Working-class white children “seem the most resistant to the transformative work” of schools, the leader of the review investigating the youngsters’ performance has said.
Star Academies CEO Sir Hamid Patel, who is chairing the independent inquiry into white working-class educational outcomes alongside Baroness Estelle Morris, made the statement during a speech at the CST annual conference on Thursday.
A survey conducted by the review revealed 25 per cent of white working-class boys don’t need read outside school and that white working-class youngsters are less likely to enjoy classes.
Patel told the event leaders “cannot assume that our pupils or their parents share” the belief in “the value of education for its own sake, as well as recognising its power to open doors”.
“And don’t get me wrong, I’m not suggesting for a minute that white working-class pupils should be the sole focus of our work,” he added.
“But the white, low-income children as a group seem the most resistant to the transformative work we’re trying to do in the sector. For those with SEND disenchantment is compounded.”
The survey found 26 per cent of disadvantaged white youngsters “rarely or never enjoy lessons”, compared to 15 per cent of non-white pupils.
Only 52 per cent of white working-class parents thought their child’s teachers “respected them by years 10 and 11”.
Patel said schools are “faced with intergenerational discontent”.
“Our ingenuity needs to focus on helping children who are the hardest to help, building the relationships which make them feel valued. Our disadvantaged children need us most.”
Why do people think this is
We have embraced a culture of anti-intellectualism in this country, where even the word ‘intellectual’ is now used in a sneering and perjorative fashion.
We deride experts and lionise imbeciles as if their opinion matters more than someone else’s expertise.
Add to this, the traditional narrative of “if you work hard at school, and get good grades, you can go to university and get a good job” is patently no longer true.
Combining all these factors, it is perhaps no surprise that the youth are feeling disenfranchised and cynical – although why this disproportionately affects white working class boys is perhaps not so clear?
In my time in education, I saw a marked discrepancy in the respect towards education and educators between white kids and those from other cultures, so perhaps there is an element of it starting at home? If kids are instilled with a respect for education by their parents, then they will engage more – but if the parents themselves feel as though they were failed by the system (whether that is true or not, but if it is their belief) then how can we expect their kids to be anything other than disrespectful, disillusioned and disengaged?
I saw kids from Asian, African, East European cultures that were almost deferential towards teachers. Many of the working class British kids came from a default position of antagonism that you had to ‘win over’ before you could make any inroads with them.
Ultimately, this requires a huge culture change and a reversal of the accepted rhetoric that has been gradually and insidiously creeping in over the last three decades or more.
I’m not sure it’s even possible…
This is the same ethno socioeconomic group that then complains about being left behind by the Establishment but of course nothing is ever their own fault is it ? .
Yet more already known for years revelations. Any teacher voukd.ve told you this eons ago. Mind you, if you.d have said it in school, you.d be managed out gor having low expectations, class bias. Feral is the word I.d use for this cohort of Reform voting poorer parents.
When you knew this Eon’s ago as you describe. What would you have called these children and their parents pre-Reform? Feral Labour voting poorer parents?
Don’t use divisive politics to brush over the clear failure of the education system to deliver on what it is being handsomely rewarded for.
The snobbery in the comments shows that this antipathy is a two way street. What’s right wing populism got to do with it? Areas of greater deprivation are most linked to not voting at all. With no political representatives or media role models (beyond football), this is an ill-heard and misunderstood demographic. Hot air about “aspiration” neglects that this is about class, and about pride and feeling valued. We need more listening and understanding.
The one group that it’s okay to demonize and discriminate against doesn’t have a good attitude toward how they’re treated? What a surprise!
The: ‘inter-generational discontent’ springs from the working-class awareness that education does not exist for, or lead to, social-mobility or the creation of critical-thought paradigms, much rather the intergenerational transmission of economic political and cultural hegemony of dominant groups within the establishment systems of power and oppression in the capitalist materialist matrix.
That the educational expressions of this insidious narrative – academies, schools and universities – are merely there to repreduce the system of production relations which will ensure the intergenerational transmission of poverty and domination suffered by the working-class is the primary reason low
-income groups’ children withdraw from perceiving education as beneficial to them – ie, because it’s not!
Unless, and until, there is a destratification of society and an economic equalisation of resources to the white working-class boys in question nothing will change.
The educational apartied that ensures that middle-class children are privileged to an extent that no working-class child will be able to overcome the social-class bias which is systematised in to our educational outcomes is something that should be considered by educationalists and politicians alike.
As academies and trust exist only to make money for themselves, the question must be asked: are these organisations able, or willing, to be a force for change?
Why do people blame these children? It’s how schools teach, the factory batch model production system employed in uk schools and the Victorian class biased view of the world that permeates the fabric of the very walls of schools that’s to blame. Such factors severely limit what and how we teach and this doesn’t only limit what the working class white students achieve: it affects all students but most remain compliant and put up with it, whereas these students kick against or walk away. What is being said now reminds one of the situation when the school leaving age was put up from 15 to 16. ROSLA It caught everyone out and especially students such as these and there were near riots in schools. ROSLA units were created but struggled until teachers created entirely new courses, involved parents and different ways of teaching and learning .
Students who were creating havoc rapidly became some of our best students making giant strides and leaving to go on to good apprenticeships. The lessons learned by the education system were thrown away and obliterated when the biased and restrictive National Curriculum and OFSTED were established and surprise, surprise those reviewing the system from a minority middle and upper class platform have found that such working class students remain excluded and that they still kick against a system that’s actually not good for all students where we know that even the best students do not achieve and realise their full potential.
The same group that is completely ignored by the establishment, expected to sacrifice the most and now expected to give more…..shocker.
Resistant to transformative works, white working class boys predominantly are the socio economic group already attend failing schools. Transformative thinking leading to opportunities for these boys would be a start.
Resistant to transformative works, white working class boys predominantly are the socio economic group already attend failing schools. Transformative thinking leading to opportunities for these boys would be a good start.
Fortnite, Minecraft, dungeons and dragons plus social media requires reading. I didn’t read for pleasure till 21 years of age. Maybe poetry could be enhanced with rap, Science fiction with Marvel. Yes I am 68 and never got either poetry or Science fiction when at school.
I ended up teaching Maths for 34 years. “When are we going to use ratio?” at the salon you work at do you dye hair? Talk me through it…so you are already using ratio