Education and social mobility - John Humphrys is coming on for a discussion, Fri 29 Jan, at 11.30am

[GeraldineMumsnet]

John Humphrys is filming a documentary about education for BBC2. He is embarking on a journey around Britain to meet parents, teachers and students.

His task is to examine the relationship between education and social mobility - why is it that education cannot close the attainment gap that exists between children from the poorest and wealthiest backgrounds?

Government education advisor David Woods has accused parents of being prejudiced against their local state secondary schools. Dr Anthony Seldon, Master of Wellington College, calls the current independent sector an apartheid system. Professor Stephen Ball, from the Institute of Education, concludes that grammar schools, parental choice and faith schools have all been responses to middle-class concerns.

John is coming to Mumsnet this Friday (29 Jan) at 11.30am to hear your experiences. Are you benefiting from parental choice in education? Is it at the expense of others? Does the current system put too much responsibility on parents to make the right choices? Is it too stressful? Do you feel you have to top-up your children's education eg home-tutoring, learning an instrument, employing a lawyer? Are they worthwhile investments, or necessities that cause resentment?

Please post your thoughts here. Thanks in advance.

My parents were the products of the 11+ and became professional people in the 1960s from rather humble backgrounds.
I went through the comprehensive system and became a graduate and a teacher. (But didn't learn Latin so felt a little disadvantaged surrounded by the posh kids at university)
Will be strongly discouraging my children from going to university. We can't afford it.
However, I will be encouraging my son to be a footballer and my girls to be glamour models. Then we really WILL have become a socially financially mobile family.

Schools enforce social positioning via playground snobbery.

At primary school there is open ridicule in the playground by children of those without a father (a must have item according to contemporary myth) - my kids thought they were perfectly normal until primary school; they've experienced much heartache through this discrimination against the fatherless. I've tried to contest it, but staff also tend to be naturally inclined to disciminate against the single parent kids in favour of the dual parent kids. Even where there is not a blantant dual parent elitism, single mums are the easier target when compared to couples.

At secondary school things are no better. My oldest is at grammar school but peer attitude constantly reinforces that a divide exists and that my child is 'on the wrong side' of that divide (through not having a dad and not having annual ski trips, a Wii etc, etc). It's a definate turn off from joining the professional classes.

The best bet for increasing social mobility - John Humphrys - is to recognise and deal with dual parent elitism as the prevalent contemporary inequality that it is.

Schools are more the 'occasion' than the 'cause' of the divide though, when it comes to that sort of behaviour. Children are reflecting attitudes from home, and also the idea (which they learn at home too) that it's (1) ok to bully and (2) ok to single out children whose fathers are not involved with them.

Pity they can't be stopped from picking on each other. This is a HUGE problem that has a big impact on how far children are willing to put their necks out in the classroom.

But it isn't really about how many A levels you get anymore.

I work in legal post grad careers, having been a city solicitor myself. We get bright state school, grammar school and independent school kids. Read the CV of an independent school kid and they have all the soft skills that law firms love having got the D of Edinburgh awards, played a multitude of sports, done debating and negotiating at school, spent a year in Botswana building an orphanage, work experience galore.... etc.. Then of course there is the network you make through your peers.

So one of the reasons that you send your kids to private school is education but it is not the only one or even the main one.

So if your aspiration is for your kids to make stash loads of cash (Xenia where are you!) then send them private. If you can't afford it don't worry as if it is any consolation I wouldn't wish a city law firm on anyone as it is one of the most soul destroying environments in existence.

Me, think I will settle on my kids being flexible, not driven by conspicious consumption and sensitive to differences (not just in the developing world but also at home)

But then again - couldn't afford to send them private so maybe I am just jealous

Very interesting thread and issues. The gap between rich and poor is high in the UK at the moment. I think that's pretty good. It might make the poor unhappy but it's a better reflection of market forces than when you tax the rich until the pips squeak and people are like in a communist state.

We have less social mobility either because (a) the grammar school route is abolished or (b) all the clever poor have had their chance and moved up so that what inevitably you'd be left with would be the bottom of the pile 80 IQ type people
(c) we have simply become more competitive a society (and very funny that's all happened under a Labour government of course)

I don't think (b) is the case yet. I think (a) is part of the problem - we don't pluck clever children from poor homes and put them into a middle class environment any more. (c) is true.

Also why do we think lack of social mobility is a problem? The poor aren't any less happy than the rich so does it matter if some people are our cleaners and others our lawyers? If they all have a place and enjoy life what do social division matter at all? No one ever said life is fair. I was born with a reasonably high IQ and quite pretty able to work very hard, most harder than most people and presumably with levels of testosterone and due to my poisition as eldest child that I would do "well" but I regard my greatest gift as my perfect health and internal mental good health and inherent happiness. Nothing counts as much as that and I'd sacrifice all the rest to keep those last two - good physical and mental health.

