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

Im not sure this is reasonable. Boys are no less capable of reading well than girls. Learning disabilities aside what gets most children reading well is parental input - its not really true that you learn at school. School provide the bricks - parents teach the child to build the wall. Children who aren't read to from infancy, who's parents don't have access to many books, are the ones which tend to make slow progress.

You see the effect of this in "naice" schools in middle class areas. In my children's school the only children who weren't reading fluently by the end of year two were those with learning difficulties eg dyslexia. A high proportion could read quite well even by the end of year 1. This is a school where parents make their children read to them every single day, who supplement the school books with extra books they've bought or got in the local library. Parents who listen carefully to the phonics information presented by school, find out more about it, and reinforce it at home. Who read lots of good quality literature aloud to their children & continue reading to them all the way through primary school.

Surely its also partly a legacy of an industrial era: a generation/two generations ago a white working class man could leave school at 16 and get a reasonably good blue collar job which he could support his family on.

Which would explain why the parents wouldn’t value education. From their perspective its an expensive waste of time.

That mindset may have served white working class boys fine during a period of more or less full employment. But in a hyper competitive environment where everyone needs an edge it doesn’t help.

This is why it worries me that people are obsessed with funnelling everyone into apprenticeships all the time on here. Its true that they are often a better option for many kids than university. But the assumption that everyone is going to get an apprenticeship to become a plumber and therefore there’s no need to sweat getting good GCSEs is surprisingly prevalent.

It fosters an environment of general apathy and distrust of education and higher education in particular which is definitely more noticeable among white working class boys than in the general population.

Many immigrants are already from more well educated backgrounds and better economic situations. That is how they were able to come here to study and work in the first place.

This in droves. Two years ago I moved to a boy's secondary that is fairly high in FSM. Classes are streamed and FSM recipients are much higher towards the bottom end. The above quote could sum up the crux of the problem. Generational unemployment has led to a particularly warped type of man. Zero accountability, zero responsibility, high levels of anger misdirected towards "illegals" and women. School is viewed as a waste of time and teachers are part of the 'agenda'. Nothing will change until these boys are taken out of their areas.
Edited: the unemployed status seems to be some sort of badge of honour, it's not the case that they are actively job seeking. It's proof that immigrants (who are all rapists and paedophiles btw) are stealing their jobs and therefore they shouldn't try as it's the governments plan to replace them with foreign men. There is no point trying to bring in any sort of factual argument such as the roles these immigrants have in the NHS, because that's just "part of the plan".

I might get flamed for this but look at the boards about schools and exams on MN (which is largely still MC). So many parents saying that they have allowed their kids to opt out of doing well because ‘I don’t want to put that kind of pressure on a child.’ The thing is that the broad structure of the UK education system hasn’t changed in decades. The idea you take one set of exams at 15/16 and then more specialised exams at 17/18.

In fact the British exported this to the colonies and many colonial countries have the exact same system (but with local exam boards). So the system is not new to families. What has changed is what you can do with that education. Except that people don’t realise that even if you are going to do something manual, having that education to begin with gives you options as you grow older. Do you want to upskill in your 30s- suddenly the lack of English and esp Maths is holding you back. And politicians have again played on this divide- devaluing education, underfunding it and allowing divisive rhetoric to flourish.

In the example above what is the career progression of the 16 year old working in retail? At some point unless she is exceptionally lucky, a new grad will become her manager at 25. And that route upwards will be closed by her lack of education.

Also for many other ethnicities there's a backstory of migration. The people who tend to choose to migrate thousands of miles to improve their life tend to be driven, value education and aspire to professional occupations, and they pass this on to their kids.

This, the uk had a strong tradition of pushing working class boys towards trades & manufacturing/heavy industry jobs that didn't require academic exams. Lots of white working class boys for generations had fathers who had decent apprenticesship routes open to them and became plumbers, bricklayers, roofers, or rose through ranks in industry, who did fine in life and earned decent wages.

We then mysteriously stopped encouraging this and now have a shortage of tradespeople. We also got rid of industries and now pay everyone except lawyers, finance folk & IT crap wages.

Growing up in deprived areas, multigenerstionsö unemployment due to de industreslasation no job prospects, no political intrest, school always pushing university, .....

But for those kids left behind in English and Maths there were other employment options. When those vanished, those families became reliant on the state. Black British families who came even before Windrush didn’t always live in these northern towns- they were concentrated in the metropolitan areas as that’s where jobs were. And remember many came to Britain to work for the NHS or in post war industry. So they came to work, and as their jobs disappeared both geography and a sense of precarity meant that they encouraged the next generation to pivot and at least get a bare minimum education.

