Poor White Boys Finish Last
October 30, 2015 3:00 AM Subscribe
BBC: "If you're white, male and poor enough to qualify for a free meal at school then you face the toughest challenge when starting out in life.
That's what the Equality and Human Right Commission (EHRC) has said in "the most comprehensive review ever carried out on progress towards greater equality in Britain"."
Here is the EHRC page for this particular survey. Here is the page for full report, exec summary, Welsh version and English sign language version. There is a separate page for the evidence here.
posted by biffa at 3:12 AM on October 30, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by biffa at 3:12 AM on October 30, 2015 [3 favorites]
Apparently Chinese aren't considered Asians in the UK? The gap in academic achievement between the top and bottom of the table is staggering.
This is exactly what happens in Malaysia (25% Chinese, 60% Malay) to the point where it's skewing all sorts of metrics and social policies, where a Chinese student needs straight As to enter a public university while a Malay student will get into the same course with a C average.
As the article says, there's a school of thought around the "immigrant" factor, where immigrants are a self selected population from another country and thus not a representative sample of their race, and generally tend to have better outcomes than the locals wherever they are.
posted by xdvesper at 3:20 AM on October 30, 2015 [2 favorites]
This is exactly what happens in Malaysia (25% Chinese, 60% Malay) to the point where it's skewing all sorts of metrics and social policies, where a Chinese student needs straight As to enter a public university while a Malay student will get into the same course with a C average.
As the article says, there's a school of thought around the "immigrant" factor, where immigrants are a self selected population from another country and thus not a representative sample of their race, and generally tend to have better outcomes than the locals wherever they are.
posted by xdvesper at 3:20 AM on October 30, 2015 [2 favorites]
**WARNING Prepare to see charts and numbers. But we've included some cheats so don't panic.**
Are people really that scared of percentages?
posted by Gordafarin at 3:38 AM on October 30, 2015 [8 favorites]
Are people really that scared of percentages?
posted by Gordafarin at 3:38 AM on October 30, 2015 [8 favorites]
Asian in the UK context often means people of Indian, Pakistani or Bangladeshi origin. Increasingly this distinction is changing to refer to south Asian and east Asian but they obviously haven't used this here.
posted by biffa at 3:38 AM on October 30, 2015 [9 favorites]
posted by biffa at 3:38 AM on October 30, 2015 [9 favorites]
The emergence of immigrants as a new petit bourgeoisie explains a lot about the embrace of UKIP by the British proletariat and the rejection of Labour whose pro-immigrant policies might now be seen by the working-class as counter-revolutionary.
posted by three blind mice at 3:38 AM on October 30, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by three blind mice at 3:38 AM on October 30, 2015 [4 favorites]
I think Chinese is a big enough demographic to differentiate from other Asians perhaps? We also have a lot of people of Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi heritage in the UK who we would more readily identify as "Asian"
posted by trif at 3:41 AM on October 30, 2015
posted by trif at 3:41 AM on October 30, 2015
The emergence of immigrants as a new petit bourgeoisie
All of the students surveyed were poor.
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 3:42 AM on October 30, 2015 [5 favorites]
All of the students surveyed were poor.
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 3:42 AM on October 30, 2015 [5 favorites]
Hell yes, people are that scared of percentages. I regularly meet people who have a top grade in high school equivalent maths who do not know that a square root is different to a division by two.
And the U.K. Office for National Statistics does place Chinese ethnicity under the Asian category.
posted by cromagnon at 3:44 AM on October 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
And the U.K. Office for National Statistics does place Chinese ethnicity under the Asian category.
posted by cromagnon at 3:44 AM on October 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
I like how the report from the House of Commons Education Committee gets the affect/effect distinction wrong -- AND it omits an apostrophe! -- in one of the explanations offered for the study's results:
"The quality of teaching can effect* students* exam results, but only a bit". [*sic]
Or maybe it was the BBC article's writer who made these errors (and the editor missed them too?).
Either way, the result is sad-irony.
posted by Halo in reverse at 3:45 AM on October 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
"The quality of teaching can effect* students* exam results, but only a bit". [*sic]
Or maybe it was the BBC article's writer who made these errors (and the editor missed them too?).
Either way, the result is sad-irony.
posted by Halo in reverse at 3:45 AM on October 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
The fact that girls do better than boys across the board is something I'm not surprised by given everything I've seen about education statistics by gender lately. That poor white girls and boys are doing worse than poor non-white students is something that is confusing to me and I don't think I have the knowledge about Britain or education in general to even begin to diagnose.
posted by Drinky Die at 3:47 AM on October 30, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by Drinky Die at 3:47 AM on October 30, 2015 [2 favorites]
I think a lot of this has to do with historical family attitudes. I think immigrant families are acutely aware of the potential for change, for improvement. Their families have experienced change in the recent past and this surely colours parental attitudes to encouraging their children to achieve.
Poor white families have been poor white families for generations. This is just the way life is. If it's good enough for your parents it's good enough for you, right?
posted by trif at 3:52 AM on October 30, 2015 [34 favorites]
Poor white families have been poor white families for generations. This is just the way life is. If it's good enough for your parents it's good enough for you, right?
posted by trif at 3:52 AM on October 30, 2015 [34 favorites]
That poor white girls and boys are doing worse than poor non-white students is something that is confusing to me and I don't think I have the knowledge about Britain or education in general to even begin to diagnose.
I think the limited scope of criteria - standardized testing - is one key, as they do very briefly in the final graphic touch on how "immigrants see education as a way out of poverty". I can't speak of British society, but it does make sense. I can attest that immigrant children here do tend to knuckle down and study their asses off, maybe because they already know they're going to have to work two or three times as hard to get almost as far as the locals. But I look forward to reading the whole report.
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 3:53 AM on October 30, 2015 [2 favorites]
I think the limited scope of criteria - standardized testing - is one key, as they do very briefly in the final graphic touch on how "immigrants see education as a way out of poverty". I can't speak of British society, but it does make sense. I can attest that immigrant children here do tend to knuckle down and study their asses off, maybe because they already know they're going to have to work two or three times as hard to get almost as far as the locals. But I look forward to reading the whole report.
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 3:53 AM on October 30, 2015 [2 favorites]
That poor white girls and boys are doing worse than poor non-white students is something that is confusing to me and I don't think I have the knowledge about Britain or education in general to even begin to diagnose.
My gut says that geography could play a role. I'd be interested to know how poor students from the same city do by race. There are parts of Britain that are really, really white and while London alone likely dwarfs the population of those areas, I'd be concerned about that being a confounding factor.
Are people really that scared of percentages?
Newsbeat is aimed at kids. I'm pretty sure they're using the idea of providing "cheats" to hide explicitly educational content.
posted by hoyland at 4:27 AM on October 30, 2015 [6 favorites]
My gut says that geography could play a role. I'd be interested to know how poor students from the same city do by race. There are parts of Britain that are really, really white and while London alone likely dwarfs the population of those areas, I'd be concerned about that being a confounding factor.
Are people really that scared of percentages?
Newsbeat is aimed at kids. I'm pretty sure they're using the idea of providing "cheats" to hide explicitly educational content.
posted by hoyland at 4:27 AM on October 30, 2015 [6 favorites]
Apparently Chinese aren't considered Asians in the UK?
