ABSTRACT
The literature surveyed in this section covers three major areas of research which focus on training and skill. Within these areas there are some clearly defined currents of research in terms of theoretical approach and methodology, but others are less coherent. The extent to which they engage directly with a concern for training and education varies. This reflects a number of objective features of the British training system and its relationship to skill. The most important feature of this has been the role played by apprenticeship as the major method of training for employment in skilled work and its regulation by craft unions. Therefore, to talk of skill is to talk of the role of skilled manual workers and their unions in the workplace. In this respect, apprenticeship was one of a number of mechanisms whereby these unions maintained their control over the supply of skilled labour.
