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

Because of racial bias. The squeaky wheel theory. White people aren't celebrated, they don't have a history month or diversity policies in their favour. I'm black, and I'm not saying it's nothing to do with them, but white men, white male teenagers in particular have had the shit kicked out of them for existing. It's utterly toxic.

I also think motivation plays a big part. I'm third generation, my parents and grandparents worked their backsides off to get ahead. They strived through the 80s and 90s while white men didn't feel the need to. That attitude was passed down through the last few.generations. But black teenage boys are now in big trouble, so it's coming to us too.

I feel.sorry for teenage boys today. On here lately there have been. Numerous threads about banning men from nurseries. No wonder there's a problem,.branding someone a child molester for just being alive is never going to end well or be good for their self esteem.

If your mam tells you you can just sign onto the dole then what chance do they have?

Yes, for all the concern about white boys underachievement at school, within a few years they are out earning both their female and minority peers. There is still a sex and race advantage to being male and white within a cohort.

Parental engagement is the most effective counter to poverty in academic success. Poverty will always be a disadvantage but its the lack of parental engagement which is the nail in the coffin.

Girls generally do better than their male peers at school simply because girls are still socialised to be compliant/do as they are told and boys are still socialised to do the opposite. Any thread on boys’ behaviour will be full of posters insisting that "boys will be boys” and the “not my Nigels” excusing and minimising bad behaviour from boys.

Incidentally one of the reasons money was injected into the London schools many years ago was because London voters voted for policies which raised taxes but put more money into schools.

Which drugs are you on and where can I get some? It would be nice to escape into fantasy land for a while.

I haven't been teaching for 10 years but we were aware of this then.

It's not straightforward. Children of immigrants do well once they have reached the same English levels as their peers. This carries on for a few generations. People who leave for a better life are resourced and resourceful, ambitious and disciplined. They instill these attitudes into their children. There are also different cultural expectations around respecting authority, both at school and with parents, and parents expectations are higher as well. With some WC British families, the challenges of generational poverty are harder to break out of and expectations and ambitions are lower and there is more permissive parenting as a result.

Huge generalisations obviously but it's what I saw.

Our working class family have from census and living memory always moved round UK and emmigrated for work.

DH and I both used education to get professional jobs so suppose our kids are middle class but brought up in very working class areas - lower social economic areas and a sink secondary - (we didn't have generationmal wealth to help with housing costs) . One of my Uncle's used higher education then emmigrated for work.

Did see a class definition of UK that split working class into aspriational working class and under class - and my family pretty much all apsiration in trades with skills moving for opportunities - while MN tends to think of underclass as working class ones with long-term intergenerational unemployment, dependence on state benefits, and social exclusion with persistent poverty, lack of educational qualifications, and criminal behavior.

Oh I forgot of course. Women can do sex work. Not that men are barred from that, there just isn’t the demand, although sex work was one of the very few sectors which grew following 2008 and the expansion of the internet. But if you think that OnlyFans should be all a girl capable of getting science A-levels with grades 6 or above should aspire to you can fuck off. Or that it’s in any way something for any girl to aspire to. There’s a reason why ‘fuck’ is our worse swear word and synonymous with exploitation and it isn’t because it’s a truly enjoyable worthwhile and fulfilling career.

Nailed it.
The English (nb "English" the Scots and Welsh differ) working class has never valued education.

Why are you wasting your time being deliberately obtuse? Whenever this topic comes up whether it’s on fb or here there’s a sizeable amount of people saying white parents are useless and don’t value education and brown/black parents are raising superior well behaved studious children. Whether it’s been outright said or not on here yet or just heavily implied.

Anyway I challenge anyone who thinks that way to go walk around certain parts of London or visit certain schools in London and they can find out for themselves that they are talking complete bullshit.

Of course being male is a massive advantage.

There are no careers that are effectively barred to you on the basis of sex, except possibly midwife and even that gets a wave of support on this site, rather more than men ever give for women in trades. Never a price to be paid for either sex or kids, in fact both get you social kudos whereas for women both cause stigma and barriers. Nowhere on earth it is automatically dangerous to walk whereas women are constantly told don’t walk here, don’t wear that, don’t walk like this.

It’s a fact that men still have better economic outcomes than women and men in any given class are better off than the women, usually women from the class below. Men’s work pays better because men do it. Male work environments are even encouraged to strike more, nor do men usually work in areas where they have to show willing by volunteering or paying to work endless placements and told to contribute more and more. It’s not nurses going on strike is it.