Slight derail, but I find this fascinating. I was born in India, and now have my citizenship in Canada. I work in an office that is predominantly white and I've noticed that there is a distinction in who is considered Asian and who is not. Apparently people from India or Pakistan are grouped together as Middle Eastern while people who are from China or Japan are defined as Asian. I've always considered myself Asian as India is a large sub-continent. Just a weird distinction that I've noticed. I have no doubt that this kind of definition is loose arbitrary depending on where you're currently living, but an interesting aside.
posted by Fizz at 4:39 AM on October 30, 2015 [5 favorites]
Slight derail, but I find this fascinating. I was born in India, and now have my citizenship in Canada. I work in an office that is predominantly white and I've noticed that there is a distinction in who is considered Asian and who is not. Apparently people from India or Pakistan are grouped together as Middle Eastern while people who are from China or Japan are defined as Asian. I've always considered myself Asian as India is a large sub-continent. Just a weird distinction that I've noticed. I have no doubt that this kind of definition is loose arbitrary depending on where you're currently living, but an interesting aside.
posted by Fizz at 4:39 AM on October 30, 2015 [5 favorites]
Interesting stuff. Looking at some of the other evidence though, and looking at the GCSEs isn't showing the whole picture. The massive regional variance is super difficult to separate out, for example Birmingham compared to Leicester, or the entire country compared to London.
These are all GB, not Scotland, Wales.
Not in Education, Employment or Training 16-18 (NEETs) (%)
White- 8.4
African/Caribean/Black- 8.2
Indian- 4.8
Pakistani/Bangladeshi- 8.0
Mixed- 11.7
Other- 5.7
25-44 year old with no qualifications:
White-5.7
African/Caribbean/Black-8.7
Indian-6.2
Pakistani/Bangladeshi- 16.9
Mixed- 6.3
Other - 12.2
25-44 years old with a degree level qualification:
White- 33.0
African/Caribbean/Black- 39.3
Indian- 61.6
Pakistani/Bangladeshi- 30.5
Mixed- 39.3
Other- 45.7
I don't know much about stats, so I might be looking at the wrong bits?
At any rate, I was about 20 before I realised that when most people say 'Asian' they didn't mean India/Pakistan/Bangladesh, but further east. What I would helpfully call 'East-Asian'. Echoing what Fizz said basically.
posted by Braeburn at 4:48 AM on October 30, 2015
These are all GB, not Scotland, Wales.
Not in Education, Employment or Training 16-18 (NEETs) (%)
White- 8.4
African/Caribean/Black- 8.2
Indian- 4.8
Pakistani/Bangladeshi- 8.0
Mixed- 11.7
Other- 5.7
25-44 year old with no qualifications:
White-5.7
African/Caribbean/Black-8.7
Indian-6.2
Pakistani/Bangladeshi- 16.9
Mixed- 6.3
Other - 12.2
25-44 years old with a degree level qualification:
White- 33.0
African/Caribbean/Black- 39.3
Indian- 61.6
Pakistani/Bangladeshi- 30.5
Mixed- 39.3
Other- 45.7
I don't know much about stats, so I might be looking at the wrong bits?
At any rate, I was about 20 before I realised that when most people say 'Asian' they didn't mean India/Pakistan/Bangladesh, but further east. What I would helpfully call 'East-Asian'. Echoing what Fizz said basically.
posted by Braeburn at 4:48 AM on October 30, 2015
That poor white girls and boys are doing worse than poor non-white students is something that is confusing to me and I don't think I have the knowledge about Britain or education in general to even begin to diagnose.
The raw sizes of the groups, along with regional differences, must have some impact. The UK is startlingly white (much more so than I had realized from my visits there) and immigrants are comparatively geographically concentrated.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:09 AM on October 30, 2015 [4 favorites]
The raw sizes of the groups, along with regional differences, must have some impact. The UK is startlingly white (much more so than I had realized from my visits there) and immigrants are comparatively geographically concentrated.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:09 AM on October 30, 2015 [4 favorites]
Apparently Chinese aren't considered Asians in the UK? The gap in academic achievement between the top and bottom of the table is staggering.
See:
The raw sizes of the groups, along with regional differences, must have some impact.
From the article:
"Although the tables make it look like poorer Chinese students are doing very well and keeping up with their wealthier Chinese friends, that may not be the case. The number of Chinese pupils who qualify for free meals is only 168. Some feel that's too small a number to be able to base reliable statistics on."
posted by damayanti at 5:15 AM on October 30, 2015 [3 favorites]
See:
The raw sizes of the groups, along with regional differences, must have some impact.
From the article:
"Although the tables make it look like poorer Chinese students are doing very well and keeping up with their wealthier Chinese friends, that may not be the case. The number of Chinese pupils who qualify for free meals is only 168. Some feel that's too small a number to be able to base reliable statistics on."
posted by damayanti at 5:15 AM on October 30, 2015 [3 favorites]
What I would like to know is: who is it out there teaching kids to be afraid of educational content? Fire that guy. I know that's not the lesson I got growing up, but maybe that's because I'm a white immigrant.
posted by I-Write-Essays at 5:30 AM on October 30, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by I-Write-Essays at 5:30 AM on October 30, 2015 [2 favorites]
"These are all GB, not Scotland, Wales"
??
posted by gnuhavenpier at 5:34 AM on October 30, 2015 [5 favorites]
??
posted by gnuhavenpier at 5:34 AM on October 30, 2015 [5 favorites]
I don't know much about stats, so I might be looking at the wrong bits?
These numbers don't break down the results by class as well as race. (though they are also very interesting)
What I see in these numbers - both what you have found and what the article showed us - is how we need to remember that a) class matters, especially in the UK, and b) the perception and effect of race is different in different cultures - we can't assume that race (which is, of course, a social phenomenon) works the same way everywhere. (As pointed out above, re race in Canada).
I noticed in what you posted that white young people were less likely to obtain a degree than African/Carribbean/Black young people -- though more like to obtain a degree than Pakistani/Bangladeshi young people. This is completely opposite to what one might expect in the United States, for example (and also shows that grouping Indian people with Pakistani/Bangladeshi is probably a bad idea, when looking at educational achievement).
And the numbers in the FPP suggest that the effect of class are really significant in the UK (see the jump in attainment between poor and not-poor white pupils). IANAS (I am not a statistician), but if I were, I would study the relative correlations of ethnicity (and be more fine grained than race) and class to educational attainment.
posted by jb at 5:36 AM on October 30, 2015 [2 favorites]
These numbers don't break down the results by class as well as race. (though they are also very interesting)
What I see in these numbers - both what you have found and what the article showed us - is how we need to remember that a) class matters, especially in the UK, and b) the perception and effect of race is different in different cultures - we can't assume that race (which is, of course, a social phenomenon) works the same way everywhere. (As pointed out above, re race in Canada).
I noticed in what you posted that white young people were less likely to obtain a degree than African/Carribbean/Black young people -- though more like to obtain a degree than Pakistani/Bangladeshi young people. This is completely opposite to what one might expect in the United States, for example (and also shows that grouping Indian people with Pakistani/Bangladeshi is probably a bad idea, when looking at educational achievement).
And the numbers in the FPP suggest that the effect of class are really significant in the UK (see the jump in attainment between poor and not-poor white pupils). IANAS (I am not a statistician), but if I were, I would study the relative correlations of ethnicity (and be more fine grained than race) and class to educational attainment.
posted by jb at 5:36 AM on October 30, 2015 [2 favorites]
There are some interesting social dynamics involved in the English white working class in formerly industrial areas like the Midlands and also in Wales. There is far greater cultural solidarity than anything you will see in the United States and Canada where workforces are historically far more mobile.
Also large numbers of English working class actively reject Middle Class values and a large number of Middle Class people claim to have working class roots as a signifier of some sort of authenticity and adversity narrative.
