Why do people from poorer backgrounds have low aspirations

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I may not be explaining myself well here so please bear with me!

I've seen on here a few times where it's been mentioned that people from poorer backgrounds / deprived areas don't have higher aspirations. It seems they can do better but don't.

Just wondering why this is and what would help to change it.

Reason I'm asking is I'm from a por background and I still am. I don't want this for my kids but don't know how or what to do to change it.

@Redact as you know nothing much about her family maybe they were also really supportive as well just because she is from a family in benefits doesn't mean her parent wasn't encouraging, making sacrifices and doing all sorts to help her achieve

[quote worriedatthemoment]@BrightYellowDaffodil she still stereotyped and it won't be all of the poor children whose parents are like this and if they don't engage she won't know fully why will she , she implied only poorer parents who don't bother i have family and friends who are teachers and they say its all sorts of parents , and there are parents who really try regardless of their background [/quote]
Her exact words were when I send a reading book home, generally the children from better off families will have read it and discussed it at home. And children from very poor families will still have it sitting at the bottom of their school bag.

If that’s her experience, that’s her experience. The use of the word “generally” indicates that it’s, well, a generalisation. I didn’t see her imply that the parents “don’t bother”, that seems to be your inference.

I have teacher friends who say very similar things, so it’s clearly not an Isolated case, even if it isn’t the norm or offset by poor families that do engage/better off families that don’t.

We all have the same 24 hours in a day....

Someone who wasn't a single parent said that to me the other day. They said "how do you not have enough time to pursue X hobby or do X training? I do?". Turned out they didn't have to work, look after the kids completely on their own, and do all the housework, plus they had more family around them to help out or with the kids, and guess what? More money than me, they had a cleaner come in etc. They also had a dishwasher, I don't.

So, we may all have the same 24 hours in s day, but we don't all have the suffer the same restrictions of our time, or the same opportunities. Time can be bought with money by sourcing out jobs around the home or care of the kids too.

I left behind the small gritty Northern town I grew up in as soon as I turned 19. Back in the early 2000s it was clear as day to me that those who didn’t leave would soon get caught up in the mundane small town mentality and have no aspirations therefore no chance to escape.

In hindsight I was spot on for the majority of my old friendship circle, some did well and left like I did, but on the whole most now live pay check to pay check, are on benefits or have multiple children and no opportunity or desire to be anything more than they are now. Whether they are happy or content I’m not sure, do they wish things were different? Maybe, but then again their view of the world is the local town Facebook group, Netflix and the occasional trip to Llandudno or Blackpool - I don’t mean that in a derogatory manner, it’s literally their world view.

I think it’s very easy to slip into the ‘perpetually poor’ mentality when those around you and their families are all in the same situation. Most of those kids I grew up with had no motivation, encouragement or opportunity to better themselves, instead they’ve seemingly repeated the mistakes of their parents who actually repeated the mistakes of their parents because all they knew was working in the Mills and factories.

@BrightYellowDaffodil shame as a school they aren't addressing it then isn't it, the use of very poor how does she know they are very poor as opposed to poor ?!or is that a polite term for something else as i suspect it is
Its a little bit of a blame game isn't it, but yes all us poor people are generally all the same

The key to making an aspiration reality is usually an education. Middle class kids usually have educated or at least one one educated parents who know how to go about steering them in the right direction. Working class kids do have lofty aspirations, of course they do but if they're not surrounded by people in their target profession or given proper advice, it may seem to them harder to achieve.

I don't think MC kids are necessarily instilled with confidence. I know kids who wish they were praised more but there does seem to be a strong parental expectation that they will do well in school and go onto university. It's expected of them and they see the the older brothers and sisters of their NDN go to uni, they might chat to the NDN's parents about careers. They and all their neighbours live in nice big houses, why wouldn't they when they're an adult?
Not saying working class people are not successful of course, they can have nice big houses too but it's just an entirely different culture really. If a WC child wants to be a doctor or engineer unless their parents are pretty well off, it's unlikely they're going to live next door to one, they're more likely to see their neighbours go to college and get apprenticeships. It's harder to do something you're not exposed to.

[quote worriedatthemoment]@BetterLox unless you have worked in many schools all over the country you shouldn't stereo type no , you should also understand why its harder for some than others , you as a school arrange parent helpers to read more with those children
And again it won't be all and I don't think tarring all with the same brush is a correct way to go about things and its a shame teachers look at it like this [/quote]
I have worked in many schools across the country. And I do understand why it's harder for some than others. There are many reasons why "parent helpers" to "read more with those children" wouldn't work and may be inappropriate. There are generally many school-wide reading schemes so every child can access the curriculum fairly. The level of support differs when children get home. Again, this is just my experience. But I'm certainly not alone in my thought process.

