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.

And the assumption is always that someone from a working class background is not up to it purely because the system has failed them in some way. And anyone who dares to be privileged and thick is really ridiculed and detested, because God Dammit, after all the luck and money and opportunity they've had come their way, how DARE they not be Einstein, yet still be richer than us?!
Like all you need to do is shut someone in a room with War and Peace in Russian and they'll come out fluent in Russian and an expert on literature.

The trouble with the privilege argument though is that where do you draw the line?

We have some friends who live a very middle class lifestyle but are both from very working class roots. Common accent, Sun readers, but big house, land, horses, nice cars, private school for the kids etc. He has been lucky in that he left shcool and went straight into helping his father run a successful property development/building business. He's a nice guy, though I suspect not especially bright. She is a VERY motivated and hard-working woman, though not again, I suspect not bright in any academic sense. The assumption is that their son (who is a lovely boy, but quite dim and dopey frankly) will join them in the family business once he's learned a trade at college. On the face of it, they are not middle class or privileged, but they are handing their children a ready made cushy future on a plate. Is that ok? Should we be means testing people according to class rather than actual wealth, so that that scenario is fine, but David Cameron being allowed to send his son to Eton and onto a life of privilege, isn't? How the hell do we police this? You can't, is the answer.

The trouble with the privilege argument though is that where do you draw the line?

We have some friends who live a very middle class lifestyle but are both from very working class roots. Common accent, Sun readers, but big house, land, horses, nice cars, private school for the kids etc. He has been lucky in that he left shcool and went straight into helping his father run a successful property development/building business. He's a nice guy, though I suspect not especially bright. She is a VERY motivated and hard-working woman, though not again, I suspect not bright in any academic sense. The assumption is that their son (who is a lovely boy, but quite dim and dopey frankly) will join them in the family business once he's learned a trade at college. On the face of it, they are not middle class or privileged, but they are handing their children a ready made cushy future on a plate. Is that ok? Should we be means testing people according to class rather than actual wealth, so that that scenario is fine, but David Cameron being allowed to send his son to Eton and onto a life of privilege, isn't? How the hell do we police this? You can't, is the answer.

oops!

We are equal under the law but all born very different from each other. I am very lucky to have good mental and physical health. I put that first. I also have a reasonably high IQ, Mensa etc. I also had a very supportive middle class upbringing, went to a fee paying school etc and fairly loving interested parents and I was the first born (they always do better) and I'm quite pretty. So I was a huge heap of good fortune by the good fairy at birth, lucky me. Not surprising I did well oh and I've capacity and inclination to work twice as hard as most people which helps too.

But my mother was born fairly poor. It was fascinating to see her relatives (she had 52 first cousins) at her funeral in the NE. To see that change in a generation- the differences between them and my children, my student age ones doing a reading with completely different clothes, class, accent. My mother passed for grammar school at 11. She went into high education. She achieved her social mobility through her high intelligence, good looks but also the school grammar school route.

We have much better social mobility in the UK than other countries. We don't have castes like in India and women have reasonable rights under the law.

The point often forgotten is that for every person who moves up someone has to move down. no Government likes to talk about that but we're all relative to each other. I haev been advising so many today who are going down. It's been a black Monday, bankruptcies, insolvencies, family homes sold, private schools left, sad tale after sad tale - all social downscaling, down down. If you ahve some going up you will have others going down.

If being humble and accepting what little you have is a better moral position than greed we should in a sense be extolling the advantages of social downscaling. Where in this world of New Labour do we have of the philosophy that the meek shall inherit the earth etc etc, no camels through eyes of needles?

Also are people happier when they "know their place" rather than striving for material wealth or status they will never achieve? Once they get something they only want more anyway.

This remains ever right...

www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0DUsGSMwZY

Xenia, this "know your place" argument is wrong. If you and past generations of your family had known their places, you would never be where you are now. We should not deny others the chance to succeed, we should remember where we came from and not be like Marie-Claire in the song "Where Do You Go To My Lovely?" To come from a lowly background and succeed is a far greater achievement than someone who had everything handed to them on a plate.

It depends on what is really meant by "know your place."
This discussion has been all over the place and I agree with Tigga that it's also been unusually civil for MN. But at the same time comments have been coming from all different perspectives without much clarity about meaning. i.e. What EXACTLY is social mobility? Why is it desirable? Is it possible? Is success a limited resource? Are there only so may positions of success in the country that achieving one means someone else has moved down the continuum of social mobility?