Most English immigration is very recent - really just since WWII so at best three generations and it also came in concentrated waves of particular ethnic groups which tended to concentrate geographically in certain places with specific groups concentrating in specific cities. There are still lots of places in England that have no significant ethnic populations.
My initial guess (and it is a guess because I haven't seen any data on the relative distribution of poverty amongst the specified groups) is that the poor white boys may be a more extreme end of the white boy distribution while poor members of the other groups may be closer to the middles of their respective distributions.
posted by srboisvert at 5:36 AM on October 30, 2015 [5 favorites]
Also large numbers of English working class actively reject Middle Class values and a large number of Middle Class people claim to have working class roots as a signifier of some sort of authenticity and adversity narrative.
Most English immigration is very recent - really just since WWII so at best three generations and it also came in concentrated waves of particular ethnic groups which tended to concentrate geographically in certain places with specific groups concentrating in specific cities. There are still lots of places in England that have no significant ethnic populations.
My initial guess (and it is a guess because I haven't seen any data on the relative distribution of poverty amongst the specified groups) is that the poor white boys may be a more extreme end of the white boy distribution while poor members of the other groups may be closer to the middles of their respective distributions.
posted by srboisvert at 5:36 AM on October 30, 2015 [5 favorites]
There are some interesting social dynamics involved in the English white working class in formerly industrial areas like the Midlands and also in Wales. There is far greater cultural solidarity than anything you will see in the United States and Canada where workforces are historically far more mobile.
Well, white people are actually indigenous to the UK. Some families haven't moved more than a few miles for 1000 years.
This just reinforces how we can't move models of race from place to place, as they have very different histories.
posted by jb at 5:41 AM on October 30, 2015 [14 favorites]
Well, white people are actually indigenous to the UK. Some families haven't moved more than a few miles for 1000 years.
This just reinforces how we can't move models of race from place to place, as they have very different histories.
posted by jb at 5:41 AM on October 30, 2015 [14 favorites]
These are all GB, not Scotland, Wales.
GB is Great Britain, which is England, Scotland, and Wales. What did you mean?
posted by Dysk at 5:43 AM on October 30, 2015
GB is Great Britain, which is England, Scotland, and Wales. What did you mean?
posted by Dysk at 5:43 AM on October 30, 2015
poor white boys may be a more extreme end of the white boy distribution
White London male, ex-recipient of free school meals here. 30 years ago at comprehensive school you noticed many of the white working class boys drift off at around age 15, before the exams, into what used to be called 'trades' and small crafts production. Their fathers and other family members got them those jobs, which were not open to the immigrant boys. These 'trades' jobs don't really exist any more due outsourcing and zero hours etc, so I would guess that perhaps some white boys are sticking around at school and finding it hard to keep up with the kids whose parents/grandparents have tended to value education more at that age, out of necessity.
posted by colie at 5:43 AM on October 30, 2015 [5 favorites]
White London male, ex-recipient of free school meals here. 30 years ago at comprehensive school you noticed many of the white working class boys drift off at around age 15, before the exams, into what used to be called 'trades' and small crafts production. Their fathers and other family members got them those jobs, which were not open to the immigrant boys. These 'trades' jobs don't really exist any more due outsourcing and zero hours etc, so I would guess that perhaps some white boys are sticking around at school and finding it hard to keep up with the kids whose parents/grandparents have tended to value education more at that age, out of necessity.
posted by colie at 5:43 AM on October 30, 2015 [5 favorites]
Apparently Chinese aren't considered Asians in the UK?
Because colonialism, there are a lot more British people whose origins are in India/Pakistan/Bangladesh than there are British people from other parts of Asia. Thus in common usage, when people here say "Asian", they are very often thinking about India/Pakistan/Bangladesh, just because those are the people they meet.
Also I suspect that many immigrants come from recent comparatively privileged origins, even if right now they happen to be poor. I'll wager that the selection bias caused by "ability to migrate" means that British immigrants are less likely to be Nth-generation-poor, like "nobody in this family can remember not being poor".
posted by emilyw at 5:50 AM on October 30, 2015 [6 favorites]
Because colonialism, there are a lot more British people whose origins are in India/Pakistan/Bangladesh than there are British people from other parts of Asia. Thus in common usage, when people here say "Asian", they are very often thinking about India/Pakistan/Bangladesh, just because those are the people they meet.
Also I suspect that many immigrants come from recent comparatively privileged origins, even if right now they happen to be poor. I'll wager that the selection bias caused by "ability to migrate" means that British immigrants are less likely to be Nth-generation-poor, like "nobody in this family can remember not being poor".
posted by emilyw at 5:50 AM on October 30, 2015 [6 favorites]
These figures are useful but not as straightforward to interpret as you might think.
Suppose, just as a hypothesis, there is a thing called "racism" which has the effect of lowering the average incomes of black people by 5% regardless of ability, productivity, education, or intelligence.
Then take a chunk of the population that is below an income-based dividing line, like eligibility for free school meals.
Within this chunk, the black people will on average have a higher level of ability, productivity and intelligence than the white people.
So these figures could mean at least two different things:
1. The education system is stacked against white people, so they get worse results.
2. The income distribution system is stacked against black people, so even smart black kids with good grades are likely to be poor.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 5:51 AM on October 30, 2015 [40 favorites]
Suppose, just as a hypothesis, there is a thing called "racism" which has the effect of lowering the average incomes of black people by 5% regardless of ability, productivity, education, or intelligence.
Then take a chunk of the population that is below an income-based dividing line, like eligibility for free school meals.
Within this chunk, the black people will on average have a higher level of ability, productivity and intelligence than the white people.
So these figures could mean at least two different things:
1. The education system is stacked against white people, so they get worse results.
2. The income distribution system is stacked against black people, so even smart black kids with good grades are likely to be poor.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 5:51 AM on October 30, 2015 [40 favorites]
I think the limited scope of criteria - standardized testing (...)
GCSE grades are more important for individual outcomes than anything similar in the US, say, not because of their measuring power but because they determine those outcomes. They are the primary criteria for entry into most post-16 education courses. Later, a minimum number of GCSE's at a certain grade is a specified requirement for many jobs.
I should emphasise that grades assigned by schools are completely ignored. Everyone in the country sits the same tests on the same days and only the test results ever matter.
University admissions are based on A-level grades. These are another common set of exams, taken after two years of more specialised study; most students only take 3 or 4 A-level courses. GCSE performance is an excellent predictor of A-level performance. Grades are far more important to Universities than any other criteria - for many they are essentially the only factor (although adverse circumstances are considered when interpreting them). No attempt is made to look for 'well-rounded' applicants in the way there seems to be in the US. A single set of exams, after a two-year course, is the sole basis of selection for University.
England is a small, dense country and young people are in much more direct competition with their peers in other cities and regions than is the case in the US. The entire University admissions process, in fact, is run by a single national agency! Nearly all education providers (and many large employers) are public bodies with a mandate to be accountable, transparent, and fair, and not to freely choose the candidates they prefer. Standardised tests thus become very important by necessity. At the same time there is a long-term programme of centralisation of power and control over education in Whitehall, out of the hands of local authorities, schools and especially teachers - hence the deprecation of school-based assessment.
posted by Pre-Taped Call In Show at 5:55 AM on October 30, 2015 [16 favorites]
GCSE grades are more important for individual outcomes than anything similar in the US, say, not because of their measuring power but because they determine those outcomes. They are the primary criteria for entry into most post-16 education courses. Later, a minimum number of GCSE's at a certain grade is a specified requirement for many jobs.
I should emphasise that grades assigned by schools are completely ignored. Everyone in the country sits the same tests on the same days and only the test results ever matter.
