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/

Thanks for the info, I think culture has a lot to do with it. I think here for a long time people from working class backgrounds would work hard in a manufacturing job and have a decent standard of living, there was social housing and publicly owned services and resources. A lot of that is gone now. Working class people were told when the factories shut to stick in at school and go to university to get one of the new high paid, high tech jobs that would be coming. However a lot of these jobs just didn't exist and working class people lacked a lot of the social and cultural capital that middle class people competing for the same work had. Its really complex I think. I remember when studying for my masters in London, I was the only person on my course not to have been to private school and at a party once my peers openly laughed about my accent saying I sounded like someone who would use a farmfoods bag as my carry on luggage, the British class system is real and perhaps doesn't apply to those who immigrate here in the same way although they can of course face other prejudices and I do think many 1st generation immigrants work really, really hard.

Cucumber sandwiches as a status symbol sounded odd to me initially- the only time I've ever come across that was in The Importance of Being Earnest. Otoh this anecdote would be taking place in the 1960s or 70s probably if before the grammar closures so probably would fit into that context.

Everyone gets 13 years of free education . I wish I had had that pointed out to me when as a teenager thinking it was cool not to care.

I absolutely do not get it.

My very much lower class grandmother (worked in a factory her whole life) was obsessed with cucumber sandwiches. Cucumber and tuna. And weirdly enough cucumber and honey (oddly delicious)

Nope. No chip.
Do you eat cucumber sandwiches? Do you feed them to visiting children?
I used to feed visiting kids spag bol. Or biscuits etc. Always went down well.
If I was eating or feeding someone cucumber sandwiches I would put some cheese on it. In fact, I'd probably add crisps too.
My mother cooked a hearty meal every evening. Roast on Sunday, cottage pie made from lefovers on monday, steak on Friday .
As usual, mumsnet has descended into madness because someone who is long dead once fed a visiting child cucumber sandwiches.
Middle class mummy was not only upset that my dad had an actual car, which was better than hers; but we also lived in a detached house. She lived in a semi. Her assumptions about me were totally wrong.

I think this is part of the issue when you are sorting by ethnicity and race together.

Are Caribbean families more likely to be wc than African families, for historical reasons? If so - it's pretty clear why Africans would have fewer poor outcomes, more of them the advantages of being middle or even upper middle class.

You also see that when we talk about wc white families, a certain number are really properly considered underclass or left behind or however you want to designate that group. Usually generationally. Those kids are always going to be high risk. I suspect you are less likely to see that with families who are more recently arrived, they might be working class, but not generational members of an underclass. Even if they were where the family originate, they had enough resources, inner or externally, to emigrate.

I also think in some cases it's significant that there can be extra educational options for minorities. I know lots of wc white rural kids where I live who struggle to pay for education, there are a lot more options for those who can access scholarships, bursaries, or positions designated for racialised groups.

I apologise for being born. You were the one who is obsessed with cucumber sandwiches. I merely mentioned an anecdote from my schooldays, highlighting the difference between a working class child and a woman who thought she was middle class and better than everyone else.
Have a happy life

Cucumber and honey? That does sound potentially quite nice to me!

Come on, I think this is very unfair. Pp's posts seem perfectly coherent to me.

Good point. You'd think there might have been more social mobility for Carribeans : after all, many groups have arrived mostly wc, East End Jews for one. Otoh, there are various reasons why progress was harder which pps have mentioned.

Agree re wc white boys discussed often being those more accurately referred to as left-behind etc. Terms like underclass are generally not used now as seen as derogatory,,but some term needs to be used. It's unhelpful for everyone if working class and left-behind are conflated.

My son is a WC white boy. I’ve been to uni (not a great one and didn't move away), his dad hasn’t and works in a MW job. We own a house but I wouldn’t say we have books everywhere nor are particularly cultured. He goes to a very MC school. His academic achievement is broadly inline with his MC friends whose parents are university professors, IT people, teachers, in the media. What is different though is confidence. My son fundamentally lacks confidence. I don’t know if it’s class or whether we are unconsciously apologetic in those MC spaces or around MC parents.
When he gets older, I will have absolutely no contacts to get him anything. That’s very different.
He’s average in most subjects and hates doing any schoolwork at home. And tbh, I don’t push him and I am also exhausted from being out the house 9-6pm every day. His dad works 7-7.
That is something which sets us apart. We have much less control over our diaries. Much more likely to need to do our job in a set place, doing set hours, no WFH etc.
We also have to work so much harder to afford to live in areas like the one we live in. Plus factors such as the extracurricular activities available to kids who need UC or FSM to pay are generally shit and not as educational or exercise focused as the ones you pay for. So you get all the MC kids being able to do rugby, science club, chess club which require a parent to pick them up at 3.15 and drop them to another club at 4. WC kids go to the school afterschool club which is just the sports hall with a load of kids; bored TA’s, no real activities, ‘free play’ but they can stay until 6.
Its not hard to see what needs to change but it’ll take ££££

White bread and butter (not margarine)

Absolutely delicious

Not sure what that poster is talking about she worked a working class job her whole life and retired in a tiny house.
She also inspired a love of tuna and cucumber sandwiches which I also went on to choose at secondary school in the cafeteria (for free because my parents were poor)

No silver spoons here just appreciation for the cucumber sandwich

Forgot to add in secondary school if wasn’t tuna and cucumber sandwiches it was tuna and cucumber BAGUETTES.

