[Politics] White working class failure

zefarelly · Jun 22, 2021

Harry Wilson's tackle said:
Sort of. But Vancouver's white working class were relatively minted from day 1 compared with working class Brits. One of my best pals from my time there, who I still speak with several times a week, is originally from one of the interior parts of greater Vancouver lower mainland (Port Coquitlam or Maple Ridge) and managed to get to uni (first from his family) and now earns a fortune in California. The choices were very much easier for him even though his background is very working class in BC terms. My own experience there was one of being treated like an equal by everyone, rich or poor, the professors and the cleaners. Very different from the UK of the time, and much fewer 'barriers'.

Anyway, it seems that the white working class are not queueing up to emote about their disadvantage, spurred on by this BBC story. I have had another look at it. The source is The Education Select Committee chaired by Robert Halfon, tory MP for Harlow. Some on Twitter have picked up on quotes from the committee about 5 generations of unemployed white people.....and question how common it is for a family to have been unemployed since the end of world war one.....It will be interesting to see whether it gets ignored or dismissed by HMG and the wider population. My suspicion is it will all be forgotten by tomorrow. Perhaps for the best.

Interesting, as an engineer, my early managers and indeed directors were all ex apprentices and worked their way up, I never saw a ceiling . . . .this was an old school engineering Co, sadly long gone, and over 30 years ago in Brighton of all places.

Mrs Zef still hits glass ceilings now, because she's qualified down under, not here, and she's a girl! Her last job she earned half her male equivalents.

jakarta · Jun 22, 2021

Am I the only one to think this thread was about the Croatia/Sweaty game tonight? :lolol:

Harry Wilson's tackle · Jun 22, 2021

jakarta said:
Am I the only one to think this thread was about the Croatia/Sweaty game tonight?

Do you really think Scotland will win?

zefarelly · Jun 22, 2021

Harry Wilson's tackle said:
Do you really think Scotland will win?

They'll have to work for it . . .

jakarta · Jun 22, 2021

Harry Wilson's tackle said:
Do you really think Scotland will win?

I have always thought myself, deep down, as a Croat :thumbsup:

DumLum · Jun 22, 2021

Harry Wilson's tackle said:
Privilage means unfairly obtained and not earned. I am no economist but I suspect it can be argued that the middle class is those who are sufficiently smart and hard working to 'rise above' the working class, despite the jackboots of the upper class kicking down on them.

I wouldn't argue that, though, because a working class - middle class divide is far too artificial and nebulous to warrant a moment's consideration.

I agree that sneering at Brexitters for being thick is wrong (and I have done it). I understand how booing the knee may make sense to some who are not racist in any way (this took me a lot longer to get my head around but I think I get it now).

However, it is important to not allow a chip to settle on one's shoulder about the middle class. There are good and bad in all classes. Some of my best friends are middle class

You dont believe in a middle class/working class divide?
I can only talk from personal experience from a working class background. I did very well in my GCSEs and scraped through my A levels. When I told my working class father who left school at 15 I wanted to go to university his exact words were "F... Off! You're taking the p..s!" I loved my Dad but I believe that sentence put me at a disadvantage to most middle class kids.
Unfortunately as we start using positive discrimination the chip on my shoulder is getting bigger. We all seem to be getting further apart because of it. There were ways of equalling out society without so much division.

The Antikythera Mechanism · Jun 22, 2021

My school years were spent at Preston Primary, Balfour Primary and Varndean Grammar School for boys. I don’t recall any non white children in any of these schools in my 14 years educational span. Just shows how times have changed. Some of my school mates came from families who were poorer than us and some were better off, but it was never an issue though. I had school mates from the less salubrious areas of Brighton and another who’s Dad was the Headmaster at Brighton College. None of it mattered then, working class and white privilege didn’t matter and never registered on my radar until much later.

Harry Wilson's tackle · Jun 23, 2021

DumLum said:
You dont believe in a middle class/working class divide?
I can only talk from personal experience from a working class background. I did very well in my GCSEs and scraped through my A levels. When I told my working class father who left school at 15 I wanted to go to university his exact words were "F... Off! You're taking the p..s!" I loved my Dad but I believe that sentence put me at a disadvantage to most middle class kids.
Unfortunately as we start using positive discrimination the chip on my shoulder is getting bigger. We all seem to be getting further apart because of it. There were ways of equalling out society without so much division.

