The Counter-School Culture

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The counter-school culture See the study by Willis in Haralambos, for example The school Willis studied was situated in a working-class housing estate in a predominantly industrial small town. The main focus of his study was a group of twelve working-class boys whom he followed over their last eighteen months at school, and their first few months at work. The twelve pupils formed a friendship grouping with a distinctive attitude to school. The ‘lads’, as Willis refers to them, had their own counter-school culture, which was opposed to the values espoused by the school. This counter-school culture had the following features. The lads felt superior both to teachers, and to conformist pupils who they referred to as ‘ear’oles’. The lads attached little or no value to the academic work of the school, and had no interest in gaining qualifications. During their time at school, their main objectives were to avoid going to lessons, or, when attendance was unavoidable, doing as little work as possible. They would boast about the weeks and months they could go without putting pen to paper. They resented the school trying to take control over their time - they constantly tried to win ‘symbolic and physical space from the institution and its rules’. While avoiding working, the lads kept themselves entertained with ‘irreverent marauding misbehaviour’. ‘Having a laff’ was a particular high priority. Willis described some of the behaviour that resulted: During films in the hall they tie the projector leads into impossible knots, make animal figures or obscene shapes on the screen with their fingers, and gratuitously dig and jab the backs of the ‘ear ‘oles’ in front of them. In class there is a continuous scraping of chairs, a bad tempered ‘tut-tutting’ at the simplest request, and a continuous fidgeting which explores every permutation of sitting or lying on a chair.
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