University admissions are based on A-level grades. These are another common set of exams, taken after two years of more specialised study; most students only take 3 or 4 A-level courses. GCSE performance is an excellent predictor of A-level performance. Grades are far more important to Universities than any other criteria - for many they are essentially the only factor (although adverse circumstances are considered when interpreting them). No attempt is made to look for 'well-rounded' applicants in the way there seems to be in the US. A single set of exams, after a two-year course, is the sole basis of selection for University.
England is a small, dense country and young people are in much more direct competition with their peers in other cities and regions than is the case in the US. The entire University admissions process, in fact, is run by a single national agency! Nearly all education providers (and many large employers) are public bodies with a mandate to be accountable, transparent, and fair, and not to freely choose the candidates they prefer. Standardised tests thus become very important by necessity. At the same time there is a long-term programme of centralisation of power and control over education in Whitehall, out of the hands of local authorities, schools and especially teachers - hence the deprecation of school-based assessment.
posted by Pre-Taped Call In Show at 5:55 AM on October 30, 2015 [16 favorites]
All of the students surveyed were poor.
All of the students were receiving Free School Meals (FSM) and as the report from the Parliament noted:
FSM eligibility is more normally used as a proxy for economic deprivation. The Economic Policy Institute (an American think-tank) describes the practice of using poverty as proxy for class in generally positive terms.
"But poverty is a good proxy, sometimes, for lower class status because it is so highly associated with other characteristics of that status. Lower class families have lower parental literacy levels, poorer health, more racial isolation, less stable housing, more exposure to crime and other stresses, less access to quality early childhood experiences, less access to good after school programs (and less ability to afford these even if they did have access), earlier childbearing and more frequent unwed childbearing, less security that comes from stable employment, more exposure to environmental toxins (e.g., lead) that diminish cognitive ability, etc." (emphasis added)
Where poverty is not associated with the usual characteristics of lower class status the value of using it as a proxy diminishes. In the case of immigrants with their higher literacy, more stable family situations, and economic ambitions, it seems clear that a measure of income alone is not enough to place them amongst the ranks of the proletariat classes.
posted by three blind mice at 5:56 AM on October 30, 2015 [5 favorites]
All of the students were receiving Free School Meals (FSM) and as the report from the Parliament noted:
FSM eligibility is more normally used as a proxy for economic deprivation. The Economic Policy Institute (an American think-tank) describes the practice of using poverty as proxy for class in generally positive terms.
"But poverty is a good proxy, sometimes, for lower class status because it is so highly associated with other characteristics of that status. Lower class families have lower parental literacy levels, poorer health, more racial isolation, less stable housing, more exposure to crime and other stresses, less access to quality early childhood experiences, less access to good after school programs (and less ability to afford these even if they did have access), earlier childbearing and more frequent unwed childbearing, less security that comes from stable employment, more exposure to environmental toxins (e.g., lead) that diminish cognitive ability, etc." (emphasis added)
Where poverty is not associated with the usual characteristics of lower class status the value of using it as a proxy diminishes. In the case of immigrants with their higher literacy, more stable family situations, and economic ambitions, it seems clear that a measure of income alone is not enough to place them amongst the ranks of the proletariat classes.
posted by three blind mice at 5:56 AM on October 30, 2015 [5 favorites]
there is a thing called "racism"
Agreed.
Within this chunk, the black people will on average have a higher level of ability, productivity and intelligence than the white people.
This implies that poorer white kids are thicker and less capable than richer white kids. So being born into money does mean you are cleverer!
Consider another hypothesis, one that can exist alongside the hypothesis that racism exists, the second being, there is a thing called "classism". We need a paradigm that considers both.
posted by biffa at 6:10 AM on October 30, 2015 [19 favorites]
Agreed.
Within this chunk, the black people will on average have a higher level of ability, productivity and intelligence than the white people.
This implies that poorer white kids are thicker and less capable than richer white kids. So being born into money does mean you are cleverer!
Consider another hypothesis, one that can exist alongside the hypothesis that racism exists, the second being, there is a thing called "classism". We need a paradigm that considers both.
posted by biffa at 6:10 AM on October 30, 2015 [19 favorites]
2. The income distribution system is stacked against black people, so even smart black kids with good grades are likely to be poor.
Bingo, well spotted. Another way of putting it might be, "For white kids, being poor correlates highly with getting low grades. But for other ethnicities, being poor covers a range of school results" - which tallies more clearly with what systemic racism actually is and does: it's easier for white kids and families, who place emphasis on academic achievement, to escape the poverty trap.
Kinda impressive how this can be skewed to "won't somebody think of the poor white boys".
posted by iotic at 6:17 AM on October 30, 2015 [12 favorites]
Bingo, well spotted. Another way of putting it might be, "For white kids, being poor correlates highly with getting low grades. But for other ethnicities, being poor covers a range of school results" - which tallies more clearly with what systemic racism actually is and does: it's easier for white kids and families, who place emphasis on academic achievement, to escape the poverty trap.
Kinda impressive how this can be skewed to "won't somebody think of the poor white boys".
posted by iotic at 6:17 AM on October 30, 2015 [12 favorites]
Kinda impressive how this can be skewed to "won't somebody think of the poor white boys".
Exactly how much further behind everyone else do poor white boys have to fall before we do start thinking of them?
posted by Drinky Die at 6:22 AM on October 30, 2015 [29 favorites]
Exactly how much further behind everyone else do poor white boys have to fall before we do start thinking of them?
posted by Drinky Die at 6:22 AM on October 30, 2015 [29 favorites]
1. In the UK, colloquially, "Asian" implies someone from South Asia, example India or Pakistan. I believe there's a larger South Asian diaspora in the UK, whereas in the US there's a larger East Asian diaspora. When I've asked British friends about this, they've said that they usually use the demonym (e.g. Chinese, Japanese, etc.) for people from East Asia.
2. Great Britain is an island. Countries located on said island are Wales, Scotland, and England. Collectively they are also known as Great Britain.
The British Isles are Great Britain, Ireland, the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man, the Isle of Wight, the Hebridies, the Scillies, Orkney, Shetland, etc.
The United Kingdom (of Great Britain and Northern Ireland) is England, Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland.
Or just wiki it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminology_of_the_British_Isles
posted by elsietheeel at 6:23 AM on October 30, 2015
2. Great Britain is an island. Countries located on said island are Wales, Scotland, and England. Collectively they are also known as Great Britain.
The British Isles are Great Britain, Ireland, the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man, the Isle of Wight, the Hebridies, the Scillies, Orkney, Shetland, etc.
The United Kingdom (of Great Britain and Northern Ireland) is England, Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland.
Or just wiki it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminology_of_the_British_Isles
posted by elsietheeel at 6:23 AM on October 30, 2015
Exactly how much further behind everyone else do poor white boys have to fall before we do start thinking of them?
That's the point - they're not. Or rather, it's not a necessary interpretation of this data that they are. Another (rather likely) interpretation is that more bright kids of colour remain in poverty.
posted by iotic at 6:29 AM on October 30, 2015 [5 favorites]
That's the point - they're not. Or rather, it's not a necessary interpretation of this data that they are. Another (rather likely) interpretation is that more bright kids of colour remain in poverty.
posted by iotic at 6:29 AM on October 30, 2015 [5 favorites]
Put it this way: what's the simplest way to "improve" these stats for the poor white kids and bring them in line with the other ethnicities? Better grades, while remaining poor.
posted by iotic at 6:37 AM on October 30, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by iotic at 6:37 AM on October 30, 2015 [4 favorites]
Ahh, got it now. Here's an article that backs some of that up:
Britain's ethnic minorities are facing barriers to social mobility and job opportunities, according to a findings from a report by the University of Manchester that will be presented to the House of Lords in a meeting sponsored by Baroness Prashar on Thursday.
