Aibu to think most European countries don't have an Education class system or a class system at all?

[Stellanotbud]

Aibu to think that most European countries especially former communist countries don't have a class system or educational class system like the UK.. Most kids all go to state school & muddle along? Snobbery isn't a prevelant in most European countries & educational standards are high & mostly state run.

But worth isn't a measure of class, not even financial worth but certainly not worth to society so I'm not sure why you are conflating the two. So middle class doesn't mean you are " worth" more than someone who classifies themselves as working class, just different!

It's funny how people choose to class themselves sometimes. As non-English, i'm sometimes confused about completely irrelevant things people see as class markers. Not education, not jobs, not wealth, but... holiday destination? eating certain products? entertainment pickings? i'm like... whaaat?

Even when Yugoslavia was Yugoslavia there was a class system. Kids from ‘good’ families when to a gymnasium, whereas the others went to vocational schools.

Europe isn’t free of class systems. I’m not sure any country in the world is free of social hierarchies tbh.

So do you mean that I look down on my parents, they were definitely working class and I'm definitely middle class! Half my family would fall into one category and the other half into the other. Do you mean we shouldn't be speaking to each other. I've Never been to a segregated family gathering in my life!

Yo give an example of how small the number of people who,go to boarding school is, in England - in 2021 it was 0.7%, less than 1 per cent. That's a very small number and even fewer will be going to boarding at primary school age, most not until aged 13y at the earliest. Some of those will also be children with specific special needs, etc as they are often included in the figures, though aren't boarding schools in the way most people think.

You are talking about a very very small number. And I'm not sure I would class most of those people as 'middle class' tbh.

^this is where the British class system gets confusing for me, as someone from a different country.

I think you're in denial, because you live there all the time. To be honest.

And I think you are basing your views on your experience on of having a 'cold cruel' English family who appear to fit into a very tiny percentage of the country as a whole. To be honest.

Wow the denial. You must be "middle class"

If you don't see all the class based abuse in England then obviously you are "middle class".

If it is not happening to you, you don't see it.

I'm in Ireland right now.

I remember one woman saying this to me , and it is so , so true.

She said "only the upper and middle classes in Ireland think that there is no class based discrimination in Ireland".

If it doesn't happen to them, they don't see it.

I remember one of my friends being absolutely adamant that there was no class system in Ireland.

He was from a wealthy family. He went to a good college. Played rugby. Had every door open to him because his family were from a wealthy family.

He had a good life.

I know people who grew up to a single mother in Ireland, and were left out and looked down on at every stage in their lives because they were poor and because they didn't have a dad.

In Ireland you will never see a well educated man from a wealthy family marry a woman who grew up poor, in a single parent family.

Never ever. The middle class families in Ireland marry other middle class families. Money is very important.

@Mooshamoo your posts read like you are living 200 years ago. Saying people from England are cold and cruel is extraordinary

Oh, and Russia has gopniki, which the British call ‘chavs’.

Every country has a class system.

This it may be more obvious in so w countries but it's there everywhere

You really honestly truly think that there is no class based discrimination in England?

As I said, I'm in Ireland. And I can see the class based discrimination here.

You shouldn't feel so attached to your own country that you can blindly gloss over the injustices. So you think there is no class based injustice in England at all?

I can do a quick Google and find many class based injustices in England.

Good point

How can any human be worth less than any other human

How are you defining worth? Many people consider a persons "worth to society" and if thats your metric its obvious that some humans have much more worth than others.
IF you're talking about some kind of intrinsic worth, it's pretty meaningless. Nobody is worth anything, really.

But that's academic & still state funded. Surely this is of more benefit to poor intelligent children whose parents can't afford private school?

Italy calling.

I'm a teacher in a Liceo Classico.
Our demographic is lawyers', doctors' and business entrepreneurs' kids. The parents went to our school. The grandparents did.

They'll all go to private universities (Luiss in Rome for law, Bocconi in Milan for economics and business) Then they'll come back here, marry one of their dad's friend's kids that they've been in a friendship group with since they were born and the whole cycle begins again.

There are 3 middle schools in my town but 90% of our students come from one of them. From the one on the <shudder> outskirts of town (where nobody chooses to live and where the council properties are, go figure) we'll get one kid every two or three years. Middle school is the worst for the class divide, as parents will network and (sometimes literally) bribe to get their kids into the "best" class (best teachers and PLU parents) I was teaching the son of one of these teachers at the time so my daughter got put into the "best" class despite me being a foreigner and not one of the town VIPs.

