Criticism of all Marxist Theories

Overemphasis on class (differential access to scarce resources)

What about other social divisions like………….age, ethnicity, gender, disability, sexual orientation

Are we all just passive robots?

What about Sociology?Sociology classes are teaching

you to see through any possible indoctrination or ruling class ideology

It is also teaching you about inequalityThis is known as

determinism

INTERACTIONISMWe need to look at a study which

brings thinking, acting human beings back in to the picture

And this brings us to one of the most famous studies in Sociology

Paul Willis: Learning to Labour (1977)

Do we always believe and act on what we are told?

School pupils might be taught endlessly to:

• obey rules• to be obedient to teachers• to work hard• to expect punishment if they step out of

line……………………

However as I am sure you have noticed in every school there are ANTI-SCHOOL SUBCULTURES in which pupils have little or no regard for rules and who have no respect for the authority of teachers.We also do Sociology and Critical Thinking in schools – subjects designed to question everything and to accept nothing!

Paul WillisLearning to Labour• Provides a major critique of perspectives (Marxism and Functionalism)• Argues that both these theories are deterministic i.e. they see pupils as passive. • Both theories fail to take account of pupil resistance to the processes working on themSo brings in INTERACTIONIST PERSPECTIVE

Paul WillisLearning to Labour • recognised that in working class culture masculinity is equated with being tough and doing manual work, doing schoolwork is seen as effeminate and inferior

What is a counter-culture?

What are the two categories of students that Willis found?

How do the lads flout the rules?

Why do the lads not want to identify with school work?

How has their rebellion still prepared them for work?

Why did the ‘Lads’ behave in this way?Partly out of rebellion,

not being liked to be told what to do

Partly as a coping strategy for the boredom of schooling

So they developed their own definitions of what school was about

Paul WillisLearning to LabourHowever the coping strategies

they used, although the lads did not realise this, were also an early lesson into ways of coping with the boring and routine type of job they would ultimately end up in

Thus even rebellion is reproducing the right type of workforce needed for the capitalist system – a workforce who are uncritical and simply ‘just get on with it’

Paul WillisLearning to LabourEVALUATION?

Concentrated solely on White working class males

Neglected to study female, ethnic minority, or disabled students as other groups who maybe resist the schooling experience

Only one school and small group of boys so can we really generalise

Some people think Willis has romanticised these lads as ‘working class heroes’ – in reality they were anti-social and sexist

Willis – methodological issues

Conducted unstructured group interviews to reveal the counter-school culture of the ‘lads’

Problems: cannot be repeated so reliability issues, won’t boys together just say what the other boys want to hear? Open to the researcher’s own biased interpretation