What ‘uneducated’ means?

[MothD]

Who is an uneducated person? Someone who didn’t go to college or uni?

I’m feeling a little low about this. I’ve got A levels but I didn’t go to college or uni. I did 3/4 or a course that is related to the industry I work within but that’s it. I worked my way up… earring around 40k now but I feel like a massive failure for not having a degree or college/uni experience.

I think there is a correlation between low educational attainment or short duration in education and being 'uneducated'. But it's not the case that everyone who leaves school young or without formal qualifications is uneducated. And some highly educated people can come across as uneducated.

I have a Brazilian friend who left school at 12 when his Dad died to earn enough money to look after his mum and disabled brother. He worked for a builder for 8 years doing manual labour. During that time, he became trilingual, teaching himself English and Spanish to genuine fluency. He now owns and runs his own language school in Rio. He is far from uneducated.

I have another acquaintance who went to a top public school and average university. She has all the qualifications. She has never worked though and has no idea how the real world works. Lots of money, no independence, no drive, no interest in politics, current affairs or culture. She's very pleasant but she does come across as slightly uneducated, even though she isn't, technically.

They're probably both examples of people who buck a general rule but I doubt they're rare exceptions.

You’ve got, GCSEs (a general certificate of education) and then Advanced (A) level…you are educated.

Uneducated literally means not educated at all. Vast majority of people have some education whether that is formal, self, or vocational. If you are literate (can read and write), that’s more education than over a billion people on the planet.

Its other meaning is it is often used as a way to insult educated people by implying their education was very bad, in fact so bad it doesn’t count at all.

Agree

Uneducated to me means someone who hasn’t yet understood how little they truly know

I think ignorance is more a barometer than say, leaving school at 16.

My dad left school at the earliest opportunity but went on to work hard and do incredibly well in his career through application rather than academia. He never stopped learning but always regretted his lack of a formal tertiary education, and insisted on this pathway for all his children.

Of course now, even less able kids get to do alternative routes such as BTechs and apprenticeships, so there won’t be the same stigma.

Some times it can mean "unindoctrinated" to the current whims of the mainstream media. If you haven't absorbed the latest editorial or opinion piece people will tell you to educate yourself. Educating yourself via alternative sources including peer reviewed studies is frowned upon.

I'd guess that generally it means someone with low education levels, but not strictly. You can educate yourself by reading widely/doing research.

But yea generally uneducated means someone who has not been educated. However, I'd assume this generally meant GCSE or no education at all. Many people in the world don't even get schooling to 16.

In London it’s the current polite word for ‘rude’/‘unpleasant’.

And I agree with PP. my dad left school with one GCSE, but he's smart as a whip. Reads tonnes on history/religion/politics.

He's a very clever and self-educated man

I described a women like this the other day, I have no idea of her academic achievements but she is the least interested in anything person I have ever met.

I would have thought it means someone who has not received any education. You were in full time education until you were 16 or 17

Fulltime education til 16 is basically uneducated.

Yeah someone with zero curiosity.

I know one person with a degree but zero general knowledge: doesn't read books, no idea when the war happened (!), no interest in visiting new places, no curiosity about anything outside of their narrow sphere. It gets dull quickly.

On the other hand, I also know someone who left school at 14 with no qualifications (dyslexic in 1960s). He will sometimes ask me what a long word means in the newspaper, for example. However, he is very wise, interested in politics and great to talk to, always keen to know more about any topic.

The first person is ignorant, the second is educating himself!

I would take it to mean someone who's never attended school, may have limited skills like reading or writing that has been taught outwith school.
I'd have though it's a description that would apply to very few people in any first world country.

Exactly this.

Those who are using it to describe people without a degree or higher education, what word would you use to describe someone who'd little or no formal schooling at all?

Like most things, it's relative. If you're in a group of highly experienced academics, with PhDs and years of post doc experience, you might consider your PhD students to be relatively uneducated. Those PhD students might consider the undergrads similarly, and so on down the scales of education.

Realistically, though, almost nobody is universally educated, nor universally uneducated - someone with a fine academic education might be entirely uneducated in the best way of building a structurally sound wall, or how to create an IT infrastructure, deliver a baby or train a guide dog.

I think people generally use it to describe an ignorant view point, i.e. a specific lack of education in the topic at hand. We all hold uneducated views in some areas, even if they happen to be "correct" - but sticking to an uneducated view when exposed to facts (where those facts are based on evidence, peer reviewed / professionally accepted etc) is generally willfully ignorant.

I take it to mean bad-mannered and lacking awareness about normal social graces. So a professor with multiple degrees snapping their fingers at waiters would, to me, be uneducated.

I agree with this.

In the last few years, it’s sharply come into focus how little critical thinking skills some people have. How they’ll read a blog post written by Joe Troll that says covid is a conspiracy created by the government for control, or that vaccines cause autism, or read any of the endless tripe that’s posted on the DM daily, and swallow it as absolute fact. They won’t do any further research, or even stop to think “why does this person want me to believe this? What is their motivation?”

To me, that is truly uneducated. And that has nothing to do with a level of schooling or qualifications.

I differentiate it from ignorant but I don't think everyone does going by these answers.

I worked with a guy in his 40s who didn't learn to read and write until he was early 20s, he was clearly uneducated but also extremely willing to learn and had a very open mind

Uneducated in the U.K. (or similar) country I would suggest means didn't achieve any of the standard qualifications for that country so for England GCSEs nor have taken other qualifications as an adult to compensate. In lower income countries it would more likely to mean not been to school past 12

Whilst I suppose the dictionary definition would refer to someone that had received little to no formal eduction and without qualifications, I don’t go around asking who got what grade in their GCSE maths so I’d use it to refer to someone that was banging on about something they clearly knew fuck all about.