Despite levels of educational attainment improving significantly for ethnic minorities, the authors of the report state that it has not translated into improved outcomes in the labour market.
posted by Drinky Die at 6:45 AM on October 30, 2015 [3 favorites]
Britain's ethnic minorities are facing barriers to social mobility and job opportunities, according to a findings from a report by the University of Manchester that will be presented to the House of Lords in a meeting sponsored by Baroness Prashar on Thursday.
Despite levels of educational attainment improving significantly for ethnic minorities, the authors of the report state that it has not translated into improved outcomes in the labour market.
posted by Drinky Die at 6:45 AM on October 30, 2015 [3 favorites]
These are all GB, not Scotland, Wales.
GB is Great Britain, which is England, Scotland, and Wales. What did you mean?
I meant that they were all together, rather than separated. Scotland and Wales have much smaller populations, and especially in inner city Glasgow very high levels of poverty.
Class is a real axis of privilege in the UK, one that can be forgotten. Smart, poor, white boys like to claim it's a bigger factor than race, but as noted above by Iotic, the numbers don't support that.
You may expect that being sat in white-dominated seminars and lectures at university would be a hint that this isn't the case. However, if you're not from London/Manchester/Birmingham, even if you're from a city this country is super white.
posted by Braeburn at 6:48 AM on October 30, 2015 [4 favorites]
GB is Great Britain, which is England, Scotland, and Wales. What did you mean?
I meant that they were all together, rather than separated. Scotland and Wales have much smaller populations, and especially in inner city Glasgow very high levels of poverty.
Class is a real axis of privilege in the UK, one that can be forgotten. Smart, poor, white boys like to claim it's a bigger factor than race, but as noted above by Iotic, the numbers don't support that.
You may expect that being sat in white-dominated seminars and lectures at university would be a hint that this isn't the case. However, if you're not from London/Manchester/Birmingham, even if you're from a city this country is super white.
posted by Braeburn at 6:48 AM on October 30, 2015 [4 favorites]
It is almost certainly the case that the outcome in the headline is a result of systemic racism that makes it more likely for nonwhite families to be in poverty regardless of other factors. However, I think it is important when addressing that not to imply that the higher correlation of poverty to poor grades in white students is not also a problem. Or to put it another way, if we magically solved racism, we'd still have a problem here, because being poor does not mean you are stupid, and being below average at school should not doom you to poverty.
posted by Nothing at 6:52 AM on October 30, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by Nothing at 6:52 AM on October 30, 2015 [5 favorites]
University admissions are based on A-level grades.
A lot of them don't even do A-levels, they get shoveled into a range of terminal vocational qualifications (I believe there are several hundred of these) instead. Some of these are understood by employers; not so many by university admissions staff. There aren't that many jobs to go to, once they complete them.
Class is a real axis of privilege in the UK, one that can be forgotten.
As a North American who spent a bit of time there, I was shocked by how powerful class is as an organizing category of conscious identification for people, and how sensitively tuned everyone is to its fine gradations. So different from the meritocratic horizon of expectations we grow up with over here (whether that's realistic or not).
posted by cotton dress sock at 6:56 AM on October 30, 2015 [5 favorites]
A lot of them don't even do A-levels, they get shoveled into a range of terminal vocational qualifications (I believe there are several hundred of these) instead. Some of these are understood by employers; not so many by university admissions staff. There aren't that many jobs to go to, once they complete them.
Class is a real axis of privilege in the UK, one that can be forgotten.
As a North American who spent a bit of time there, I was shocked by how powerful class is as an organizing category of conscious identification for people, and how sensitively tuned everyone is to its fine gradations. So different from the meritocratic horizon of expectations we grow up with over here (whether that's realistic or not).
posted by cotton dress sock at 6:56 AM on October 30, 2015 [5 favorites]
You may expect that being sat in white-dominated seminars and lectures at university would be a hint that this isn't the case.
I am unsure what seeing a lot of white faces at a university lecture tells us about access to higher education for the poorer white population.
posted by biffa at 7:05 AM on October 30, 2015 [3 favorites]
I am unsure what seeing a lot of white faces at a university lecture tells us about access to higher education for the poorer white population.
posted by biffa at 7:05 AM on October 30, 2015 [3 favorites]
In the case of immigrants with their higher literacy, more stable family situations, and economic ambitions, it seems clear that a measure of income alone is not enough to place them amongst the ranks of the proletariat classes.
I don't know what definition of "proletariat" you're using, but this typically refers to the working class. Being able to read, having a stable family, and having "economic ambitions" are not antithetical to being working class. Income level, though, is a pretty stable thumbnail measure of whether or not a family is working class.
But more to the point, the assertion that the "immigrant petit bourgeois" has driven "British proletariat" (by which I guess you mean working class white people) into the arms of UKIP because Labour is too "pro-immigrant" for working class white people, is utterly irrelevant to this study and seems more like open speculation than anything evidence-based. Especially in light of recent electoral events.
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 7:21 AM on October 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
I don't know what definition of "proletariat" you're using, but this typically refers to the working class. Being able to read, having a stable family, and having "economic ambitions" are not antithetical to being working class. Income level, though, is a pretty stable thumbnail measure of whether or not a family is working class.
But more to the point, the assertion that the "immigrant petit bourgeois" has driven "British proletariat" (by which I guess you mean working class white people) into the arms of UKIP because Labour is too "pro-immigrant" for working class white people, is utterly irrelevant to this study and seems more like open speculation than anything evidence-based. Especially in light of recent electoral events.
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 7:21 AM on October 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
Good lord, do you guys have any idea how offensive you sound in the British context?
The whole "white kids aren't being held back" argument is predicated on the assumption that there is very, very high social mobility among white Britons. The only poor ones are the stupid ones! And they have stupid kids! But smart ethnic minorities are artificially held back, so they show up all the stupid white kids who deserve to be poor.
Sure, there are indeed plenty of smart kids from ethnic minorities, but that doesn't mean that many of the poor white kids aren't also smart and capable. Intelligence is not correlated with income.
In fact, there is really poor social mobility for white British people. This is because working class Britons face intense class discrimination which (often implicitly, but frequently explicitly) keeps them 'in their place'.
"Wait," you argue, "the poor kids are all working class, black or white. That's what working class means!"
Wrong. Class, in the UK, is a complex social phenomenon which is very difficult to explain to people who didn't grow up with it. Your class status is largely determined by your parentage, and you carry it throughout your life. People can often tell what your class status is, even if you try to hide it, and institutions will often more-or-less-openly discriminate against people from a low class background.
There are filthy rich working class people and impoverished aristocrats: just like there are rich African Americans and poor white Americans. But these people are the exception. Class is highly correlated with income, as well as with a bunch of different social markers (people have talked about this up thread), and poor white British kids are overwhelmingly going to be coming from working class backgrounds.
So this isn't about poor people having dumb kids who can't do the test. This is about a huge underclass group who are systemically under-performing in education. Why is that happening? Well I bet it's really complicated, but I know it's nothing to do with poor abilities as a group per se.
Please, for the love of everything holy, please stop saying "I bet the white kids who do bad are just stupid like their stupid parents". That is as awful as saying "I bet African American kids do badly because they're stupid". Both statements are equally wrong and terrible.
posted by Dreadnought at 7:35 AM on October 30, 2015 [88 favorites]
The whole "white kids aren't being held back" argument is predicated on the assumption that there is very, very high social mobility among white Britons. The only poor ones are the stupid ones! And they have stupid kids! But smart ethnic minorities are artificially held back, so they show up all the stupid white kids who deserve to be poor.
