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.

I think if you're going to define working-class that broadly then it's pointless defining it as a group that needs targeting for diversity and inclusion. 'People who had second-hand bikes for Christmas' are not and should not be a protected group

^Why not? My parents were not in high paying jobs - they worked hard and sacrificed for us. They were never unemployed, and they owned their house, but I know some months were a struggle. We had second hand bikes for Christmas for example.

Neither Parent went to university. My dad was a shift worker and my mum was a secretary. We grew up in a very modest terrace house.

Working class often own their own home and have financial security. I think you are confusing working class with under class - horrible phrase, but here you will find people who experience repeated or constant unemployment and therefore fall into reliance on benefits^

^^ This exactly.

YANBU OP and there's a lot of people on here who also make the assumption that WC = deprived and WC people couldn't possibly be educated homeowners who like the same interesting cultural activities as they do. It's tedious and offensive.

@Hardbackwriter

I think if you're going to define working-class that broadly then it's pointless defining it as a group that needs targeting for diversity and inclusion. 'People who had second-hand bikes for Christmas' are not and should not be a protected group

My point was working class doesn’t mean poor!

It means working in lower paid, lower skilled jobs. I was trying to illustrate the point that it is too broad and old fashioned a phrase to use to define any group and certainly not appropriate to identify those from a deprived background. That is why government never uses the class system - it’s free school meals, or other benefits. Not all working class families will qualify for benefits.

They just aren’t the doctors, lawyers, business owners or managers who make up the middle class

the working class today includes both white and blue-collar workers, manual and mental workers of all types, excluding only individuals who derive their livelihood from business ownership and the labour of others.

The old definitions of class are really outdated now. Lots and lots of people in traditionally working class jobs are on great salaries and may in fact have more income and stability than those who went to university and have nothing to show for it except insecure employment, who have cultural capital but less money. So yes I think "working class" isn't the right terminology for the group of people your workplace are trying to target.

I would say though that there are those who think they are working class when in fact they are lower middle class. With a teacher and a scientist for parents it sounds like OP is at least lower-middle, more likely middle-middle. Grandparent's jobs aren't a reliable indicator of what class you are - it's not unusual at all for people to go up or down a level in one generation, especially in the post-WW2 generation and their children, when there was so much opportunity available. It's getting harder again now.

I had a maths tutor for a while when I was at secondary school and I am definitely working class. My mum valued my education and wanted me to do well, sadly I didn't though. She prioritised some money for that despite being a lone parent on a low wage.

Working class isn't just about how much money you have. My old boss was self made and very wealthy. He had a deprived background - came from a council estate, was dyslexic, kicked out of school at 14, was in and out of foster care. He had the gift of the gab and set up his own very successful sales business. He didn't suddenly become middle class just because he started earning a lot of money.

I've been thinking about this and why it's important. I said upthread I was definitely working class. I probably don't fit that now in terms of income - I own my home, I employ people, I'm not wealthy but I am comfortable.

Firstly, I got maximum grant, benefits during short holidays, and was able to get waitressing and bar jobs so I didn't have (and wouldn't have gotten) any contribution from my parents for university. So income was no barrier. There was absolutely no encouragement from my parents to go to university who couldn't understand why I wouldn't get a job. I had brilliant motivated teachers at what was an under-performing school.

Secondly, I was able to buy a flat with a 100% mortgage at the age of 22 and I also got MIRAS. My salary was £6600 and the flat cost £17k. I sold it two years later for £29k.

Thirdly, I got on to a grad scheme with a large corporate and had excellent training.

I don't believe these opportunities still exist for working class kids. University education is no longer free so if money is tight, they just can't go. There are far fewer jobs around for students to work during holidays or term time. Property is out of reach for young people without help with capital. Large companies outsource so much, and there are so many grads out there now, I don't think an ordinary, non stellar grad like me would have had a chance.

That's why it matters.

I was taught at (rural, comprehensive - there wasn’t a grammar school within 30 miles) school that class had to do with what your grandparents did. I’m therefore middle class, a lot of my schoolmates were working class, and they mostly had far more money! I now work in the arts, and I had never met anyone ‘posh’ in the way people in the arts are posh before though! Except at uni, but I didn’t hang out with any of them and didn’t realise how different their lives were at the time. In my department at work, a quarter went to single-sex private school. The boss went to Eton. He doesn’t consider himself posh because his family weren’t the richest/aristocratic there . He counts as middle class too. My DH counts himself as middle class because he went to university and works in IT, but his dad was a labourer and later a janitor and his mum was a housewife and they didn’t own a car. He wasn’t the first in his family to go to uni either - his oldest sister was. It’s crazy that my boss and DH are both counted as middle class!

I would echo what somebody upthread said about the arts being so dependent on education level though - if the job requires a degree, that already restricts your diversity pool to people who got to university. Nobody who left school at 16 has a look-in. And it’s all very well to ask for applications with more diversity, but how do you identify the working class applicants from CVs that state where you went to uni but not where you went to school?

Maybe what we need is a survey that allocates a points system to applicants based on their background. CVs from the group with less privileges go in one pile and CVs from the privileged go in another. We have to interview half from one and half from the other... I also like the criteria someone posted above:

• 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.

Tbh, it could be a simple tick box list, eg: state school, first to go to uni, free school meals, looked after child. 1/4 vs 4/4 would have had very different experiences and opportunities growing up.

