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

Ah, more regional accent bashing by people too thick to understand the relationship between accent, dialect, and learning to spell. Always a pleasant sight.

But that's the problem, they are common and they're part of a culture of looking down on those who don't encompass middle class values. Yes you can challenge those remarks but more often than not your re

*reply will be laughed off.

My dad was in thd forces so there was lots of entertaining, so at a party I would have to pass round food or drinks and chat on equal terms to all the people there. I'm convinced that this kind of social interaction build your confidence and your social dexterity and I'm not if everyone background would be as adept socially.

I am not of course saying a seventies sherry party is the sine qua non of social mobility but it helped !

It is about appropriate behaviour and the ability to code switch. You use different vocabulary and behaviour depending on the situation: work, mates, family, etc.

To some extent, people do this all the time, it is a life skill. Being stuck in class categories and refusing to code switch only means that you refuse to use the appropriate code for a certain situation. Which marks you as uneducated.

My children are in primary school and well aware that different codes exist, and we teach them to use the appropriate one. We're not depriving them of their identity, we are opening up a world of possibilities for them.

This might mark me as a mc cunt, but I don't care, as I am a forriner and totally above the stupid class system anyway, innit.

Also, to the poster who said it was the norm for people to go to uni these days, my DD had to pay £450 within 48 hours to secure her accommodation in uni halls. She scraped it together with my help but not everyone could manage to. She's on a full maintenance grant as we earn next to nothing and and she is working herself, yet is still worrying about money for next year. Not always as 'accessible to all' as it first appears...

Bollocks is it about code switching.

If it were, how come some people never need to 'code switch' out of their natural accent, but others do?

It's about class and stereotyping.

I sincerely doubt that your broadest Yorkshire-speaking person (to take an example) speaks in an undifferentiated register to every person she or he meets. They'll code-switch just the same as anyone else. But some people are too lazy or ignorant to pay attention, and just hear 'regional accent: must patronize now'.

MrsDeVere I think I might have misunderstood your post, I'm sorry. The only part of what you just said that I disagree with is that it's not difficult to have ambition for your children. For some families, it just doesn't enter the equation. The rest, I am completely with you.

Yes if it is about code switching, do those from middle class backgrounds code switch when they talk to poor people? Do they start talking in slang and a poor "person's accent" so that they are understood and fdit in?

And can you see just how ridiculously this would be viewed if someone did this?

YY, exactly, grennie.

Grennie Of course they do not! The middle and upper classes are what the working class are aspiring to be

I encourage my children to move abroad. Regional accents are an issue in Britain. I was laughed because of my accent at when I spoke up in a lecture hall in week 1 at University (not even a Red Brick but full of rude middle-class kids) - very odd!

Well my h insists on calling a taxi driver "drives". Which DRIVES

ME

NUTS

MrsDeVere I've reread and I definitely got the wrong end of the stick, sorry!!
I think having ambition is difficult when you've been brought up in a society that tells you you're not good enough to want it. Too many kids sell themselves short because they listen to classist rubbish

I just think that if moderating an accent, exhibiting certain social skills is what it takes to get ambitious wc kids up the ladder then so be it. MC parents do it with their children all the time through activities, schooling, networking.

I switch between the way I talk to friends and how I speak at work/on the phone. It's horses for courses.

It's such a loss, though.

People did this with Welsh and Scots gaelic, and then spent millions trying to claw them back from the brink when they belatedly realized that losing language for the sake of it might be a waste. I'm sure it's not identical with accents but I don't think it's an invalid comparison.

Is your DH Bristolian LordPalmerston? Cheers Drive, love it!

I'm so grateful to this thread. I have never been able to put my finger on why I feel different/stick out like a sore thumb and now I know it's the soft skills I lack.

Like someone said upthread, I am happy to reject these ideals but when you don't even realise what it is you can't reject it.

I have never felt so conspicuous as I have since having DC and going to baby/toddler groups. It is very MC where I live but I obviously don't make the grade.

I am the first generation in my family to get a degree and have a professional job but despite that I still feel clueless about a lot of things. I am constantly saying to my DP "but I didn't even know that job existed" when I see the rich couples on Location, Location, Location!

A lot of my peers went to uni and did really creative and different degrees. I don't understand how they even knew about them when we all got the same education - but obviously they got a lot of their education from home.

I don't want my DC to feel 'less than' anyone but I can already see the distinctions being made when we are at groups and I feel bad because it is obviously my accent/appearance/mannerisms that is/are causing this.

When people on this thread are talking about eating properly what do they mean? I've always assumed that I do eat properly but are there some secret things I am missing?

My DP is totally opposed to any class distinctions and thinks I'm putting myself down when I talk about the stuff on this thread, but it IS around us.

It's not a facade to moderate how you speak and behave in different contexts.

I'm a big fat northerner who drops my 'the' with the best of them...but not when I'm in court addressing the judge, or giving a lecture at university.

I still have my accent though.

DH is the same in the city. Just moderates. Nothing fake about it at all.

'We could make a teeny weeny start by getting rid of private schools/academies/free schools and having the same schools with the same curriculum, academic and social and extra-curricular opportunities for all. That would make a HUGE difference'

shall we get rid of the grammer schools aswell? Will that make a huge difference?

And what would all the parents of the grammer school kids do then?

Put them in the comprehensives?

Yeah you know I am from a WC background that had plenty of ambition for me, from a household full of books and interest in politics. Sure I made it into the professions. Though first employer was WC done good-no-one else willing to take me on. I was led to believe I could do anything and thrive just because I was academically able.

Nope, not so.

Problem is I hadn't a clue how to thrive- the soft skills I bang on about. I'm not talking about intelligent conversation or general manners but more subtle things. The self-possession that comes from growing up privileged and not being undermined by snobbery. Knowledge passed on from parents or parents friends about behaviour in certain working environments, how to be a leader. Etc etc etc. I encountered snobbery of course. Plus my accent didn't help. Never mind how indignant I am about this, or willing to pull people up on any prejudice- it has held me back.

Taken me twenty years to learn the subtleties of all this.

I'm not saying you need to buy into it all and change yourself. Just, you know, it is a sad fact.

I agree donttry.
When you meet socially adept teenagers you realise the gulf between them and the others. Whether this is due to money "class" or parental expectations.