White working class children failed by the system?

[Vintlet]

Big news story this morning showing that white working class children have been failed by the education system in the UK.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cq51j10q601o
I cannot remember a time in the last fifty years when national data did not show this. White working class boys particularly are the bottom achieving group in educational terms. There have been very few initiatives aimed at supporting this group. Wes Streeting has done his best to highlight this issue but compared to other traditionally disadvantaged groups little has been done to support them.
I have had intense discussions on MN with people who refuse to believe that white children from poor backgrounds are not privileged. I am impressed that Baroness Morris recognises the need for recognition that the state is failing this group and that steps have to be taken to remedy this and to support children from this background of deprivation.

I don’t think white working class children are privileged at all. But and it’s a big but a lot of achievement is down to family investment. It’s simple things like reading with your kids, making sure they turn up to school, don’t get into trouble and do their homework, thats all free.

When you say investment, what does that mean exactly? I do agree with more apprenticeships, some if the kids in my family who weren’t suited to school went on to work through apprenticeships. I’m not sure how lifting the benefit cap of extended childcare for people who aren’t working would help? Perhaps they could use some of that spare time on helping their kids? You can’t load more and more onto the state. It’s ridiculous.

The difference for me is that they said ‘children’ not ‘boys’.

You think it’s hard for working class boys to work up and make something of themselves? Try being female. How many more opportunities are open to the default human who is male? How much more freedom do they have? Why are the two big traditional female professions, education and health, saddled with requirements for degrees with outsourcing training at huge cost and offer low wages, compared to eg transport and mechanics? Why is there so much call in these professions for volunteers and calls to ‘contribute’ through volunteer work to prove yourself? And then train up on unpaid placements?

It isn’t working class boys that are preyed on by grooming gangs in the main.

I think it's a generational failing. Often these working class kids have parents who themselves were failed by the system. They take more than give to society and fight against the authority of schools rather than work with the school to support their kids education. Often because they themselves don't understand the benefits of education.

Education can lift a child out of poverty so they can better themselves. Asian parents know this which is why they, traditionally, push their kids at school. From shelf stacker to Consultant Doctor in a generation.

I work in law and now it's mainly middle class kids whose parents understand the benefits of education and prioritise it.

Whereas (sorry) a child born into a family on benefits is more statistically likely to be on benefits themselves.

I remember reading about this yearrrrsss ago. That was specifically about WC white boys. Because there was nothing for them. There are programmes for girls to support getting to fields where we are underrepresented, ethnic minority support programmes and so on. But the white WC boys had very little.
Can't believe it's still the case and eith girls in same boat? This was being discussed even pre covid IIRC.

Pretty sure this has been going on a very long time. When I was studying in the 90s one of the topics included working class white boys and their poor educational attainments since the 1950s. Can't remember the literature, sadly.

Education does not lift kids out of poverty any more. All it gives you is the chance to take on a huge debt and then hassle do that you can work, work, work - if you’re lucky and get a job on a ladder with progression - to pay someone else’s mortgage. What lifts kids out of poverty now is having a family member who will give you things, a place to live most obviously. Nothing else works.

As PP said it’s to do with parental input and expectations.

Controversial view, but is it a bad thing that working class native people are doing trades jobs? I’m pretty sure that’s what happens in most countries. Why do we need to push a certain quota into desk jobs and university?

Consider the following

Lack of role models
Masculinity
alienation
Truancy
Trauma
Parental expectations
anti intellectualism
low self esteem
Low expectations
Fear
Culture
Stereotyping
classism
crime

Even with ‘investment ‘ one is fighting a losing battle

The article even says parents see the social aspect of school as the most important. I mean if you don’t think your kids are at school to primarily learn stuff then I don’t know what to say to you. I also think it’s more middle class people feeling sorry for them than they feel sorry for themselves. If you actually cared you’d be taking your kids in hand and making damn sure they are achieving something.

Actually I'd disagree with your last assertion about the grooming gangs. These gangs do indeed sexually abuse boys as well, it's just even less reported on than the girls.

