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

This has been obvious for years, also it working class girls that get the worse of it all, because often working class boys at least get steered in the direction of trades where you can earn enough to live on

With AI i am actively hoping my kids will all learn a trade at least the basics of one whilst studying whatever they want to do.
Those jobs are safe and you can easily out earn uni graduates- especially if they arr taught business basics at the same time.
Uni grad jobs are disappearing day by day.

“The issue of white working class underachievement is generational and deep-seated - almost baked into our culture at this point”

its rooted in shame
a good start for future generations would be to stop telling their children the building site or hairdressers is a good option for them

They’re not safe. We’re decades into their automation.

Yes, this is completely crazy. Who the hell is running this system where we help and support people coming into the country but we neglect and despise the native population? This needs to be turned around ASAP as it contributes to the growing anger in this country.

I suppose it depends on what you see as underachievement. Many people would view working for a family business or trade as a perfectly valid way of making a living.

If schools are using decolonisation of the curriculum as a means of putting forward exclusion or inverse racism, they're fundamentally misunderstanding the concept. Decolonisation isn't some kind of Orwellian "white bad, global majority good" theory. It's about challenging long standing assumptions around whose views and experiences are visible and normalised.

Yes. This is exactly what happens.

The inner city black and Bangladeshi boys targeted by these initiatives are second or third generation, particularly windrush descendants

In reality, this doesn't happen.

This was the official data definition, not my own. It is a generalisation - patterns always are and there are those who don’t fall within it. We can pretend that all is equal but that’s just not true, even though it’s uncomfortable to read, the statistics are there.

What official data definition? Are you saying they defined working class then found a lack of work ethic and not valuing education? In the uk tens of millions of people are working class. You simply could not prove this through data

@ClarkeandNewman Yes, I can confirm that it definitely is in some - I was a governor at one of them (activist Head Teacher). At that school it was pretty explicit across all curriculum areas, but in others I’ve worked it it’s been more nebulous and a matter of ‘tone’ - what books are chosen for the library (or thrown out); what music the children get to hear in assembly; which scientist role models are deemed worth researching for a homework task; which children are selected for cultural capital-boosting experiences and so on. So much of it depends on the particular sensibilities of the Head and SLT, who have a huge amount of power to shape the culture of the school.

Ultimately though, not everyone is cut out for university, even the rather poor universities that seem to have sprung up to take all the students who previously would not have had the ability to attend. And we do need all kinds of people, not everyone can do the same types of work and have a functioning society.

What we really need are good pathways to appropriate higher education for each student. Personally I rather like a more German approach, with paths for trades, business, professional, and academic streams - the latter being a very tiny number of people.

It can be a gap in private schools that they tend to push students to university and professional programs without much for those who want something else, though I suspect since there are many parents in those careers you will always tend to see a higher number than average go that way.

But in the end, those kids in private education will be able to get into things like trades if they really want to, they have the cultural nous to find out what is necessary. But in public schooling the paths other than university have been neglected.

You mention white working class boys not getting the same opportunities, but so many universities offer schemes where if you’re from a low income area or a poor performing school, you have a reduced entry requirement. My college wasn’t included but many local ones were - it could reduce entry requirement for example from AAB to BBB. This applies to children (boys and girls) and any race - there are opportunities there, but I think maybe people don’t fully take advantage of it.

To be honest, I think a lot of people are put off by uni due to the ridiculous amount of interest on new loans - my DP’s student loan total is nearly double what it was initially just due to being on a poor plan and having stupidly high interest.

I also do agree with a PP that it is also predominantly driven by culture - I have a first gen grandparent and the work ethic was pushed much more onto that side of my family. I also do agree that you are more likely to follow in the same path as your parents - if the focus is mainly on those with non-working parents, I have met many people first hand who do the exact same and have no drive to do anything.

I do think alternatives to university also need to be massively increased - I did an apprenticeship scheme but only after a period of time in a job; I had to actually find the job first willing to support me with that, which I can imagine is much harder in the current job market.

Lots of my friends went through apprenticeship schemes through alternative routes; Royal Navy engineering, electrical engineering etc.

There are definitely opportunities there, but kids these days need a bit more insight and support in a tougher market.

