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

[usualsuspect33]

I have no desire to be MC.

I'm not ashamed to be WC , I don''t aspire to be MC.

[donttrythisathome]

An example.
My law professor in uni makes nasty jokes about WC/single mothers.
Cue sniggers from well off students(I.e. everyone but me).
A fellow student drawls " do we have to assume the Wc can bring their children up properly"?
Cue more guffawing.

I envisage a world where education makes this unthinkable or at least social suicide.
And discrimination laws which would have seen law prof disciplined or fired from post, and student suspended.

[Philoslothy]

I don't want to be middle class. When middle class people ask me why they accuse me of jealousy, prejudice or denying my desires. Howwvee nobody questions why middle class people don't want to be middle class.

[PeterBrant]

@custardo

I think when the organisation I work for talks about social mobility we mean economically middle-class: getting fairer access to managerial and professional jobs that tend to pay far more and have more influence on how society develops (as I'm sure you know, at the moment kids from working-class backgrounds have a far lower chance of accessing these jobs).

Personally I'm completely with you that moving into a better-paying job should not require you to have to change who you are or to cut off your social roots

[PeterBrant]

@donttrythisathome

Completely get that and agree with you that if the attitudes you talk about that are held by some about the working-class (though in my experience a minority) the world would be a far better place and the goals of the organisation so work for to improve social mobility and reduce child poverty would be easier to achieve.

Such cultural change is a difficult thing to achieve though!

[usualsuspect33]

They have a lower chance of getting those jobs, because the MC think we are a bit thick.

Because they want those jobs for themselves.

[PeterBrant]

Missing words there - should read:

@donttrythisathome

Completely get that and agree with you that if the attitudes you talk about that are held by some about the working-class (though in my experience a minority) could be changed the world would be a far better place and the goals of the organisation so work for to improve social mobility and reduce child poverty would be easier to achieve.

Such cultural change is a difficult thing to achieve though...

[IfNotNowThenWhen]

But Peter, a lot of your premise does rest on the idea that WC youth should aspire to the cultural norms of the middles classes, and that is assuming that a) certain jobs are by nature "middle class" and that someone from a less monied background would struggle to "fit in".
I question why anyone should need to fit in. If diversity is to truly exist, then there should be an influx pf people who aren't white, public school educated and all go skiing at the same place.
Only then can we have real social mobility.
I remember when my sister got her first job as a trainee solicitor in a large city firm, and was asked "where do you ski". To which she replied "Sheffield"
She went on to become a very successful lawyer, not because she " fitted" but maybe because she didn't. Intelligence and talent propelled her thru her career, but also a sense of NOT being another cookie cutter, private school girl. She has a different world view to most of her peers, and that has been an advantage, often.

"My blog does not advocate any solutions at all - the suggestions you make in the last paragraph about how they might be tackled are good ones."

Good, so let us go from there. Social mobility has stalled since my parents were able, in the Seventies, to attend university in their 20's and 30's. The real problem is that education is increasingly reserved for the rich.
Good, local primary schools are being closed at a time when we need more of them.
University fees deter working class kids from bothering.
Youth clubs and sports clubs which fostered the development of young minds and spirits are having to close. These are economic issues, not class ones. Do something about these, and the rest will follow.

[motown3000]

I am miffed as to where Working Class, Becomes middle Class and vice Versa. I have posted it is a blur, because today they merge in to each other both culturally and economically.

Are Wayne Rooney's Children Middle Class?
If so, it shows Class is nothing more than access to Material or better quality products. Will Kai Rooney become Upper Middle Class if he goes to one of these schools: Winchester/Harrow Eton. It is quite possible with access to the best tutors and Prep Schools that he will go to one of the three schools.

The point being apart from Money what other things distinguish the class system. Wayne Rooney's kids will learn very quickly "How To behave" People always do when surrounded with the best money can buy.

