Education Underclass

[OddSins]

Having exhausted the "Superclass" thread, there seems to be support for this conversation.

By way of approaching it. Do we agree there is one, who are they, why does it exist and what can we do?

Ill leave my tuppence worth to later.

usualsuspect
exactly what is says
you are INCREDIBLY naive and statistically unaware if you think that all people have the same intellectual capacity

My digger is thick (that is why he likes to dig holes and little else)
his wife is slighly less thick (she's a checkout operator at a supermarket)
I've chatted to their kids and despite the school opening doors for them , they are truly incurious
but so long as they are polite, honest and speak clearly, will be able to get jobs

Seriously,
those who think that ALL people can excel academically need to get out more
you are like I was at 21 when I'd not experienced the world
for every Nobel prize winner there is an equal and opposite Baldrick

Usual I don't think I am lower than anyone, it was the name given to the class of people who didn't have proper structured jobs when I was young.

This isn't going that well is it?

Am i allowed to mention "Boarding Grammar Schools " for children from these backgrounds with academic potential?

No it's not.

I'm aware that the education system fails some children.

Bit I don't see working in a supermarket etc as failing.

Talkinpeace thats bollocks my dad worked on the railway and my mother was a cleaner. I have a phd

usual
I'm not sure why you are so angry.
My digger is not underclass any more. He's picked himself up.
Unlike my former cleaner.

I don't think people who dig holes or work in supermarkets are thick
Not all of them may be, but some most definitely are
including my client and his wife

Intelligence is on a normal distribution
do you accept that?
therefore there are thick people
but those who live and breathe in selective circles try not to interact with them (except possibly the Ocado and Amazon delivery drivers)
it has ever been so.

What the UK HAS to do is ensure that the middling and lower kids are educated well enough to out compete immigrants for the decent jobs
as otherwise we pay out benefits to indigenous folks while immigrants (like me) earn a good living.

usualsuspect. To start at the beginning.
Do you agree that all people all have different levels of IQ?

I wouldn't see a digger as underclass.

Of course I do.

Did you mean to be so patronising by the way?

Of course there are thick people, some born that way some damaged to it, but they're accross all classes, just as bright one's are.
The difference is if you’re thick upper class your children are likely to get access to a good education, whereas if your thick lower class they’re not.

Gerald Ratner?.....

I can see that 'underclass' exists as a defined term, but I'm not finding a pre defined 'education underclass'. Is there one or is it open to interpretation?

I grew up in working class Belfast and there was a notion among some parents that you educate your children away from you. That, coupled with something another poster said upthread about how 'aiming higher is setting yourselves up as believing you’re better than others', gives some insight into the type of thinking that keeps working class people in their place.

What is the root of this thinking? I'm not entirely sure but these parents' children are talked to and stimulated, they know to share and get on with others yet their is no clear way up for these kids. They are not illiterate so perhaps they don't qualify as an education underclass but there is very little social mobility amongst them that's for sure.

Is it fear? Ignorance? Something more sinister?

There is nothing wrong with being WC.

I have never accepted the fact that being poor is a barrier to intelligence. My father immigrated to this country with nothing in his pocket but retired collecting rents from his properties in London despite being based in Manchester.

He started as a waiter then opened a take away and then a restaurant ....which provided the monies to buy properties. His children did not see the light of day as we worked as child labour. Our homework was done in the kitchen and there was no help from either as they at the time could not speak let alone write in English. Yes we as children read the letters replied to the council and yes we did all the application.

So it is wrong to say that poor kids dont have the ability to help their parents they do. It is wrong to say that because I was not encouraged to work at school abd was expected to take over the restaurant that I did not succeed at School. I despite my parents did goto UCL and did get a first in my degree abd did get a Phd..My fees were paid for but I was not given a living grant by the govt by that time my father earnt to much. I was never given money to survive by my parents so I worked to get living money. That meant maccers in the morning as they gave a feee meal. Uni during the day and waiting tables at night.

So I dont hold stock on people saying im poor the system is against me. The point is I now earn a very good wage I am not upper class. So by saying the poor are poor because if the system is wrong.

The poor are poor because they are lazy. They now worked out that having children enables them to get more money. They do and because they are children themselves they do not undersrand how to teach their children...

