2 Education
Then and now: Paul Willis – Learning to Labour (1977) Question has always been as much “toMydo Research with the ‘How’ of it as with the ‘Why’ of it. Hence the subtitle of my book: How Working-Class Kids get Working-Class Jobs. When I did the research in the 1970s, there were many ideas about why working-class students so often ‘failed’ in education, ideas which were usually very insulting of them. But there were very few ideas concerning the ‘how’. I wanted to fill this gap with a detailed account of their ‘lived culture’, the meanings they gave to the context in which they lived, how they came to accept a future of manual labour, how it seemed natural to them.
approach which can be applied to the study of any social group.
To do this I chose ethnography as my research method – studying behaviour in the situation in which it occurs and discovering the meanings used to make sense of the present and future. This type of research requires a specific focus – in this case a focus on class and gender in order to understand the experience of ‘the lads’.
I have been criticised for having an ‘old fashioned view’ of class, a view that has been outdated by economic change and de-industrialisation. There often seems to be an assumption that that class has largely disappeared and is no longer relevant. This greatly overstates things. The working class is undoubtedly being re-formed and fractured in complex ways but certainly not abolished. Some working-class students proceed to still available industrial, construction and maintenance jobs, following more or less traditional patterns. Some find intermittent and insecure work. Some are ‘parked’ for long periods of time in colleges or on government schemes. Others move to non-manual and ‘mental work’ while retaining many aspects of working-class culture. These experiences demand ethnographic attention with a focus on the ‘how’.
I believe that this approach is essential for an in-depth understanding of the ‘meanings world’, the ‘social grammar’ and the ‘structure of feeling’ of a social group. For this reason, I think that my approach continues to be highly, perhaps even more, relevant to understand today’s working class and what is going on both in and out of school. It is very pleasing to me to have opened up a new
My main hope for the continuing contribution of my book is to remind scholars and researchers that the ‘how’ question should always be included and to show respect for the ‘lived culture’ of those under study. Find that creative ‘cultural production’ which always lives no matter how deeply buried in the belly of the beast of social reproduction! Despite everything, that is always a source of optimism and hope.
Key terms Counter-school culture A rejection of the norms and values of the school and their replacement with anti-school norms and values. Shop-floor culture The culture of low-skill workers which has similarities to the counter-school culture. Penetrations Insights into the false pictures presented by ruling class ideology.
Summary 1. According to Willis, the lads developed their own counter-school culture. This involved:
››having a ‘laff’ ››misbehaving and rejecting authority
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››doing as little work as possible ››getting involved in the male, adult world outside school.
2. The similarity between counter-school culture and shop-floor culture prepared the lads to accept and cope with low-skill, manual work. 3. Critics argue that:
››willis’s sample is too small to generalise from ››he ignored other student subcultures ››his study is no longer relevant because of economic change
››despite these criticisms, his work has been very influential and provided a model for later research.
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