To wonder why working class white boys do worse than any other ethnic group, and how we can change this?

Good on him.

See in many Asian households we don't just shrug and say "oh I'm not academic"

I got fed up of people trying to say that about our kids - they struugled in early years.

One of DS primary school teachers told us DS would never be good at maths - glue ear and short term memory issues were hampering him in classroom - he got a maths A in maths A-level last summer because we didn't listen and write him off but supported him at home and did more work with him.

I think we all have different interpretations of working class. Some people think the working class don't work.
Are we talking free school meals? Family income? Family employment? Unskilled labour vs skilled labour? Council house/ social housing tenants? Family educational achievement? Marital status - many women were defined by their husband's occupation. Professional jobs?
I previously claimed to be working class. My parents were well educated, for their generation. They did not go to university. We did not qualify for free school meals. My father ran his own business. We had a good lifestyle, were always well fed and clothed. We owned a 4 bedroom detached house in a working class area. That area is now a deprived area- many HMOs. We later moved to a 4 bed detached with a large garden, overlooking a park, in a middle class area.
My friends' parents had jobs such as a butcher, a postman, working in car factories. I thought these were working class jobs. Car workers now tend to earn about 50k a year. Is this a working class salary?
Some owned their own houses, some were council house tenants, a few lived in flats. My Dad had friends from business, the police, solicitors, doctors and working class friends such as builders and plumbers. My mother helped him to run the family business. I didn't realise it at the time, but she was unusual, for her generation. I would never have considered her to be a businesswoman, but in her own little way, she was. My friends' mothers tended to be stay at home mums, part time secretaries, part-time barmaids. Little jobs that fitted in with family.
My sister and I both attained degrees. She had a professional job. I ran my own business for years before taking a professional job. The business paid better. My brother did not gain qualifications but went on to run the family business. Was he a white working class boy? He spends his retirement going on cruises.
I was surprised to learn that Jews are working class. I don't know many, but the few I do know are doctors and solicitors. I used to drive through Golders Green and thought the orthodox jews looked smart and respectable.
Are Robert Peston, Rob Rinder, Vanessa Feltz and Esther Rantzen considered to be working class?
In literature; A kid for 2 farthings was set in the poor East End community. Fagin is a thief - I suppose that is an underclass. Shylock is a money lender. He is despised for being wealthier than the middle class wasters. As well as being a Jew.

Where did I say that?
I think you have wildly misinterpreted what I said.

See in many Asian households we don't just shrug and say "oh I'm not academic". We get to work and we study. My DC was better at maths than English. He worked very hard to up and improve from his mock grades and get good results in both English GCSEs.

My DH also earns a 6 figure salary in the city.

I wouldn't want a lawyer who didn't pass his English language GCSE. I would have no confidence in their ability.

Forgive me if I don't think that poaching the top tier of the 3rd world away from where they're most needed is a good thing.

Apathy could be because the route out if you aren’t academic (not able to get both GCSE English and Maths) has been stopped.

Why should there be an interest in education if not being able to do just one aspect of it means anything you want to do, even if you are brilliant at it. The answer is No

Years ago if you passed or didn’t pass anything you could still go forward to college. Even university wasn’t out of the question

As an example exh would have been working in an Amazon warehouse on minimum wage
Instead of getting a Degree in Law and a 6 figure salary in the City
(Failed both English Lit and Language)

I'm Indian. It's apathy and no interest towards education. No sense of bettering yourself.

Also lack of parenting and discipline. My children have acted up, had issues and been a menace but have never done ASB or stolen stuff.

And yes I pushed my children educationally.

Career options have to be very limited because it's a community that has very conformist, strict rules. Step outside of what is acceptable and you and your whole family could be shunned and your siblings kicked out of their schools. From what I know the ultra orthodox are not allowed to study with non Jews (or possibly even non charedi Jews) so going to college/university is completely out of the question. I think there are seminary type colleges for them in Manchester and Gateshead but these are more religious learning, I don't think it's accredited secular courses. So that in itself limits career options.
Edited: I think Traveller women who work also are restricted to certain jobs. All women I've come across work within beauty, children's clothes and cleaning products and their target audience is other Travellers. Nothing wrong with that, but I think it's about toeing the community line.

