Learned Dichotomies and the Negotiation of Class.

While most recent literature on dichotomies focuses on their imposition by the powerful, this paper demonstrates how individuals in this study both struggled and applied dichotomous thinking in constructing their class identities. This empirical paper draws upon participant observation and interviews with the younger men (recent high school graduates) enrolled in a technical training program to illustrate how categories imposed upon adolescents via encouraged enrollment in technical courses during high school limited their aspirations for future occupations. These imposed categories created issues of identity for these individuals after high school as shown by their struggles over how to classify the occupation for which they were training and the reby their own class identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]