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.

[wastwinsetandpearls]

[TiggyR]

I do think that to an extent the WC are a tribe apart from the rest, but then again so is the underclass, lower-middle class, middle-middle, upper-middle and upper! No-one escapes!!! I'm sure in private unguarded moments you indulge in what might be considered (by your own standards) lazy stereotyping of toffs, bankers, (all of them are unscrupulous greedy fat-cats who need to be punished, naturally) and the haughty upper middle classes?

The fact is, the goalosts have shifted radically over the last fifty years as to who is now in which group, (certainly in the middle three categories), though in the very lowest and the very top nothing much changes, because they exist in a self-contained bubble, untroubled by the goings-on of the rest of us!. The qualifications (for want of a better word) for membership of each group have altered and class status of parents at birth has become much less important, thankfully, as we've probably hammered home enough in this thread!

It may make you uncomfortable to have the habits and similiarities of your people examined and dissected, like lab rats, but that's because as an intelligent person of working class origin you have the obligatory chip on your shoulder.

But seriously, we can't tackle or examine social mobility without thrashing out the differences, and the behaviour patterns of the classes, or socio-economic groups, whatever you want to call them. People who always do what they always do, always get what they always get!

[TiggyR]

P.S. It's great that your life is fabulous wastwinset Perhaps you should tell the government that Social Mobility as a concept is patronising tripe they needn't bother trying to achieve it, because you are all doing just fine without their misguided meddling. (Not being sarcastic - I mean it!)
But is your lifestyle really working class by today's standards, or are you speaking as someone who has already acheived a degree of SM, (higher education, home ownership, above average income) but cling proudly to your WC label/roots?

[Judy1234]

We're all different even within classes and races and religions and genders. Even my non identical twins are radically different. But there are some characteristics of class as well as other groups which mark people out as the Times article I linked to above shows.

We have much better social mobility than we used to. I think the Government is about ensuring poor children can get good jobs rather than worrying about whetehr they say pardon or not or say pudding or sweet or whatever. They'd see Prescott as a success even though he's fat, unfaithful, has mental health issues and that dreadful accent and poor education. He has achieved social mobility. He hasn't changed classes really but he's got somewhere further than working on a ship in a lowly capacity. That's all they are after, equality of opportunity.

You don't get that by letting very thick children who were badly educated take places from bright children at university at the age of 18. It's too late then.

[TiggyR]

You are absolutely right Xenia, and you have just echoed, in essence, what twinset was saying. But it still comes back to that question 'what is social mobility anyway?' Whether we like it or not educational and financial success enables people to move class, (even unintentionally) in terms of how the government defines them. People who are accused of colonising good schools because they happen to be able to afford to live in a pleasant area, are always defined as MC! Never do we hear the phrase 'good schools are being colonised by intelligent aspirational or affluent working class families' do we?! Though there are millions of people who are just that. By government definitions John Prescott would be considered middle class today, though I'm sure he shudders at the label, he's rightly proud of what he has achieved. Of course he can no longer be considered working class in the true sense, though I'm sure he still clings will pride to that label. It just goes to show that even people who claim to despise the class system, with their emphatic denial of having become middle class, still resolutely calling themselves WC in spite of the fact that they are a university lecturer, or a teacher or successful businessman, just goes to show that they are as wedded to the idea of class as anyone! I really don't know how we make the move from defining people by class rather than by educational/financial success, or the ultimate utopia - how we stop defining one another at all. I'm not sure it's ever possible unless we all move to communist Korea, and we all know how nice that would be.

[mathanxiety]

You could move to any other country and realise what claptrap it all is; going to another highly stratified society like North Korea wouldn't be half as revealing as a trip to Ireland or Iceland or the US.

[Judy1234]

If we stopped defining people we'd die out. We maintain our position on the planet and exist because of survival of the fittest etc. I suppose you pick the country with the gap between rich and poor that you feel suits you. Go to Finlnd and pay 60% tax etc.

The gap between rich and poor in money terms mnakes life more fun as we can be winners but only if others lose. Once you're all on the same wage in the same clothes it's as dull as ditchwater with no incentives for anything.

[wastwinsetandpearls]

I do sometimes feel patronised by talk of social mobility , I didn't need to move class to be successful and contented. I just needed to be able to access the same opportunities as everyone else of my ability.

Class is very difficult to pin down but I have been the same person with the same values when I have had a six figure family income, when I have been homeless and now as a teacher in a management position.

The only time I think my class has possibly held me back is when I turned down my Oxford place because I felt out of place. Since then, mainly due to the fact I am an obstinate cow nothing has held me back , even serious illness and some rather daft life choices,

It does irk me when the moment you succeed or even have aspirations beyond scrubbing your step you become middle class. I am incredibly proud of my good working class roots. I am proud that my grandFather refused to buy his council house as he did not want to fiddle future generations of hard working ordinary people out of a home. I am proud thar my mum was brave enought to endure bullying in the workplace to be a union rep.

[wastwinsetandpearls]

Sorry am on my o
I phone so stopped mid post.

