Working class children need to try to be more middle class to get on!

[rollonthesummer]

www.telegraph.co.uk/education/10671048/Working-class-children-must-learn-to-be-middle-class-to-get-on-in-life-government-advisor-says.html

MN's are being far too reasonable. Come on, most of the best chefs are from working class backgrounds. This is Gastrogate and he should go. If he'd had made the same comments about black people he would be already gone.

I would just like to balance the argument slightly by saying that when I went to an RG uni in 2007, my "posh" accent was made fun of a lot more than anyone elses. I think both ends of the spectrum will have the mick taken out of them tbh, just because it's out of the ordinary for the majority of people. I don't necessarily think it's about snobbery.

The problem for me is that it might be OK for someone to express these views personally but as a public servant and a minister it feels like he is legitimising them, almost like they should be an accepted part of peoples' education. This is straying well beyond his brief and just isn't on. What if he'd had said the best thing for working class kids to do is to leave Britain because there people will be able to understand their accents and won't take offence at the fact they don't go to restaurants that often. It's just so silly, but at the same time a quite dodgy.

If he were talking about castes in India, he would be gone, so I can't understand why we tolerate it here. It's like we're living in the land that time forgot.

If he'd had made the same comments about black people he would be already gone

The problem for me is that it might be OK for someone to express these views personally but as a public servant and a minister it feels like he is legitimising them

I agree with both these comments. It is sad, but true, that you won't be 'going places' with an African accent. The successful black people (in this country) that I know all have RP accents and probably most went to private school. But you just WOULDN'T say it. I think it is worrying that it is deemed ok to say this about WC/ MC.

Maybe the best response is to say that it's not class which matters. What matters is to concentrate on what you do best, irrespective of which class you come from.

Hundreds of years of cultural conditioning have meant that we equate certain accents with lower levels of education.
It may not be correct or fair but it isn't going anywhere soon so it probably is to childrens benefit if they quickly realise what they need to do to 'fit in'

I came from a fairly tough area and adapted my accent very early on. When I went to uni, very few people had my original accent and those that did were curiosities. However, this wasn't just a regional accent, more of a Gallagher brothers/Oasis type accent !

I don't feel his views are entirely representative of the prospects people from working class backgrounds can expect. Many employers can't afford the luxury of Michael Gove's views because it they need skilled staff for a successful business they have to be much more economic in their approach.

I understand why people think that accent is so important, but in my experience scientific and technical skills are often more important and these often don't come wrapped up in RP.

Michael gove was a Thatcherite when young; and thinks he is going to be next tory leader. He is a poor advert for the middle/upper classes

I am a bit posher than my parents/but still like working class roots

I'm involved in the widening access to Oxbridge scheme so come into contact with plenty of WC young people with academic ability. What holds them back is a slippery mix which does include lack of soft skills like articulation. But I wouldn't say its the main issue by far.

I think that Michael Gove is closer to being working class than many mumsnetters. He was adopted into a working class family in Edinburgh. He intially went to a state school, but got a scholarship to a private school.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Gove]]

I suppose its quite likely that he has experienced social exclusion as a working class boy on a scholarship. He has climbed the greasy pole and prehaps understands the pitfalls.

really I think it's interesting. When that happens (WC kid made good) you can get a bit evangelical. Guilty as charged in Casa Wordfactory. And whilst that's not a bad thing you do have to keep reminding yourself that not everyone can or indeed wants to do it.

That's a good point Really - I think many people seem to just assume that anyone in favour with David Cameron must be an Old Etonian with generations of privilege behind him.

Sometimes working class tories can be to the right of atilla the hun. I wonder what kind of childhood Michael Gove had. I suppose he may have experiened a lot of prejudice and low expectations.

Even if I don't agree with a lot of his ideas I do admire him.

Just goes to prove the point really, that getting the odd WC person into top roles doesn't change anything, if they have got there by changing themselves.

You see I look at William Hague and how the media (and others) treated him as leader of the tories and think his accent had quite a lot to do with it...
He doesn't come from a working class background but he did go to a comprehensive school (it was called 'grammar' but was a comprehensive ) not Eton. He did go to Oxford though ...
Just had a nosy at lots of politicians backgrounds - not many from the main 3 parties with a working class background....lots of Oxford & Cambridge graduates though
(makes me a bit sad - surely the whole point of the labour party was it was born of the working class...they really are all career politicians now )

me too unlucky - I just can't let the Labour Party go though and I regularly have a little rant about it to my long-suffering family. I need to let it go! If I meditate on Harriet Harman and Ed Balls it should be easy enough to move on..

Really - that Wikipedia entry contradicts what you are saying. He was adopted into an Aberdeen family where the father ran a fish processing plan and his mother was a lab assistant. Whereas nowhere near the level of wealth Osborne and Cameron experienced, this is not the same as growing up on a sink estate and I imagine Goves background meant that he was always destined for 3rd level education

makes me a bit sad - surely the whole point of the labour party was it was born of the working class...they really are all career politicians now

That's just how I feel. I don't know who to vote for now.

mindosa Most working class people work. I think that the lines between lower middle class and upper working class are very blured. I don't think that background of having your dad running the fish plant and your mum being a lab assistant is the height of wealth.

"his is not the same as growing up on a sink estate and I imagine Goves background meant that he was always destined for 3rd level education"

What is a sink estate? There is a huge difference between the under class which scronges off benefits and people who work for a modest living.

What I find amusing is that his adoptive parents are avid labour supporters. Prehaps they are wondering what they did wrong, the fact that their adoptive son has grown up to be a sucessful top tory politican.

If someone came up to me in real life and said you're not going to get one if you don't start eating out more, I'd wet myself.

At best he's legitimising social prejudice and at worst he's promoting it. He shouldn't be allowed to get away with it. Plenty of people have resigned for predjudice based on gender, disability, race, etc. Why should social prejudice be any different. He's identified a group. I don't care whether he's part of it or not. He should be off.

ReallyTired I really resent the whole idea of an underclass. Yes, you're always going to get individuals who choose not to work and play the system but I think it's unfair to label a whole 'class' of people like that. Just serves to turn the poor against the poor and detract from the real factors behind inequality and poverty.

Also, most people on benefits are working for a modest living...

The underclass is about so much more than people who 'choose' to play the system though.

Much better be an MP and fiddle one's expenses; far more respectable.

There is nothing wrong with regional accents, but everything wrong with lazy speech where children fail to pronounce their vowels property.

Define "properly"? Surely different accents will pronounce vowels differently? If someone from up north says "bath" and a southerner says "barth", no one tells the northerner that they are "wrong" (in this day in age, unless they are a dick.)

I am from London. I have a regional accent that reflects the area that I grew up in. It is a working class area. I am young. I can sometimes be caught saying "nah" instead of "no" if in free flowing conversation. Am I ashamed? No. Nah. It's my accent. Is my accent often the source of ridicule from the middle and upper classes? Of course. They like control.

Yes Chocolate I thought long and hard about the "ugly vowels" mentioned earlier!