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/

In my experiene its the give-a-shit factor -

Spent a long time in the 90's working with families in inner city Derby in hundreds of home visits for a local charity that offered summer camps for kids. Only once was I asked why their child was chosen and what they would get out of it - mostly the response was don't you want them now? Can't you have them all summer - too many parents just don't care, and without that family or generational support, it never ends well. Sadly, too many parents just don't give a shit about their kids. How is school ever going to succeed if there's no parental support

I think that comment that studying hard would be seen as social death or engaging with education would be looked down upon is indeed very British. I have lived on three continents and that includes North America. White working class people in rural areas also struggle (and some of the same rhetoric around illegals and education being for the elite) but there is absolutely no disparaging of education per se. Partly this is a result of the total absence of a safety net. And partly because it is okay to work very hard and be aspirational even if what you are doing isn’t glamorous or high paying.

Class structures in this country has meant that upper classes have looked down upon ‘aspiration’ or those who work visibly hard while enjoying generational wealth. This plus the availability of a safety net means that attitude has percolated through society.

I think also many don’t realise how ‘behind’ they are esp if you compare them globally. People in villages in Asia and Africa are often hugely and openly aspirational. They will go to great lengths to learn English, get access to things that will better their lives, move thousands of miles to the nearest big city to improve their lot. When their descendants who are now educated want to do better, they look to go abroad. Not just the UK but Canada, Australia, the Middle East- Asian migrants can be found all over. So many Chinese people from working class families who take up jobs with MNCs in Africa so that the next generation can do even better. There isn’t the same desire to do better, to take risks.

(I am always baffled by MN threads where someone’s child has moved from England to Wales or Scotland and they are bereft…my parents made it very clear that their investment in my education was so that I could move far away and do better).

And I'd say well before this or the previous generation of parents

Yes. The working class has changed. It tended to be manual workers such as builders and plumbers. Many of these trades are now doing quite nicely. I taught quite a few boys who were going to work for their dad's as electricians etc.
I suppose delivery drivers are working class nowadays. Many of our delivery drivers are Asian.
However, sadly, there is an unemployed class. The ones who neglect their kids, drink and take drugs. The ones who totally lack aspiration.
I suppose the definition of working class can vary from area to area

I think white working class boys seem to do a lot more gaming than other groups. No statistics, just observed. I don’t know if there are any. But they seem to come home and watch TV or game till dinner/ bed. I don’t think that can be good for kids and I’m sure plays an impact.

'Firstly, immigrants are a self-selecting group. They’ve looked at their situation and decided it is better to seek a new life abroad'

I'd say that it's more to do with motivation to try, and a belief that you can change things for yourself. Based on the experience of immigrants that I know.

Interestingly, my DD spent a year at a British uni in Southeast Asia - she's very educationally focused and doing a Master's in a STEM subject - she was amazed how much more focused the students were than those in the UK.

It always makes me laugh when any of our governments go on about a world-leading education - without parental support, it's never going to happen.

I'm a medical statistician and we wouldn't use working class etc. as categories when looking at data. We would use quintiles of deprivation based on a persons address. I think this is much more informative as, another poster has pointed out, there is a massive difference between families with traditional working class jobs who have a strong work ethic and contacts that they can put their children in touch with to get them trained into careers and families where there are generations of unemployment/ sporadic zero hours contracts and often a deprived or chaotic home life. I think the difference between those two groups of working class are much greater than any difference between the home lives and aspirations of people working in trades and middle class occupations.

I’d question the premise slightly, on the basis of watching a ton of outwardly-able boys in my son’s year group pretty much check out of school. What I see is them concluding en masse that school has nothing to offer them, and that their future lies in working with their dads or with guys they know. Trades, casual labour within a trade environment, and ‘other projects’ basically.

On that view the problem wouldn’t be the boys, it would be school education funnelling kids towards the skills needed for office work, and measuring achievement accordingly. If boys are sensing that that’s all a waste of time, then maybe it’s no surprise to find them refusing to engage.

They might not even be wrong. If AI is going to be as revolutionary as some people think, then backing yourself to live off your wits is a pretty good strategy.

Yes I think that’s exactly true

I think it comes down to parenting. I think parents disengage more with boys than girls (across the classes I have to say) and certainly around where I am, education is not especially valued.

To address the comment that when Black families fail we blame the system and when white families fail we blame the parents: it’s missing the point.
Black/immigrant (sweeping generalisation for a second) children do well inspite of the system because their families remind them how precarious their lives are and how they must do better.

