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/

Why do you think this is?

In the UK and in Australia (to a very slightly lesser extent) there is a multigenerational feeling that education and career goals don’t matter or there’s no point as the government will look after you. There is also an attitude of not getting ideas beyond your station - they will be quickly slapped down. If someone wants to work they will be shamed for acting better than others.

I don't think any names are truly off the table. There are some horrors around these days that have been resurrected from the Edwardian era, like Ethel, Maud, Ada, Mildred, Mabel, Doris, and Edna. If these can come round again, so can anything.

I went to a school in a northern town where most of the white kids left at 16 and some before. The white kids who stayed on in 6th form were mainly from European backgrounds.

There wasn't any interest in further education because that involved too much hard work. So they all went in to manual labour and minimal wage jobs and the poverty trap. Their families were similar and actively discouraged education and didn't make the connection between education and higher paid jobs.

I didn't have an option but to go to university, my parents made it very clear that's what was expected. It was a similar experience for many friends in my immigrant community. Mainly because regular jobs weren't open to us due to racism and discrimination. I couldn't get a Saturday job in retail during the 80s because my face didn't fit.

So all my efforts were spent on getting a degree, moving out & getting a professional job. More options were open to me this way, even though it was still hard. The w/c white kids could walk into jobs in garages/ factories/shops where their families worked. So they had access to another 'jobs for the boys' network that I didn't.

Kids from immigrant communities generally didn't have that option. We could get jobs in restaurants/takeaways while we were at uni/training but they were only temporary. The expectation was always to move out of those jobs and into professional jobs because working conditions were better.

So now you have a situation where the Indian restaurant trade in the UK is struggling to recruit UK born staff. This is because the 2nd/3rd generation kids don't want to do it. Their parents have generally moved away from that industry so immigrant staff fill the catering roles now. This is just one example of the impact of higher education in the Asian community.

My rambling answer hasn't completely answered your q as to why white wc boys aren't thriving. However, it provides a bit of background as to why the Asian community has instead.

This, so much of it is the parents. If you don't value education, why would your children? It's quite simply generations of families who don't value education and who don't respect teachers. This becomes a vicious cycle, kids don't care and don't try because their parents haven't encouraged them to value education and good teachers will avoid the schools and areas these children live in. Obviously, there are good teachers in these schools, but not as many as in areas where families actually value education.

There is so much of this amongst white men of certain backgrounds, it's terrifying. It's why we have Trump in the White House and why Farage is so popular. They think because they're white the world owes them something for nothing.

people that migrate to the U.K. don’t suddenly develop a strong culture of the importance of education. It’s already. instilled in the home countries.

I agree to a certain extent but there is also an ambition to improve your circumstances that is missing from white wc communities. This is what my community has, my parents valued education but they didn't go to university. It's because they didn't have a degree and had a business working long hours that they wanted better for me.

Most of my white working class friend's families discouraged education past 16. They saw it as a waste of time and beyond their reach; it wasn't what people from their communities did so why should they.

Does it actually hinder white working class boys though? I come from a wealthy area and my school was among the highest achieving state schools in the country. Many of my female friends had fantastic grades and their pick of universities and courses. And yet many of the white working class boys (to be fair almost everyone was white where I am so not many people from other ethnicities to compare with) who failed more or less everything or didn't sit anything much to begin with have ended up in what look to be higher earning careers in trades and manual work. They seem to have big houses in the private sector (no idea if they're rented or bought) and beautiful things from photos on Facebook. Beautiful wives (who I presume had a good choice in partners) and lots of lovely holidays. For the most part, many of my female friends only have this due to their high earning partners and some don't have it at all despite decades of study and long working days. I don't see many on benefits although that may be a function of living in a wealthy area with good job opportunities. Things may be different for those in old mining towns.

This in a nutshell