|
|
Article: Apprenticeship
- Article from:
- Encyclopedia of Children and Childhood in History and Society
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 The Gale Group Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
Apprenticeship
In a formal sense, apprenticeship is a contractual agreement between an expert practitioner of a trade, art, or profession and a novice in which, for a fixed period of time, the latter exchanges labor for training. Widely associated with the crafts, apprenticeship traces its origins in the West to the household economies of medieval Europe.
Origins and Practice
Until the separation of work from home that began in Europe and North America around 1800, households were also sites of production and reproduction. Since most families needed their children to contribute to their own support, the young nearly always worked alongside their parents in the home and on the land. In ...