Each parent wants the best for their children however they define that. Obviously those of us privately educated realise the benefits that brings and try to get our children into the most academic but also good private schools in the top 20 for exam results in the country. There's nothing wrong with that and then it's up to the children what they do. I don't have a set path for mine but having 3 at university stage (including one in her first job) I do see what advantages some 21 year olds over others and indeed 18 year olds including all the software stuff moid mentions. May be my oldest got her first job because she showjumps and happened on a day of assessment to be next to someone at lunch with horses or perhaps it was simply because she's blond (the better looking you are the easier to get most good jobs - unless I suppose it's public sector) or may be just because she's so positive and outgoing as she was aged 2 or the oldest children.

Anyway the issue is that we are going to have to cut back the public sector hugely including school budgets so to save money which needs to be the aim, never mind all this social mobility stuff what about giving parents a £5k a year voucher to spend at any school state and private which they can top up. That would help. That's my plan.

When you cut back on school spending you end up paying for prisons and social welfare eventually.

Xenia that's a good point about whether people are actually quite happy not to be socially mobile. But I suppose one point is that people who don't work, have high rates of drug addiction, ill health, crime etc in their communities cause harm to other people and are also a drain on all of us in the form of benefits, prisons, NHS etc.

Math you are absolutely right. It is the worst false economy you can make. Hasn't spending on schools ballooned under Labour though? To absolutely no good effect because of the crappy National Curriculum and its crappy priorities.

This has been such an interesting and varied discussion. I suspect there will be some differences between understandings of what social mobility actually is. It seems as though, when indicated by the gap between rich and poor, that social mobility is equated with earning power, though some of us seem to think it's more about the opportunity to pursue one's dream.

Do we really want more city bankers and lawyers?

The national curriculum is a one-size fits all scenario. In order to make it 'fit' for a broader range of the population it had to be modified from the traditional standards. Something had to give, but this will be true of any system that tries to be everything to everyone.

I'm all over the voucher idea as well as letting schools offer something other than the National Curriculum. I'd actually rather my dc learn latin (more cultural and academic) than computing skills (vocational.)

zazizoma

I think having computer skills probably enables you to live a more flexible and prosperous life than learning latin.

My dh and I are both sciencey types and have used our much indemand skills to work very little but for a good hourly rate. This gives us more than average time to enjoy our children, read and garden.

mathanxiety: 'most WC people wouldn't want upper social mobility if you handed it to them on a plate'

xenia: 'why should we assume that a lack of social mobility is a problem?

Although you are both coming at this from opposite ends of the political spectrum, I think you are both spot on. We use the benign term Social Mobility, but it really means the same as the term Social Climbing, which is something we tend to view with cynicism and contempt. After all, since when did we aim to give anyone backwards or sidewards social mobility? As math said, most people just want a decent job, and a decent pension. They don't really give a toss what class the government statisticians lump them into!

But the fact is, (as very many people have demonstrated from this thread alone) social mobility through education does already happen and has always happened to some degree or other, since Victorian times. The red herring is that as soon as a WC child has been successful in education, and has gone on to achieve relatively high-status employment and a good standard of living, (whether through higher education or not) they are automatically assumed to be middle class. They don't go around with a label on their forehead saying:

I am a good example of a person who was born into a WC/disadvantaged background and has achieved social mobility'.

They just get on with being self-sufficient and successful, and give the impression of having always been so.

So we are always left looking at the groups who haven't achieved any upward SM, perhaps throughout several generations of their family, and we assume that because they still exist, that social mobility is still a far-off goal that must be striven for at all costs, and that there must be some magic button we can press to make it happen for everyone. There isn't and we can't. And we shouldn't even try, perhaps? We should just focus on what is going wrong in state education and modern British society, to have so many children who are failing in education, and coming from backgrounds that re considered to be disadvantaged in the first place. If we can get to the core of that, then SM should surely happen by itself, over time.

upandrunning: 'spending on education has ballooned under Labour hasn't it?'

Yes it has. And never has so much money been so misspent, so misguidedly, with such disastrous consequences.

You don't have to be a social climber to want to improve your lot in life. I think this is rather a semantic red herring.

Well, apart from Iraq

Soory, x-posts.

With regards to computer skills, it not something I think primary students should be spending their time on.

I'll use learning how to cut and paste as an example.

First of all, it's not a very deep skill . . . I learned how to do it in the mid eighties at the age of 16 on WordStar . . . remember that? We didn't even have mice. It took me all of, hmm let me think, five minutes to learn?

Secondly, who knows what technological tools will actually exist in ten years. We'll all be speaking to our computer by them perhaps, or better yet, using memory pens that allow us to simply write on paper and then save.

Now Latin, on the other hand, is something you can sink your teeth into . . .

I was reading the OFSTED (Estyn) report for a local school the other day, and the school was criticized for not encouraging their primary students to use the computer enough to edit and rewrite drafts. 'Good for them!' I thought. I'd much rather my dc focus on handwritten work, content and organisation of thought from the outset.

Pet peeve of mine, sorry for the rant.

Oh, I don't mean IT skills (everyone picks those up automatically now). I mean the more mathematical stuff, like computer sciences.