It is also possible that the gap has then widened in the last decade as a result of austerity and an attitude of ‘what’s the point of studying’ which political leaders have used- the anti intellectual culture, the demonisation of the ‘other’, being told that it’s not your fault if you are failing or three generations haven’t had a job, it’s the ‘elite’, the migrants, the system. Note those politicians never have a solution for these young boys except to rile them up.

Interesting thread @Carla786 . I’m Black Caribbean but live in a diverse area . Without making sweeping generalisations, Black Africans really value education, even if dad isn’t on the scene . Comments such as “you should be a Dr, accountant, architect and engineer” are normal comments within the community.

I think some white working class parents do not realise the world of work isn’t the same anymore. A few of my white working class parents friends from school were told to leave colleague and get a job in a shop when I was 16, I was aghast. One friends mum was so proud that her daughter at 17, was earning £600 a month (2006), I thought it would be better to earn £600 a week.

My white working class friends who left school early and whose parents didn’t value education , are now stuck in low paid jobs with little options for progression. I went onto to study a masters degree and have a complete different lifestyle .

Also, if you live in an area where education isn’t valued , you’d be the odd one out studying , going to uni to “better yourself”.

Parental attitudes and value of education is key. My DC went to a very diverse primary school for a time. Quite a few Syrian refugees, Pakistanis, Brazilians..... They all really valued education, made sure their DC attended and paid attention. The cohort that really dragged the school down was the white working class - they thought school was pointless and was a chore. I felt really sorry for these DC, particularly the bright ones as they never achieved their potential as it was sapped out of them.

Geographic location - unfortunately other regions have not been able to replicate the 'London effect' in education. It's hard to get excellent, highly motivated teachers out to other parts of the country.

Accessibility to cities or wealth centres. Blackpool has already been mentioned, but any working class area with poor transport links into the nearest biggest city has a real detrimental effect. It's very difficult to commute from Blackpool to Manchester without a car and even then it's a schlep. Northern rail is crap. I grew up in this area. I now live in the commuter belt to London. Having access to London just gives you so many more opportunities than living in other areas of the country.

@FairKoala I see what you’re saying but I also think the way school is set up also doesn’t really suit many girls. Also the way schools are set up is pretty much the same as it was when most girls had no education at all, so it’s not set up that way to favour girls, it’s set up that way because it’s the most expedient way of educating a large group of kids.

I do agree that if for any reason you get left behind in English or Math at a young age in the UK then that is generally that and you’ll be unlikely to ever catch up. That was probably also the same in the 80s and 90s.

A multi-generational lack of opportunity following de-industrialisation in the north. The world of work looks very different to what it did when WW2 ended. Increasingly the options available for manual and skilled labour decreased (and those jobs were lower paid compared to those in professional jobs). Many immigrant families have done a pivot in the course of generations: it might be that your grandfather was working class where you came from, but many I think were quick to see that they needed new skills and education.

It may be that Black British boys growing up in single family homes see their mums juggling multiple jobs (just as their grannies and grandads did). There is a memory in many families of life in Britain being precarious. So the community around them reminds them that they must do better.

White working class precarity is based on rapid industrial change and not having to uproot one’s life or racism. So it is easy to blame the state. That plus an unwillingness to invest in these areas from governments who didn’t consider them their allies (years of Tory govt from the 1950s onwards that deeply mistrusted northern working class families, viciously attacked strikers etc) and simply told these families to do better without investing in them.

Your whole reply shows how clueless you are. You're talking nonsense. Having worked in schools I've never see what you're referring to. It may exist in some places, but isn't widespread across the country and thus isn't relevant to the discussion.

Over complicating things here. Just read with your kid at home, I taught mine to read before she started reception. It’s not a big deal but does require parents to take responsibility for their own children, if you know your child can’t read then sort it out. In the absence of SEN theres literally no reason a child shouldn’t be able to read by yr 3.

I'm not saying they don't exist but I don't think I've ever met anyone that fits that description. I'm still fairly sure the boys I describe would be considered working class by the statisticians. I don't think they came from high earning families and I think most grew up in council houses. Some of them were practically feral with the weaker teachers (weaker in terms of authority). They had no respect for authority and I didn't expect much from them. I have genuinely been surprised (and pleased) at how well most of them seem to have done, financially anyway. It's definitely better for everyone that way.