That's a horrible story. Difficult though it may be for you, however, that was bad parenting. Your dad put you at a disadvantage. Whether that was because he wasn't middle class is a separate issue. It may be the case, although we shall never know.

Not wanting our kids to grow up different to ourselves is a common thing. It's why one of my former students didn't speak to her mum for many months (when she announced she wasn't going to marry someone from India and was moving in with a divorced white bloke with two kids - who she married - they are still together 25 years later). Parents can be cruel but they may well use class or race hold their kids back from The New, sometimes. This is especially true for gender (and girls).

Live by the sea · Jun 23, 2021

DumLum said:
You dont believe in a middle class/working class divide?
I can only talk from personal experience from a working class background. I did very well in my GCSEs and scraped through my A levels. When I told my working class father who left school at 15 I wanted to go to university his exact words were "F... Off! You're taking the p..s!" I loved my Dad but I believe that sentence put me at a disadvantage to most middle class kids.
Unfortunately as we start using positive discrimination the chip on my shoulder is getting bigger. We all seem to be getting further apart because of it. There were ways of equalling out society without so much division.

That is shocking to hear . I would have thought most working class fathers would be delighted that their children want to aspire to do the best they can in education and have then a much better chance of having a successful and fulfilling life .

essbee1 · Jun 23, 2021

Harry Wilson's tackle said:
This comes as no surprise to me:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-57558746

White working class have been at the bottom of the achievement pile for many years. Especially boys.

I'm old enought to remember growing up when it was expected that I 'know my place'. Getting into grammar school was life or death. I was lucky. At university I was the only person I knew there on a grant of any sort (I was on a full grant). I have one old mate from uni days (who is the son of a diplomat, but, like me a bit peculiar). The rest of them were alien. I somehow got a PhD place in Canada and nobody could understand my regional (Brighton) accent, so I had to learn to speek queen's English just to get by. But Canada is relatively classless and it was only 4 years away from the UK that 'saved me' (from never forgetting 'my place'). When I came back to the UK I was able to stare down middle class arrogance (from the young medics doing their MD training). I managed to blag a lectureship and my career has been quite good. But boy do I get abreactions from some of the middle classes. Fear is the main abreaction . My football and music...my 'attitude' rub them up the wrong way. A lot of it is just me but the class 'press' has always been there.

I feel that things are manyfold better now than in the 70s, but today's data speak for themselves. I'd be very happy indeed to see some positive intervention. When I was a kid I knew kids who passed the 11 plus but were sent by their parents to the secondary modern school because 'that sort of thing isn't for us'. Shocking. In fact my first wife was one. Things are better, but having large swathes of the population struggling and feeling neglected while being told they are 'lucky' is the root cause of all sorts of our recent and current problems, I suspect.

Others care to share their experience?

"Abreaction". I love it. A new word in my limited vocab.

essbee1 · Jun 23, 2021

I find it a crying shame that my Dad was probably good enough to go to University back in the 50's, but in South Wales
you became either a miner or a railway person and not a lot else. He chose the latter. But his mum and dad would
have considered him a dreamer if he'd seriously considered University.

Harry Wilson's tackle · Jun 23, 2021

essbee1 said:
I find it a crying shame that my Dad was probably good enough to go to University back in the 50's, but in South Wales
you became either a miner or a railway person and not a lot else. He chose the latter. But his mum and dad would
have considered him a dreamer if he'd seriously considered University.

Things like this make me realise how much life has improved for the lower orders (I class myself in that bracket, or at least would have done when I was younger). I would wager that the proportion of any sector of society discouraging or even forbidding their kids getting an education these days is far lower than it was in the 50s, 60s, and even 70s. Like all things, up to and including refusal to get a Covid jab, primitive behaviour and attitudes is most common in the more primitive sectors of society, and yet there is hope as we move along the decades and generations. So much for entropy!

zefarelly · Jun 23, 2021

essbee1 said:
"Abreaction". I love it. A new word in my limited vocab.