I have to admit, I'm not a fan of too much ICT at a young age although I'm pleased that my children won't be scared of computers like I was when I went to University.

However, most of us (adults) now think better whilst typing and would struggle to go back to handwritten reports.

About 10 years ago I took a professional qualification and had to write a timed essay. I had to sit down and do a practice essay to see if I could still do it.

upandrunning, that's because you are applying your definition of the term social climber as someone who has snobbery, status insecurity and one-upmanship at the heart of what they are striving for. But surely social mobility is purely demonstrated in the ability of people to improve/change their social standing, through whatever means, and regardless of their agenda.

It's not called financial or educational or moral mobility, it's called social mobility! It means quite literally, the ability or opportunity to move around (and we tend to assume, up) the various levels of social strata in our society. To go up is to climb.

The fact that the government, and indeed all of us acknowledge that educational achievement, income levels, employment status and (to an extent) moral standards are, ultimately, indicators of our social status is another matter!

Well, I still don't really get the core of the argument. What is social mobility? Is it a tacit acceptance that class still exists and is important? Is this what we want?

I agree with aspects of what upandrunning, TiggyR and senua are all saying. I think John Humphreys needs to change the emphasis of his documentary. Social mobility concentrates too much on class, which is an irrelevance. Sir Alan Sugar is not upper class, but as he cruises around in his Rolls Royce Phantom, I don't think he is too bothered.

Absolutely claig. I think this is what a few posters are referring to when they question whether people want to be socially mobile. Of course most people want to improve their lot in life: this is the definition of socially mobile for me. It's not the narrower "social climbing" definition.

That's a very good question senua. I think perhaps it is a tacit acceptance of just that. And yet it it is also seen as a tool to break down class barriers. Hard to get your head around, isn't it!

It's like insisting that we should all fit into the same big boat, and the answer is to just keep blindly piling more and more people on board. Some who are stronger than others will climb to the top of the mast and cling on for dear life, others will be on the rungs below them, most will squeeze together on deck, some below deck, queasy but safe, but some will always fall overboard no matter how many times you keep piling them back in. And if they didn't? The boat would sink. Sorry - I'm sounding like I'm on drugs now.

I think perhaps these days, your class is defined first by your financial success and/or your level of education, rather than by your accent, or circumstances of birth. Fifty to a hundred years ago, it would have been the opposite way round, and by and large, the class you were born into would have dictated the education you had access to, and the career opportunities presented thereafter. The lines have blurred a bit and the order of things shaken up somewhat. To call someone 'middle class' now is not to assume at all that they had a remotely privileged upbringing, whereas in previous generations I think it would have been. And so in that respect I suppose there has been social mobility on a huge scale, as per my earlier post about the 80's. Why that's slowed down is anyone's guess, and why it's happened during 11 years of a Labour administration dedicated to eradicating child poverty is evn more bewildering. Unless of course we accept that they meant well, but they've just been crap.

I do think it is naive to think that we can ever eradicate class entirely in British society though. We tell ourselves that we are the only people obsessed with it, but that's not true. It is practised, albeit with somewhat different ground rules/slants the world over. It's part of the human condition.

The fact that we automatically label someone who has achieved more in education and earning power than their parents as having gone from WC to MC, is very telling. It's like being promoted to a higher grade at work; moving up a notch on the career ladder is not enough in itself - we don't just seek advancement for the thrill of the challenge, and then quietly bask in our own cleverness whilst staying in the same place. We expect the pay rise and the new job title to reflect our achievements and to tell our colleagues that we have moved ahead of them!

"And so in that respect I suppose there has been social mobility on a huge scale, as per my earlier post about the 80's. Why that's slowed down is anyone's guess"

Only just thought of this and musing aloud, so it may be a load of nonsense ...

We used to have a command-and-control system of running the economy: a pyramid where there was one boss and many thousand workers, with a few managers in the middle. We now have a 'flatter' management structure, with more delegation to (a bigger) middle tier. Does that have something to do with it?

senua Musing along with you now, but that kind of fits with my boat analogy! Not saying that I thought of the management structure thing first (I didn't) but perhaps you are saying what I thought I was meaning -or thereabouts.

What is very refreshing about this thread is that, though clearly we are all theorising and chucking ideas about, and in some cases speaking from gut feeling rather than statistical evidence, which has meant that some of the posts have come across (by usual MN standards)as rather contentious and inflammatory, the fact that The Big JH is looking in has meant that it has stayed a very grown-up, good natured and tolerant debate, where we all seem to agree that we want the same thing, even if we have different ideas about how it's best achieved. An end to an underclass, and an end to privilege automatically opening doors before hard work and brains.

Tiggy

"An end to an underclass, and an end to privilege automatically opening doors before hard work and brains." Amen to that, but I think that the idea has got lost somewhere along the line. Because we are so desperate to 'open doors', we have got to the stage where we are loathe to say 'you are not up to it because you do not have the ability and/or the work ethic' and so we have the dreaded dumbing-down.

Sadly yes.