This is warning that girls educational grades are slipping in general. I’d argue it’s because they’ve learned that they really don’t matter, looking at the promises made to their mothers’ generation (ie mine and the millennials) and how little we have gained in reality despite all our work.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2q189kv7yo

I think this is where the class definitions run into problems. WC means different things to different people - one of the tradies that did work for us earns a lot more money than us and is moving into the catchment of an excellent state school. He may be working class by trade but not the white WC that these studies refer to. Unfortunately, the use of term WC in this context leads to negative associations, which can makes the situation worse.

I’ve known plenty of white working class people who have emigrated over the years. Mostly Australia or Spain. These days a lot of my friends have children who are living and working in the Middle East. I don’t think that moving abroad is just for the rich as there are opportunities abroad and many can’t see much of a future in the UK..
Which is sad really. The ones I knew who moved to Spain did tend to come back though.

There you go (not you personally, the thread as a whole).

And to PP who said is it a massive advantage? Yes, a huge advantage to be white and male - obviously if you constantly and actively fight against the system (refuse to engage in education, apply for work etc) then there is only so far the advantage will take you. But all else being equal then, yes, big advantage.

It is hardly surprising. Why wouldn't white working class boys do worse than any other ethnic group in the UK?

Other ethnicities will have people in their families who had the motivation to emigrate to improve their lives. They will have passed on these skills and this attitude to the next generation.

There is an equivalent group to white working class boys in every country. They aren't generally the ones who emigrate. They are the ones who stay put.

Class and the legacy of de-industrialisation.

It certainly doesn't happen in our local secondary. They leave that for the colleges to sort out. My eldest wasn't staying for A levels but the school spend an awful lot of time talking about A level courses and UCAS points. Not much for those who were going elsewhere after GCSE

It is most definitely designed for those who are able to sit still, learn and regurgitate large quantities of information. And if it were girls who consistently did worse, year on year, it would most certainly be an issue.

Is it a massive advantage though? If you yourself are acknowledging that half of them are being left behind, it might be an idea to rethink that assumption.

So why does this affect the boys and not the girls

Because generally class is always an overriding factor. The only ethnic group where socioeconomic group does not affect attainment is Chinese. Obviously BME have immediate outward barriers such as colour, name, perceived religion from the outset. The system is designed by white powerful men to enable and uphold other white powerful men. Those at the top have always looked down at those below them.

I'm so glad things have improved. I wish we had had this in the 80s/90s.

I also find there’s an almost fetishistic emphasis on “rest” among a certain kind of progressive MC parent.

Obviously children need to get enough sleep and shouldn’t be working around the clock. Rest is good.

But I have heard parents say that its important to have weeks of “rest” over the summer holidays as if they were talking about parents with consumption in a sanatorium. In practice this often means weeks of being on Minecraft, not doing much.

My DD had a school friend whose mother wouldn’t let her play out for the first two weeks of the summer because she needed “rest”.

I fail to understand why a playdate or doing a couple of hours’ revision is going to do any harm.

Children are young and have lots of energy. They can take a bit of push.

White and male is generally a massive advantage in life, careers etc.

So perhaps rather than looking at Asian and black groups it would better to compare “like with like”? I appreciate that is not a good turn of phrase but we are removing impact of negative racial bias, second/third language as English, non English speaking parents, impact of war and displacement on a young child etc.

So why are white males book-ending the achievement spectrum? One group massively underachieving and one overachieving (partly through white and male privilege)?

So you challenging people in this thread to defend the strawman you posted was a pointless waste of time. Figured as much.

Bangladeshi children in Tower Hamlets saw a massive improvement and I believe there are a few girls schools there that are high achieving at GCSE now, perhaps even top 10 state? Anyhow, the reports on the interventions are interesting. Most parents first gen immigrants, little/no English, fathers working 60+ hours per week in catering, mums at home, DC living in overcrowded conditions below the poverty line. The children reported they had little to no guidance from home, parents didn't know how to navigate school system or even communicate with school. Home links teachers fluent in Bengali bridged this gap, parents became more confident to get involved with the school and knew what was expected homework wise. The aspiration was always there (which is key) but there was a lack of direction. This obviously took time but look at the results. If the will is there a lot can be achieved.