I love my job and bend over backwards to help these little ones daily. I spend countless hours per week making resources and extra material for learners who require additional support.

My TAs target work groups who require additional support. Very rarely - if ever - do these groups contain children from wealthy families. I appreciate that my comment may have upset you but I'm afraid it's my experience.

shame as a school they aren't addressing it then isn't it, the use of very poor how does she know they are very poor as opposed to poor ?!

Schools do shit loads to try and address this. These children often get far more adult time, interventions etc than better off children. The very poorest children the teacher is always aware of as they are required to track the progress of children in receipt of pupil premium.

[quote worriedatthemoment]@BrightYellowDaffodil shame as a school they aren't addressing it then isn't it, the use of very poor how does she know they are very poor as opposed to poor ?!or is that a polite term for something else as i suspect it is
Its a little bit of a blame game isn't it, but yes all us poor people are generally all the same [/quote]
Schools can only do so much. They are not the solve to every problem. Parents are ultimately responsible.

If it's all you can do to meet the bottom three tiers you have no head space for self actualization.

The mother’s level of education is the strongest indicator of a child success in life

I came from a very poor background and neither of my parents had received any education after the age of 14. But they taught us to read before we went to school, took us to the library and museums and made it clear that education was the most important issue in our lives. All three of us went to Grammar School and on to HE. As a teacher in a deprived area I found that the even the brightest children were held back by the ethos which surrounded them and the low expectations of their carers and social circle. Very few could see the value in education. Their is also a fear of having to leave their familiar environment and becoming isolated/ estranged from their family and circle. This was well documented as early as the 60s when research was done into those children who were gaining the first free grammar school places.

@Oysterbabe

I'm from a very poor and deprived background. I'm the only person in my family to go to university, none of my 6 nieces and nephews have. When one was a teen I asked him whether he had thought about university and his mum snapped 'He's not going to university' and looked at me like I had 2 heads. To her university is for stuck up people and not people like them. It's a hard mindset to change and echos through the generations.

Same here. My sibling and I went to uni and have professional jobs, however we have still suffered from lack of careers advice / general knowledge about what was possible. Our careers are above average but pretty "vanilla" and unplanned if you know what I mean. With more support and greater awareness I'm sure we could have done more.

But our cousins were actively discouraged from going to uni and instead were expected to work & live locally. They all still live within a mile of each other and the cycle looks set to repeat another generation as all their children (7?) apparently have self diagnosed anxiety, dyslexia and other things which (according to them) mean they can't regularly attend school or other activities and are vastly less experienced about the world than they should be.

Note I am obviously not saying anxiety, dyslexia, adhd etc don't exist and shouldn't be treated seriously. But in this case it's more a reflection of parental mental health and lack of resilience. No formal diagnosis but the kids are repeatedly told that's what they have. It will limit their life chances for sure.

More likely if you are living in poverty.

I don't think it's MC to love reading. WC and my mum instilled in me a love of reading. She read with me but by 6 I was reading novels so I just read alone from then. If I brought a book back, we'd do the set questions and maybe talk about what we did and didn't like.
There's working class and then there's deprivation.

I went out with a guy who was from a very very poor family.
There were 6 children and one decided to live away and go to university.
His mother used to go on about how he thought he was better than the rest of them and how he had ideas above his station etc.
Sad really.

mdh is right - the children from poorer areas who went to grammar school then in a sense became different from their families. I don't think that's a bad thing but it is a relevant thing - a gulf can develop and not everyone wants that gulf. It can also lead to different points of view which can make people different from their families too - the same with going away to university (which is one reason some religious groups are not keen on people going - Jehovah's witnesses etc)

You might as well ask why rich people have so much privilege.

@LiveintheNow

You might as well ask why rich people have so much privilege.

Well yes that is a question we’d all like the answer to

Also, you know there are doctors and solicitors

But you don’t know how they become doctors and solicitors.

I was the first in my family to go to uni. I went to a shitty comprehensive. Pre internet I had no way of finding out about uni courses and careers. Careers advice was woeful- could I be a dr/vet? No it’s too competitive you won’t get in, do a BTEC in science.

I had no idea degrees for allied professions even existed- pharmacy, physio, speech and language therapy. So i chose biology because that’s all i knew from school, and figured picking a uni course was like picking just one a’level, with no thought to career.

Many of my friends didn’t go to uni because their families needed another income (or, in many cases, another benefits claim- not judging, this was fact). Several girls in my year were pregnant on leaving school so they could go straight to their own flat and benefits.

You are guided by the people around you and how they live.

I do believe parental aspiration, combined with drive in the child, can be enough in some circumstances. My parents are both from poor, working class homes (their parents' occupations were train driver, farm labourer, factory clerk and primary school teacher) but were the first in their respective families to go to university and are now successful business owners. Their siblings are all also successful in different ways.