Me too, I thought it was the positive results on my physique after my Pilates classes :dunce:

My parents ( split up when I was 6) bothlectured me when I left school, they'd both wanted me to go to Uni . . .My mum didn't finish her fine art degree @ St MArtins and my Dad got offered a god job after his A levels. I got the 'don't blame me if you regret it when you're 24' . . . . fortunately I didn't, and still don't, although I'm aware a few doors remain closed as a consequence of not having a piece of paper with degree written on it.

The opportunity was readily available for more of us in the 80's and 90's. Its not the case now, there must be many smart kids who just can't afford to consider it ?

Perkino · Jun 23, 2021

Firstly this is not a new finding, White British Males underperform year on year within the education system. Many of them do so because of poor attitude and application and unfortunately Males develop later than Females who tend to turn things around as they approach exams. One factor in this is the pool of students is increasing with a growing population yet for English & Mathematics only 60% with pass at GCSE level each year (grade boundaries are adjusted post exams but pre grading to accommodate. This is why last summer exam boards adapted grades that schools had awarded before reversing this decision). This in turn creates effectively a competitive system where students push to be in the top 60% and unsurprisingly the least driven students make the least progress up that ladder.

The greatest issue is that any changes to policy or delivery that a teacher tries to implement will ultimately increase the progress of the entire class/year/school which will effectively widen the gap from top to bottom. The culture dictates the degree in which a child is willing to be pushed and self driven and unfortunately in comparison to the majority of cultures White British Male students end up doing the least which isn't enough when the pass mark is continuing to rise year on year

Questions · Jun 23, 2021

Whatever it is I’m against it.

Not Andy Naylor · Jun 23, 2021

There doesn't seem to be the respect for education and learning in the population that there used to be, and how can anyone be surprised when these things have been attacked by cynical people for their own ends over many decades? Of course, Michael Gove's disingenuous attack on 'experts' is a recent example, but in the days of Thatcher (an Oxford-educated scientist), any intellectual opponent was put down as a loony eccentric with the help of her attack dogs in The Sun. Not surprisingly, 'scholar' became the ultimate insult at state schools, especially among boys.

Now we see too many members of the white working class waving the Union flag and voting for an ethnic cleansing of their society. Because British is best? They may say so, and even think so. But, more likely, they instinctively feel that immigrants will outperform them unless they do better. They will see the children of ambitious, hard-working Asian immigrants who know the value of education outperform their offspring in schools, while hard-working and ambitious European immigrants outperform them in manual trades. Better to send them all home so we can wallow in our ill-educated, self-satisfied mediocrity.

'Ignorance is the enemy' is something I have always believed, but it is the friend of those who would repress others. Does the present government really want an educated working class? I doubt it.

Mellor 3 Ward 4 · Jun 23, 2021

IMO Two HUGE mistakes in recent years:

John Major - turning the Polys into Unis - and Blair pushing the target of 50% of kids to go to University.

Chicken Run · Jun 23, 2021

essbee1 said:
I find it a crying shame that my Dad was probably good enough to go to University back in the 50's, but in South Wales
you became either a miner or a railway person and not a lot else. He chose the latter. But his mum and dad would
have considered him a dreamer if he'd seriously considered University.

Where I went to school in Brighton during the early 80’s a guy in our class announced during the career classes discussion that he wanted to be a van driver, well after the commotion had died down and he was told in no uncertain terms that he was a dreamer, it was decided our school in reality was more likely to produce the sort of people who load a van not drive one.

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Hugo Rune · Jun 23, 2021

Mellor 3 Ward 4 said:
IMO Two HUGE mistakes in recent years:

John Major - turning the Polys into Unis - and Blair pushing the target of 50% of kids to go to University.

100% this.

There are scores of students in Universities performing badly who’d have been doing brilliantly in Polys. There are scores of young people leaving education all together who’d have flourished in Polys.

50% Tory ****-up, 50% New Labour ****-up.

Stato · Jun 23, 2021

Chicken Run said:
Where I went to school in Brighton during the early 80’s a guy in our class announced during the career classes discussion that he wanted to be a van driver, well after the commotion had died down and he was told in no uncertain terms that he was a dreamer, it was decided our school in reality was more likely to produce the sort of people who load a van not drive one.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

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