Learning to labor or being afraid to labor? An analysis of the high-academic-achievement working-class students and parents’ counter-reproduction attitude in the Taiwanese society

The study aims to examine the application and limitation of P. Willis’s idea of cultural production (or resistance). In this regard, the study, rooted in the social and cultural context of the Taiwanese society, interviews high-academic-achievement working-class students and parents. The results show that, working-class parents and children, influenced by “getting rid of poverty” and “gaining face”, were afraid to labor so as to generate a “counter-reproduction attitude,” and, consequently, emphasized the value of education (including instrumental value and symbolic value). As a result, working-class students appeared to obtain high academic achievement. While Willis’s theory is unable to account for some phenomena in Taiwan, the study, based on the research findings, first, provides some explanations to why working-class parents and students in the Taiwanese society care so much about education; second, it also sheds some light on why working-class students do well academically in school.