“Targeting the White Working-Class Gap: White British boys from low-income, rural, or coastal backgrounds have historically encountered distinct social mobility hurdles. The initiative deployed targeted Continuing Professional Development (CPD) for teachers to alter how they praised, chastised, and engaged these pupils.”

Taken from Schools Week in 2018. I worked on this project and my county has a disproportionate number of white boys from working class families and the results were evidence alongside family engagement data. 32 head teachers from secondary school were involved. I’m sorry you don’t like the facts but we can’t make change unless we acknowledge the truth.

I wasn’t talking about it being an “Indian” thing, more about why British born Indian children do well. If parents of WWC children had the same level of input and valued education as highly, then the gap would not exist in the same way.

FYI, education in India is really good, including in predominantly working class schools. It’s not just a class thing there, education is seen as a way out of poverty. (Though it is true that in really poor families, the kids will sometimes be made to work to help the family, which creates issues for their schooling.) My source for this is that 4 family members in India are teachers, and one of them even writes history textbooks for primary school children nationally and travels the country going into schools as part of her work.

@BoredZelda

Yes, you’re right. Many of my friends are carers, hairdressers and nursery nurses. Their brothers are plasterers, plumbers and electricians. Their earnings are far more than their sisters.

This is only historically, the new recruits to the City are definately not predominantly looking to recruit white men, my son and his friends are in grad schemes and it is simply not true. My son is in a big corporate bank in IT and it now recruits 50% women and has only about 20% white guys in his year.

At the very top end this may be true because of a historic lag, but it is no longer the case at the younger end.

The population least in employment overall are Pakistani/Bangladeshi but many of the muslim guys I work with have very traditional marriages where the women do not work, I think it's a gap of around 20% -80% other women work and 60% Pakistani/Bangladeshi women work and so there is an income disparity.

Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities

My point is that special achemes and bursaries should be based on socio-economic disadvantage only. That would include children of all races and both genders.

*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.

I’ve only seen one thread discussing bursaries for black young men. It was a bursary for something law related and the discussion was very interesting because many legal professionals who replied said that they knew plenty of female black lawyers but no male black lawyers so it sounded like a scheme that could do some proper good.

Helping underachieving white boys needs lots of structural change to the education system and looking into problems like why boys’ behaviour is so poor (boys dominate suspensions and expulsions) I’m not saying that these boys will happily engage if the course is “right” but we need multiple paths and solutions rather than the conveyor belt of GCSEs, A-levels then Uni. There is more concern about attendance than the fact that it’s common place for kids to see others kick off or face no consequences for extreme behaviour like violence. I obviously know that this is a resource issue but letting things drag on for years makes everyone in the classroom suffer.

I would also debate the definition of working class used by the study but perhaps it’s easier to get data about children on FSM.

What is your problem with hairdressers? Do you cut your own hair?

My hairdresser out-earns me about four times over, I work as a manager in a library.

So it's not a defined part of the curriculum. That's what I thought. My children have been to a number of primaries, secondaries, colleges and universities in two UK nations and teaching on critical race theory and "white privilege" has never been explicitly present. Perhaps some concepts have, rightfully, been embedded within the curriculum and some theories covered in lectures but I'd say that's part of a broad education, wouldn't you? We do have to move on, we can't continue to teach the same things for decades, regardless of advanced in knowledge and understanding.

Nobody “neglects or despises” the U.K. native population. Certainly not the entire system set up to serve them. There are plenty of grants available to “native” people, which, whilst open to all, are applied for and granted to almost entirely white people. If you look at who bursaries are given to at private schools, the majority will be white pupils. It’s also worth mentioning that the independent school sector has a 40% non-white fee paying demographic which is higher than that of state schools.

There are good reasons why certain grants target certain groups. I could explain them but you don’t care. You just think “all lives matter” and everything should be equal rather than equitable.

The growing anger comes from ignorance.

So these boys:

White British boys from low-income, rural, or coastal backgrounds

how can you have come out of working on that to think the findings apply to all working class people?

@TempestTost

I think the point is, many working class girls who are 15 and 16 (I was one of them myself) only think they can do hairdressing or caring because these professions don’t require academics. Theres nothing wrong with them, obviously but if those are the only jobs you think you can do, then you don’t know what’s potentially beyond the horizon. I went into a hairdressing apprenticeship thinking I could do it. The reality was, my practical and creative skills were non existent although I could talk to clients very well.