I think "know your place" can have a very "upstairs downstairs" connotation. If, however, by "know your place" you really mean "know thyself," then I'm in complete agreement with Xenia.

I don't think for everyone who goes 'up' someone else has to go 'down'. That's saying there's a finite amount in the pot, which is not necessarily true.

I actually disagree that Britain doesn't have castes. They don't exist in the same way they do in India, the dividing lines are not the same, but there are lines all the same.

I don't understand your point: I am not aware of Britain having a caste system.
Please explain.

We have classes in the UK. It is nothing like as bad as the caste system in India.
A recent article on class in the Times is at www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/sathnam_sanghera/article6992855.ece which I enjoyed and is correct.

People can move class.

I was only joking in suggesting people might be happier if they stayed where they were they may be happier although acceptance of your lot and life can make you happier than always trying to keep up with the Jones's. Surround yourself with people who earn less and people tend to feel happier. Be amongst those who do better and you don't. All studies show that.

In fact educating poor children into grammar schools and middle class careers is a fascinating issue because the child then became very different from its family. Does it make a gulf between you and those you love which psychologically is more damaging to your internal mental health than if you stayed near the extended family and worked in the local Tesco? What if you go home and your mother only reads Heat and you want to discuss what was in today's FT with her?

I agree there are so many points on the thread though that it could lose coherence.
The ability to move class is probably a good thing. I don't think being an untouchable with a career path of cleaning lavatories only is really something most people think is right.

You are only successful compared to others. Others fall as you fight your way with tooth and claw to teh top of the greasy poll kicking others right down as you go. this is human nature. It is why we prevailed over the Neanderthals. It is what has spread man over the planet. Survival of the fittest. For each social climber you have a social faller.

I suppose someone just above was raising the issue of could we instead have everyone on the same level. I'm not sure that's good or as much fun or as natural. We don't want to be like the Swiss or Scandinavians surely? Very dull. Nor do we want to try to repeat communist experiments of doctors paid less than dustbin men and all of us identical in Mao suits.

I always remember my Mum quoting the old saying
"Success is getting what you want, Happiness is being content with what you have, success does not always equal happiness"

To me social mobility is about giving everyone equal opportunity, not everyone wants to take the opportunity and that's fine if they are happy doing the job they are doing, we can't all be graduates, we can't all be hot shots in the city.

Education is the key to the door of opportunity IME. I look at my parents, both we fairly bright, Dad passed his 11+ (back in the 30s)but his family couldn't afford for him to go, he worked very contentedly as a joiner for 50yrs. Mum wasn't even allowed to sit her 11+ as her parents didn't see the point. If they were at school now their options would have been very different.

Both myself & my brother went to university, DB through the grammar school route & me via the (ex secondary modern and crap) comprehensive school route. We both got professional jobs, so I guess that makes us "middle class" now (not that I care although DB is a bit of a social climber :O)) The only downside was we were both 2hr (in opposite directions) from home. Not everyone wants that & I often wished I could have been closer to home.

At the moment not every child gets the same opportunity via education, but there are a multitude of factors there

1. parental support & encouragement (or lack of)
2. Quality of school (or not)
3. Peer pressure can be positive or negastive
4. parental wealth (ability to pay for a good private school, private tutoring etc)
5. parental educational level (expectations are likely to be higher (can be a negative if too much pressure) and can help with extra tutoring if needed)

I know what math means, actually. The Indian caste system is something very tangible, with specific (nasty devisive oppressive) rules and regulations that are adhered to rigidly, and social mobility is virtually impossible. We have a very intangible, unspoken sort of caste. Very subtle social signs and signals (the difference in choice of clothing, hairstyles, jewellery, not only accents but the very words we use or shun, I could go on forever here...) that denote who we are and we think we, and others fit into the British class system. But often the people at the lower ends are blissfully unaware of what they are doing/saying/wearing that is keeping them where they are! But where I don't agree with math is that these things will necessarily keep you from achieving in Britain today. All those things really mean is that we tend to have a 'birds of a feather' attitude to networking and socialising, and having our children educated with like-minded similarly aspirational families. Some people, by dint of being highly intelligent, highly confident, amusing or charming, can move more easily among the various social groups without feeling like a fish out of water, and will be accepted. But by and large we all feel happier in the company of 'people like us'.

