To find this definition of working class offensive?

[popcorndreams]

I work in the creative sector which is not very diverse and I feel has a particular issue with class diversity. I've come across something in application info, saying they are looking for applications from people who are from working class backgrounds and I'm really not sure on their definition.

I'm not sure what I'd say my class background it. My grandad was a miner and grandma a cleaner. One of my parents was in a skilled manual job before training to become a teacher, in the time before you had to have a degree. My mam left school at 16 and has worked her way up in scientific research. So my parents are probably from working class homes and did more middle class jobs but I wouldn't think of them as middle class. Certainly not in terms of anything other than work and that is not derogatory. I would probably have said my background was working class. I was first in my family to go to uni.

Anyway so this description: If you are from a working class or lower socio-economic background, you will most likely have been to state school, might have received free school meals as a child, or had a precarious household income when you were growing up. You might have grown up in the care system, been a young carer, or been the first in your family to go to university. If you are from a working class background you are more likely to face intersecting barriers in society, experiencing racism, ableism and other forms of discrimination.

I find this a bit offensive as I'd say this isn't working class, it's a deprived background. Th majority of working class people do not have children in care. Growing up may people were not on very high incomes but they were still fairly steady does this make you not working class? I know it's not saying all of these things are needed to be from a working class background but I think its not actually a description of a working class background.

WBCU-C - fuck me... Love how U and C is hyphenated. And that it’s being ‘popularised’ - by who?

The final C stands for Class so "-C" is just to indicate that the word "Class" follows all four of the preceding letters. So it's short for Working-class Benefits-class Underclass and Criminal-class but without needing to write out the word Class four times.

It was invented by a theatre focus group comprising self-defined working class creatives (the theatre industry is VERY VERY VERY "woke" which is honestly hypocritical as fuck considering it's an industry that's still massively dominated by privately educated white blokes) and has started to become popularised within the theatre industry and perhaps within other areas of the arts world. I've never seen it used outside of the arts or outside of "diversity and equality" discussions.

froggygoneonakillingspree

If you come across them again, tell them how offensive it is?

@flaviaritt Well its the same for me, I am and always will be working class (or am I a deprived member of the underclass seeing as I fit the description in the OP?)

I agree OP - I am from a working class background and had a lovely childhood! I didn't have free school meals either.

Poverty/deprivation does not equal working class

I agree OP it describes deprivation and has most likely been written by a privately educated sort with no idea of the real world.

If you are from a working class or lower socio-economic background

Important to note these aren't the same thing.

you will most likely have been to state school

Yes

might have received free school meals as a child, or had a precarious household income when you were growing up.

These are more applicable to 'lower socio-economic background' than 'working class'

You might have grown up in the care system, been a young carer

These are different things again from 'working class' and even 'lower socio-economic background' is not a given for people in care/young carers.

or been the first in your family to go to university

If you were born before 1950, perhaps.

If you are from a working class background you are more likely to face intersecting barriers in society, experiencing racism, ableism and other forms of discrimination.

Racism and ableism can affect people of all backgrounds.

I think the problem here is that they are trying to bung anyone they vaguely perceive as disadvantaged into the same pot.

I also agree with the OP that they're mixing up 'working class' with 'long-term-unemployed'

It's a very patronising attitude and it won't achieve anything because it's too vague to be targeted. Yes, target working class people OR disabled people OR minority ethnic people etc. but don't shove them all into one category.

I’d be happier with descriptions like:

• you may not have been able to take up unpaid internships

• you may have been subjected to ‘careers guidance’

• you may not have an extensive family network in the professions/arts/finance etc.

• you may have had to work significantly more than your peers during your studies

• you may have had more limited access to enrichment and sports than your middle class peers.

Those are practical problems affecting working class people and stopping them accessing the same opportunities as their peers.

Stuff like this is the reason I left the arts! It's quite straightforward why there's little class or economic diversity in the arts. It takes time and training to pursue artforms to a high level and the work pays badly (in fact you're often expected to do it for free). And a disproportionate amount of the opportunities are in London, so unless you happen to live there in the first place, it's difficult. Plus the more serious problem that due to erosion of arts education in schools, people aren't getting that crucial first experience.

Having said that, when I was looking for my first job in the arts in the 90s, there were quite a few internships and other opportunities restricted to BAME people and that did seem to help bring people in.

As a poster said above, they'd be better to use widening participation data based on postcodes than this sort of embarrassing bollocks.

All really good suggestions @flaviaritt
Way more accurate.

I definitely grew up in a working class home. But we were never on benefits, free school meals or in food poverty. We couldn’t ever have gone abroad or had extra-curricular sport or music but we were never short for basics like school uniform.
My mum did some agency waitressing, some care home work, my dad was a self employed “trade”. There’s no way it was a middle class life but it wasn’t deprived either.
This was the mid70s to early 90s though. Now I don’t think there are so many families who are “comfortable” working class, possibly cause of property/rent prices now.

I was born in the 80s and was the first in my family to attend university and it was a big family. I got 1st class honours and a prize for best academics but immediately took a job in a shop because I had no network, no role models and no money to put me through internships or grad school. My parents said I needed to stop messing about and get a proper job i.e. the shop job. I was not advised at all at university and for a long time I couldn't understand why I would do so well in uni but then fail so badly after.

OP what roles is this for, I'd be interested as I think tnis very much applies to me.