Sure, there are indeed plenty of smart kids from ethnic minorities, but that doesn't mean that many of the poor white kids aren't also smart and capable. Intelligence is not correlated with income.
In fact, there is really poor social mobility for white British people. This is because working class Britons face intense class discrimination which (often implicitly, but frequently explicitly) keeps them 'in their place'.
"Wait," you argue, "the poor kids are all working class, black or white. That's what working class means!"
Wrong. Class, in the UK, is a complex social phenomenon which is very difficult to explain to people who didn't grow up with it. Your class status is largely determined by your parentage, and you carry it throughout your life. People can often tell what your class status is, even if you try to hide it, and institutions will often more-or-less-openly discriminate against people from a low class background.
There are filthy rich working class people and impoverished aristocrats: just like there are rich African Americans and poor white Americans. But these people are the exception. Class is highly correlated with income, as well as with a bunch of different social markers (people have talked about this up thread), and poor white British kids are overwhelmingly going to be coming from working class backgrounds.
So this isn't about poor people having dumb kids who can't do the test. This is about a huge underclass group who are systemically under-performing in education. Why is that happening? Well I bet it's really complicated, but I know it's nothing to do with poor abilities as a group per se.
Please, for the love of everything holy, please stop saying "I bet the white kids who do bad are just stupid like their stupid parents". That is as awful as saying "I bet African American kids do badly because they're stupid". Both statements are equally wrong and terrible.
posted by Dreadnought at 7:35 AM on October 30, 2015 [88 favorites]
> more bright kids of colour remain in poverty
First, I'm not sure how much being bright has much to do with leaving poverty, or with GCSE results, or to what extent those are the same thing. And in the end if we improved everyone's GCSE results, a new job would not magically appear to accept each newly-minted EBacc: there are deeper problems with the structure of our economy regardless of how we chose who gets to be at the bottom of it.
There's no doubt that racism limits opportunity for young people in this country, but so does class-based discrimination and other social processes associated with class identity. It's not like white children on free school meals have a fair chance if only they would seize it.
posted by Pre-Taped Call In Show at 7:36 AM on October 30, 2015 [4 favorites]
First, I'm not sure how much being bright has much to do with leaving poverty, or with GCSE results, or to what extent those are the same thing. And in the end if we improved everyone's GCSE results, a new job would not magically appear to accept each newly-minted EBacc: there are deeper problems with the structure of our economy regardless of how we chose who gets to be at the bottom of it.
There's no doubt that racism limits opportunity for young people in this country, but so does class-based discrimination and other social processes associated with class identity. It's not like white children on free school meals have a fair chance if only they would seize it.
posted by Pre-Taped Call In Show at 7:36 AM on October 30, 2015 [4 favorites]
I don't know what definition of "proletariat" you're using, but this typically refers to the working class. Being able to read, having a stable family, and having "economic ambitions" are not antithetical to being working class. Income level, though, is a pretty stable thumbnail measure of whether or not a family is working class.
Income alone, though, will mismeasure a lot of people's class location. My income in graduate school was low (well above the poverty line, but far from the national median), but there is no way that I should have been counted as working class during those years, for example. Recent immigrants, as others have noted above, might be counted differently depending on whether you consider only income or also education and other factors. Conversely, a highly skilled deep sea welder might well identify as working class despite having an income above many university-educated middle class people.
Class identification includes income, but also encompasses education, family history, self-identification, employment, and consumption patterns, along with more mutable things like clothing, accent, and so on. The study in the FPP is getting at the intersection between race and class, but I don't think it is really getting to the bottom of such a complex subject.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:39 AM on October 30, 2015 [4 favorites]
Income alone, though, will mismeasure a lot of people's class location. My income in graduate school was low (well above the poverty line, but far from the national median), but there is no way that I should have been counted as working class during those years, for example. Recent immigrants, as others have noted above, might be counted differently depending on whether you consider only income or also education and other factors. Conversely, a highly skilled deep sea welder might well identify as working class despite having an income above many university-educated middle class people.
Class identification includes income, but also encompasses education, family history, self-identification, employment, and consumption patterns, along with more mutable things like clothing, accent, and so on. The study in the FPP is getting at the intersection between race and class, but I don't think it is really getting to the bottom of such a complex subject.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:39 AM on October 30, 2015 [4 favorites]
I don't know what definition of "proletariat" you're using, but this typically refers to the working class. Being able to read, having a stable family, and having "economic ambitions" are not antithetical to being working class. Income level, though, is a pretty stable thumbnail measure of whether or not a family is working class.
No, they are using proletariat/working class in a different way than you are.
In the British context, working class/proletariat is not an income category, but a cultural category. A grad student, no matter how poor, is not working class. A shop clerk whose parents have degrees is not really working class - they are a middle class person working at a low paid job.
There is a different orientation to education and to achievement - and to future planning - among working class and middle class people. Actually, research from the United States finds this as well -- we may ignore the realities of class there, but research finds that it does matter.
When you look at recent immigrant communities - and you must remember that Britain, unlike the United States or any other settler country, does not have a large non-white, non-immigrant community - you may have people living in poverty who were, nonetheless, raised as middle class or even upper class in their country of birth. They may be working in a factory or a shop now, but their backgrounds are often educated and/or entrepreneurial, etc -- and they pass those cultural skills and values down to their children.
I've seen this happen within a white community. My mother's parents had education, but she lived in subsidised housing as a single mother. Nonetheless, her friends & neighbours (who had working class parents) would talk about how much more "middle class" she seemed - how she talked (not accent but vocabulary), how she dealt with money, her attitudes about education and the future. She was culturally more middle class than they were, even when they had more money. And when it came to look for work, they didn't even try to look for office work (even of the pink-collar variety), but blue collar (factory, distributing plant, donut shop). Whereas she, with less education to start, chose to go back to school and train as a bookkeeper.
That said, being her daughter and having been raised poor, I may (ironically) be more working class in my attitudes re risk and money than my mother, though my education is far greater than hers.
I'm not saying that working class people don't value education -- there were major working class education movements in the 19th century -- but they have a different relationship with education and social mobility, especially after 40 years of decreasing social mobility in the UK.
posted by jb at 7:44 AM on October 30, 2015 [27 favorites]
No, they are using proletariat/working class in a different way than you are.
In the British context, working class/proletariat is not an income category, but a cultural category. A grad student, no matter how poor, is not working class. A shop clerk whose parents have degrees is not really working class - they are a middle class person working at a low paid job.
There is a different orientation to education and to achievement - and to future planning - among working class and middle class people. Actually, research from the United States finds this as well -- we may ignore the realities of class there, but research finds that it does matter.
When you look at recent immigrant communities - and you must remember that Britain, unlike the United States or any other settler country, does not have a large non-white, non-immigrant community - you may have people living in poverty who were, nonetheless, raised as middle class or even upper class in their country of birth. They may be working in a factory or a shop now, but their backgrounds are often educated and/or entrepreneurial, etc -- and they pass those cultural skills and values down to their children.
I've seen this happen within a white community. My mother's parents had education, but she lived in subsidised housing as a single mother. Nonetheless, her friends & neighbours (who had working class parents) would talk about how much more "middle class" she seemed - how she talked (not accent but vocabulary), how she dealt with money, her attitudes about education and the future. She was culturally more middle class than they were, even when they had more money. And when it came to look for work, they didn't even try to look for office work (even of the pink-collar variety), but blue collar (factory, distributing plant, donut shop). Whereas she, with less education to start, chose to go back to school and train as a bookkeeper.