White working class kids in the same system
are not told that at home. Their precarity is a result of economic deprivation. But they don’t feel like they don’t belong. They are told they are the core of the nation (and many white working class families were till industries and mines were decimated) so when they fail their community tells them it’s not their fault, it’s the system, it’s the elites and it’s the immigrants.

No working class immigrant family tells a struggling child ‘oh darling school is hard because of institutional racism.’ They tell them to get a grip and do better.

I don't think its the white working class.

More likely white on benefits.

They should separate the 2

Is this working class though?

Are the parents in work?

Whilst talking about thatcher let's talk about Red Robbo and British Leyland. Arthur scargill and the miners strike.
White working class men who helped to destroy British industry.
Thatcher declared: we're all middle class now. For most people, living standards improved during her time in office.

Anecdata and not from working class but gaming seems to affect boys far more than girls. It takes hours and hours and hours from their life. Affects focus and concentration, offers constant easy wins and is addictive.

I'm sure there is an element of this. I lived (and used to teach) in a former mining area. In the past every boy was almost guaranteed a job in the pit without formal qualifications but there are now two generations where this has not been the case and there are still a hardcore of families that have not moved on. Immigrant families, on the other hand, came with aspirations for their children to achieve and push them academically.

This is not a recent thing. When I was teaching in London in the 80s white working class boys were the ones lagging behind then while Asian children (a lot of Vietnamese 'boat people' at that time) arrived not speaking English but excelled in exams within a few years..

I would say their parents are the biggest factors.

Some parents just pass on their lack of respect for education/teachers combined with a poor work ethic and high sense of entitlement.

Of course funding cuts to family and young people support services are an additional factor.

Other ethnic groups and immigrants who are equally economically disadvantaged do better for their children because their values include praising education, good work ethics and a willingness to start businesses, religion and more respect for authority.

It is not something that the state only can fix until parents step up too.

Black and Asian kids have an awareness instilled into them that they have to work harder than their white counterparts do to even get a sniff of the same opportunities in life.

There are less than 150 Black students across all degree courses at Oxford every year. 19% of Eton is BAME and most of that is wealthy immigrant families.

That post above is EXACTLY the problem.
If you are failing economically/educationally then someone else (usually a different race) must be to blame. Do you seriously think white working class boys in Year 5 are thinking ‘I had better not study because I can’t go to Eton or Oxford.’

'Interestingly, my DD spent a year at a British uni in Southeast Asia - she's very educationally focused and doing a Master's in a STEM subject - she was amazed how much more focused the students were than those in the UK.'

I agree. Even comparing with some EU education systems, UK comes out... well, not great. We start school earlier, finish earlier, enter job market at a younger age.

There's also the power of low expectations. There's a ton of research on that topic.

They are on benefits, in many cases, because traditional working class jobs like mining, dock worker etc no longer exist.

The grandparents of those white working class boys were not aspiring for Oxbridge and neither were their fathers. Scholarships for Black students isn’t what is holding them
back. Inherent class structures are.
Hence studying hard being seen as social death or uncool. Or getting above your station.

Immigrants by virtue of being immigrants stand outside the class system. I know of a Filipino nurse who signed up her kid for Eton when he was born. And told him every single day to work hard so he could sit the test. He did, and got a scholarship. Good for him! He’s now going to medical school. She didn’t think ‘ah that posh place with a weird uniform isn’t for the likes of us.’ She wasn’t being held back by class expectations.

I saw what was happening at my elder DD’s school, it was for 14-18 so past the point school is “useful” as childcare. Attendance was at 70%, my dd wasn’t helping their stats but her was medical hence being there so much, senco said that many mums (and it was single mums) encouraged daughters to stay off to help with childcare and household tasks for younger siblings, for boys they were often off due to working off the record, dads (rarely lived with them) if working did manual jobs requiring no qualifications or just said claim the dole and work off the record. By year 11 a steady stream of girls were pregnant, still believing they would get a house (they didn’t, it was a bedsit if lucky). Population was predominantly white working class with just a small number coming in from an affluent suburb to the north (full disclosure, we lived there). My other dc didn’t go to this school, went to the only other school in the borough, this time 50% Asian (principally Gujarati decent via Kenya/uganda) and difference was stark, over a dozen getting into Oxbridge annually, many getting into top medical schools except average earnings per household was only £3-4K pa higher, not hugely different yet benefits were lower as most worked for low wages/profits from their many businesses.

seeing a problem isn’t the same as correcting a problem, good luck to whoever is sorting this out