Why are those workers' children still workers?

01

Today I will take you to read "Learning to Work" by British sociologist Paul Willis. In this book, Paul Willis argues that most of the children of the working class inherited their father's business and ended up in factories.

So why do workers' children still go to worker?

02

The easiest explanation to think of is that working-class children don't go to school or go to school poorly. If schools can't provide them with a good education, then those children won't be competitive in the labor market and won't find good jobs.

Not necessarily. Willis researched a secondary school in an industrial city in England. The students of this middle school are mostly working-class children. As you can imagine, the students' grades are poor, but the level of this school is not bad.

The teachers are very experienced and dedicated. The school has hockey, baseball, soccer and cross-country running, as well as choir and drama performances, and there are many student clubs organized in the school, and students can participate in the school council. In science class, the teacher will take the students to do experiments. In his spare time, the school will also organize a visit to the museum. The school is specially equipped with career guidance teachers to help students find suitable jobs after graduation. Logically speaking, the conditions of this school are not bad. Whether it's hardware or software, there's everything.

Why are students' grades so poor?

03

Because students simply don't love to learn. The most striking thing in the school is a group of very rebellious boys. They formed their own subculture. In schools, these rebellious students have become mainstream. They don't like to listen to lectures, get into class, deliberately contradict the teacher, and are keen to wear fancy clothes, smoke, drink, fight, and pick up girls.

They look down on obedient and studious students and mock them as nerds. They feel that these nerds can only read, do not understand anything, and have neither guts nor life experience compared to them. Don't talk about nerds, they even look down on the teacher, thinking that what the teacher says is nonsense, and all the teacher wants to do is try in every possible way to make the students obey.

So the teacher doesn't care about these children? To be honest, I really can't do it. The teacher can really force the student to have very few tricks, and if it is really useful, it must be amplified, but the big move cannot be used every day. The principal said, I have hundreds of students here, everyone wants to make trouble every day, how can I punish them? So, many times, the teacher turns a blind eye in the end.

Moreover, it is not only teachers who affect children, but also parents. The parents of the working class are very different from the parents of the middle class. Middle-class parents are eager for their children to do everything, and they are especially cooperative with teachers. What about working-class parents? They don't really look at the teacher, and their worldview is very different from the teacher's.

04

In this way, after graduation, these students can only become workers, is it not "self-inflicted"?

Paul Willis said that these rebellious children actually have keen instincts. They instinctively perceive that what is taught in school is different from what is needed by mixed society.

Middle-class occupations are characterized by people in different professions doing different jobs. It is difficult for lawyers to change careers to become doctors, and it is difficult for accountants to become engineers. Workers do different jobs. Jobs that require physical strenuous work are generally the same. Working class children change jobs frequently. For them, it doesn't matter what they do, what matters is who they work with.

Who do you work with? Most of the men in the factory are adults, so the workshop is also dominated by male culture. Life in the workshop is so boring that workers will have fun on their own. Like the rebel students at school, they also use foul language and play pranks. Workers feel that "pen work" is not the same as "manual work". Those who "play with pen" are all sissy, and "those who do manual work" can show masculinity.

In such an atmosphere, rebel students are certainly better at mixing than nerds. Therefore, rebel students instinctively know that what is taught in school is useless, and staying in school will only waste time. The teachers are just trying to turn students into little sheep. Young sheep are more easily slaughtered by the power of capital. They are very clear in their hearts: they do not want to be "five points plus sheep".

05

But, in the long run, these rebels who seem to be bold and charismatic have killed themselves.

While in school, they were eager to work. When they first enter the workplace, rebel students will find themselves more mixed up, like a fish in water. Income suddenly increased, and they had money to buy clothes and alcohol. Going to work every day, life suddenly seems to have meaning. They enjoy working with older, tougher men, which makes them feel respected. Everyone is a tough guy.

However, soon, they will find that the work in the factory is boring, and there is no way to change their fate.

Most ironically, they will eventually discover that the way to change their fate is to conform to society. The most effective way to change their fate is to read the books they despised the most.

This is a sad fact. In a class society, education is not just about teaching students skills and knowledge, but more importantly, it is a kind of "cultural capital". Education is becoming more and more elitist, in fact, it is necessary to use this set of rules of the game to ensure that the descendants of the elite can still succeed, so that the reproduction of class status and privileges is realized.

Paul Willis said, "Knowledge is always biased and full of class connotations. ”

06

This is a prisoner's dilemma.

In school, if other children are nerds, then the best strategy for a child is to be a rebel student, he will be envied by everyone and become the child king. If other children are rebels, the best choice for this child is also to be rebels, so that they can integrate into the group and not be discriminated against by other children. Therefore, no matter how other children choose, for this child, his best choice is rebellion.

As a result, a "culture of rebellion" was formed that rebelled against the authority of the school.

07

You may think these children are ignorant, but they are sharp.

They intuitively see that education in schools is mostly meaningless, and that the diplomas promised by schools are false.

In capitalist societies, the middle class tends to struggle to fit into mainstream ideology, believing that individual efforts can make it possible to get ahead. The working class sees better. They don't believe it. Paul Willis said: "The working class does not need to believe in the dominant ideology, and the dominant ideology does not need to hide its oppression with the face of democracy." "The working class is the only class that is not structured from within by the ideological relations of the complex capitalist system."

However, they are still one step away from the truth. The truth of the matter is that the solidification of social class is difficult to break, and only a very small number of children at the bottom of society can achieve class jump. If everyone can move upward, the social order will be chaotic.

The truth of the matter is that the continued work of the children of the working class is necessary to sustain capitalism. In a commodity society, labor becomes a commodity of free exchange, but, as Marx said, labor creates value far beyond its price. What capitalists are trying to do is how to increase the intensity of labor and let workers create more value.

Thus, the children of the working class in the capitalist countries began with rebellion and ended in despair. They embark on a path that cannot be changed, fall into the cycle of fate, and finally have to accept the unforgiving reality.

This is their tragedy: they are enlightened, they are unawakened.