I know some would say I want to work . ..but how many actually mean it.....

So my point is we should save those who want to besaved and concentrate on those first and hopefully that will spark others to want to be saved

I think that we have to save them all - and the time to catch them is when they are toddlers. If they had really small nurture groups at that point, and the parents were involved, they could break the cycle.
I still think that people are misunderstanding.
Firstly they get bogged down with the term. If you go to a maths class you don't argue that you don't like the term and it doesn't exist, but it seems that if they go to a sociology class they don't want to use the accepted term and deny it exists.
The educational underclass are the children who are not able to fully access the curriculum because of home circumstances. If you are a child of drug addicts, who doesn't know where the next meal is coming from and you don't have regular routines you are going to find it much harder to sit on the carpet and concentrate on a maths lesson than the child who had an evening of talking to adults, a cooked meal, regular bedtime with story and breakfast.
Most of the prison population have very poor literacy skills. If money had been spent when they were tiny they probably wouldn't be in prison.

Someone who works in a supermarket or doing nails is not part of the 'educational underclass'!!
Someone who is part of a family who has not worked for 3 generations and has no role models for a work ethic is part of the 'educational underclass' unless they themselves have seen the value of education and strive to use it to break the cycle. Even then they will find it hard if they don't have paper and pencils at home, their parents won't find them a quiet spot for homework, they won't take them to the library, won't go to parent's evenings etc.

It is unfair. The rich are not going to be part of it. They may be useless in the parenting skills but they can farm them out with nannies, schools etc. they will still be disadvantaged beside their peers with parents with good parenting skills, but they have been caught early enough. Those without money need early intervention.

It is attitude, even if very poor you can use education to break out of a cycle. You can talk to your child, visit the library, draw, take them to toddler groups, socialise them etc. You are then not part of the 'educational underclass' because you are making sure that they can access the curriculum.

Sure Start has been mentioned, they are specifically there to help. Catch them early, if you wait until they are 7or 8 yrs it is more difficult and even more difficult when teenagers.

usualsuspect there is nothing wrong with working for a living (in lower tier jobs) but there is something wrong with not broadening your DC's horizons don't you think. Condemning them to a life on benefits or low paid jobs with undiscovered potential because you want to keep them close to you. These kids need to be saved but they don't know it.

Kenlee, 'the poor are poor because they are lazy' is a very strong statement but I'm sure it applies to a subset of the underclass and working class and impacts massively on the outcomes for their DC. Just as your Dad's drive and ambition impacted on you. Your childhood doesn't sound like much fun and whilst you were not encouraged to work at school you obviously managed to get a decent level of education.

How do we identify those who want to be saved? It could be argued that those that don't want to be saved are the ones who need help the most as they have very little chance of making it anywhere on their own.

It is the ones who don't want to be saved that need targeting - and really young before attitudes get entrenched.

I suspect that like so many nurture-related issues, a lack of stimulation in early years runs in families. You parent as you were parented, often, and usually your parents offer advice which reinforces that. If there's no suggestion children should have early access to books, be taught their colours and to count, should socialise with other children etc, it won't happen. Which is what the idea behind Sure Start / bookstart is - but for that to be effective people have to be convinced of the point - and that's harder.

Part of the problem is people believing they don't need to teach their children anything because that's what school / nursery is for.

Satin I want to understand these ideas of who the educational underclass is better and who's defineing it.

You're right I have misunderstood the term the way you use it, and maybe your definition is correct in which case sorry for being stupid, but it seems to be a daily mail/Gove creation that doesn't exist as a proper term and draws attention away from why educations not valued by lots of people?

You say someone whose family hasn't worked in three generations. Do they stop being 'educational underclass' if there's periods of casual work and prostitution accross the generations?

If a parent's collecting scrap and selling it and his kids are going with instead of school, is the fact they're making money change it?

Does if he pays tax on what he makes, make a difference?

Do the kids go back into it if he starts stealing more of it than he's finding?

If this generations mum is a cam girl who pays tax on it, and talks to her girls at night about getting them boob jobs later so they can do it to, does that mean the girls aren't in that EU?

Longtalljosie you're right, but that's what parents get told and that it's a teachers job and anything they do is going to be wrong.