DOI•
Learning to Labour: How Working Class Kids Get Working Class Jobs
01 Dec 2011-Iss: 32, pp 5-8
About: The article was published on 2011-12-01 and is currently open access. It has received 1252 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Working class.
Citations
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TL;DR: It is argued that even in a school promoting social mobility, teachers still reinforce class-based skills and behaviors that undermine success for middle-class children because of these schools’ emphasis on order as a prerequisite to raising test scores.
Abstract: No recent reform has had so profound an effect as no-excuses schools in increasing the achievement of low-income, black and Hispanic students. In the past decade, no-excuses schools-whose practices include extended instructional time, data-driven instruction, ongoing professional development, and a highly structured disciplinary system-have emerged as one of the most influential urban school-reform models. Yet almost no research has been conducted on the everyday experiences of students and teachers inside these schools. Drawing from 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork inside one no-excuses school and interviews with 92 school administrators, teachers, and students, I argue that even in a school promoting social mobility, teachers still reinforce class-based skills and behaviors. Because of these schools' emphasis on order as a prerequisite to raising test scores, teachers stress behaviors that undermine success for middle-class children. As a consequence, these schools develop worker-learners-children who monitor themselves, hold back their opinions, and defer to authority-rather than lifelong learners. I discuss the implications of these findings for market-based educational reform, inequality, and research on noncognitive skills.
193 citations
Book•
20 Nov 2013
TL;DR: There has been some research examining the interrelationship between social class and language over the years, and in this article, I provide a review of that research, focusing primarily on the period 2000-2014 as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Social class is a curious construct. In the discipline where it has traditionally been most at home, sociology, there has been a constant flow of commentary on its demise and, indeed, its death over the years. In applied linguistics, the situation is somewhat different in that there has been a degree of social class denial, but more importantly, there has been social class erasure in that the construct has tended to receive little or no attention in publications that deal with language and identity and social life. Where social class is introduced into research, it is almost always done in a very cursory, partial, and superficial way. Still, there has been some research examining the interrelationship between social class and language over the years, and in this article, I provide a review of that research, focusing primarily on the period 2000–2014. First, however, I include a discussion of what social class means in 21st-century societies and a short review of class-based research carried out from the 1960s to the 1990s, the inclusion of the latter being necessary to an understanding of research after 2000. I conclude the article with some thoughts about future directions.
187 citations
Cites background from "Learning to Labour: How Working Cla..."
...London, UK: Routledge and Kegan Paul....
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...…Willis was interested in “how and why it is that [White] working class lads come to accept working class jobs through their own apparent choice” (Willis, 1977, p. 185), in other words, why they did not succeed in school, which came to function more as a training ground for their eventual…...
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...Here there is a link between working-class subjectivities, culture and behavior, which Paul Willis (1977) found in his oft-cited study of working-class adolescent males in the English Midlands in the 1970s....
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...London, UK: Routledge and Kegan Paul....
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors proposed a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 license for the authors' work and published it under Elsevier Elsevier's Geo Forum.
183 citations
Cites background from "Learning to Labour: How Working Cla..."
...Many offer the critique that structural elements, including the social and financial re-sources available to young people, have long been a strong indica-tor of successful transition (Thomson and Holland, 2002; Willis, 1977)....
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...long been a strong indica-tor of successful transition (Thomson and Holland, 2002; Willis, 1977)....
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TL;DR: This paper analyzed the intergenerational transmission of cultural capital and found that cultural participation (embodied state) is consistently affected by all three manifestations of parental cultural capital: institutionalized, embodied and objectified cultural capital.
Abstract: Empirical studies on cultural capital have never fully operationalized the concept using indicators of all three states distinguished by Bourdieu, i.e., institutionalized, embodied and objectified cultural capital. We provide such a threefold measurement for both respondents and their parents in our analysis of the intergenerational transmission of cultural capital. Respondents' schooling levels (institutionalized state) are affected by parental education and, to a lesser extent, parental cultural behavior, but both effects are smaller among younger generations. Cultural participation (embodied state) is consistently affected by all three manifestations of parental cultural capital. Possessing cultural goods (objectified state) is mostly affected by parents' cultural possessions. Our results reveal that the three states of cultural capital differ in the constellation of their causes and consequences, plus the changes therein.
181 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors use people's past consumption of music, embodied in their old records, as an archive to contribute to current debates concerning the relationship between identity and consumption, and use this archive as a reference for future research.
Abstract: In this paper we contribute to current debates concerning the relationship between identity and consumption. We use people's past consumption of music, embodied in their old records, as an archive ...
160 citations
Cites background from "Learning to Labour: How Working Cla..."