In addition, young white boys are heavily preyed upon by drug dealing gangs to use for county lines (who also sexually abuse both boys and girls but this element is rarely reported on). I see this daily in my work.

This report isn't about grooming gangs @SomeoneIsWrongOnTheInternet . There is a separate review and report into that issue. I agree with @Sunnyyetnotsunny . I have sat through so many inset days that highlight this issue but there has never been initiatives or programmes directed at poor white boys in the way that there have been for girls and for ethnic minority groups.
87% of HE institutions accept more females than males. Higher education entry rates have seen significant increases across almost all ethnic groups. Students from the Chinese ethnic group consistently maintain the highest entry rates (over 66%), followed by high representation from Black, Asian, and Mixed groups.
Higher education entry rates have seen increases across almost all ethnic groups. Analysis from the House of Commons Library confirms that White males eligible for free school meals (a key marker of economic deprivation) are less likely to go to higher education than any other group when categorized by gender, deprivation, and ethnicity.
It is unhealthy for the UK to have one very disadvantaged group who have no investment in society. Things need to change.

The article is so scant it's impossible to draw any conclusions from it.
There's no description of how they defined working class, no suggestion of what the problems might be, do idea of causes. It's just a headline.

@BathersOnTheLine
It is based on a national investigation and official report published today.

My aunt was a teacher and she said that some children just do not suit school and that many children, especially boys, need a completely different approach than formal schooling. She meant experiences, team work, physical activity, energy burning puzzle solving practical occupation. Much less academic.

She said nothing put many children, especially boys, off learning more than being sat in a chair and made to sit still and learn. I remember her saying 'Spark interest and an enquiring mind and a child will educate themself'.

She was working in rural England in the 1950s.

They haven't given us enough information from the report for the article to be at all useful.

”it’s more middle class people feeling sorry for them, than them feeling sorry for themselves”

Bang on.

The opportunities are there, people don’t care to take them. This is middle class hand-wringing.

@BathersOnTheLine
Full report here
https://educationaloutcomes.org.uk/

Yes, boys get sucked into drugs. At least there is both money and status possible there, that’s why they do it. Is there the same possibility in sexual abuse via grooming gangs? I don’t think so. I’ve seen the drugs world operate too, btw, everyone who’s worked in education has, plus I was brought up on a working class estate with the rather less organised drug gangs of the 80s. That world always had a split of drugs running for males, prostitution for females.

And yes boys also get sexually abused. Not in anything like the same numbers as females though. I’m not sure about it being less reported - genuinely, not sure. I’ve seen it said that actually rape of males IS more likely to be reported, and more likely to be acted on, because for girls rape is just considered par for the course. But I don’t know so will have to leave that there.

Thanks @Vintlet

Their definition of working class is key to this isn't it.
They say working class but actually they mean children receiving free school meals.
This is only a sub section of what most people perceive to be the working class.

Working class pupils not receiving school meals are lumped in with the group of all others. We don't know how they fare compared?

It sort of makes the 'white working class' headline a bit fake (inflammatory?) doesn't it?

When I was a young woman back in the 1960s my parents did not recognise the value of education in allowing someone to "better" themselves. Their attitude was that it was disrespectful to your forbears to want anything better. It was snobby and you did not know your place. Mine actually held me back by denying me the opportunity to go to college and study for professional exams.. When my father saw me revising for GCE (as it was then) I was told to go and help my mother in the kitchen. The entire patriarchal system was against making sacrifices for a girl as I would "only get married and have babies". This was a common attitude among working class parents of their generation. They had gone through the trauma of a war and it has stifled their life chances and ambition.

Fortunately I had a grandmother who encouraged me and helped me out financially at a later stage.

I am wondering how many young working class woman would have had the courage and self belief to stand out against that kind of pressure. I was fortunate enough to go into a profession. I took my professional exams piecemeal by private study and worked my way up. It was only later in life that I was able to go on to uni and become an academic.

