Case studys sociology
Learning to labour
Young gifted and Black
Just Like a girl
Author paul willis
Neo marxist
released 1977
Research methods used a wide variety including observartions and interviews
Author Mairtin Mac an Ghail
in 1988
carried out two ethnographic studies in inner-city educational institutions where he worked.
Collected data by watching and “hanging out “ with participants
Pratical and ethical issues There is little chance schools or parents would grant an adult researcher access to research their children in this way, and it would be impossible to do this covertly, because if posing covertly as a teacher or an LF, you wouldn’t naturally ‘hang out’ with students.
carried out two ethnographic studies in inner-city educational institutions where he worked. The first study looked at the relations between white teachers and two groups of male students with anti-school values
His second study looked at female students
Pratical and theoretical problemHe originally wanted to study Irish school students but no one could help him do this, so he was advised to study African Caribbean students instead. As to the Black Sisters he never intended to study them, but they found him – because he was perceived as being on the side of the students they were happy to talk to him about their views of racism.
Critisisms
Only went to one school
Could not be replicated today
Act different around a teacher
Small sample group
his marxist background made him intrested in conflict between W/C students and the education system
What was the studyStudied working class boys in the midlands. His study focused on "the lads", a anti school subculture that formed
These subcultures messed around and actively went against school for fun as they didnt see the point in school. THis was because many were destined to join there fathers in industrial factories
These students cared more about the praise of there peers than the praise of teachers , they would achieve this through truency, bad behavior racism, sexism and homophobia
Overview of study and findingshe concluded that school was not working very well as an agent of socialisation: there was no value consensus here: pupils were actively rejecting the norms and values of society. As such, they were a long way from the hard-working, docile, obedience workers suggested by Bowles & Gintis! And yet the outcome was much the same: the children of working-class parents going on to do working-class jobs. In this study they played an active role in this: they thought school was boring and pointless and was something they had to endure until they could go to work. They had a similar attitude to work, and got through it using similar techniques: "messing about" and "having a laff".
Ethical issuesusing the research methods he did around children would be seen as unethecial and not be allowed today
theoretical issues has become outdated with majority of the uk no longer being industrialised
Author Sue Sharpe
Femenist
Key findings
1972, repeated study in 1994 and saw limited continuity
-Girls in the 1990s still expected to undertake 'women's work' (e.g. health and clerical work) despite increasing structural unemployment and available training schemes; due to this expectation girls had little incentive to achieve high educational standards.
-Career was on the bottom of the list of Girl's priorities; love and marriage were at the top.
-While few girls identified themselves as feminists, they expected husbands to be 'new men' helping them with housework and childcare.
Used unstructued interviews