Why Education is failing the working class

Is our class system still causing us problems?

As any of my friends will tell you, don’t get me into an argument about class and the class system that exists in the U.K. Most tell me I am crazy, out of date and talking about something that no longer exists, but I beg to differ.

You see, being brought up “Up North”, the class system always appeared to be around me, from being in the middle of the miners strike in the 80’s to me trying to claw my way out of Scunthorpe to make something of my life. When I moved to London I was too “Northern” and when I moved back to Scunthorpe I was too “Southern”. No surprise then that I ended up settling in the middle of the country, where it does not really matter.

I never felt I really belonged. As a child I always felt I was cheated, not given the opportunities that my upper class counterparts had. Going to catering college for me was a real attempt to better myself; for a lot of my colleagues it was just something to do so Daddy got off their back. In the police, I cursed as the Cambridge Grads were shifted ahead of me in the promotion ladder while I had to work hard. It always felt so unfair until recently, something I read in The Outliers really got me thinking about this and I think that, in the current climate, it is very pertinent.

Some  recent news items really caught my eye.

Universities social equality drive falters. Labour’s push to encourage more working class teenagers to enter the higher education system is failing.

Nature, nurture and exam results. Do genes determine how well children will do at school?

Girls hampered by failure fears
despite girls’ success at GCSE, three quarters of women still ended up in the “five Cs” of employment – cleaning, catering, caring, cashiering and clerical.

Now of course, these articles are full of solutions, none of which I believe are on track at all and here is why.

In The Outliers, Gladwell speaks to two pieces that really caught my attention

Cultural Legacy and Constructive Cultivation

Cultual Legacy

This is something that I have never heard spoken about before, but when I did, it made me realise why I did not end up at Cambridge.

Gladwell explains that, whether we know it or not, we are all carrying around a cultural legacy from previous generations. It is not necessarily something we know or speak about but it is there. For me, growing up in Scunthorpe, a steel town in the 70’s and 80’s, I was always up against my cultural legacy. I was a working class, Northern girl and working class, Northern girls worked hard, bringing up a family. They did not have lofty goals and they sure as hell did not lead and manage. They were grafters basically, with their job being to look after their men who mainly did manual jobs. You never showed off your talents or flaunted wealth and quality of life was about what you left out, not put in.

My cultural legacy was set up for me not to succeed. It was not evident to me then, but now when I think about it, in every decision I made my cultural legacy had an impact, I cannot go to that college as all the posh kids go there, I cannot take A levels, that is for intelligent kids, I cannot go out with that boy – look at the size of his house, I would not be able to speak to his family, I cannot go for that job they will all look down on me. I do ask myself if this was low self-esteem and really, I don’t think so, it was just in my DNA so to speak. That is why I looked at the kids in Cambridge with disgust – I was mad, mad that they got the breaks as I saw it. And they did get the breaks; Cambridge, the good job, the wealthy lifestyle – well, it was all part of the package.

Until we accept in this country that the class system is having an impact and face it head on and challenge it, raising our expectations, then nothing will ever change. Do you think the teachers look on their students in Harringay, thinking they will all go to Cambridge and Oxford – bet your life they don’t and what about Eton – bet your life they do.

Cultural Legacy matters and we need to do something about it if we are ever to give working class teenagers a chance.

Constructive Cultivation

In Gladwells book he talks about how middle class parents do with ther children what he calls constructive cultivation, meaning that they care, push and expect of their children, enrolling them in extra classes, asking about homework, attending Parent Teacher Association meetings and just being interested in what their child is doing. In studies, he shows that a child’s intelligence is not linked to success and what is more important is how that child is cultivated and what opportunities they are given along the way. So genes do not predict if a child will do well, but their parents do.

Again, it is interesting to note that this cultivation is linked to class and a child from a working class background is less likely to receive this cultivation, however intelligent they are and therefore, is more likely to fail later in life. He even goes as far as to say that the way the current school system is set up is failing our working class youth because they do not have the advantages in the summer holidays that the middle class kids get. He refers to a project called The Kipp Project, where the performance of failing school students has been turned around by challenging cultural legacy and giving these children the constructive cultivation they need inside the school system.

And when it comes to girls failing, well is it really no surprise, where are their role models in challenging the cultural legacy we have around females in society, are their parents expecting less of them then their brothers?

While I do not know all the answers, I simply wish to start the conversation with questions for Government, Education and people who work with youth to ponder.

1. What assumptions are you making that may not be true?
2. What systems are your using that may not work for the working class teenagers?
3. Are you willing to accept and challenge cultural legacy, even if that means changing the way working class teenagers are taught?
4. If parents are not cultivating their children, then how should we step in to take on that role?

My guess is that this will fall on deaf ears, since those who can effect change are generally from the middle and upper classes and male and they cannot even comprehend that we have an issue. Or maybe, they refuse to listen because we all do have the same opportunities (you are deluded) and maybe change and shaking up the UK system is just too scary and may upset them.

Whatever, I can tell you what you are doing is and will not work until those in power accept and acknowledge it is not an education issue, it is a class issue. My buck lies on Alan Sugar telling it like it is. Oh well, I can live in hope!

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