Subcultures

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  • Subcultures
    • Paul Willis - Learning to Labour
      • An ethnographic study of a group of 12 working class boys in their last 18 months at school and first few months at work in the 1970's
        • Ethnographic studies look at the lifestyle of a group of people
        • Involved interviews, observation and participant observation
      • "The Lads" were part of a counter-school culture
        • Counter-school culture refers to the beliefs of a group who are opposed to the values of those in authority at a school
        • The Lads realise they are being exploited and see little opportunity of changing the situation, therefore ironically it is their own choices of "having a laff" that leaves them trapped in exploitative jobs that benefit the bourgeoisie
          • They were racist, sexist, and valued traditional working class masculinity, and Willis found a shop-floor culture similar to this in their first jobs
            • Shop-floor culture refers to the attitudes and behaviour of workers of factories and similar places, particularly men
      • It's been criticised for having a small sample of white male students that generalises working class experiences of education
      • Neo-Marxist
    • Mac an Gahill - The Making of Men
      • Mac an Gahill identifies a range of male subcultures
        • The Macho Lads - hostile to school authority and often become unemployed
        • The Academic Achievers - adopt a more traditional upward route to academic success and found ways to cope with bullying and stereotypes from macho lads
        • The New Enterprisers - a new successful pro-school subculture who embraced the new vocationa-lism of the 80's and 90's
        • Real Englishmen - see themselves as superior to others and achieve success in a way which appears effortless
        • Gay Students - notice the heteosexist nature of education
      • All studies are small scale which gives detailed research about individuals but they are not necessarily representatitve
        • It could be argued that the combination of many studies produces more representative results
    • Gender
      • Female subcultures
        • Griffin (1985) found that girls are less likely to form larger subcultures and more likely to form small friend groups
          • Deviance defined by sexuality not by causing trouble
          • Griffin found no continuity of behaviour from school to work. Girls went down one of three routes
            • Marriage Market - finding a permanent male partner
            • Sexual market - having sexual relationships whilst maintaining a good reputation
            • Labour market - getting a job
        • Scott Davies' research shows that girls are less confrontational and aggressive when resisting education
          • Girls adopted an exaggerated feminity which emphasises importance of boyfriends, marriage, and childbearing not academic success
    • Ethnicity
      • Tony Sewell - African-Caribbean subcultures
        • Studied an all boys school and found different subcultures
          • Conformists - accepted norms and values of the school and tried to succeed
          • Innovators - wanted to succeed but disliked the process of school, so did not seek approval from teachers while keeping out of trouble
          • Retreatists - individuals who intended to keep themselves to themselves and didn't join other subcultures
          • Rebels - strongly rejected the school and were aggressively masculine
      • Some studies say that some subcultures may be formed due to racism, being put into lower sets or streams, and may be more likely to be excluded from school.

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