That said, being her daughter and having been raised poor, I may (ironically) be more working class in my attitudes re risk and money than my mother, though my education is far greater than hers.
I'm not saying that working class people don't value education -- there were major working class education movements in the 19th century -- but they have a different relationship with education and social mobility, especially after 40 years of decreasing social mobility in the UK.
posted by jb at 7:44 AM on October 30, 2015 [27 favorites]
Income level, though, is a pretty stable thumbnail measure of whether or not a family is working class.
Spot the commenter who is not British! Here, management or small business ownership in construction often includes solidly working class people who may be pretty wealthy by the time they retire, certainly in comparison to middle class folk from the current generation who are in massive student debt and who graduated into a busted economy, or people who work in the library or as social workers or in admin jobs.
I grew up in poverty and was entitled to free school meals and clothing vouchers and the whole shebang, and nobody in my family is remotely working class. Part of the reason we didn't have any money was my dad's resistance to looking for the kind of working class jobs that were actually available in the region we were living in. Nevertheless, the cultural capital I inherited took me straight off to university and now here I am working a professional job, unlike almost anyone I went to school with.
posted by emilyw at 7:53 AM on October 30, 2015 [20 favorites]
Spot the commenter who is not British! Here, management or small business ownership in construction often includes solidly working class people who may be pretty wealthy by the time they retire, certainly in comparison to middle class folk from the current generation who are in massive student debt and who graduated into a busted economy, or people who work in the library or as social workers or in admin jobs.
I grew up in poverty and was entitled to free school meals and clothing vouchers and the whole shebang, and nobody in my family is remotely working class. Part of the reason we didn't have any money was my dad's resistance to looking for the kind of working class jobs that were actually available in the region we were living in. Nevertheless, the cultural capital I inherited took me straight off to university and now here I am working a professional job, unlike almost anyone I went to school with.
posted by emilyw at 7:53 AM on October 30, 2015 [20 favorites]
And those of you who think that getting an education is going to change things for poor white boys, better think again. WHO you know still reigns supreme. A lackey with immaculate writing skills who knows Kant from Schlegel is still a lackey.
So don't take that big student loan out with Great Expectations.
posted by Twang at 8:27 AM on October 30, 2015 [5 favorites]
So don't take that big student loan out with Great Expectations.
posted by Twang at 8:27 AM on October 30, 2015 [5 favorites]
That's the point - they're not. Or rather, it's not a necessary interpretation of this data that they are. Another (rather likely) interpretation is that more bright kids of colour remain in poverty.
Not only is this line of 'racism leads to stupid poor white kids and smart poor black kids' argument offensive in the British context, it is somewhat bizarre in the American context, where poor black kids have lower SAT scores than poor white kids (the opposite of the racial finding here, although in the US poor boys still underperform poor girls). Would the argument then be that there is no anti-black racism in the US?
It's almost like continued multi-generational deprivation makes kids do worse in school, and black American descendants of slaves and white descendants of the British working class both experienced that.
posted by zipadee at 8:50 AM on October 30, 2015 [18 favorites]
Not only is this line of 'racism leads to stupid poor white kids and smart poor black kids' argument offensive in the British context, it is somewhat bizarre in the American context, where poor black kids have lower SAT scores than poor white kids (the opposite of the racial finding here, although in the US poor boys still underperform poor girls). Would the argument then be that there is no anti-black racism in the US?
It's almost like continued multi-generational deprivation makes kids do worse in school, and black American descendants of slaves and white descendants of the British working class both experienced that.
posted by zipadee at 8:50 AM on October 30, 2015 [18 favorites]
You may expect that being sat in white-dominated seminars and lectures at university would be a hint that this isn't the case.
I am unsure what seeing a lot of white faces at a university lecture tells us about access to higher education for the poorer white population.
Exactly, it tells you nothing, and if that's all you've ever seen it wouldn't appear weird. I'm saying there are strata of society who are conspicuous in their absence. University is tougher for those from a 'non traditional background', including for working class white boys.
There's not been any discussion here yet about public/private/state schools in the uk and the differences they make to GCSEs, Uni and grades. I think that's probably playing a part.
Although it's also worth noting that UK universities are a massive export, and there are lots of international students.
(I keep writing comments when I'm about to dash off, apologies if anything I've said isn't clear.)
posted by Braeburn at 8:55 AM on October 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
I am unsure what seeing a lot of white faces at a university lecture tells us about access to higher education for the poorer white population.
Exactly, it tells you nothing, and if that's all you've ever seen it wouldn't appear weird. I'm saying there are strata of society who are conspicuous in their absence. University is tougher for those from a 'non traditional background', including for working class white boys.
There's not been any discussion here yet about public/private/state schools in the uk and the differences they make to GCSEs, Uni and grades. I think that's probably playing a part.
Although it's also worth noting that UK universities are a massive export, and there are lots of international students.
(I keep writing comments when I'm about to dash off, apologies if anything I've said isn't clear.)
posted by Braeburn at 8:55 AM on October 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
The report is a good document, full of interesting stuff that isn't easily summarised. I feared they might be emphasising the white boy thing tactically, as a means of recruiting sympathy for the cause of equality from the widest possible constituency, but it's not that. In fact it's only one point out of scores, and even that is set in a context in which there has been:
...a narrowing of the attainment gap between White pupils and Pakistani/Bangladeshi
and African/Caribbean/Black pupils
The situation is set out with admirable clarity, but it is unreducibly complex.
Overall, if the EHRC is trying to justify itself, I think the report does a pretty good job on a couple of levels.
posted by Segundus at 9:16 AM on October 30, 2015 [2 favorites]
...a narrowing of the attainment gap between White pupils and Pakistani/Bangladeshi
and African/Caribbean/Black pupils
The situation is set out with admirable clarity, but it is unreducibly complex.
Overall, if the EHRC is trying to justify itself, I think the report does a pretty good job on a couple of levels.
posted by Segundus at 9:16 AM on October 30, 2015 [2 favorites]
The UK is startlingly white (much more so than I had realized from my visits there) and immigrants are comparatively geographically concentrated.
Indeed. I read a lot by Americans assuming that Britain's like America. If you want to picture what an actual cross-section of Britain looks like read Harry Potter. The population of Hogwarts is remarkably good at looking like a cross-section of Britain as a whole by ethnicity (I ran the numbers on this a while ago). The cities are extremely diverse. The rural areas ... aren't.
Also to quote Zipadee "It's almost like continued multi-generational deprivation makes kids do worse in school, and black American descendants of slaves and white descendants of the British working class both experienced that." From a British perspective it's interesting seeing both how much and how little of American discourse on race would map to discourse on class over here.
posted by Francis at 9:38 AM on October 30, 2015 [8 favorites]
Indeed. I read a lot by Americans assuming that Britain's like America. If you want to picture what an actual cross-section of Britain looks like read Harry Potter. The population of Hogwarts is remarkably good at looking like a cross-section of Britain as a whole by ethnicity (I ran the numbers on this a while ago). The cities are extremely diverse. The rural areas ... aren't.
Also to quote Zipadee "It's almost like continued multi-generational deprivation makes kids do worse in school, and black American descendants of slaves and white descendants of the British working class both experienced that." From a British perspective it's interesting seeing both how much and how little of American discourse on race would map to discourse on class over here.
posted by Francis at 9:38 AM on October 30, 2015 [8 favorites]
Apparently people from India or Pakistan are grouped together as Middle Eastern while people who are from China or Japan are defined as Asian.
