Paul Willis – författare

First published in 2004. A collection of the pioneering work from The Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies.

In this book Paul Willis, a renowned sociologist and ethnographer, aims to renew and develop the ethnographic craft across the disciplines. Drawing from numerous examples of his own past and current work, he shows that ethnographic practice and the ethnographic imagination are vital to understanding the creativity and irreducibility of experience in all aspects of social and cultural practice. Willis argues that ethnography plays a vital role in constituting 'sensuousness' in textual, methodological, and substantive ways, but it can do this only through the deployment of an associated theoretical imagination which cannot be found simply there in the field. He presents a bold and incisive ethnographically oriented view of the world, emphasizing the need for a deep-running social but also aesthetic sensibility. In doing so he brings new insights to the understanding of human action and its dialectical relation to social and symbolic structures. He makes original contributions to the understanding of the contemporary human uses of objects, artefacts and communicative forms, presenting a new analysis of commodity fetishism as central to consumption and to the wider social relations of contemporary societies. He also utilizes his perspective to further the understanding of the contemporary crisis in masculinity and to cast new light on various lived everyday cultures - at school, on the dole, on the street, in the Mall, in front of TV, in the dance club. This book will be essential reading for all those involved in planning or contemplating ethnographic fieldwork and for those interested in the contributions it can make to the social sciences and humanities.

Illuminating one of the most pervasive issues of our time, Popular Culture is the first book to link the importance and implications of popular culture with pedagogical practice. It shows how cultural forms such as Hollywood films, pop music, soap operas, and televangelism are organized by gender, age, class, race, and ethnicity, thus providing the contradictory text that both enables and disables emancipatory interest, so fundamental to the formation of self and society. What emerges is a redefinition of the very notion of popular culture.

Public relations professionals are operating in an increasingly challenging and complex environment. Pressures from outside the organisation include new accountabilities, empowered stakeholders, increased public cynicism and a new communication landscape. Internally, there are increasing demands to demonstrate a strategic contribution, alongside a requirement to coach and counsel senior managers exposed to these environmental pressures. This revised and updated edition provides a framework to enable public relations professionals to clearly articulate and demonstrate their own contribution to organisational effectiveness, while also setting out the specific capabilities public relations leaders must exhibit to operate at the highest levels of the organisation. This edition further develops the pioneering approach to integrating thinking around public relations, leadership, and strategy. It has been updated comprehensively to address contemporary developments and introduce new research and fresh perspectives from the authors. New to this edition are insights from Chief Executives on what they expect from public relations leaders and a comprehensive set of capabilities which scope the demanding role of professionals at the top of their game.Concise and practical, this textbook is suitable for MBA and other postgraduate and executive education qualifications in Public Relations and Corporate Communications – especially for those students who wish to pursue a successful career as a professional public relations specialist, able to operate strategically at the top of successful organisations.

Public relations professionals are operating in an increasingly challenging and complex environment. Pressures from outside the organisation include new accountabilities, empowered stakeholders, increased public cynicism and a new communication landscape. Internally, there are increasing demands to demonstrate a strategic contribution, alongside a requirement to coach and counsel senior managers exposed to these environmental pressures. This revised and updated edition provides a framework to enable public relations professionals to clearly articulate and demonstrate their own contribution to organisational effectiveness, while also setting out the specific capabilities public relations leaders must exhibit to operate at the highest levels of the organisation. This edition further develops the pioneering approach to integrating thinking around public relations, leadership, and strategy. It has been updated comprehensively to address contemporary developments and introduce new research and fresh perspectives from the authors. New to this edition are insights from Chief Executives on what they expect from public relations leaders and a comprehensive set of capabilities which scope the demanding role of professionals at the top of their game.Concise and practical, this textbook is suitable for MBA and other postgraduate and executive education qualifications in Public Relations and Corporate Communications – especially for those students who wish to pursue a successful career as a professional public relations specialist, able to operate strategically at the top of successful organisations.

First published in 2004. A collection of the pioneering work from The Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies.

This book which has now established itself as a classic study of working class boys describes how Paul Willis followed a group of 'lads' as they passed through the last two years of school and into work. The book explains that for 'the lads' it is their own culture which blocks teaching and prevents the realisation of liberal education aims. This culture exposes some of the contradictions within these formal aims and actually supplies the operational criteria by which a future in wage labour is judged. Paul Willis explores how their own culture can guide working class lads on to the shop floor. This is an uncompromising book which has provoked considerable discussion and controversy in educational circles throughout the world - it has been translated into Finnish, German, French, Swedish, Japanese and Spanish.

While there has been a gradual increase in scholarship on men, ageing and masculinities, little attention has been paid to the social relations of men in later life and the implications for enhancing their social wellbeing and counteracting ageist discourse.Bringing together scholars in social gerontology and the social sciences from across Global North and South nations, this collection fills the gaps in key texts by foregrounding older men’s experiences.It provides new perspectives across the intersections of old age, ethnicities, class and sexual and gender identity, paying particular attention to older men from seldom heard or marginalised groups.

