To wonder why working class white boys do worse than any other ethnic group, and how we can change this?

[Carla786]

A lot of stuff I've read recently has argued the way school is set up disadvantages boys compared to girls. But this doesn't explain why white working class boys would perform worse than wc boys of other ethnicities.
Asian wc boys are more likely to have present fathers,,but black wc boys less likely than white boys (I think). So absent fathers I'm sure are part of the problem, but then maybe also black boys then have a protective factor that still boosts performance which white boys don't have? What could this be?

And how can white wc boys be helped? The question also remains why white wc girls are apparently less affected too : maybe I suppose tying in to school methods being more suited to the average girl?

https://www.spiked-online.com/2026/03/24/the-betrayal-of-white-working-class-boys/

There are some colleges opening up now for 14+ that do English and maths and then the rest of the time is vocational so horticulture/ beauty / catering / performing arts. I think it’s an excellent idea

I know...

The tripartite system failed far more children than it benefited. Most children, especially girls, were labelled as failures at 11 and provided with a very limited education, often not even leading to public exam courses. For the “secondary” children the curriculum was also usually divided by sex with girls diverted to “homecraft” (not exactly a money spinning career option).

Its often trumpeted as a vehicle of social mobility - in reality only a small percentage of children in grammars came from the backgrounds we are talking about here.

Most WC children were effectively weeded out by an 11+ skewed toward culturally enriched children. It enabled grammars to cream off children from the more aspirational skilled trades end of the WC, not too many from the poorest areas. Even now, in areas with grammar schools its common to find the Yr 7 intake entirely from private primaries or strongly tutored and a whole bunch of soft barriers to deter poorer families. When I was a child I can remember families deciding which child if any could take a grammar place (with the pricier uniforms/attendance costs). Typically if any child was sent it would be the boys, girls would only get married after all.

The national curriculum is independent of schooling models and has nothing to do with them.

It hasn’t become more female oriented.

There was a period of time where exams included assessed work. This turned out to produce more good grades for girls - unsurprising, girls being socialised in ways which mean they complete more homework, turn work in on time. Boys do better when they just do exams which don’t account for missed work during the previous two years.

We are now back to near 100% exam based assessment. Funny that.

Yes my friend's son goes to a media one but they are hard to get into as so rare. Amazing idea. Get them doing something they enjoy and they fly.

Certainly when we lived in Germany the technical schools were very strong, it's a real pity that we missed the opportunity years ago to develop the technical side.

Lack of aspiration, lack of role models and I think there's an element of present fathers resenting educated women, ie teachers in primary schools, telling them how to raise their children. I've had a dad this week tell me (and the Head) that my assessment of their child's reading is wrong. Child has been re-assessed and they both swaggered into school this morning expecting to be told he can move onto the books they think are correct. Funnliy enough, my assessment was right. I suggested going to the library (10 minutes walk) for books if they believe he can do more. That's fallen on deaf ears; the library is 'rubbish'.

Its often trumpeted as a vehicle of social mobility - in reality only a small percentage of children in grammars came from the backgrounds we are talking about here.

In my Grammar school, industrial NW England, the majority of pupils were from working class backgrounds, I recall one doctor's daughter and one boy whose father was an Optician in my year group. If more effort had been made to solve the problems in the Secondary Moderns rather than scrapping the Grammar schools for being successful we would be in a better position today. It's wrong to compare the Grammar schools of the '50s and '60s to the Grammar school of today.

Do you think your more “balanced” approach (not saying it is a bad thing at all) will then be emulated down the generations leading to Asian children from “successful families” being less aspirational? The drive to succeed and do well will no longer be there, as there is no poverty, discrimination etc to overcome in the same way your parents had to?

I thought the switch to more exam-based assessment was due to AI?
I personally preferred exams to course work but that is just a sample size of one so not helpful!

Well that’s the line that’s given now. In fact girls’ grammars were fundamental in women’s education movement. Shifting girls from all over the country, including predominantly working class areas, into education and giving them aspirations beyond marriage and kids.

It’s completely untrue that working class children were “weeded out” - indeed there were areas of the country, particularly the old industrial areas, where there weren’t large numbers of middle classes so the majority of grammar cohorts were working class.

Exactly.

The real problem was that the secondary moderns didn’t have the same funding as the grammars and as pay was degree related, and a degree was not always required to teach at a secondary modern, the teachers were paid less too.

