Willis on Education

All notes taken from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqe6aryDUhM

Who had contrasting ideas on education?

• Althusser, Bowles and Gintis, and Bourdieu examined the structural causes of inequality in the education system

• Wilis suggested that students were not ‘passive puppets’ and were aware of exploitation

What is learning to labour?

• Mixed methods approach- observations, interviews

• Studies ‘the lads’- a group of working-class boys who were disruptive, misbehaved and had a very negative attitude to educated

• Anti-school subculture- praise earned from behaviours against the school ethos

What are the conclusions of education?

• Education was ineffective as an agent of socialisation

• ‘The lads’ were not socialised into work, rather waiting to leave education

• Contradicts the work of functionalists and other Marxists

What are the applications to contemporary society?

• An anti-school subculture within contemporary education

• Crisis over the achievement of working-class males

• Does being a working-class male carry a label of underachievement?

What are the evaluations of Willis’ view on education?

• Close bonds with boys could have caused the Hawthorne Effect

• ‘Choose to fail’- is this by design by free will?

• End results- Working-class boys ended up in working-class jobs- does this prove that education reproduces inequality?