My partner is actually also from a working class background but with a very different set of values (raised to be very polite - enormous respect for teachers). He still left with very few academic qualifications but has gone on to do well in life financially - far better than me with all my years of study! I think he grew up assuming his parents couldn't afford for him to go to uni so there was no point. He also felt that even when he tried at school the teachers favoured the kids that were high achieving from the start. I don't think he had the extra input into things like spelling that I had in my middle class family as his parents didn't have the luxury of one of them being part time for chunks of his childhood. His parents were bright and hard working though as are he and his siblings.

I think the familial cultural shift hasn't happened with white boys. The requirement for apprenticeships now being a pass in maths and English is preventing one of the traditional routes into employment for working class boys because their culture doesn't value or promote education. Until that cultural shift occurs, with their families, friends, peers groups all promoting and supporting education, things won't change.

I assume the latest iteration of toxic masculinity won't help either.

Some of my more successful white w/c boys have FANTASTIC male role models. I think those men need to be recruited, to go into schools, to promote their attitudes and values. They are such a huge resource and are wasted only using on their 1 or 2 children. They'd have far more affect than any of the actual educators in the classroom (including me!).

I have literally had white w/c boys in my class tell me they didn't need to learn to read (at 14!) because 'reading is for losers' and 'my cousin can't read and is fine' (cousin was in prison!).

As someone who moved to the UK as an eight year old who didn’t speak any English, can you tell me about all these mysterious special lessons I supposedly had, because if I had them I was given some pretty impressive memory drugs afterwards.

I think it’s family and culture many immigrant groups come from more recently traumatic situations than historical slavery. I’m from an immigrant background myself and frankly trying to find historical reasons for why you couldn’t just do your maths homework is a stretch imo.

Do your parents have expectations around your a) general behaviour b)education. If your kid is in school and paying attention (not getting in trouble inside or outside school, doing the work etc) you are most of the way there. The last bit is parents who pay attention and try to help their kid course correct when things go wrong. Is home life reasonably stable is the other factor.

My home was extremely dysfunctional and often abusive, but the expectations around achievement and behaviour meant we still did fine at school. The home doesn’t have to be perfect by any means for children to do ok.

I have read the first few replies and it shows just how clueless people are.

The reason White Working Class Boys Do Worse is because the education system itself doesnt support these boys.

Boys brains don’t mature at the same rate as girls but even if there isn’t any SEN issues if your child can’t read by the beginning of year 3 then that is education closed down.

Your child might get to “read” a few pages of a book with a TA for 10 minutes per day but there is no concessions in the classrooms

Compare that with those of immigrant children and children whose parents don’t have English as a first language and these children get much more concessions and proper lessons separately to get them up to the level they need to be

If a child was born in the UK then despite not being able to read or write they are expected to be treated the same as those who can read and write
Eg comprehension homework needs to be done regardless as it is the National Curriculum
This group includes those who’s parents/grandparent’s came from the Caribbean

A child who might have lived in the UK from a few days old doesn’t have to do the curriculum homework, (they can’t read or write English) but they get homework that supports them to be able to read and write English from their English as a Foreign Language lessons.

I did ask the question years ago when this idea that children would be able to read by year 3 came up and as there was no exception to this thought process. What happens if your child doesn’t read by year 3 and no one has ever answered the question.

Well, one step we could take is not resisting attempts to level the playing field as “woke nonsense” or “socialism” or somehow taking away from more privileged children…..

@Simonjt I wonder though is so many people feeling crap at math is perhaps an indicator that we aren’t teaching it properly to those who don’t have a natural aptitude?

We have an anti-intellectual culture in the UK. Trying too hard is often sneered upon, and I think class tensions come into it, too (even as a kid I remember being called a ‘posh bof’ because I got a place at grammar school!)
We often see on here a deep mistrust of teachers, rules and the schooling system.
Being well educated just isn’t something that all people take pride in. It’s a badge of honour to kick against the system, often leading to voting reform etc.

No one cares about them, there are so little schemes and opportunities set up for them as there is no virtue signalling and brownie points in doing so.

The biggest influence on academic success is a childs home life, its also the only thing we can’t change. Personally I feel the default in the UK is to have minimal expectations, the whole culture of “I’m crap at maths” tends to be said with pride, rather than being mortified and getting to night school to improve skills. Its hardly a surprise that many children under perform when they arrive to reception in nappies, unable to use cutlery, a book etc perform poorly and limited job prospects as adults. If they’re already two years behind at four, unless parents change and provide intensive support at home that gap will continue to grow.