It’s hard. I grew up working class and in poverty so I lived within the poverty trap and saw how it functioned day to day. I got myself out of it but had to fight tooth and nail, nothing was handed to me and I got into a lot of student debt to make it happen. My younger brother isn’t academic like me so always struggled at school. He isn’t a failure by any means - not a drug addict, owns his own home, works hard etc but he didn’t get GCSEs whereas I got a PhD. He’d fit within the white working class boy being failed category I suppose.

Big discrepancy between us and I couldn’t say why other than different dads so I was exposed to a bit of culture with my dad whereas his dad was a drug addict… As I say though, he thankfully didn’t go down the route a lot do with drugs. I went to school with many boys like that, some girls too who had babies before 16 but the boys were definitely more into drugs than girls. No clue whether any made a success of themselves, I know one was in prison last time I checked. He was an orphan raised by an older sister.

People have tough lives. Middle class folk don’t really grasp quite how hard it can be for some kids. Some parents aren’t academic and don’t really see the value in education, they just use it as free childcare. They don’t read so like hell they’re reading to their children. They spend their weekends getting wasted, not going to free museums and art galleries. I know because my mum was like this.

Even when you fight your way up from the bottom people judge you. I get judged for my northern accent all of the time in academic circles. Not at my own northern uni but at conferences for sure. There’s an air about some academics still like you don’t belong here because we can sniff the working class in you. It can be the same in art galleries too, I sometimes want to wear a name badge with my Dr title.

Yes I spoke to an older academic I work with about this once and he said he experienced the same, particularly because we’re English Lit academics and he’s interested in theatre. His WC family were Billy Elliot about it and couldn’t fathom why their son was such a “pansy” (their words not mine).

Even when you fight your way up from the bottom people judge you. I get judged for my northern accent all of the time in academic circles. Not at my own northern uni but at conferences for sure. There’s an air about some academics still like you don’t belong here because we can sniff the working class in you. It can be the same in art galleries too, I sometimes want to wear a name badge with my Dr title.

I began to lose my working class Liverpool accent when I went into a profession and everyone around me spoke nicely. I learned to speak BBC English when I went to uni. My overseas students simply would not have understood broad Liverpool. Nowadays I drop back into it on phone calls when I want to appear as someone else. Works every time.

I’ve just retired from teaching at a secondary school in a deprived area of a city with predominantly white working class pupils as the bulk of our cohort.
There is a complex combination of things happening in these schools. Firstly behaviour and attendance are huge barriers to achievement; these factors impact progress in that the curriculum is not really delivered fully even to those in school, let alone those who miss large chunks of it through absence or seclusion.
Secondly the curriculum itself; at KS4 vocational qualifications have been changed frequently (I taught 5 different ones in 7 years in the same subject area) and have become increasingly focused on writing about doing rather than actually doing.
Thirdly (but not necessarily finally) is the careers education which almost completely focused on university pathways which hold little to no interest to most pupils who often want to go into the trades where they know they will be out earning teachers by the time they’re in their mid-20s.
Most do not see education as being about self-improvement or aspiration. It is just a bothersome fact of life to be endured.
Having said all this I still loved teaching them but over the years I saw little change in results despite all the “intervention” and teachers working far harder than the pupils and caring far more about their results than the pupils themselves.

Middle class people “we need more investment in something…er not sure what or how”
working class people “my family weren’t interested in my education”.

This is one of the problems with the way we look at inequality. We identify theres a gap and assume it’s societies fault, not enough investment and effort from society etc etc.

BAME stuff is a good example, you’ll see something about BAME people being disadvantaged and actually outcomes are drastically different according to ethnicity, sometimes the only real difference is culture and attitudes. But thats not seen as an acceptable answer so we blame schools and teachers instead. I’m not a teacher or in any way connected to schools other than having DC and I’m astounded by how much they are expected to fix.

Also, I’m very suspicious of the phrase “white working class”. It seems to group families where people actually have jobs with the underclass which is a whole different group of people.