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

So you sort them out at 14? You'd need to build in a lot of flexibility to allow for those who caught up later on.

This is the attitude that is needed. I feel like since the introduction of vocational GCSE’s etc there seems to be a shift in attitude so that there isn’t as much emphasis on achieving the basics e.g C’s at maths and English as there are ‘plenty of other options and school isn’t for everyone’.

What "middle class values" do you think get "foisted" on to working class people, and who is doing the "foisting"?

What sort of values would those be then?

Interesting question. I grew up on a large council estate and I believe its the culture. My own mother sneered at me for reading and wanting to go to uni. Apparently I thought I was better than them, would be wasting my time and uni wasnt for people like us.

Pretty much everyone with an education left my home town. There's nothing work wise for you there. So kids don't see how different life can be if you do well. It's not like Steven from down the road gets a degree and then a decent job, then everyone sees he has a nice car and foreign holidays each year. It's Steven thought he was better than us and fucked off to a different city.

Most of the popular kids growing up were too cool for school, taking drugs, out partying. Trying was seen as lame. School was hard, most lessons were disrupted, its hard to be the boring one who wants to focus.

I don't really know what a feasible solution is. The only thing that I could see working would be to completely change the education system. Possibly more like they do things in Germany. Once children get to 14 you could split them into academic and vocational education.

It’s maybe coming across like that, yes but just making sure your kids go to school from primary to secondary is a start

'Education' (and systems within it) could be viewed as foisting middle class values onto working class kids/communities. Explaining the distrust and lack of engagement.

I think it’s simply socio-economic background.

A lot of Africans who arrived in the 50s etc arrived (and arrive) as middle class students. A lot of the Windrush arrivals were working class.

It's performance measurements throughout, though, all the Key Stages.

The idea that "valuing education " = degree level education is part of the problem here, no? It excludes half of young people straight away.

Because the country is stupidly race obsessed.

I recall years ago when the obsession was about Black-Caribbean boys underperforming and the focus on alleged “cultural” factors. It was pointed out it was a socio-economic issue not a race one but all attempts to remedy that focused on one sub-group and ignored other boys in similar circumstances (white working class boys) and now we are where we are. (Akala has pointed this out many times.)

I do find the difference in language interesting though. When other ethnic groups do badly conservative writers such as those writing for Spiked insist they need to look inwards at what they are doing wrong. It’s “their culture”, “their values”, “their family structure”.

When it’s specifically white working class boys doing badly then it’s society that is “failing” them.

Very interesting.

This is always what is said in these discussions, anything else wouldn’t be pc would it.

Not many people know these studies use free school meals eligibility as the definition of working class. That’s an income under £7,400. A small minority of families who will have reasons they earn so little that affect the child’s ability to study. Being a carer for a disabled parent for example.
It’s not the millions of sons of plumbers and builders we picture when we hear “working class”

Anyway I challenge anyone who believes white kids are lazy and naughty and all ethnic kids are studious hard workers with good parents to spend a week in a school in inner city London.

I was the first person in my family to go to university. I have 11 cousins, 3 older the rest younger. 2 of the younger ones also went to university. The rest all left school at 16 and work in trades running their own businesses or minimum wage jobs. Some of them have young adult children, none of whom went either. My parents both went to grammar school. Their siblings didn't. My parents told me that university was the goal for me. They had books in the house and read themselves. Their siblings didn't so much. Class, aspiration and being surrounded by people who also have the same goals is huge. If none of your peers nor your parents care about education then you are swimming against the tide.

To be clear - my cousins are all doing fine, they work and most of them have good lives. I just chose a different path, but only because that path was shown to me. Schools can only do so much, family has a huge influence and for a lot of white working class families like mine education hasn't been a priority except in isolated pockets. Add in the need to start earning early because the family is struggling.

¯\(ツ)/¯

That attitude would be anathema to us. DH is a white, working class son of Irish immigrants who has a degree and who encouraged DS2 (also white working class) to go to university after which he came out with a 2:1 in Business Management. You have a better chance in the job market if you’re educated to degree level.

This ⬆️. Cultural capital. Giving your child music lessons, taking them to museums and art galleries, the sights of different cities etc. leads to better outcomes.

Too true. I've seen many initiatives fail.
We give free tablets and study guides to such students, extra sessions, catch up classes, parental involvement meetings and 1-2-1 with TAs in the lesson. Varying outcomes, it has to be said.

Yes the government can pour millions into any intervention but if the target group are not engaging then it's pointless.

Whilst they are described as "working class" are their parents in fact working? I spent a year doing a lot of work with teens/young adults in magistrates courts, and in a year only one of my clients (out of hundreds, I was seeing around 3-7 per day) was employed. The vast majority not only had never had a job but didn't know anyone in their immediate social and family circles who had ever had a job. Without that aspiration I think education must seem pointless. It would be interesting if the stats would separate out working and non-working lower income families, as if that does make a difference then that gives a focus for making a change.

Non-white families may be in the lower income tier for other reasons but I imagine more of them are working and may well have a higher degree of education. If they have come to this country in the past 1- 2 generations they almost certainly have higher aspirations.

The other thing is that as others have said, school is only the starting point for education. Most "middle class" families have piles of books and take their kids on days out to museums/beaches/farms/ zoos etc all of which provide a foundation for learning. If a family is from a non-white background they may be likelier to do additional schooling at the weekend e.g. learning languages like hindi or Chinese or religious schooling at the temple or Sunday school.

Oh I understood exactly what you were saying. It was just rather ignorant.

Where does "work ethic" come from? Is it the school's job to instill it, or is it learned from family and environment, that people apply themselves and work for progression and gain?

Your first paragraph? They do, frequently.
If that doesn't happen where you teach, that needs to change because they're not meeting needs.

When was the last time anyone on the thread heard a school teacher say "plumbing/carpentry/motor mechanic/hairdresser/beauty, are brilliant trades to get into and will make you a small businessperson. It's important to grasp the literacy and numeracy foundations, so you can write your estimates, chase your bad payers and keep your accounts".

Educationalists in the UK need a hard reality check. Not everyone learns for the love of learning or find joy in Jane Austin or a quadratic equation, but it would be helpful to support more people to earn enough to make a living and instill a better work ethic.

There has been a lot of identifying, supporting and "championing" going on in schools. All results are broken down, and teachers have to respond to that.
Every school is aware of every cohort and outcomes.
Early predictions in yr10 are used to support those under achieving.

If you believe that you have to work much harder to get just a sniff of what the other group get, whereas in practice you considerably outperform that other group, then in reality you must be working many, many times harder than the other group, or your belief that you are heavily disadvantaged must be nonsense.