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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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Book ChapterDOI
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

Journal ArticleDOI
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

Journal ArticleDOI
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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Journal ArticleDOI
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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03 Jun 2010
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors apply some of the insights of the human capital model to better understand the education outcomes of Indigenous Australians, and interpret regional and individual data from the census alongside a selection of key articles and reports in order to help understand why so few Indigenous people are undertaking formal education in Australia today.
Abstract: Education is a key determinant at both a national and individual level for health, wellbeing and access to economic resources. What’s more, education has intrinsic benefits for those who undertake it, as well as for those around them. The standard human capital model has been used by many to understand the education decisions that individuals make, as well as the consequences of these decisions for themselves and wider society. While the standard model may seem overly simple at first glance (individuals undertake education until the predicted benefits no longer outweigh the predicted costs), when the costs and benefits from education are expanded to include the social sphere, and when uncertainty about the future is taken into account, a number of insights emerge with respect to educational marginalisation. The aim of this paper is to apply some of the insights of the human capital model to better understand the education outcomes of Indigenous Australians. Regional and individual data from the census is interpreted alongside a selection of key articles and reports in order to help understand why it is that so few Indigenous people are undertaking formal education in Australia today.

36 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This paper examined the effect of school social class composition on pupil learner identities in British primary schools and found that these pupils' learners' identities are more passive and dominated by issues of discipline and behaviour rather than academic performance.
Abstract: This paper examines the effect of school social class composition on pupil learner identities in British primary schools. In the current British education system, high‐stakes testing has a pervasive effect on the pedagogical relationship between teachers and pupils. The data in this paper, from ethnographic research in a working‐class school and a middle‐class school, indicate that the effect of the ‘testing culture’ is much greater in the working‐class school. Using Bernsteinian theory and the concept of the ‘ideal pupil’, it is shown that these pupils’ learner identities are more passive and dominated by issues of discipline and behaviour rather than academic performance, in contrast to those in the middle‐class school. While this study includes only two schools, it indicates a potentially significant issue for neo‐liberal education policy where education is marketised and characterised by high‐stakes testing, and schools are polarised in terms of social class.

36 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Gossip can be associated with what Freud called the narcissism of minor differences: the gossipers tend not to be too dissimilar from those gossiped about in terms of proximity as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: In an exercise in social theory, rather than an empirical investigation, we concentrate on the role of gossip – spreading ‘news about the affairs of another’ – in relation to the dynamics of power in organizations. Gossip has often been seen in functional terms, as both positive and negative for the organization. In this paper we challenge this functionalist approach. Gossip can be associated with what Freud called the narcissism of minor differences: the gossipers tend not to be too dissimilar from those gossiped about in terms of proximity. Propinquity may increase the animosity of gossip. We see formal organization as a self‐regulating system that constantly refines its boundaries, and gossip is the dirt that trickles in and out of these boundaries, illegitimate, formally disdained and often destructive. The writer who has done most to encourage and clarify thinking about the nature of dirt is Mary Douglas, the anthropologist, especially her notion of expressive pollution. The paper concludes with some...

36 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article used coed cheerleading in the United States as a springboard to explore the bounds and limits of hegemonic masculinity as both cultural script and analytic construct, emphasizing the need for relational analyses of gender when studying both masculinities and femininities, as well as the importance of linking individual level data to broader structures of gendered power and inequality.
Abstract: Nearly a quarter of a century old, the concept of hegemonic masculinity as developed by R. W. Connell remains both influential and contested among gender scholars. In this essay, we use our research on coed cheerleading in the United States as a springboard to explore the bounds and limits of hegemonic masculinity as both cultural script and analytic construct. Cheerleading constitutes a public stage for ‘doing gender’ in ways that highlight normative, taken-for-granted notions of gender difference; consequently, we use cheerleading as a vehicle for asking under what circumstances and to what degree heterosexuality remains central to the enactment of hegemonic masculinity, which reflects a larger question about the flexibility of the concept and its openness to contestation and change. Building on the work of Connell and others, we stress the need for relational analyses of gender when studying both masculinities and femininities, as well as the importance of linking individual-level data to broader structures of gendered power and inequality.

36 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, entry into sex work is not typically considered as an occupational choice comparable to entry into other jobs, and initiation is often thought to occur through predisposing factors such as birth defects.
Abstract: Entry into sex work is not typically considered as an occupational choice comparable to entry into other jobs. In the sex work literature, initiation is often thought to occur through predisposing ...

35 citations