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.

@VaggieMight

You're not working class OP so you ABU be offended. But according to that definition you fit the diversity bill, I'm not sure what your issue is.

* ....or been the first in your family to go to university.*

I've explained at length what my issue is. If you'd care to read the thread. My class is also irrelevant. Also not sure you can judge class from the one snippet of info which was what jobs my parents did for part of my childhood. But if my class is important to you put me in whatever class you like.

Just to clarify this isn't a job I'm applying for it is the criteria for one of 2 jobs at an organisation. I'd be genuinely happy if somone from the circumstances described got this job. The art world needs it. I just don't think what is described is working class.

"Less advantaged" is right, but it's still complex and it's so hard not to accidentally exclude people.

There's a big debate in theatre/arts right now about day jobs. But I have a couple of profoundly disabled playwright friends for whom regular work was simply never an option, and they feel excluded by the idea that if you don't have a day job and didn't work throughout university, that you must be wealthy and privileged.

Ditto the use of schooling as the sole criteria to determine class or privilege. I know someone who's on the board of a few of these organisations who grew up in a severely abusive environment and was 'home schooled' as a cover for abuse (but really received no education at all). So questions about whether you went to private or state school and whether you got free school meals don't apply. Because she has to answer no to the free school meals and did you attend state school questions, she's then written down as being privileged, when actually her upbringing was far less privileged than someone answering yes.

I know people who lived on the streets as teens, or who grew up with a parent on benefits, who feel similarly excluded by the common E&DM form question "what job did the chief income-earner in your household do when you were 14."

Assuming that everyone fits into neat (very British) boxes is a problem. Even asking people if they went to state school or not assumes that everyone had access to free state education, which discriminates against people from certain countries or certain backgrounds. If you work in an industry that is so massively dominated by the privately educated then it's important to monitor that, but why on earth can't they word things as "did your parents pay for your education or not?"

Is everyone honest??

Yeah, there's load of Guy Ritchie-types in the arts.

I've definitely encountered people who grew up with money, went to the most expensive schools, grew up in Notting Hill with every advantage, who "self-identify" as working-class and apply for opportunities and funding ring-fenced for W/C artists, on the grounds that their grandad did a blue collar job or something. It makes me sick.

Went to state school - like 93% of the population then. What a shame whoever wrote that definitIon has clearly never met any of these people.

@howtobe

My DH and I live on the outskirts of Glasgow and earn a good amount of money between us. But we work everyday for it sooooooo we’re working class. Maybe nearer the middle to top end of it but we bloody work hard so defo working class

Do you really think the definition of working class is the fact you work for a living?

Do you really think the definition of working class is the fact you work for a living

Many people do. Someone has probably said it on this thread.

Given that different people define working class as anywhere from 'chaotic upbringing and FSM entitlement' to 'anyone who has to work for a living', ie all but the independently wealthy then it's never going to an objective description or decision making tool.

So why use it at all, and certainly not as a synomym for 'people who need extra help'?

@flaviaritt

you want to actually improve things for groups at a disadvantage you have to really outline that it isn't for the already advantaged because otherwise they'll feel entitled to it anyway.

I actually think jobs and internships should be open to all. Lowering barriers to entry is the answer, not closing shop. So, if offering an internship, make sure it is well paid, provide accommodation if you possibly can, select for interview based on anonymous CVs, consciously include people who have done a couple of ‘filler’ jobs after university, or those who have graduated from part-time courses, mature students etc.

YES!

In fact I think often with diversity schemes, what is really going on is something like virtue signalling, or just really poor thinking through of what the underlying problem is. Which is things like crappy pay, or having to move to the big city, or not being able to meet the right people at university to get a heads up to apply for the position.
All of which it is possible to do something about without a special self-id scheme. You make sure you pay people, you try not to put everything in the big city or offer some kind of moving incentive, you make sure you send recruiters to all kinds of universities.
It's not helpful to people from disadvantaged groups to feel like they have been picked over better candidates, it's actually rather horrible. You know what's been going on, and other people know too, even if they are quite nice and understanding about it.

@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

But the claim was someone whose parents paid for a private tutor for exams couldn't be working class.

Working class families can go on vacations from time to time, why not spend that money on a tutor instead?

I worked for some time in a literacy program, and it was interesting to see that some of the recent middle eastern immigrants, who most certainly were working in labour type jobs and living in subsidised housing, would do things like scrape and save for tutors. Not all could manage it, but it was something they would prioritise over other things.

I do think home owning can seem a bit out of place but that was because of some of the schemes in the 80s, and for some it's really what eventually propelled them out of the working class, though for others it meant their kids couldn't get property themselves or even struggled to rent something appropriate.

I was born in the 70's and grew up in a working class household. My dad worked in the shipyard and my Mum was a cleaner. That description fits me perfectly

you will most likely have been to state school, YES
might have received free school meals as a child, YES
or had a precarious household income when you were growing up. YES - redundancy came several times to both parents

You might have grown up in the care system, been a young carer, NO
or been the first in your family to go to university YES

We lived a good life. No holidays no cars but good food and a roof over our head. They never missed a day of work in their 55 years of working. Paid minimum wage. Definitely working class.

Nothing offensive about it. It's totally accurate

Social mobility and educational changes in the twentieth century means that a very common situation for middle class people is to be first generation university educated with parents who are middle class with no university education and working class grandparents.

I don’t see how you are working class OP.

Many people become working class due to health problems, family disruption and immigration. Working class people are also more likely to develop health problems. It is therefore much more likely that working class people are going to experience the issues in that list than middle class people do.

Working class has to be about what it means to be working class now - Uber driver, Amazon fulfilment worker, retail worker. It can’t be about what working class meant in the 1970s.

Working class has to be about what it means to be working class now - Uber driver, Amazon fulfilment worker, retail worker. It can’t be about what working class meant in the 1970s.

I suppose though in terms of this workplace, they are trying to have more people who come from a working class up-bringing? If they are looking for new young people beginning their careers their parents would probably have been young adults around 2000.

If they are looking for older worker, they may have grown up working class in the 90s, 80s or even 70s. From the sound of it they don't care whether or not they are still now working class - they might have grown up working class, become lawyers and joined the upper middle class, and are now looking for a new career after a mid-life crisis, and that would still count. Though maybe someone in that position doesn't need extra consideration.

Yes, there might be a few older workers applying who were teens in the 1970s.

But I would think that what they had be doing for the last fifty years was more relevant to whether or not they were working class. So if they had been working as a cleaner for decades and then retrained and wanted a creative job that would be more relevant than what their parents did.