...However, Willis (1977) argued that the lads he studied chose to be working class and actively and creatively rejected the opportunities afforded to them for social advancement....
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...Paul Willis (1977) once asked ‘Why do working class kids end up getting working class jobs?’ and in a similar vein we can suggest the same is true for our participants – unsurprisingly, middle class people end up reproducing middle class values and identities....
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References
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01 Jan 2010
TL;DR: The concept of community of practice was not born in the systems theory tradition as discussed by the authors, but it has its roots in attempts to develop accounts of the social nature of human learning inspired by anthropology and social theory.
Abstract: The concept of community of practice was not born in the systems theory tradition. It has its roots in attempts to develop accounts of the social nature of human learning inspired by anthropology and social theory (Lave, 1988; Bourdieu, 1977; Giddens, 1984; Foucault, 1980; Vygotsky, 1978). But the concept of community of practice is well aligned with the perspective of systems traditions. A community of practice itself can be viewed as a simple social system. And a complex social system can be viewed as constituted by interrelated communities of practice. In this essay I first explore the systemic nature of the concept at these two levels. Then I use this foundation to look at the applications of the concept, some of its main critiques, and its potential for developing a social discipline of learning.
1,082 citations
Book•
27 Jun 2011
TL;DR: In this article, the Flatlands of Oakland and the Youth Control Complex are discussed. But the focus is on the role of black youth in the criminal justice system and community institutions.
Abstract: Preface Acknowledgments Part I Hypercriminalization 1 Dreams Deferred: The Patterns of Punishment in Oakland 2 The Flatlands of Oakland and the Youth Control Complex 3 The Labeling Hype: Coming of Age in the Era of Mass Incarceration 4 The Coupling of Criminal Justice and Community Institutions Part II Consequences 5 "Dummy Smart": Misrecognition, Acting Out, and "Going Dumb" 6 Proving Manhood: Masculinity as a Rehabilitative Tool 7 Guilty by Association: Acting White or Acting Lawful? Conclusion: Toward a Youth Support Complex Appendix: Beyond Jungle-Book Tropes Notes References Index About the Author
909 citations
TL;DR: The authors examines the transition to adulthood among 1.5-generation undocumented Latino young adults and finds that for them, the transition from K to adulthood involves exiting the legally protected status of K to...
Abstract: This article examines the transition to adulthood among 1.5-generation undocumented Latino young adults. For them, the transition to adulthood involves exiting the legally protected status of K to ...
663 citations
TL;DR: In this article, student engagement research, policy, and practice must become more nuanced and less formulaic, and the ensuing review is structured accordingly, guided in part by social-ecological analysis and social-cultural theory.
Abstract: Student engagement research, policy, and practice are even more important in today’s race-to-the top policy environment. With a priority goal of postsecondary completion with advanced competence, today’s students must be engaged longer and more deeply. This need is especially salient for students attending schools located in segregated, high-poverty neighborhoods and isolated rural communities. Here, engagement research, policy, and practice must become more nuanced and less formulaic, and the ensuing review is structured accordingly. Guided in part by social-ecological analysis and social-cultural theory, engagement is conceptualized as a dynamic system of social and psychological constructs as well as a synergistic process. This conceptualization invites researchers, policymakers, and school-community leaders to develop improvement models that provide a more expansive, engagement-focused reach into students’ family, peer, and neighborhood ecologies.
528 citations
TL;DR: The Longitudinal Immigrant Student Adaptation Study (LISA) as discussed by the authors used a mixed-methods approach, combining longitudinal, interdisciplinary, qualitative, and quantitative approaches to document adaptation patterns of 407 recently arrived immigrant youth from Central America, China, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Mexico over the course of five years.
Abstract: Background/Context: Newcomer immigrant students are entering schools in the United States in unprecedented numbers. As they enter new school contexts, they face a number of challenges in their adjustment. Previous literature suggested that relationships in school play a particularly crucial role in promoting socially competent behavior in the classroom and in fostering academic engagement and school performance. Purpose: The aim of this study was to examine the role of school-based relationships in engagement and achievement in a population of newcomer immigrant students. Research Design: The Longitudinal Immigrant Student Adaptation Study (LISA) used a mixed-methods approach, combining longitudinal, interdisciplinary, qualitative, and quantitative approaches to document adaptation patterns of 407 recently arrived immigrant youth from Central America, China, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Mexico over the course of five years. Based on data from the last year of the study, we examine how the role of relationships mediates newcomers’ challenges with academic engagement and performance. We identify factors that account for patterns of academic engagement and achievement, including country of origin, gender, maternal education, English language proficiency, and school-based relationships. Findings: Multiple regression analyses suggest that supportive school-based relationships strongly contribute to both the academic engagement and the school performance of the par
356 citations