I'm sure there's a lot of luck involved though and I'm not saying that when this doesn't happen, it's because there's not enough aspiration or drive. My parents also obviously went to uni a long time ago and I don't doubt that social mobility was much better than now. Whether they'd have had such success today, I don't know.

Im from a poor council background. The opportunity wasn't there for us to gain much qualifications. I did one year at college and thats it!

I was given the opportunity to go onto a higher level but had to do another 2 years at college, however my mum wanted about £25 a week board money and i didn't have that so i couldn't progress onto the next level. I had to get a job. ANY OLD JOB. Ended up in low paid jobs for years.

No money to move out as i were paying board and on a crap wage (i think it was £3.60 an hour back then for under 21s)

It was only when i met dh that i managed to escape poverty.

Growing up in poverty is shit. I had years of depression which i believe is due to it. Shoes didn't fit properly, no opportunities to better yourself etc.

Schools were crap in our area, my mum couldn't be arsed to attend parents evening as the school was a 40 min walk away and we didn't have a car.

Homework never done, it was never checked by my mum.

I left school with appalling G.C.S.E’s and my mum wasn't bothered. I remember sitting with a tutor crying at college begging her to let me do a level 2 childcare course (you had to have certain G.C.S.Es) i didn't have the minimum requirement to do it.

They actually let me do it! I got a distinction in that course (the highest level you could get) but i couldn't go onto the next level due to the board money i was expected to pay.

It used to really annoy me that she had children when she couldn't afford to give them a good life.

@BrightYellowDaffodil

I completely agree with PPS who’ve talked about others having aspirations on your behalf. We weren’t hothoused (thank god) but it was expected that we Did Something with our lives. We also went to schools where those around us were the same, and teachers made it clear they had expectations of us too.

That said, the school was streamed and it was kind of like two separate worlds at times - those in the lower streams got taught and treated very differently. I remember hearing two teachers of the lower streams talking once and one said to the other “What’s the point of teaching them anyway, it’s not like they’ll turn up for the exam”. Teachers decided which papers you sat, which in turn drove what grades you could get, and what future options were available. Some of those kids were written off before they started.

I grew up in a very middle class bubble, we lived in a very expensive area, I was in the “good” stream so my friends were middle class, we did middle class hobbies and pursuits such as museums etc, and we travelled. It was normal for us. But forward 20-odd years and I was living in a less-nice bit of a city and which really opened my eyes that for a lot of people, my upbringing wasn’t ”normal” at all. That really WAS like two different worlds, and for a while I couldn’t understand why some people behaved as they did. Then I realised: they don’t know any differently. If I ran up a debt, I’d ring the company and ask for a payment plan. Someone I knew in this situation just didn’t pay his rent in order to pay off the debt, so he got kicked out. Another neighbour didn’t understand why he kept losing his job: because he didn’t turn up if he didn’t feel like it. If you don’t know how the game works, you can’t play it. If you can’t join in (I knew of someone who didn’t want a job where they’d have to go out for dinner because they didn’t know how to ‘do’ formal dining), you can’t participate. If you don’t know the rules because no one ever taught you, you can’t work within them even if you want to.

Cultural capital is such a huge factor, and I had no idea of my privilege in this regard or of the huge difference it makes.

This...

Also as a kid from a very w/c background, you may know others work/play differently... But no idea how tp bridge the gap!

Cultural capital + confidence is soooo important to be able to keep your head above the parapet in middle class professions.... As often middle class professionals will oftrn only enploy other middle class professionals.... Or those who pass as such

@Nomoreusernames1244

Also, you know there are doctors and solicitors

But you don’t know how they become doctors and solicitors.

I was the first in my family to go to uni. I went to a shitty comprehensive. Pre internet I had no way of finding out about uni courses and careers. Careers advice was woeful- could I be a dr/vet? No it’s too competitive you won’t get in, do a BTEC in science.

I had no idea degrees for allied professions even existed- pharmacy, physio, speech and language therapy. So i chose biology because that’s all i knew from school, and figured picking a uni course was like picking just one a’level, with no thought to career.

Many of my friends didn’t go to uni because their families needed another income (or, in many cases, another benefits claim- not judging, this was fact). Several girls in my year were pregnant on leaving school so they could go straight to their own flat and benefits.

You are guided by the people around you and how they live.

This, in abundance...

I remember a couple of us as teenagers, pre Internet, desperately trying to find out about careers in our under resourced career library and public library... There were a handful of books... We were guided to the books.... So you want to be a nurse/teacher type of books ... All were hopelessly out dated... No other careers were on view EVEN AS POSSIBILITIES.

University was viewed as a pointless extravagance....

I had NO IDEA as a 15/16 year old you could do degrees without the requisite A levels ib those subjects.... Eg philosophy, Law, Economics, psychology etc etc....

The focus was soooo bloody narrow....