Learning to Labour

Paul Willis studied a group of 12 working-class boys during their last year and a half at school and their first few months at work.

Counter-School Culture- a rejection of the norms and values of the school and their replacement with anti-social norms and values.

Willis did not find a simple correspondence between school and work. Nor did he find that the lads were shaped by the educational system.

The lads rejected school and created their own counter-school culture. This prepared them for low-skill, low-status jobs they were to end up in.

School was good for a laugh and not much else. They actively created a counter-school culture based on opposition to authority.