The Sociology Book

292

H O W W O R K I N G - C L A S S

K I D S G E T W O R K I N G -

C L A S S J O B S

PAUL WILLIS (1950– )

A

repeated claim is that

society is meritocratic:

people can achieve to

the level of their ability. But Paul

Willis, in his study of working-class

youths in an industrial town in

England in the 1970s, asks why it

is, then, that working-class boys

end up in working-class jobs.

Following 12 boys, or “lads” as he

refers to them, in their final two

years of school and first year of

employment, Willis claims it is the

culture and values surrounding

these young men that inform

their life choices. They develop

a counterculture that resists the

philosophy of school, namely that

Working-class counter-school culture

rejects middle-class values.

These beliefs are useful on the factory

floor and in other low-paid work.

Formal academic

knowledge is derided

as feminine.

Practical jobs

are believed to be

masculine.

Working-class kids

get working-class jobs.

IN CONTEXT

FOCUS

Cultural reproduction

and education

KEY DATES

1971 Influential research

by British sociologist Basil

Bernstein suggests that

working-class children

are disadvantaged in the

education system.

1976 US academics Samuel

Bowles and Herbert Gintis

suggest that schools are

institutions that teach people

their place in society.

1979 British journalist Paul

Corrigan’s Schooling the

Smash Street Kids argues

that working-class boys reject

middle-class understandings

of success through hard work.

1994 A study by British

sociologist Máirtín Mac an

Ghaill, The Making of Men,

reflects some of Paul Willis’s

findings, showing how “macho

lads” react against school.