I also feel that as a teacher it is important to wear my working class badge with pride. When I was at school all my teachers seemed so different from me, if it were not for my grandfather who educated himself in later life I would not have known a single person like me who was educated and had a career rather than a job.

For most of my career I have deliberately worked in very "working class" schools.

I have now, much to my inner shame sold out and now work in a cushy very outwardly "middle class" school.

[ellokitty]

Unfortunately, though Twinset - you don't define what class you are. Sociologists do that. Although, you may feel working class - by almost all definitions of class, you would objectively be defined as Middle class. I too have working class backgrounds - I grew up on / near a council estate, as did my mother before me. However, I am now a teacher and recognise that I am no longer working class, although tbh, I don't think of myself in terms of class - I'm just me, however you want to categorise me!

However, I think the crunch test would be, if you moved to a completely unknown working class area - would you be seen by them as 'one of them'. I know I wouldn't. I read different papers, I hold different views and so on. I can see that my life / outlook / aspirations have changed every week when I go back to visit my nan in her council estate home.

[wastwinsetandpearls]

I am also very much influenced by the fact that my mother spent most of her life wanting to be middle class. She was never content always trying to be something she wasn't. She does shudder at the thought of me calling mysf working class

[Judy1234]

People decide your class though on different grounds so some people might say you're working class and others not. Accent has a bit to do with it too. I'm fairly middle class, went to a private school etc. It doesn't really matter too much You can earn a fortune and still be as common as muck with dreadful tastes and accent but that doesn't mean you lose out except with snobbish people who think their worth is better than yours because they say aitch not haitch or whatever and that says more about them than you. On the other hand for some jobs your accent does matter and people will categorise you by your clothes, hair etc. As long as people know the rules and what matters to some people then they can adapt or not accordingly.

My mother who did move class and who taught classes of 40 in rough schools in the NE in the 1940s always thought she owed it to the children to make sure they knew what was correct grammar etc, not to let them lie in a fool's paradise assuming that their own way of speaking was always going to be regarded as just as good as others. Obviously grammar and accent are different things too of course just to complicate it.

[mathanxiety]

If there are no incentives for anything, why haven't the Finns, etc. died out? Why is Finland such a prosperous place? Why do the Finns even bother getting up in the morning? Does a sense of personal fulfillment outside of salary or material things or jockeying for place as in Britain count for anything?

I have to say I don't understand Xenia's whack-a-mole theory of society, with the ups and corresponding downs. What's available, even in material terms, has no limits. In spiritual terms, in terms of personal fulfillment outside of things material, that goes without saying.

Being Irish complicates my view of Britain to some extent, or maybe it simplifies it. There are Britons who would never think of me as anything but 'Irish' and whatever that connotes to them. There are people who would never be able to 'place' me, so I would be very confusing to them, because class is their overriding concern. (And I pronounce it Haitch ) I think when you travel, and especially when you live abroad, you get an entirely different perspective.

[TiggyR]

It does irk me that the moment you have aspirations beyong scrubbing your step you become middle class...'

I love that line.

What is very telling about this thread is that almost everyone who has bothered to contribute is, by today's standards, middle class, but with the exception of a small handful of us, almost all of us appear to have come from working class roots on at least one side of our family within the last two or three generations.

I think the reason people like wastwinset still define themselves as working class even though they are clearly not is that it's a way of saying proudly 'I achieved my status all by myself, and from the very bottom. It wasn't born halfway up the ladder, like you, or near the top like you, and no-one smoothed the path for me. I had a longer, harder climb than you, with heavier baggage, but here I am, nonetheless. That make me more than equal'

It seems it's very important to you that people know that. (not a criticism, honestly - just an observation.)

But you are proof that SM happens by itself for people with intelligence and drive. I'm sure there were few well-meaning government initiatives in place to help wastwinset on her way. But to turn down a place at Oxford because you felt you wouldn't fit in?
You just contributed to maintaining the status quo! Shame on you!

If you were a young person applying to uni now (not sure how old you were, but let's assume that was 20 years ago) would you still aspire to an Oxbridge place, and would you would feel perfectly comfortable taking it? I'm curious to know whether the landscape has changed in that respect. It certainly should have, with the amount of time and money spent on manipulation of the admissions criteria to accept more state school applicants.

Also, you say you were always a bit embarrassed by the fact that your mother always wanted to be MC and tried to be something she wasn't. Surely she was whatever she wanted to be? Why should she continue fit neatly into her status pigeonhole just because she was born into it? Are you suggesting she should have known her place? Not had high-falutin' ideas above her station? Perhaps her lofty (social) aspirations were what enabled you to be the WC child who applied to Oxford. Had your mother not had MC aspirations she may have unwittingly held you back through a sense of inverted snobbery.

As a teacher, if you had a socially disadvantaged pupil who suddenly took to reading the broadsheets in his lunch break, and trying hard to speak on in standard English, and self-correcting his grammar, to 'improve' himself, would you tell him he was wrong to try?