@Hopoindown31

The problem is that working class is now often used either to describe people living with deprivation or purely on a wealth basis. This is because most of the good working class jobs are gone.

My parents are working class but we weren't living in poverty. My dad was a factory worker, the job was secure, pay was good and overtime plentiful. We were not rolling in it by any means but there were always clean clothes on my back, shoes on my feet, a hot meal at teatime and a warm bed at night.

I can't honestly describe myself as working class, perhaps "from a working class background". It is clear that going to university was the watershed where I became middle class. My life as an educated professional is so different to some of my old school friends that we are really almost on different planets now.

That's possibly true many good working class (skilled) jobs have gone, mines, factories, steel works, shipyards, even a lot of admin secretarial type roles have gone.

Construction seems to be one of the few areas left with decent working class jobs. So a higher proportion of working class manual labour type jobs are now semi-skilled or low-skilled, attracting minimum wage.

The description in the opening post does seem very much that they are trying to pigeonhole people. That is a very wrong thing to do.

Scotland are trying to encourage more children from deprived, low socioeconomic backgrounds to go to Uni. Students are getting refused entry because their grades aren't good enough for their postcode. WTF! It doesn't take into account the other issues a child may have faced.

I think "working class" is a 19th century concept that doesn't have much relevance today.

I'd probably qualify under most people's definition, my parents worked in menial jobs, didn't earn much, I went to state school, etc.

I see what barriers there are for me or how I'm disadvantaged compared to my middle class collegues, nobody gives a shit what school I went to or how much my parents earn. I don't think a class system exists like it did in the past.

I don't think a class system exists like it did in the past

People are more subtle about it but it definitely still exists. “Cultural fit” with a business. “Polish.” “Well-rounded type.” I’ve heard it all.

@howaboutchocolate

I've never understood class. I apparently came from a middle class background but I also tick a lot of the boxes in that description (state school, free school meals, precarious income, first to go to uni, young carer) since our circumstances changed quite a bit while I was growing up.

Putting people in boxes is a weird thing to do.

You can move from one class to another. When I was younger my family was working class, my father was a sailor in the merchant navy and my mother was a nurse, back before nurses had degrees. They divorced and later my mother remarried a doctor, after which we were upper middle class.

@winebottle you can't apply your own personal experiences to everyone else from a working class background (which is still a thing). I distinctly recall fellow students laughing and making jokes about the way I spoke when I was at university, they definitely cared about where I came from and assumed I would be a bit dense as a result.

Perhaps you have been very lucky?

I do agree the idea of working, middle and upper class is outdaded. I'm also not massively sure my class matters. As my point about the post was that I feel it isn't really describing working class but poverty or deprivation. I suppose my class would be relevant if I was aristocracy and pronouncing on this

@museumum

I definitely grew up in a working class home. But we were never on benefits, free school meals or in food poverty. We couldn’t ever have gone abroad or had extra-curricular sport or music but we were never short for basics like school uniform. My mum did some agency waitressing, some care home work, my dad was a self employed “trade”. There’s no way it was a middle class life but it wasn’t deprived either. This was the mid70s to early 90s though. Now I don’t think there are so many families who are “comfortable” working class, possibly cause of property/rent prices now.

I think that a lot of that class has broken up. The skilled trades are usually still in solid work, and in fact some can be very wel off, moreso than a lot of white collar workers.

But many of them, especially those who might have done factory work a generation before, or male labouring type jobs, are now mainly in the service industry or casual labour/zero contract stuff, maybe call centres. No unions and poor security, benefits so so or nonexistent.

And another good sized group accessed technical education, be it as some sort of university or elsewhere, and are in various kinds of white collar technical work, nursing, etc.

@Wearywithteens I hear you 100% was at a work event a while ago and was discussing something with a fellow attendee they asked a question about an author who's work was being discussed and I mentioned the titles of their previous publications. A few minutes later some others joined us and the person who I had been talking to say "oh tealteaparty was just telling me that x also wrote x, y and z" To which they replied "no I don't think so they wrote (title of current book" I said yes but they also previously wrote these other books. I was then very sharply put down and told I was wrong, in the same high handed tone I'd heard all through university, person I was orgionally speaking to also turned to me and said i must be mistaken.

When the talk start the author was immediately introduced and their previous titles (yes the ones I said) were listed, none of them apologied or said oh you were right. Its just the assumption based on my accent, where i am from and the fact that that i grew up poor that totally alters some peoples perception of you and project things on to you that just aren't true.

I know people who went to oxbrige and some who left school with nothing and often the latter are more intelligent but they just didn't get the oppertunities.

Obviously some people look down on certain accents, some people look down on less educated people and some people look down on poor people. It's just the concept of using those attributes to categorise people into distinct class I don't understand.

I don't see the "working class" category as relevant today, it is based on the social and economic conditions of when Marx was writing.

I agree with you. I come from working class routes but no free school meals, no precarious household income, no care system - just lots of honest work and low financial expectations. They have conflated working class with poverty and its just showing them up. They are obvs too entrenched middle class to believe that workers might have had quite a dependable income and could look after their own kids! Plus there are middle class kids in care, would you believe it .

@winebottle I think you are being naive at best. I am well aquainted with Marx and he is still very relevent regardless of the lies we've been sold for 40 + years.

I don't see the "working class" category as relevant today, it is based on the social and economic conditions of when Marx was writing.

What has changed?