[PeterBrant]

@ifnotnownotwhen

I don't think it does - it's more about ability to negotiate that world successfully and being self-confident enough to be comfortable in such surroundings. Like it sounds like your sister was.

The organisation I work for (I'm a civil servant) advises the Government on these issues rather than setting Government policy (I don't work for Ministers). I wrote the blog to draw attention to issues the Commission is interested in and to get thoughts about how to tackle them from a wider set of people than just those in the Whitehall bubble (mostly from middle-class professional backgrounds!)

[motown3000]

If Not. If 35% of kids are going to University today as opposed to less than 15% 20- 30 years ago.
"How can Education be increasingly reserved for the rich"

[IfNotNowThenWhen]

"If Not. If 35% of kids are going to University today as opposed to less than 15% 20- 30 years ago.
"How can Education be increasingly reserved for the rich""

Seriously??
OK
Firstly, state schools are not meeting the demands of population. Small , local schools are being/have been closed, making where you live so very important. If you afford to move/live near the shrinking number of good schools, you win. If you live in a poor area-tough. You lose the good school lottery. This has never been the case as much as it is now.

Secondly, University fees in their current incarnation are relatively new. You may still attend University as a person from a poor family, but it won't be to read classics and art history, will it? If the loans company are going to be into you for 30k, better do business studies, right? Is that an education?
The element of just being bright, and having ideas will vanish.
My dad came from a very WC background, and ended up studying History and English Literature at a RG uni. He had 2 kids at the time, and got a grant. This could never happen today.

Thirdly, sure, more young people are students than 30 years ago, They are also, in the main (and you will just have to trust that I know this for a fact) from fairly well off backgrounds. Universities are making a conscious effort to recruit from under privileged backgrounds, but it's not helping much , partly due to the school postcode lottery, and partly because young people are increasingly scared to take on the debts required (which of course they would not have to do if their parents can pay the fees upfront).

[morethanpotatoprints]

I don't care what class a person comes from and have brought our dc up to be able to talk to anybody irrespective of wealth or background.
They are fortunate enough to have had the opportunity to do this without an expensive education.
This is what our children need not a snobbery/inverted snobbery attitude. Because whilst there are those MC people who look down on working class people there are working class people who presume that MC people will look down on them.

[IfNotNowThenWhen]

"it's more about ability to negotiate that world successfully and being self-confident enough to be comfortable in such surroundings. Like it sounds like your sister was."

Oh, and RE this.^^ When my dsis arrived at her Oxbridge type Uni, she reported home that everyone on her course thought she must be a thick slag, due to where she came from.
So, yes, she had fortitude, and still negotiates "that world" but I would not say she was comfortable with such attitudes. In fact, I would say that "that world" is what needs to change, not the young working class person entering it.

[usualsuspect33]

Yes, I would say that too.

You can teach them to 'play the game'

But I would rather they laughed at 'the game'

Does that make me an inverted snob, probably.

[morethanpotatoprints]

usual

I know what you mean, but surely this could narrow your dcs opportunities.
I'm saying just be yourself, nice and you will fit in with genuine folk.
I say fuck the rest whatever their class.
I have had to converse with UC people before and found the ones I met to be very nice and ordinary. They wouldn't exactly have spoken to me about their latest stocks and shares but it wasn't the occasion for such conversation. The common ground we had, their children we seemed to manage fine and I found a genuine respect from them tbh.

[usualsuspect33]

I don't disrespect anyone.

I just don't think anyone is better than me.

That's what I taught my DCs.

[JessePinkmansMom]

They have a lower chance of getting those jobs, because the MC think we are a bit thick.

Because they want those jobs for themselves.

But that is going to happen, isn't it, when so many WC people keep doing the very things that perpetuate that impression.

You could turn that on its head and say:

'the MC keep perpetuating the myth that they are cleverer and more capable by getting better qualifications than their WC counterparts'

or: 'The MC have a better chance of getting all the best jobs because the WC think they are all really clever and posh which is what those jobs require, so they don't bother trying to compete.'