Again, all of that may make us feel somewhat uncomfortable but it is part of the human condition.

I do think that class is not necessarily what keeps someone down in Britain today, though. What keeps someone down is poor parenting and a chaotic home life, and all its subsequent manifestations; lack of learned social skills, poor communication skills, lack of self-discipline and feelings of disaffectation. I'm not saying its not harder for someone from very humble beginnings, of course it is. But life's not fair like that, and never will be.

Tiggy R, I think you are spot on.

I agree that it is difficult (impossible?) for a person to move from one class to another but, unlike the caste system, it is possible for their children to be a different class. Class is only hereditary for one generation.

'it is possible for their children to be a different class. Class is only hereditary for one generation'.

I'd argue it takes two generations for the 'signs' and seams of the transition to be completely invisible. I hate that society is so class driven and that these things matter, they shouldn't.

Birds of a feather do indeed flock together and it can be almost impossible to have a very close friend from a very different background. I've found that class distinctions matter less in the working world, where I've found it largely to be a meritocracy but when it comes to making (close) friends these things can be fraught with difficulty.

I'm from a middle, middle class background (although one of my parents is probably upper middle class) and had a comfortable but reasonably modest upbringing. I've found the toffs & upper middles don't really accept me, although they'll tolerate me They look for the 'signs' you 'belong' - signet ring with family crest on the pinky (not initials) and so on...and everyone else thinks I'm stuck up until they get to know me and guess this happens a bit wherever you fall in the spectrum. It's a bit like the famous (Python)? sketch 'I look down on him because...'.

I think Tiggy put it brilliantly, we do generally feel comfortable with our own kind whether we want to admit it or not.

Just to add from my experience being a 'toff' brings limited benefits in the working world these days (although some have said otherwise on this thread).

Ok, you might get a leg up and get the initial great job etc but generally if you don't pull your weight or have the mindset to do the job you'll be out on your ear in time. Sometimes it just takes people a rather surprising while to discover you're not doing any work!

People are not 'carried' anymore. Years ago I knew of one, let's just say, 'not very capable in his field guy'. Lovely guy, but he was completely carried by his friends in the industry who effectively did his work for him. Everyone made jokes about it but he got a 6 figure salary 20 years ago. Same chap just wouldn't be in the job today, it's far more of a meritocracy out there today than it's ever been I think. Good thing too.

Had to smile at your comment about Heat v. The FT Xenia. I once had a friend who was from a WC/lower middle class family, brought up in a respectable but modest three bed semi, very run of the mill, slightly downmarket town, no-one she knew went to university, most people were married with kids by their early twenties, and bought a little house round the corner from their mum. You get the picture.

She married a guy she met on holiday. (This was 1988) He was a WC boy from Basildon who had a job training as a trader in the city, and was quite understandably, extremely enthusiastic about his job, as the earning potential was great. But those jobs require a huge level of tenacity and commitment to succeed. He used to buy the FT every day, in order to keep up to speed with what he could expect to happen at work that week, market movements, trends, anticipated takeovers etc., etc.

After going on hols with them, and seeing him buy the FT every day, my friend's mother was absolutely appalled and full of contempt and loathing! She told me he was a jumped-up pretentious show-off, who thought that buying the FT would make him look important or upper class! In her eyes it was nothing more than a status accessory designed to make others feel inferior and to give himself some kind of social/intellectual kudos! It genuinely didn't occur to the woman that this poor guy couldn't DO his job without the FT! It was, to him, what a toolbag is to a carpenter, or scissors are to a hairdresser! But she couldn't see past her inverted snobbery and her class prejudice. To her, people who read the FT were Old Etonians in bowler hats. He definitely didn't 'knowing his place' !!!

So back to the point of the thread (though I'm liking all this meandering, and it is relavant in its way, but JH's researchers' eyes may be glazing over somewhat by now .

What can we do/change in schools to stop the depressing cycle of so many working class/disadvantaged children failing to achieve in education in spite of a reasonable level of intelligence?

Well, personally I think we need to be looking at closing the stable door before the horse has bolted, but having given up hope of any politician ever seeing the bloody obvious, a good start to achieving a more comprehensive mix in schools would be to overhaul the way OFTED reports are presented.