Ultra orthodox men generally do not work after marriage, the woman supports the family so that the man can learn (religious learning) full time.
What the actual fuck .
On another note, describing the group at the root of the whole discussion as 'working class' is not really the correct term. There may be family members working with some of them, but in my teaching experience they are not a working class demographic; underclass isn't a pleasant term but not everything has to be nice to be accurate.

@anourishingsoup

I agree that it's not fair that choice is absent from the outset. Both of these groups (Jewish one more so) shun secular education and boys have been outcast from the community for going to public libraries. With the girls, it's not about giving them autonomy, it's a necessary means to an end. Their career options are very limited, they only work within their community and don't have degrees.

But why do the career options have to be very limited? I understand that at present they mainly work within the community (if at all). But why is this set in stone forever? I know large parts of the community are hostile to the idea of changing but change only happens when brave people decide to step out of the comfort zone. What's odd is that the state seems to reluctant to even attempt to support those girls in the communities who do want to be educated.

It's the kind of dogged resignation on behalf of mainstream society that "they will never change". By definition there must be some young women in the traveler communities who want to go to secondary school and higher education. Why not at least allow for some support to happen in these rarer cases?

it's been that way for decades actually. White, British, working class boys have been performing worse than any other group for a long time. It was actually one of the reasons that "Pupil Premium" funding was introduced. To help give more support to those in low economic groups.

I've been a primary school teacher for almost 20 years, across the full range of socio-economic groups, and I'd have to say white British boys, closely followed by mixed-race British boys are the worse behaved demographic.

I taught a number of children from different Traveller families. One family were aware that their lifestyle was dying out and supported their son's education, staying put to allow him to remain in school.

Others stuck to the old ways. If Travellers insist on sticking to their itinerant lifestyle they're basically abdicating responsibility for their children's education and future in this country in the second quarter of the 21st century.

Their choice, but they can hardly moan that they're unfairly treated - in my experience, everyone leaned over backwards to help, but the help wasn't appreciated or accessed.

I agree that it's not fair that choice is absent from the outset. Both of these groups (Jewish one more so) shun secular education and boys have been outcast from the community for going to public libraries. With the girls, it's not about giving them autonomy, it's a necessary means to an end. Their career options are very limited, they only work within their community and don't have degrees.
From what I've observed in education, Muslim girls are highly encouraged into third level education, marriage is usually only considered after graduation. I'm sure there are some exceptions but it is by no means comparable to the norms seen in the above groups.

@anourishingsoup

I don't see it as a failure of multiculturalism at all, it's a failure because certain groups (or sections within them) want it this way. Not everyone values education as we know it. The above two groups are not going to budge on this, many attempts have failed. The next best thing is to try to help them to improve things that they deem acceptable. Again, not 'education' as society would see it, but at least it might be a slight improvement. Both groups want to be isolated, it's the only way they feel they can continue on.

Mainly "failure of multiculturalism" was the wrong way to characterise it. I'm not anti multiculturalism. But what jumps out to me is the glaring contrast between these communities and other communities which historically have pursued sex based discrimination in which the state has (rightly) over-ridden these cultural sensitivities. And lack of any intellectual rigour and consistency in the approach.

For example there are certain Muslim communities (not all at all) where women are pushed into marriage very young and education is deprioritised and mainstream British society very much disapproves of this (as it should do). But with travelers its deemed acceptable and I don't understand the rationale behind the different approaches.

It's fine to want to be "isolated" in terms of preserving your cultural heritage etc: I'm very much a supporter of this. But imposing on half the population a deliberate withdrawal of right and opportunities in the name of this isolation is profoundly wrong, however you cut it. I fully support people's right to decide they want to be isolated but I object to the idea of this being imposed upon girls without giving them the choice to enter mainstream society if they want to.

