To find the term 'underclass' offensive and to think teachers shouldn't be teaching students about it?

[Opalite]

I was talking to DD and she was saying how her teacher told the class about 'underclass, working class, middle class and upper class' we were watching TV and it mentioned middle class, DD said that we're underclass and her teacher had told her about it yesterday
Is it outdated? I find it offensive and I don't think it's right for her teacher to be telling them these things as if they're facts or as if they matter

yabu, valid sociological term.

iirc traditionally rather than meaning poor/"on benefits" (sigh) it means those marginalized or deliberately separate from the class system - including the Victorian idea of the criminal classes, but it also encompasses those who are unable to work such as some people with disabilities. Hence the under to show the marginalization.

The majority of members of the underclass are those who do not subscribe to the values of the mainstream class system, from the bloke in the pub selling bacon off the back of a lorry, to New age travellers to trustafarians to drug dealers to performance artists living in square.

The traditional "workless family" would not be considered part of the underclass as usually a grandparent in one of these families will have worked for years before losing a job, parent will have done some work and child will be looking for work as soon as they leave school. They are from a working class tradition, you do not stop being working class because there is no work.

I do think there is an argument that social security recipients are part of the underclass but this is complex and while the label imparts the sense of isolation from society and the powerlessness of it, it also lacks the flexibility needed in a world where people are in and out of employment all the time for many different reasons. In terms of job roles and pressure from the state, a single mum on IS is not occupying a hugely different role in society from Kate Middleton (apart from the obvious glaring differences). So there are problems with that.

You can't pretend it never existed because the term itself is now deemed as offensive. I'm not sure what else you could call them, if you don't work then you're not working class. The underclass exists, it's very prevalent in today's society and is also a part of history and literature.

I think nowadays the biggest gap is between the upper and underclass tbh. There isn't a massive distinction between middle and working class anymore aside from the way they view themselves, I really do believe that. Both my DM and DGM (on my DF's side) are proudly working class but I think they would class as middle class- work in education, GM has always owned her own home, their parents were also home owners etc. But their mindset is working class. Plus the middle class are so squeezed nowadays I think a lot of them are earning similar amounts to some working class.

square? I mean squats.

yabu. there IS an underclass, so why pretend there isn't. sounds like a perfectly reasonable thing to be discussed at school and I very much doubt the teacher said you were members of the underclass.

I wonder how he teacher defined 'underclass' to make OPs DD think she was underclass.

If you are on benefits and living in SH you are not underclass.

the underclass are "prevalent in today's society"? many sociologists would rip you to shreds for that. They would argue that the idea of people who can't find work/are too sick to work/are raising children being separate from society is a social construct designed to isolate and demonize them.

I also.believe that today's moral panic is the welfare state. in years gone by we were told that mods and rockers were fighting in the street, today we are told that Sue down the road is a feckless scrounger because she has a 3 year old. Coincidentally there are proposals to limit IS for lone parents to those with a child under 3... it's been lowered in recent years from 12 to 7 to 5. What does that tell you?

IME, because Eng Lit covers all of human experience, there is a problem with some English teachers attempting to give a summary of some pretty complex stuff on the fly in order to give a background to the text they're covering. If the topic is outside their sphere of expertise, then some teachers will make a very poor job of it.

A mate of mine who was doing an Eng Lit degree at a less than top class institution came out of a lesson one day having been introduced to the concept of Schrodinger's Cat and quantum uncertainty. His considered opinion was "well, that's all just bollocks isn't it". I suspect that the lecturer in question may not have done a great job of communicating the concepts.

We don't know how the OP's DD's lesson went - if the teacher did say "on benefits = underclass" then that would be rubbish. If they gave the kind of analysis Frosted gave then that's fine.

I don't understand why this is considered such an offensive term; it's characterized by what can only be described as chronically anti-social behavior. You don't fall into the underclass by one false move.

Ah. My bad. I just googled the definition, you are correct MrsDeVere. I didn't realize it included refugees/ethnic minorities/disabled persons.

I thought that the underclass had been renamed the 'precariat'?

So called precariats are apparently the children of the middle class who despite having degrees are unemployed or working at Starbucks et al on zero hours contracts due to the recession. Basically people whose employment status doesn't reflect their socioeconomic or cultural background. BBC did a quiz on this a while back and made out that I am one, I don't have a degree and do an office job which isn't management, but not exactly entry level . It's a new term and there is something a bit made up about it imo.

Marx used the term "lumpenproletariat". Would you prefer that?

I pretty sure that all terms are made up...what with language being a human construction :o

I prefer lumpen proletariat, but I guess Marx meant something slightly different which doesn't exactly align with the modern underclass?

And I thought precariat referred to any one in a precarious financial position regardless of the socioeconomic status of their family of origin?

But in order to be in a precarious position you have to have something to lose, and somewhere to fall to. Hence you are by definition above the underclass. Actually Marx's definition of the LP is pretty close to the underclass, but he used it in an explicitly perjorative way.

I think maybe hitting the limits of what language can reasonably do.
And therefore missing the point.
More sane to talk about the problems of certain groups caught up in a culture of being socially marginalised, rather than whether any term is the right one to use to talk about them.

Lumpen proletariat makes me think of oompa loompa's

In order to have nothing to lose you need to be destitute, I don't think the underclass are necessarily synonymous with the derelict?

Op with the best of intentions I'm not sure you (or I) are educated in why the term was used. It has very specific uses, like most terms, that clearly mean certain things. It's not a conversation where a teachers personal views are in question. I'm not sure your questioning of context is either accurate useful or enlightening a debate. From your op I saw why it was used. I'm amazed you chose to take offense.

Hold on a minute here. People are saying that its ok to categorise someone as an underclass. Is it ok then to call them a Chav? Because I thought a Chav was known as an underclass person. Fucking outdated. Everyone on MN appears to want equality and to not offend anyone. But they are more than happy and think it is acceptable to put people in different classes due to their education and wealth.

'Chav' is a pejorative term in the same way that 'toffs' and 'boffins' are pejorative terms. 'Underclass' (or 'upper class' or 'intellectuals') is a legitimate description.