No need to add ‘working class’ as people might self-identify however they please or offending someone by suggesting that having parents in WC occupations is the same as having had real hardship.

state school, yes

first to go to uni, yes

free school meals, only during the miner's strike

looked after child, no, in fact it was us that did the 'looking after' DM was a foster carer for most of my childhood, no idea what that says about me.

I agree the stereotyping on this thread is entertaining.

I grew up in a very middle class area so all my school friends had a lot more money than my family. I remember a school friend coming to play and being horrified we only had one loo!

I also remember a school friends mum asking how we could afford to go to France on holiday because we were poor!!

I suspect she may also be contributing to this thread somewhere!

Which bits do you want to remove? Might have been in care is true, but if you remove it, what does it make those people? etc etc

I'm not offended by it, my sister was the first to go to university, money was very tight at times but no free school meals. State school, whilst I wasn't in care a fair few of my friends were.
The parts op seems offended by do say may or likely so that doesn't mean that as working class you have to fit into that bracket.
I'm comfortable with my background, I'm also comfortable with other different backgrounds maybe that's the difference. Maybe some feel uncomfortable at being working class and that is the main issue/hurdle is their own perception of their own upbringing.

@DTIsOnlyForNow

Which bits do you want to remove? Might have been in care is true, but if you remove it, what does it make those people? etc etc

The conflation that WC = deprived.

Going by a lot of what is written on here, and the piece that the OP is complaining about, a lot of people have an image of Shameless in their heads when expressing an opinion about working class people.

The conflation that WC = deprived

All of the descriptions of "might" are true though. None of them say that they can't be true if you're middle class, but they're all a lot more likely if you are working class.

You might not like it, it doesn't mean its not accurate

If your class has to do with what your grandparents did then I'm both working class and upper class. How would that even work, you do get 4 of them

For jobs in my sector, they ask:
Did you go to: state school, grammar school, private-with scholarship, private-partial scholarship, private-no scholarship.
Were/are you a carer?
Did you work more than 16 hours per week during school term time?
Did you work more than 16 hours per week during university term time?
Were you the first generation of your family to go to university?
Were you eligible for free school meals?
Were you in state care for longer than three months after the age of four?
The answers aren't seen by the employer but are put into an algorithm by the recruitment online system and provide the employer with a number. Your application is viewed in light of your number (so someone with the same grades but who went to private school, didn't work during their studies etc would be viewed differently). It's called contextual recruitment and it's very common.
I went to a state school where I was eligible for school meals, worked more than 16 hours per week during school and university and was the first generation to attend university. I had caring responsibilities during my undergraduate final year and my post-grad studies. Last week, my mum described my upbringing as "privileged" - it's completely a matter of perception/opinion.

Is everyone honest??

I don’t think this is offensive or inaccurate really. Not many (if any) middle class families rely on FSM to feed their children, they either fork out for the dinners or usually send them with packed lunches (I know we do!). FSM are for people on low income, I don’t know what the threshold is but it’s pretty low so I’d argue that any child on FSM is most likely from a working class background. It’s also not uncommon for working class children to be the first to go to uni. My grandparents both came from working class backgrounds but worked really hard and two of my grandparents have degrees so my parents grew up fairly middle class and I subsequently have too.

Also want to say that my DH went to private school, not on a scholarship and it was one of the more prestigious schools in the county. His parents were in perpetual debt, literally up to their necks in debt. They had degrees and decent jobs but they skinted themselves keeping up with the Joneses. Ridiculous imo.

I think it was very clumsily worded and I don’t think ‘working class’ is perhaps right. On the Sutton Trust website they use ‘less advantaged’. There list of things students should demonstrate to prove they’re less advantaged is similar though:

www.suttontrust.com/our-programmes/pathways-to-medicine/

[quote OLittleTownofBethlehem]I think it was very clumsily worded and I don’t think ‘working class’ is perhaps right. On the Sutton Trust website they use ‘less advantaged’. There list of things students should demonstrate to prove they’re less advantaged is similar though:

www.suttontrust.com/our-programmes/pathways-to-medicine/[/quote]
That makes much more sense.

No need to argue over what class people are!

This whole thread is confusing to me, when I grew up my parents worked and were classed as "working class", we still grew up in poverty.

I'm still classed as "working class" & we don't live in poverty, we do a heck of a lot better than my parents did, but we still can't afford holidays and many luxuries.

I find it far more personally offensive when people say they're working class and claim to be able to relate to the type of working class that I have personally grown up, but clearly have the type of wealth someone working class (as I understand it) could never hope to have. I know someone who says they're working class but they own a 4 bedroom house, have two cars, multiple foreign holidays a year, have my entire monthly wage as "spare" each month etc. They say they're working class. I see that as more middle class. Lower middle class maybe, but still middle class.

I think people's views of the class structure in society are very much coloured by their own experiences, hence the enormous difference in opinion of what working class actually is.

@Camomila

If you had a private tutor you're not bloody working class...

Plenty of immigrant families will sacrifice other stuff for the DCs education, mine did (and the man did us an extra cheap rate as my parents couldn't have afforded his normal fees).

Ridiculous to say this! Working class families often have steady jobs, financial security and some savings behind them.

Many parents will sacrifice elsewhere. We didn’t have brand foods or clothes, we lived in a terrace house in a cheaper part of town. I lived in hand me down soothes. But my parents saved to send me to a tutor to help me get into grammar school.

Working class is a broader group than you understand. Many could save and afford a tutor for six weeks before an exam.

Totally agree with you OP, I’m from a working class background and it didn’t equate to free school meals and living in poverty within a chaotic household.
The definition has become very blurred for some reason.