I don't see it as a failure of multiculturalism at all, it's a failure because certain groups (or sections within them) want it this way. Not everyone values education as we know it. The above two groups are not going to budge on this, many attempts have failed. The next best thing is to try to help them to improve things that they deem acceptable. Again, not 'education' as society would see it, but at least it might be a slight improvement. Both groups want to be isolated, it's the only way they feel they can continue on.
Ultra orthodox men generally do not work after marriage, the woman supports the family so that the man can learn (religious learning) full time. Most girls will either teach or do secretarial work, so need a basic grasp of English language and some of their girls' schools do limited GCSEs.

That's very interesting, thank you.

I generally am not a fan of the "multiculturalism has failed" argument as I think its often hijacked by the far right as a cover story for racism but these are both examples of multiculturalism failing these communities.

I really think its unconscionable that we normalise the idea that girls are pulled out of school after primary on the grounds that "that's how its always been done in the community". We rightly wouldn't tolerate this in any other immigrant group because it massively disadvantages women but for some reason when it comes to travelers we are willing to overlook it because "cultural sensitivity". Bollocks. There's no justification for the state sanctioning the sex-based denial of education.

I hadn't thought about ultra-orthodox Jewish boys but that makes sense. Out of interest, why only boys and not girls?

Part of the problem is the wording of the education act. It says that children should receive an education that enables them to thrive within their community [paraphrasing]. Travellers have always been viewed as apart of rather than a part of society, research shows that educators do not often see Traveller children as equals in the classroom.
Another very let down group is ultra orthodox Jewish boys. They receive no secular education and despite being born in the UK often don't speak English. There have been attempts by OFSTED to intervene but again the community is exclusive by choice and they make accusations of antisemitism when concerns are raised. Thankfully there are some young men now who broke away from the community who are speaking out now and trying to show the severity of this neglect. Whether it will make a difference or not is a different matter.

@Hallamule

They are homeschooled though. They may not follow an academic curriculum but they are trained in the skills they need to survive in their culture. Lots of lads working alongside their dads, whilst the girls are prepared for marriage.

Lads working with their dads is one thing but I wish people would stop excusing the fact girls are discouraged from education on cultural grounds. Being “prepared for marriage” is not being educated.

Why are people up in arms when this happens in other ethnic communities but fine when its travellers? I know they have been subjected to brutal discrimination etc but why do we have this blind spot about this? It’s not OK.

There are a number of religious/ethnic groups on the fringe who do not fall under mainstream laws. Well, in theory they do but enforcing it is very difficult. Travellers are one of them. They pull their DC out to 'homeschool' them but most of the parents do not have adequate literacy to facilitate this. They know it and the LA knows it. The families might say they want a Traveller specific tutor (these do exist but funding cuts has drastically reduced the service ) but the LA often cannot provide this. The parents who want to pull their DC out will do so, regardless of threats of court action, the LA know this so there is no point going down this route.

They're not 'allowed' but who is going to enforce it? Some will be registered as home schooled but many just stop going to school as soon as they become strong/capable enough to be put to work. No teacher or inclusion worker is going to follow it up due the risks associated with visiting traveller sites. There's even a registration code (T) for traveller absences on the register.

This is probably the difference.
I worked 7-7 five days a week in the office, incl 1h commute each way, would get back home and do homework with DC, read with them, then get them to bed and do house choirs when they were asleep. Mostly batch cooking suitable for reheating next day.
Weekends would be homework, activities with kids and again, house choirs when kids were asleep or playing. School homework was always priority above anything else. And yes, I always pushed them very hard. I didn't have any domestic help like cleaners, but equally didn't get any time for myself to relax for many years.

They are homeschooled though. They may not follow an academic curriculum but they are trained in the skills they need to survive in their culture. Lots of lads working alongside their dads, whilst the girls are prepared for marriage.

They can't be homeschooled, because their parents will have left school at about 13 themselves and know zero.