It's a Working Man's Town : Male Working-Class Culture

In a valuable addition to the debate on the nature of contemporary working-class culture, Thomas Dunk shows that the function and meaning of gender, ethnicity, popular leisure activities, and common-sense knowledge are intimately linked with the way an individual's experience is structured by class. After reviewing the principal theoretical problems relating to the study of working-class culture and consciousness, Dunk provides a detailed ethnographic analysis of "the Boys" – the male working-class subjects of this study. Male working-class culture, he argues, contains both the seeds of a radical response to social inequality and a defensive reaction against alternative social practices and ideas. In a new forward, Dunk contextualizes the original text with regard to the debates about class and masculinity that have occurred since the book was first published.