[TiggyR]

Sorry, that should be 'try to speak only in standard English!'

wasteinset I'm interested in knowing more about your mum 'trying' to be middle class. How did that manifest itself in your eyes? You say she was a union rep - that doesn't sound much of a MC calling to me! What does someone do to try to be middle class, as opposed to being a working class person who has aspires to rather more than most people around them?

[TiggyR]

God, the more typos I try to correct, the more I make.

[wastwinsetandpearls]

TiggyR

No because I was that disadvantaged pupil who started reading a broadsheet, I was well spoken with a northern accent and would and still do self correct my grammer. I never did that to change class though!

ellokitty

Aftert I left my husband I had to move back to my working class town. I was too mortified by what had happened to catch up with any old friends. So I had to start again. I was accepted as just a member of the community albeit with a few expensive clothes and a degree.

TiggyR

Well obviously I disagree about the clearly you are not. I guess there may be an element of that. Although I don't think I have achieved that much tbh but nothing has been given to me everything has and probably always will be a battle. The same for my dp which is the thing that binds us together. I do think it is important that you remind young people that your family circumctances need not hold you back and that obstacles are there to be overcome.

I probably would take the uni place now, it does hang over me as the one thing that I wanted to achieve that I didn't. Having said that I chose my universty place because there were certain academics that I wanted to learn from.

My mum would have been whatever she wanted to be if she did the things she claimed she did. She claimed to read two broadsheets every day and do the crosswords at great speed. The only time she ever read a paper was if I left one lying around and then she would only manage a few minutes. Her motivation would be that this is the kind of thing m/c people do. She tried to make friends with people who gave her status rather than people she genuinely liked. SHe made up holidays, food that she ate. She would put on the most ridiculous airs anbd graces. She has told me a number of times that she was eternally shamed by her working class status which in private she would admit.

If only she was the person who enabled me to go to university and get a career. The exact opposite was true. She was however furious that I did not take my Oxford place, I suspect part of me didn't take it to wind her up. Teenagers can be daft and stubborn.

[wastwinsetandpearls]

I am sure Karl Marx described the working class as those that have to sell their labor for wages and do not own the means of production.

Admittedly as a teacher I do not labor as such but I have to work for my wages and do not own anything other than a second hand car. I don't own any land. Tbh I would be in trouble if I relied on physical labour to bring in a wage as those jobs are in decline. I was for much of last year working as a cleaner to make ends meat due to the fact that I had run up debt. Another working class trait I don't do deferred gratfication. As a single mother I spent years relying on welfare benefits.

I love a working mans club and would still drink in one if I didn't live in Tory heartland. I do love talent shows which are in essence entertainment from such clubs put on TV.

Anyway I have an essay I should be writing.

[ellokitty]

No twinset, Karl Marx talked about the Proletariat and the Bourgeoise. This is most definitely not the same as the class system and you should not confuse the two.

The Proletariat are the workers of production, and that includes all the people who 'work the machine' - so would include our concept of middle class and working class together. The Bourgeoisie are the owners of production - but that could also be middle class and upper class, but could even include some working class people (if they owned small businesses etc).

Just because you are Proletariat, that does not make you working class. Just like a Solicitor, doctor, dentist etc are still classed as Proletariat, but I do not know of (m)any defintions of class that would classify them as working. Aren't they mostly classified as Upper Middle, as opposed to you as a teacher, who would be classified as Lower middle?

[wastwinsetandpearls]

I know I should have listened harder in a level sociology. So the fact that I am clearly a bit thick means I now must qualify as working class.

Seriously though you would only have to be in my company for a few minutes to know I am not middle class. The same for both if my sisters as well.

[ellokitty]

Sorry, that sounds a bit teachery . Ahem, back to marking exam papers for me!

[wastwinsetandpearls]

I have not even got my marking out of the car yet, I can't face it.

Got to write my own essay first before I mark theirs.

[EducationDocTeam]

We've just finished our first block of filming for the programme and are now planning the second. Thank you to everyone who talk part in the online forum, it was a great springboard from which to start the journey and it has been very useful in helping to shape our thinking about the film. We are still looking for contributors for the programme and we wondered whether anyone would be available to have a chat with John in person? We would be keen to talk with parents who have found a way through the parental choice system, by making big changes in their own lives. As a parent John appreciates the pressure that many are under, although he admits himself that he has the finances to try and address some of these issues; but John would like to find out more about some of the very real pressures that the system has places upon you and your family - for example, school fees you can't really afford, moving house, renting flats, attending church etc..? Are these pressures now just part for the course?

[TiggyR]

Well, that killed the thread, didn't it! We've all gone strangely quiet at the thought of actually meeting JH and stringing an intelligent sentence together.

Seriously though, this thread was colonised by only half a dozen people or so in the end and perhaps we don't feel we have a relevant/interesting enough story to tell.

I suggest you should start a new thread with your request in the title, or ask MNHQ to make an announcement for you. Most people who stopped contributing to this discussion after one or two comments will not be getting this flagged up on their
'I'm on' thread list any more. Hope you get some interest!

[jackstarbright]

Ooh Tiggy. I just clicked on thinking you'd posted to volunteer yourself .

Edudoc - Tiggy's advice is good!!