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.
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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
Cites background or result from "Learning to Labour: How Working Cla..."
...In some of these studies, such differences result in student disengagement from school (e.g., Willis, 1977)....
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...Over time, these competing allegiances may severely constrain student engagement in school, heighten ambivalence, and increase disidentification (Eckert, 1989; Fordham & Ogbu, 1986; McLeod & Yates, 2006; Willis, 1977)....
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...These forms are manifest in mismatches between students’ individual and/ or collective identities and the habits and norms privileged by schools (Barron, 2006; Fordham & Ogbu, 1986; Ogbu, 1995; Willis, 1977)....
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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
Cites background from "Learning to Labour: How Working Cla..."
...…intense segregation by race and poverty (Orfield, 1998) tend to have schools that are overcrowded and understaffed, face high teacher and staff turnover, and are plagued by violence and hostile peer cultures (García-Coll & Magnuson, 1997; Mehan, Villanueva, Hubbard, & Lintz, 1996; Willis, 1977)....
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References
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01 Jun 2013
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined the generational differences between the first generation of British born females of Caribbean descent who attended school in the United Kingdom in the 1960s and 1970s and their daughters.
Abstract: This study examined the generational differences between the first generation of British born females of Caribbean descent who attended school in the United Kingdom in the 1960s and 1970s and their daughters. Through the exploration of these two generations’ experiences of school the research examined the similar trends and gained an understanding of the difficulties that they encountered and cited as barriers to their education. It explored the worries and anxieties of first generation mothers, and the measures they applied to improve the educational experiences of their daughters.
It is qualitative research of twenty-six Black Caribbean women in London and Oxford. Access to participants was gained using the snowballing method and semi-structured interviews were used to trace the discussions about the educational experiences across the two generations. Documentary sources such as government reports and other research provided the historical perspective and contextual background to the study. When these historical documents were analysed they showed there was on-going political tension around educational issues. The main contention of the early immigrants of the 1960s was educational inequality which resulted in a disproportionate number of West Indian children in educationally subnormal schools.
The study analyses some areas which were of concern to the mothers in respect to their dissatisfaction with their children’s schooling. It showed that some first generation mothers felt that they received very little support from their parents in school. Immigrant parents were unaware that they were expected to participate in the education of their children. However, unlike their parents, mothers in this study used their experiences of education and applied various measures in an attempt to support the academic performance of their children. This is in contrast to some of the stereotypes of indifference, disengagement and detachment of Black Caribbean parents.
There is constant comparative analysis between the mothers’ and daughters’ experiences. The results showed that both mothers and daughters were affected by teachers’ perception, and low academic expectation. The study also highlights their perception of discrimination, isolation, exclusion and prejudicial practices. It seems that the education system through its operations and practices have maintained a structure that undermines self-confidence and performance of some Caribbean students. It was concluded that when mothers and daughters experiences of school were compared that many similarities existed. There was increased access in the education system that resulted in the availability of opportunities to further and higher education. However many issues still exist that prevents greater equality in the British education system.
9 citations
Dissertation•
01 Jan 2010
TL;DR: This article examined the lives of a group of welfare-reliant single mothers living in the upper reaches of the South Wales Valleys as they participated in a community education project (Lifeline) tasked with raising them out of poverty.
Abstract: This thesis examines the lives of a group of welfare-reliant single mothers (the ‘Lifeline Girls’) living in the upper reaches of the South Wales Valleys as they participate in a community education project (‘Lifeline’) tasked with raising them out of poverty. The project is situated within the local social and economic structure and the broader institutional context of market and state. In this way the research conceives of the linkages between a local site of investigation and the external forces that permeate it. This is achieved through a multi-method, ethnographic approach that charts the everyday interactions of the women involved in Lifeline with the labour market and the pervasive mechanisms of street-level welfare governance. In this the recent restructuring of the welfare state is of particular interest: firstly, through the dispersal of welfare governance to new sites of practice in the field of community development and specifically here to ‘Lifeline’; and secondly, through the extension of the moral imperative of employment to those traditionally assumed to be outside of the labour market. The ‘Lifeline Girls’ were key targets of this restructuring and the ways in which it repositioned this group of young women within new symbolic and material constraints and opportunities is the focus of this research. As such the study examines welfare restructuring, from its rhetorical imaginings to the situated action and meaning making found in one site of its practice. The account establishes the ways in which the ‘Lifeline Girls’ were subject to both coercive and therapeutic pressures associated with very different forms of welfare practice. Here, ‘Lifeline’ itself emerges as a ‘space of contestation’, albeit but one that is inevitably flawed.
9 citations
TL;DR: In this article, Li et al. investigated teachers' work in private migrant schools in urban China, and found that neither education nor labor scholars have empirically investigated teachers’ work.
Abstract: In recent years, scholars have begun to document the emergence of private migrant schools in urban China. However, neither education nor labor scholars have empirically investigated teachers’ work....
9 citations
Dissertation•
01 Jun 2010
TL;DR: In this article, the authors analyse the ways in which recent changes in the global field of work have resonated in the lives of one group of retrenched workers, focusing on workers leaving the textile industry, in which a diversity of individual "dispositions" once flourished as part of another system or work "habitus".
Abstract: This thesis analyses the ways in which recent changes in the global field of work have resonated in the lives of one group of retrenched workers. In order to conceptualise the relationships between changing conditions and changes in individual lives, the author has drawn from the work of sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. Of particular importance to the study are his notions of the ‘habitus’, the ‘field’ and the ’disposition’.
The research focuses on workers leaving the textile industry, in which a diversity of individual ‘dispositions’ once flourished as part of another system or work ‘habitus’. This allows examination of how changing conditions of work have generated specific transformative possibilities for workers at the lower end of the economy.
The author asks what transformations were undergone in the lives of seventeen retrenched textile workers and how adequately their learning process was supported by vocational education and training.
9 citations
Dissertation•
01 Jul 2012TL;DR: The authors found that although most children experienced characteristics of bullying such as name-calling and humiliation, which often caused them distress, few children considered it as bullying and no one referred to themselves as a bully.
Abstract: The aim of this research is to examine, from children’s perspectives, where bullying exists in their everyday experiences of school. A Foucauldian perspective is used to conceptualise bullying and perceives it as involving power which is fluid and involves struggles between individuals. Different modalities of bullying are examined (between pupils, between teachers and pupils and systemic bullying). This research also investigates different severities of bullying from clear to ‘grey’; and different perspectives and feelings children have. Traditional definitions are challenged which distinguish bullying as a specific form of aggression, experienced by a minority of people.
Observations, focus groups and individual interviews were conducted with children in five state schools, a private school and a pupil referral unit, 84 children in total were interviewed. This research found that although most children experienced characteristics of bullying such as name-calling and humiliation, which often caused them distress, few children considered it as bullying and no-one referred to themselves as a bully. Teachers were subject to powers of normalisation and panopticism where they were under surveillance to ensure children conformed to education norms. Although bullying was found to be multi-causal, a particular finding in this thesis is the role played by boredom. Working-class boys with learning difficulties were particularly under ‘the gaze’ and increasingly targeted for punishment, which usually increased their boredom. Some of these children wanted revenge and engaged in bullying. Because they often felt increasingly targeted for punishment, they also experienced bullying by teachers and systemic bullying. Another reason children bully is to be popular and exercise social power over others. This research is an original contribution to knowledge because of its complex and multi-faceted understanding of bullying. These findings have wider resonance and are likely to apply where these processes occur, for example, in other schools.
9 citations