While there has been a gradual increase in scholarship on men, ageing and masculinities, little attention has been paid to the social relations of men in later life and the implications for enhancing their social wellbeing and counteracting ageist discourse.Bringing together scholars in social gerontology and the social sciences from across Global North and South nations, this collection fills the gaps in key texts by foregrounding older men’s experiences.It provides new perspectives across the intersections of old age, ethnicities, class and sexual and gender identity, paying particular attention to older men from seldom heard or marginalised groups.

Gender diversity and non-conformity are becoming increasingly visible within society. As more trans and non-binary service users ‘come out’ and trans populations age, practitioners and service providers working in health care, social care, welfare services and housing, will begin to see a growing number of older gender-diverse service users. With contributions from trans and non-binary scholars and practitioners and those with lived experience, this book outlines what good care and support looks like for older trans and non-binary people. This book provides a range of reflective learning activities that can be used by educators, policy makers and practitioners in healthcare, social care, public and community services to develop their knowledge and skills to ensure their practice is affirmative and inclusive.

Gender diversity and non-conformity are becoming increasingly visible within society. As more trans and non-binary service users ‘come out’ and trans populations age, practitioners and service providers working in health care, social care, welfare services and housing, will begin to see a growing number of older gender-diverse service users. With contributions from trans and non-binary scholars and practitioners and those with lived experience, this book outlines what good care and support looks like for older trans and non-binary people. This book provides a range of reflective learning activities that can be used by educators, policy makers and practitioners in healthcare, social care, public and community services to develop their knowledge and skills to ensure their practice is affirmative and inclusive.

This book analyses modernity and tradition in China today and how they combine in striking ways in the Chinese school. Paul Willis – the leading ethnographer and author of Learning to Labour – shows how China has undergone an internal migration not only of masses of workers but also of a mental and ideological kind to new cultural landscapes of meaning, which include worship of the glorified city, devotion to consumerism, and fixation upon the smartphone and the internet. Massive educational expansion has been a precondition for explosive economic growth and technical development, but at the same time the school provides a cultural stage for personal and collective experience. In its closed walls and the inescapability of its ‘scores’, an astonishing drama plays out between the new and the old, with a tapestry of intricate human meanings woven of small tragedies and triumphs, secret promises and felt betrayals, helping to produce not only exam results but cultural orientations and occupational destinies. By exploring the cultural dimension of everyday experience as it is lived out in the school, this book sheds new light on the enormous transformations that have swept through China and created the kind of society that it is today: a society that is obsessed with the future and at the same time structured by and in continuous dialogue with its past.

This book analyses modernity and tradition in China today and how they combine in striking ways in the Chinese school. Paul Willis – the leading ethnographer and author of Learning to Labour – shows how China has undergone an internal migration not only of masses of workers but also of a mental and ideological kind to new cultural landscapes of meaning, which include worship of the glorified city, devotion to consumerism, and fixation upon the smartphone and the internet. Massive educational expansion has been a precondition for explosive economic growth and technical development, but at the same time the school provides a cultural stage for personal and collective experience. In its closed walls and the inescapability of its ‘scores’, an astonishing drama plays out between the new and the old, with a tapestry of intricate human meanings woven of small tragedies and triumphs, secret promises and felt betrayals, helping to produce not only exam results but cultural orientations and occupational destinies. By exploring the cultural dimension of everyday experience as it is lived out in the school, this book sheds new light on the enormous transformations that have swept through China and created the kind of society that it is today: a society that is obsessed with the future and at the same time structured by and in continuous dialogue with its past.

In his fifth collection of poetry, Deer at Twilight, Paul J. Willis offers a vividly imagistic insight into the depths of nature within and around the state of Washington.Walking on Water, Pyramid LakeThese particular bugs can do it,dimpling the surface with their feet,and no one has built a church in their name.  Other bugs swim underwater with abandon,with no blue ribbons to show for it.That leaves the rest of us to performour daily miracles without applause.  This rock, forexample,sheared flatby who knows what torturous force,left to host its lime-green shareof crustose lichen, that concoctionof algae and fungi which long ago,not even listening to Rodney King,decided we can get along if we just try.

This book which has now established itself as a classic study of working class boys describes how Paul Willis followed a group of 'lads' as they passed through the last two years of school and into work. The book explains that for 'the lads' it is their own culture which blocks teaching and prevents the realisation of liberal education aims. This culture exposes some of the contradictions within these formal aims and actually supplies the operational criteria by which a future in wage labour is judged. Paul Willis explores how their own culture can guide working class lads on to the shop floor. This is an uncompromising book which has provoked considerable discussion and controversy in educational circles throughout the world - it has been translated into Finnish, German, French, Swedish, Japanese and Spanish.