It may be fair leveller to take into consideration the number of free school meals when assessing how effective the school is in adding value, but it's pretty much the first thing middle class parents home in on when considering a school, and wondering about the calibre of its pupils. It is not pure snobbery that we don't want our children mixing with those on low imcomes, its a very real fear that too many children on low incomes will tip the balance of expectation and aspiration for the school as a whole, and set the bench mark for attainment very low . Of course that means all parents who care (not just MC ones) all avoid it like the plague, and it becomes a self fulfilling prophesy, that goes into special measures. There is no doubt that a HUGE factor in your child's self-expectation, is the expectations and attitudes of their peer group.

I've got mixed feelings about the grammar system. I don't think it's the answer to all our problems personally. It may lift a few very bright children out of the mire, but the system is still too easily dominated by parents who care enough to put in the effort on behalf of their child, with tutors, or vast amounts of home support etc. But I do think much more rigorous streaming should be re-introduced across the comprehensive system.

But importantly, whilst people from 'disadvantaged' backgrounds continue consistently to present with above average levels of low intelligence and behavioural problems, providing grammar schools achieves sod all to help change that pattern! Obviously genes play a part, and that can't be helped but the quality of a early environment is everything.....

Perhaps we should consider a system of subtle intelligence/IQ assessing, all through school, rather than rigid testing at 7 and 11, to find out which children are inherently highly intelligent, and good at problem solving, rather than just focusing on those who have a disciplined approach to learning and an ability to asborb information and regurgitiate it. They are both of value, but they are not the same thing. A child who comes from a background where the verbal communication is poor, and limited, is not going to do well in an 11 plus verbal comprehension test. They may be highly intelligent, but they can't know words they've never heard!

Also, we should recognise that IQ is not everything. There is also emotional and linguistic intelligence, which is, arguably, more valuable in the workplace. We should perhaps be re-evaluating what is intelligence, and how to spot it.

Perhaps we should consider a system of subtle intelligence/IQ assessing, all through school, rather than rigid testing at 7 and 11

This is what writer/educator Bill Claxton has been suggesting. He says that dips and spurts in performance are the rule rather than the exception and writes about the danger of 'labelling' for good and bad especially early on in a school career.

He is currently writing 'Different Kinds of Smart' which is about recognising 'different' kinds of intelligence just as you say. He talks about the purpose of school too and how the blueprint (Monastery v Factory - educating future leaders etc v production line workers) type model hasn't altered much since Victorian times.

Yes, it is much easier to move classes. I suspect women have often managed it through marriage if they were beautiful enough - just go back to stories like Cinderella but as now that's much harder to advance if you're poor than if you don't start poor.

I have five very different children. They are all of course middle class but how they will do in life will be determined by issues such as how hard they work, interests, inclination, political views, drive, testosterone levels, mental and physical health. Even my twins (non identical) are very different. In fact none of the children look like siblings. Even the hair colours at different (same parents for all 5 children). In other words genes play a role too.

The FT... ah interesting. When I started reading it in about 1985 I did it because I felt I needed to for work. I read it 365 days a year now (delivered daily to the house) and it's certainly not a showing off thing as mostly I read it over my bacon and eggs over breakfast alone because I like it and the subjects it covers are subjects I'm interested in.

My mother may well have been slightly middle class but she certainly moved up but I agree with the comment above that it is the children who really then move the class and certainly her grandchildren. People move down too. I remember one date with a very rich self made man whose grandfather had lost everything and he'd been brought up very poor and very working class but then did well. I did find the class differences between us mattered and he wasn't attractive but was it his strong regional accent, awful clothes and just all those vestiges of working class stuff you still have even if you're a highly paid footballer that put me off, in other words my class bias? On the other hand I've met successful men from poor backgrounds who seem to have moved class, where it doesn't matter and they have become the same as people like I am. It's a very interesting subtle thing sometimes.

I was talking to my daughter the other day and we were saying one reason we like to live where we do (very mixed area etc) is because it's more a meritocracy and you don't get the awful herding together of people who are the same each bolstering each other's views in this bit of London than you do in other areas. you can be different. There are no forces on you to conform. No one is watching you like they might in a small village and unlike a lot of the country side and indeed some awful snobby bits of London you don't have huge divides between rich and poor with no mixing.

I agree with the comments above that few people survive by nepotism these days which is good although with 3 student age children I can see how some children get that first leg up to an interview and others don't. I've never used any of that though so perhaps it's more rumoured than true.

