White working class children

[NotAnotherScarf]

The bbc has a report about a review of the academic system failing white working class children. The bulk of the population.

It's brilliant that this has been looked at but the recommendations are appalling.

Basically its saying that wcc's are only fit for manual jobs. That schools should push towards offering for vocational courses.

That's where my education went 40 years ago. One child from my year group of 242 went to university at 18. We had at most 6 kids from non white backgrounds. Many went subsequently. I have always maintained the school saw us as shop assistants, factory hands and dockers.

The other recommendations will help children of all races...free travel under 22. Promoting reading etc.

One of the reasons why kids from other backgrounds are doing better has been the push to get them into university...ie black boys being actively recruited and bursarys being given solely to them. Places sponsored etc etc.

Whilst I welcome the move to vocational training. And for many people thats a brilliant move, ts disappointing that the report thinks that that's the main option for wcc's. Basically its says "we don't think your good enough for anything else " .

BBC News - White working-class children 'failed by schools system' - BBC News
www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cq51j10q601o

@number1of7

I can well believe it. What I will say though is, families like yours who have had a great quality of life due to a savvy tradesman father, there’s often pressure for sons to enter the trades (not always, like in your case, but often) when they would much rather take a different path. I’ve seen that dynamic quite a few times now.

I agree, you play to each individual child’s strengths. My niece went into construction (she’s on the sites at the min) and is doing very well (although gets quite a lot of attention and exposure for being female). I can see her doing very well.

But as I say, I think teaching is a very working class job. It’s not something middle class children overwhelming chose to go into.

academia, teaching at university is more middle class, I agree.

I thought it was a transgenerational phenomenon to some extent. So a teacher with a working class background is more likely to have a regional accent and to some extent be culturally working class, their children will speak RP. Look at the Middletons for refference.

On the otherside DFIL was born into a very UMC background with some aristocratic connections, went to a major public school. Despite all these advantages and not inconsiderable family wealth fucked it all up and died bankrupt. His daughter ( by his second marriage) has some real working class and even non working class markers and will have to work for everything she gets without many advantages her cousins mostly don't have to work at all due to inherited wealth and land.

Your dad presumably owned a roofing company?

there is no way a roofer, in the 80/90/00 earned like that and out earns you.

although as someone from a family of tradies I’ll admit the lax attitude to paying tax and total lack of saving for pension can be helpful when it comes to living a lifestyle beyond someone earning the same wage on PAYe.

The tax dodging is much harder nowadays though

@Machinemasoluem

I guess that depends on how you categorise class. I gained a first class OU degree with the intention of completing a PGCE directly after. (I didn’t even attend my GCSEs). I can assure you, if I had qualified as one, I wouldn’t suddenly be MC. I would still be me living in my council house, with my multiple children and counting my pennies.

I think, if I had qualified as a teacher and owned my own home in a nicer area, then yes, i could have moved up in the world. I think you need to tick more than one box, and occupation being one box.

Never mind lol. Deciding not to train as a teacher was still a great decision.

I don’t think a middle class person would ever have accepted you as one of them though, which is surely the whole issue with class discrimination?

That's the career I wished i had gone into. Now the landscape has changed and there's much less tolerance for sexism, your niece will find that a highly rewarding career. There's so many different components. Very exciting stuff for her ahead!

@Backedoffhackedoff

He probably owned his own company. My brothers a plasterer and now owns his own company with other staff working for him. I think that’s the point isn’t it. If you have a smart and savvy kid, they can still earn very good money in the trades. They won’t do, if they stay at the bottom or don’t particularly have great people skills. But that goes for loads of jobs and careers.

One of the reasons my brother did so well was that he was a warm person, always did a good job, never ripped people off. Never struggled to get work through word of mouth. Obviously having done the job now since he was 15 - he was able to build his own business and be very established by his 30s.

They tend to always have fab houses too from my anecdotal experience.

Really ? I always thought teachers all teachers with the exception of pre school/nursery were middle class.

but social mobility isn’t so easy you just get a job and move up classes.

True, which is why the OU has (unfairly) always been stigmatised. Things are changing now.

@Backedoffhackedoff

It isn’t about middle class teachers “accepting WC teachers”. It is really about your results as that teacher. Your ability in the actual job. There are plenty of people with WC backgrounds, who did go to uni and entered the profession. A lot of them have exceptionally fine tuned chameleon skills when they need them (although it is exhausting, I can vouch for rhat).

They can and often do succeed in teaching, particularly in working class areas, where it’s seen as a strength in terms of communicating with families. School choice is crucial here.

I was just saying, from my perspective, I can sniff them out under the mask. Doesn’t mean they haven’t succeeded at their roles.

But the whole definition of classes is based around your occupation.

All the so called “class markers” are just bs if you ask me, I’m part time and minimum wage so currently as low class as it gets but have tons of middle and working class “markers”

If you’re going to group people into classes surely the only way to do it is by their occupation not what supermarket they like shopping in

There are still careers such as law and medicine, which will never move away from class discrimination. Working class people 'come good' will have to work doubly hard to be recognised. However, when they do, at least it will be on their own merits. They've just got to be prepared to push boundaries.

