Learning to Labour

Paul Willis

• Key to transcripts; Introduction. Part I Ethnography: Elements of a culture; Class and institutional form of a culture; Labour power, culture, class and institution. Part II Analysis: Penetrations; Limitations; The role of ideology; Notes towards a theory of cultural forms and social reproduction; Monday morning and the millennium. Index.

'This book is a remarkable achievement. To attempt to summarise it is to trivialise its riches. It is the best book on male working class youth since Whyte's Street Corner Society (1943). It demands to be read and re-read and we shall feel its resonances for many years.' David H. Hargreaves, New Society '(Paul Willis) begins his valuable study by suggesting "the difficult thing to explain about how middle class kids get middle class jobs is why others let them. The difficult thing to explain about how working class kids get working class jobs is why they let themselves". I don't share Mr Willis's perplexity ... But I do very much respect the attempt to observe what happens to these children in school, to record it as honestly as one can, and to pose the question why?"' Brian Jackson, The Guardian 'Paul Willis has done education a service in producing this book. If, as a result of reading it, those with some power in education were to institute changes based on the evidence he has presented, we should all benefit - and this includes "the lads".' Harry Ree, Times Education Supplement