Perspectives on Education

Question 1

What is the name of the researcher?

Answer 1

Paul Willis (1977)

Question 2

What is the study about ?

Answer 2

The Lads and the Earoles.

Question 3

Describe the Lads:

Answer 3

Anti-school subculture
Took little notice of school rules, teachers and work.

Question 4

Describe the earoles:

Answer 4

Pro-school subculture
Did what teachers expected.

Question 5

What is an Alternative View?

Answer 5

Paul Willis (1977) criticises Functionalism and Marxism.
Willis says both perspectives are deterministic.
Both theories fail to notice that many pupils resist the processes of the education system.

Question 6

Paul Willis’ study: Learning to labour:

Answer 6

Studied a group of 12 working class boys during their last year and half at school and their first few months at work.
Didn’t find a correspondence between education and the workplace.
Didn’t find that the lads were shaped by the educational system.

Question 7

What was the real outcome of this study?

Answer 7

Instead the Lads rejected school and created their own counter-school culture.
But it was this very rejection of school which prepared them for the low skill, low status jibs they were to end up in.
An ‘us and them