Defining people by their job is socio economic grouping, not class.

after all the upper classes don’t work at all 🤣

What assumptions would those be?

Then what is class?
Back in the day it was literally just your occupation other than upper class royalty like you say. Middle class was merchants and scholars and doctors etc. working class was factory workers and builders etc.

None of this nonsense about accents and avocado on toast. I am literally a wagey earning minimum wage and partial to an avocado. Even renting vs mortgage no longer apply as renting is now more expensive than a mortgage. Then you have things like shared ownership complicating it further.

Just my opinion but all teachers are middle class as they historically always have been

I work a job that is described as a minimum wage. Something that people who don’t have qualifications can do.

Listening to people on the tube about what their job pays is fascinating
I definitely out earn a lot of graduates and even those people who have been in their job for a while

Not rtft but was interested in the poster who said something about the civil service and the middle class holding on by their nails (may be paraphrased). How?

But it helps, adds value and open doors. Education is always a blessing. You have GCSEs you and still go do a trade or whatever. You have no GCSEs, good luck getting a job at pwc.

I think one of the biggest barriers is if you don't have have people around you who can give good advice on the next step after school and what you need to do to get there. Schools are limited in how much of that they can do - so it falls to parents. Its very difficult to give advice on a path you didn't take yourself.

An 8 year old who knows about uni is likely to be growing up in an environment where if thats the path thats right for them, it will be relatively easy to follow. Mine does, because his dad works at one and he's been to family events at the one I went to. He'll get a huge benefit from us knowing the system and being able to give good advice.

@LuckyHazelFox

Giving them a trade is a start. We've already had a TA writing them off as unteachable. There isn't going to suddenly be an influx of new tradesmen. Not only that, its marketplace is one that's always in demand for work.They still have the opportunity to learn while they earn and retake their Maths and English. They just need more praise while they are on their journey AND not to keep comparing them to academically minded kids. I've seen some lecturers who are just phoning in their jobs. Awful.

For sure. Nobody should be writing any kids off as unteachable.

But I slightly worry that the "go and get a trade" as a blanket panacea will actually serve to increase the ambition gulf that these "white working class" kids are experiencing.

If you're constantly told from infancy that you can't expect to do anything other than vocational work (by teachers and parents) then you're not going to try. Obviously for a large number of kids this is the best outcome, but if we push it too far we're back to the pre GCSE world where kids were separated at age 11 into rigid class streams. It should be possible both to cater for the vocationally-focused kids while also enabling children who do have academic potential to fulfil it.

Am I missing something? The tradespeople I know earn three times what most academically trained people earn. Not as much as top lawyers, top surgeons etc but more than most teachers, lecturers, solicitors, junior doctors etc.

A plumber charged my DS £150 to spend 5 mins checking whether he could put a dishwasher in a tricky space. He didn't even measure up properly, just said, Yeah he could make it work. When DS asked if some of that £150 could be offset against the installation quote, the plumber said no. He was local. Can't have been more than 30 mins of his time, all in, to book the visit, attend and do the quote.

I don't think you can define class by occupation nowadays because there are so many jobs that exist now that didn't back when occupation determined your class. These newer roles are occupied by people from different social backgrounds so you have to use some other type of determinant.

For example, I work in the Tech industry. The company I work for employs a high number of privately educated people. I have the same or similar job titles to these employees, we do the same work. We all earn within roughly the same wage bracket around £150k - £200k. I consider myself 100%working class. I was state school educated, born on a council estate (parents bought a house when I was young so I didn't grow up on one but I was then raised on a working street at a time when home ownership was affordable for WC families).

There are a number of employees with a similar background to mine and the ones I know personally do not consider themselves MC either. We joke privately amongst ourselves about some of the attitudes our MC/upper MC colleagues display, e.g. one told me during the pandemic that my childcare issues could be easily solved if I just followed his example and got a live-in nanny and housekeeper. Others have asked which prep school I planned to send my DC and looked at me pityingly when I explained they were off to my local primary in East London😅

Your class, in my opinion, is something you intrinisically feel you belong to regardless of your actual job or status. I know MC people who are in poorly paid jobs (bankrolled by wealthy parents).

Regarding teachers, I have family members who teach and they would describe themselves as working class.

How many people intrinsically feel they belong to a class though? I don’t feel I intrinsically belong to a class and I’ve never discussed class with anyone in real life and had anyone tell me what class they’re in. I only see it discussed online.

I earn minimum wage and am honestly a loser in the game of life but am sure I’d be considered middle class by some people because I live in the south and don’t like eating spam or canned spaghetti.

Why does class discussions get so much traction if it’s all just meaningless and anyone can identify as whatever it’s a bit like saying you’re non binary and your pronouns are they/she or he/them