Or certain elements of the WC could just accept that certain jobs require you to demonstrate, through your qualifications and personal presentation and your communication skills that you can compete and are no less capable of being taken seriously in a business environment than the next person.

If you keep on doing what you keep on doing, you keep on getting what you keep on getting. And that works all ways.

[PeterBrant]

@ifnotnownotwhen

Agree - when I say "comfortable" I more mean not taking any snobbery encountered to heart and not falling for the false idea that you are inferior to highly advantaged privately educated middle-class peers or that you don't belong at university.

I think a bit of both required personally - helping working-class children negotiate that world while at the same time also trying to change it

[donttrythisathome]

Peter Brand

"...the attitudes you talk about that are held by some about the working class (though in my experience a minority)..."

Perhaps I misunderstand, but I am puzzled by the above.

What attitudes do you think most MC/UC people hold about the WC then? And if, as you say you have experienced, these attitudes are not discriminatory, then what barriers do exist for WC people?

If you do not, as many of us do, think discrimination against the WC is endemic and widespread, then there seems to be a contradiction at the heart of your role. For if WC were not seen as "less than" and "unsuitable for MC roles" then they would have no need to adapt surely?

Re your reply to Ifnotnowthen when about her sister
"...negotiate the world successfully....comfortable in such surroundings..."

I know that at present this is what WC have to do. But in a free and fair society they should not have to. There are laws so that Women and "ethnic minorities" are not, in theory at least, expected to negotiate sexist and racist environments, or expected to be comfortable in a world which keeps them down. Why are people from the WC expected to?

Is your role to advise on positive change, or in fact to advise on the shoring up the status quo while making some token and superficial changes?

[donttrythisathome]

Morethanpotatoprints

I've always been tried to be myself and nice to people. I hope to continue to do so.

It has totally held me back in my chosen profession- the law.

It would have been nice to know the consequences when I was young.

Also of course UC people can be nice. Though doesn't alter the fact that all us serfs below them work to bolster their position. And they wouldn't know anything about their stocks and shares. How vulgar- that is for their MC class serfs-financial advisors etc- to look after. Zach Goldsmith, politician and one of our UC masters, claimed to not even know he held money in tax avoidant offshore schemes. Course not, he was too busy ordering us around while his servants looked aft his affairs.

[BitOfBubbly]

I was at a school in a v. Middle class area the other day observing a lesson. It was an A-level class and the (posh) teacher was discussing a poem with them. He said "That's not really a compliment, is it? It's like saying 'you would make a really good bin man'" The MC kids all sniggered. I felt like saying "My partner's a bin man, is there something wrong with that?" (He's not, but what would it matter?) I bottled it though.

MC teachers teaching MC children to laugh at people's professions. Yes, let's all aspire to be like them.

[Philoslothy]

Or certain elements of the WC could just accept that certain jobs require you to demonstrate, through your qualifications and personal presentation and your communication skills that you can compete and are no less capable of being taken seriously in a business environment than the next person.

This applies to such a tiny minority of working class people that it is interesting that you mentioned it. I do take qualifications seriously, I just don't want to pay for education ( because to creates inequality ) and I want to send my children to the local school rather than using my sharp elbows to push somebody else's child out of their local school so that mine can go there. My personal presentation is neat, but perhaps not to your taste, is that prevents you from employing me - I suggest you have the problem not me. I can communicate clearly, I communicate for a living.

[donttrythisathome]

Philoslothy

Ditto. I am well dressed, articulate, polite. Even well read and well informed.
Yet I am seen as an outsider and looked down on. And no I don't imagine this. In fact I denied and ignored it for years.

Why is this?

I think the answer to that question might lead to a solution.

[funnyossity]

BitofBubbly thats quite interesting to me as I've had a few "respect the binmen" conversations with my older child! He is growing up with a lot of privilege and his attitudes, picked up from school, have saddened me.

There is an article by Howard Jacobson in The Independent on this that I'm planning to read today.