Now discovering them that was a beautiful day

This!

Incidentally, why are Traveller and Roma kids allowed to leave at 14? The vast majority do NOT seem to be being adequately homeschooled

. It's disgraceful: clearly an out of sight, out of mind situation. They could still choose a traditional lifestyle, but at the moment most have choices closed off too early.

They can't be homeschooled, because their parents will have left school at about 13 themselves and know zero.

They are homeschooled though. They may not follow an academic curriculum but they are trained in the skills they need to survive in their culture. Lots of lads working alongside their dads, whilst the girls are prepared for marriage.

This is probably the difference.
I worked 7-7 five days a week in the office, incl 1h commute each way, would get back home and do homework with DC, read with them, then get them to bed and do house choirs when they were asleep. Mostly batch cooking suitable for reheating next day.
Weekends would be homework, activities with kids and again, house choirs when kids were asleep or playing. School homework was always priority above anything else. And yes, I always pushed them very hard. I didn't have any domestic help like cleaners, but equally didn't get any time for myself to relax for many years.

They're not 'allowed' but who is going to enforce it? Some will be registered as home schooled but many just stop going to school as soon as they become strong/capable enough to be put to work. No teacher or inclusion worker is going to follow it up due the risks associated with visiting traveller sites. There's even a registration code (T) for traveller absences on the register.

There are a number of religious/ethnic groups on the fringe who do not fall under mainstream laws. Well, in theory they do but enforcing it is very difficult. Travellers are one of them. They pull their DC out to 'homeschool' them but most of the parents do not have adequate literacy to facilitate this. They know it and the LA knows it. The families might say they want a Traveller specific tutor (these do exist but funding cuts has drastically reduced the service ) but the LA often cannot provide this. The parents who want to pull their DC out will do so, regardless of threats of court action, the LA know this so there is no point going down this route.

@Hallamule

They are homeschooled though. They may not follow an academic curriculum but they are trained in the skills they need to survive in their culture. Lots of lads working alongside their dads, whilst the girls are prepared for marriage.

Lads working with their dads is one thing but I wish people would stop excusing the fact girls are discouraged from education on cultural grounds. Being “prepared for marriage” is not being educated.

Why are people up in arms when this happens in other ethnic communities but fine when its travellers? I know they have been subjected to brutal discrimination etc but why do we have this blind spot about this? It’s not OK.

Part of the problem is the wording of the education act. It says that children should receive an education that enables them to thrive within their community [paraphrasing]. Travellers have always been viewed as apart of rather than a part of society, research shows that educators do not often see Traveller children as equals in the classroom.
Another very let down group is ultra orthodox Jewish boys. They receive no secular education and despite being born in the UK often don't speak English. There have been attempts by OFSTED to intervene but again the community is exclusive by choice and they make accusations of antisemitism when concerns are raised. Thankfully there are some young men now who broke away from the community who are speaking out now and trying to show the severity of this neglect. Whether it will make a difference or not is a different matter.

That's very interesting, thank you.

I generally am not a fan of the "multiculturalism has failed" argument as I think its often hijacked by the far right as a cover story for racism but these are both examples of multiculturalism failing these communities.

I really think its unconscionable that we normalise the idea that girls are pulled out of school after primary on the grounds that "that's how its always been done in the community". We rightly wouldn't tolerate this in any other immigrant group because it massively disadvantages women but for some reason when it comes to travelers we are willing to overlook it because "cultural sensitivity". Bollocks. There's no justification for the state sanctioning the sex-based denial of education.

I hadn't thought about ultra-orthodox Jewish boys but that makes sense. Out of interest, why only boys and not girls?

I don't see it as a failure of multiculturalism at all, it's a failure because certain groups (or sections within them) want it this way. Not everyone values education as we know it. The above two groups are not going to budge on this, many attempts have failed. The next best thing is to try to help them to improve things that they deem acceptable. Again, not 'education' as society would see it, but at least it might be a slight improvement. Both groups want to be isolated, it's the only way they feel they can continue on.
Ultra orthodox men generally do not work after marriage, the woman supports the family so that the man can learn (religious learning) full time. Most girls will either teach or do secretarial work, so need a basic grasp of English language and some of their girls' schools do limited GCSEs.