INDUSTRY, FAMILY, AND CLASS - THE WORKING-CLASS COMMUNITY IN BARREIRO

Frequently placed on the edges of scientific debate and analyzed in re lation to problems or theoretical constructs specific to other social groups, the portrait of the ''working-class family'' is too often the product of logical deductions and a sort of no-man's land. The researc h project described by the present article concerns factories, working -class groups, and family strategies in Barreiro, a Portuguese industr ial town near Lisbon, the Portuguese capital. Special attention is giv en to reconstructing the industrial experience at a regional level and to the study of workers in the cork and heavy metallurgical industrie s of Barreiro. The results suggest the internal diversity of the worki ng-class world and two different kinds o linkeage between family and w orkplace life-the survival strategy of cork workers in the 1920s, and the promotion strategy of the metal workers in the 1950s.