I don’t think it was the division per se that didn’t work, it was the way it was done. Secondary moderns were very much second fiddle.

As several people have noted including myself, the division works fine in Germany.

Continuous assessment wasn’t introduced to favour girls, it wasn’t actually known how much better girls would be at it until it was introduced.

Equally, the rise of girls in education is a global phenomenon not related to one education system.

We’re back to exams now because of the problem of Google, AI and parents. And girls are still outperforming boys.

'I’ve heard it said boys would benefit if GCSEs and A levels could be taken 2 years later.'

• that's interesting and probably would help. The equivalents in the past (School Certificate & Higher School Certificate, replaced by GCEs and A Levels in the ) were also taken at 16 and 18. I doubt they were trying to disadvantage boys : probably fewer kids were taking those exams as the leaving age was lower, and boys who struggled more would probably have moved into trades/manual labour I suppose

I agree with all your points on puberty effects

That's interesting it's global, I want to look into that more

I looked into this for a different thread, and around the world, in different cultures, systems (including the much praised Scandinavian ones) , continents girls (when given the opportunity to do so) tend to outperform boys .

The comment about boys taking GCSE exams later might seem sensible but it doesn’t fit in with the reality. Some schools get really high results actually start the GCSEs in year nine rather than year 10 so they can take them earlier and that suits boys better

Anecdotal not statistical but my mum from a WC family in Leeds went to grammar, first in the family to Uni, Fulbright scholarship to the states and doctorate. She remembers her mum worrying about the cost of uniforms.

When I was at school, we did the 11+ . The marks were put up on the wall. There was one girl (who later went to Oxford) who consistently beat me in every test. She was formidable and such a polymath, I didn't mind losing to her. She was my first pacemaker and a remarkable example of how cultural capital can extend the brain in every area.

I was third on the list. Impossible. No one else could touch us two. Despite being a polite child, I was bold and asked my teacher how I had been beaten by boy X. The boys' grades were all automatically boosted by 5%. This hasn't happened for decades.

School is one of the few places were there is a (relatively) level playing field. It's one of the few places where men don't get the upper hand through the misogyny that pervades every other aspect of my life and yours.Women are strong, resourceful and multitask. We don't spend 10 minutes bleating about how we don't want to do a 2 minute task. FFS just let my daughters do better than the boys because they worked harder, chose to invest in themselves and did not fear being dragged out of their comfort zone to learn something challenging.

Not anecdotal- I went to a Girl's Grammar in the South West we had more girl's from the council estates than from the villages (which tended to be more affluent in most cases). 80% of us went to university- it was just assumed you would go.You can't base a case on one individual.

Yep thats why I was being anecdotal not making a case

Yes I do think so. Already I can see that the next generations of Asian kids are different. Thankfully though, they know there are other careers than being a doctor or lawyer. They will work hard if that way inclined but will have different aspirations I think. And more willing to take career ‘risks’, so not automatically enter the professions, and be more open to the creative industries. I think that’s a good thing overall.

Obviously it won’t be good if they aspire never to work and stay at home, take drugs etc. I don’t think the majority will follow that route though.

I have never seen a programme such as you describe. I was working in a further education college where there were several low level courses e.g. pre entry and entry level nvqs. Those in construction, car mechanics etc were mostly full of white working class boys who had done badly at school. In the library and corridors there were posters showing many successful men and women e.g. architects, successful entrepreneurs, sports champions. Not one showed a white man if any age.When i queried this with the person responsible for selecting and buying the posters, i was told they werent needed. So dont bother aspiring via the education system if you are young, white, male and working class could be the message from these posters.

I'm seeing this. Third generation whose parents are in fairly decent financial states are pushing back against the doctor/engineer as the only career path. Their second gen parents (who felt the pressure) are allowing arts degrees. The whole STEM focus is not just about money though, it's status too. It will be much harder for a graduate of fine art to get married than a doctor. But the younger generation are increasingly doing their own thing now and the parents are increasingly accepting this and even encouraging it too.
There has also always been an 'underclass' of Asian DC who did badly at school, got into drugs, violent crime etc very similar to the WC white boys situation.

That’s really interesting.
I wonder whether AI will turn things on its head again (thinking of the current thread on ABIU) and parents will again encourage (perhaps not push) their children into these roles.