Do I think it's morally wrong? Yep. Am I glad my daughter was in that class? Yep.

Where it's different I suppose is with private schools. Here, unless you get sent to some kind of elite military academy boarding school (usually because your fees will be paid because your dad is a financial policeman or sth) then private schools are fairly cheap and anything but elite. Lots of kids who fail in the state system will be sent to a private school. Fees are very low.

You really honestly truly think that there is no class based discrimination in England?

Did you read my posts? I clearly said that there was a class system and that various forms of discrimination exist here.

However, your version of England is so different to my lived experience, and that of my friends and family - not all of who live/born here and from a span of 'classes' - so I was questioning that.

Your original post talked about boarding school as if it was the norm and that middle class people act in a certain way here. As did, boarding school pupils make up less than a percent of the English
school population and most users of it probably wouldn't class themselves as 'middle class' ime.

By what criteria do you define yourself as middle class?

Italy certainly has a class-based State school system for 14-18 yo.
All of these are non fee paying.
You can choose from Classics High School (mostly children of doctors, lawyers, academics, long-standing industrial families) Science (architects, engineers, new economy) Accounting, Surveyors, Artistic, Languages, Tourism, right down to childcare or local industrial skills.
And the teachers will use devious means to find out within the first three months if the students’ backgrounds are “suitable” or not.
Fortunately, being a dual nationality family we are somewhat out of the system but I always refused to state either of our professions on the enrolment forms. DC1 at 14 was sent to the Head’s office to fill it in🤣.

Wow the denial. You must be "middle class"

Ha ha!
Tbh I've no idea what class I am. I guess I probably span classes and have family and friends across the classes to.
Was born in a northern town, brought up in council housing, parents worked in none 'professional' type jobs. Most of my family lived in similar areas and very few professional jobs. I was the first of my family, inc extended, to go to university.
I shop at a range of supermarkets and shops, both in person and online. I socialise with friends from various places and various classes I guess, work alongside people from various backgrounds. My family and friends cover most backgrounds tbh.

So no definite 'you must be middle class' answer here I'm afraid.

IME many 'middle class' people do look down on 'working class' people ( I hate those terms) but the working class people often have a very negative view of those they perceive to be middle class.

The UK does has a huge problem with racism even thought they were the original illegal immigrants, pitching up in countries and turning everything to s*%t. There was a time when people would have tried to avoid being caught out but now with the 'anti woke' culture, they feel emboldened once again.

I think this hand wringing about class is a MN thing. Claiming that the UK is the only place in the world with a class system (they clearly haven't travelled!) and saying everyone is obsessed with what school you went to. Unless you are from the upper echelons of society (which vast majority aren't) I don't think anyone cares. I don't know anyone in real life that has these discussions.

@Mooshamoo
If you follow the categories developed in 2011 by the British class survey, based on economic, cultural and social capital, I would be classed as middle class. If you look at categorisation by education, income and employment, I come out the same. If you look at the ONS socio economic classification, I would fall under Group 2 or possibly 3 and the NRS classification as B or C1.
So pretty much straight down the line middle class.😁

As somebody from a post-Communist country (Russia) and who travelled and worked a lot with people from the UK, I would say, that class system exists everywhere, but it is a question of the scale. I Russia most of the kids go to public schools and are more or less equal in this regard. Children from working class families would be in the same class with children of scientists or doctors. There isn't such a big difference in accents in different parts of the country - people in Vladivostok, Novosibirsk or Kaliningrad have more or less similar basic education and have the same accents. At the same time there are dozens of ethnicities and local languages in different regions - that's a different story, but not really linked to class system. Generally, compared to the UK, class is much less visible and it is certainly something from the Soviet times, with universal access to education and all those efforts aimed at achieving social equality and condemning the capitalist societies.

My husband is from an African country and has a PhD, all his siblings have at least masters level education and are considered wealthy. But his parents were farmers, albeit with a huge amount of land worth a lot of money, but this 'farming' background very much kept them in a particular lane with regards to who they were friends with or married. I know so many people from outside UK who say they love it here because people don't care about class in the way that they do back home and people from different classes can marry each other.

I’m in a Scandinavian country, free schools and uni’s. It’s very mixed. My friend’s son was in the same class as the crown prince. Noone batted an eyelid. He was treated the same as everyone. I much prefer our system.