On intelligence if we compared my twins, one is very self confident, answers all questions, talks to stranges happily, very outgoing. The questions will often be answered wrong. His twin will always know the answer and is very shy. It will be very interesting to see which of them does "best" because in career terms you need for many jobs a range of skills, not just knowledge of your area. Their big sister, the only child in work so far, is very outgoing and was aged 2 when she was interviewed for nursery school. That as much as her good A levels and degree etc helps her as does the natural advantage of long blonde hair too I suppose. Anyway all good fun and much better than UK circa 1880.

"I do think that class is not necessarily what keeps someone down in Britain today, though. What keeps someone down is poor parenting and a chaotic home life, and all its subsequent manifestations; lack of learned social skills, poor communication skills, lack of self-discipline and feelings of disaffection." Tiggy, you have hit the nail on the head here. School is pretty irrelevant except as a nuisance in the lives of some people. For a lot of others, it represents an opportunity. Sometimes all those people are together under one roof, and the result is unhappiness and a less than optimal learning environment for anyone. Schools are carrying far too much of the burden of changing lives with inadequate tools and resources at their disposal. Those who truly need help can't get everything they need in the school setting. Those who need and can really benefit from education can't receive it in a school where other children are disruptive and disaffected. Families that are stuck in bad catchment areas have been dealt a horrible hand.

Spot on to you too, math and doesn't that just sum up the whole horrible problem? Teachers cannot create well educated well rounded confident young people when they are already so damaged before they even arrive in reception class. The question should not be 'how can we give disadvantaged children better social mobility through education,' but rather 'how can we halt the depressing cycle of disadvantage?' The trouble is, I'm not sure any of the people in this government are willing to hear our thoughts on that!

I'll give mine anyway though - what the hell: We need radical social reform and a drastic no nonsense overhaul of the way the welfare state works. Now you can see the Tory politian peeping out!

I'd say free access to any school for anyone, with busses if necessary to take them there. I would say many schools would close due to very low enrollment if people could send their children where they really wanted to send them.

As a conservative (small c) I think there's no system that can possibly change human nature. I think everything boils down to the kind of home you're raised in -- schools can only hope to teach; not create personalities, just build on what's already there, or try to fight against what's (sadly) there. Trying to tackle cyclical disadvantage is the homework of the next Nobel Peace Prize winner... I'm a fan of a good, flexible safety net, though, in the form of social welfare (anyone who isn't should try life in the US....), and for sane and sensible policies that don't penalise people who seek to gain a qualification by removing their safety net.

I'd have no intention of removing anyone's safety net math, I'd just insist they get up on the bloody tightrope of life in the first place, and make a frigging effort to balance, not once, but several times, before they flop on their backs and announce it's all too hard! It's our very own national modern day tragedy/disgrace that the wonderful system created to help people support their families through times of redundancy, recession and ill-health has become a bloated, distorted caricature of itself, a victim of its own misguided generosity, so weighed down by the parasites guests it has invited on board, it can no longer stand up, and it's dragging the rest of the country down with it. But that really is another thread, for another day.

Actually, has anyone got a crash helmet and riot shield I can borrow? I do really believe all I just said, but I usually have more sense than to come out and say it! Must be pre-menstrual....

I suppose one of the main things I pay school fees for and work very hard to afford them, is to ensure the children are in classes without disruption. If there were a disruptive child as occasionally there is then the other parents who are paying so much will cause such an issue over it that the school has to ensure the learning of all the rest of the class who are paying so much money for that chargeable service get what they paid for. When the state provides something it's not the same dynamic, there is not so much power in the hands of the parent.

Also if you select only 1 in 7 or something very bright chidlren whose parents are making huge sacrifices to have the child in that school, many working second jobs, weekends etc then those children are less likely to be disruptive. Even so some teenagers particularly in all schools can be dreadful but I suspect in the very academically single sex selective schools it is easier to study in class without disruption. If everyone has a similar IQ too then the class can work to the same level. This is of course what grammar schools in the state sector often manage to get too.

So how do you achieve that in the state sector? Most comps set for subjects. You can exclude children who make a noise in class. You have send them to special centres/other schools. You can ensure the class is silent. you have require them to call the teacher Sir and stand up when they enter the room. You can make sure they wear the uniform properly.

I was reading I think in today's Times - Aaron abranovich I think saying you pay fees to get an advantage, to ensure your child benefits over others and he's probably right.