What? In Canada? What do they call the actual Middle East then? India, Pakistan and Afghanistan are not the Middle East. I've heard this in sort of confusey way in the US but it's not the same thing as Asian primarily meaning South Asian in the UK but Asian primarily meaning East Asian in the US
posted by zutalors! at 9:56 AM on October 30, 2015
What? In Canada? What do they call the actual Middle East then? India, Pakistan and Afghanistan are not the Middle East. I've heard this in sort of confusey way in the US but it's not the same thing as Asian primarily meaning South Asian in the UK but Asian primarily meaning East Asian in the US
posted by zutalors! at 9:56 AM on October 30, 2015
What? In Canada? What do they call the actual Middle East then? India, Pakistan and Afghanistan are not the Middle East.
I mean, some people some places in Canada do that, apparently. But it's not like some national phenomenon though where we're all taught that the Middle East includes India and Pakistan. Plenty of people anywhere can be ignorant of geography.
posted by Hoopo at 10:05 AM on October 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
I mean, some people some places in Canada do that, apparently. But it's not like some national phenomenon though where we're all taught that the Middle East includes India and Pakistan. Plenty of people anywhere can be ignorant of geography.
posted by Hoopo at 10:05 AM on October 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
Sure, Fizz's comment just seemed to set up that Indians/Pakistanis are "Middle Easterners" in Canada the way they are "Asian" in the UK ( as though it was an accepted description, not a mistake of geography) , which, wasn't anything I'd ever heard about Canada.
posted by zutalors! at 10:13 AM on October 30, 2015
posted by zutalors! at 10:13 AM on October 30, 2015
(just to follow up on being ignorant of geography in Canada, there might be something to this. We're a giant landmass that borders all of one other country, itself a giant landmass. I didn't even study where countries in Europe, Africa, Asia and South America were located on a map until quite late in high school--an elective course, no less--because our geography largely focused on Canada and the USA. Hmm. Maybe it is widespread?)
posted by Hoopo at 10:14 AM on October 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Hoopo at 10:14 AM on October 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
Hoopo, I was a bit confused by Fizz's comment too. It's a little unusual to hear people from the sub-continent called Asians here, but I've never heard them called "Middle Easterners" either and I've lived in several provinces.
posted by peppermind at 10:28 AM on October 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by peppermind at 10:28 AM on October 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
To continue the Canada derail, a Muslim from Pakistan reads as much closer to someone from Saudi Arabia than they do to someone from China. And at workplaces like tech companies with heavy international populations, they would socialize with the people from what we'd call the Middle East while Chinese, Cambodian etc. folks tended to socialize with each other. And if someone used Asian the first assumption was that that would include the East Asian folks but only the others if we were being pedantic.
posted by Space Coyote at 10:43 AM on October 30, 2015
posted by Space Coyote at 10:43 AM on October 30, 2015
No Canadian I've ever met has conflated India/Pakistan with the Middle East, for a data point. I don't know about people with those backgrounds reading as "closer", I haven't seen that, either, fwiw.
This just reinforces how we can't move models of race from place to place, as they have very different histories.
From a British perspective it's interesting seeing both how much and how little of American discourse on race would map to discourse on class over here.
I'd be interested in further reading on this exactly, if anyone can suggest where to look. I know the ways social im/mobility plays out viz different more-or-less essentialized social categories (because class distinctions reproduce themselves in ways that do appear to seem actually heritable to people stuck in it, in the UK) in different countries really is irreducible, a question of particular histories, but someone must have done some comparing somewhere.
Canada's not immune to that kind of entrenched inequality, with First Nations people's positions most notably fixed, and we're also racist and classist (but I think to a lesser degree - biggish middle class, everyone's middle-class, if you ask them - but also opportunities aren't as closed off as elsewhere), but I think there is a little more breathing room here, compared to the UK, the rest of Europe (also complicated by a colonizing history and a weird conflation of race with nation, and ethnic homogeneity more typical of more economically equitable countries, e.g. Scandy places), the US, Australia & NZ...
posted by cotton dress sock at 10:52 AM on October 30, 2015 [2 favorites]
This just reinforces how we can't move models of race from place to place, as they have very different histories.
From a British perspective it's interesting seeing both how much and how little of American discourse on race would map to discourse on class over here.
I'd be interested in further reading on this exactly, if anyone can suggest where to look. I know the ways social im/mobility plays out viz different more-or-less essentialized social categories (because class distinctions reproduce themselves in ways that do appear to seem actually heritable to people stuck in it, in the UK) in different countries really is irreducible, a question of particular histories, but someone must have done some comparing somewhere.
Canada's not immune to that kind of entrenched inequality, with First Nations people's positions most notably fixed, and we're also racist and classist (but I think to a lesser degree - biggish middle class, everyone's middle-class, if you ask them - but also opportunities aren't as closed off as elsewhere), but I think there is a little more breathing room here, compared to the UK, the rest of Europe (also complicated by a colonizing history and a weird conflation of race with nation, and ethnic homogeneity more typical of more economically equitable countries, e.g. Scandy places), the US, Australia & NZ...
posted by cotton dress sock at 10:52 AM on October 30, 2015 [2 favorites]
(Sorry for that, also a derail. But yes, social hierarchies are different in different places, the UK is its own thing, for sure.)
posted by cotton dress sock at 10:59 AM on October 30, 2015
posted by cotton dress sock at 10:59 AM on October 30, 2015
Re: Canadian racial categories vs. British ones -
People from the Indian sub-continent (broadly, Indian, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka):
Canada: Indian
UK: Asian (the Brits generally lump in Arabs and Persians here, too)
People from Anywhere East of the Indian sub-continent (Thailand, Vietnam, China, Japan, Burma, et. al):
Canada: Asian
UK: Chinese
I spent a few minutes looking for the EHRC's definitions, but the furthest I got was that they're using ONS data, and I couldn't find their definitions. Broadly in the UK, Chinese is taken to refer to pretty much anyone who wasn't from the subcontinent. Much to the annoyance of many of said people.
posted by Kreiger at 11:07 AM on October 30, 2015
People from the Indian sub-continent (broadly, Indian, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka):
Canada: Indian
UK: Asian (the Brits generally lump in Arabs and Persians here, too)
People from Anywhere East of the Indian sub-continent (Thailand, Vietnam, China, Japan, Burma, et. al):
Canada: Asian
UK: Chinese
I spent a few minutes looking for the EHRC's definitions, but the furthest I got was that they're using ONS data, and I couldn't find their definitions. Broadly in the UK, Chinese is taken to refer to pretty much anyone who wasn't from the subcontinent. Much to the annoyance of many of said people.
posted by Kreiger at 11:07 AM on October 30, 2015
W.r.t. the study, a couple of observations:
Black kids are generally, but definitely not always, directly connected to recent immigrant families from the former colonies. Either Windrush generation grandparents (or great-grandparents, at this point...showing my age, here), or parents/grandparents from Nigeria/Ghana/etc. The expectations around education are radically different for these kids than white working-class kids from the same areas, with the same economic status.
It can be very hard to disentangle class from economics if you're not raised with it. I didn't see it growing up in Canada, and it took a fair while before I could read it in England. The report itself doesn't mention it (literally, the word is not used), but it shows up a bit, e.g. "students from poorer backgrounds". jb and emilyw's comments are definitely worth reading before you look at the study, if you're not familiar with how things work over there.
I (stereotypically middle-class, by their standards) had a working-class girlfriend that I lived with when I was there, and our conversations about what our families expected of us, what we expected of them, what they taught us or did for us, were a constant source of wonderment for us both.
posted by Kreiger at 11:33 AM on October 30, 2015 [3 favorites]
Black kids are generally, but definitely not always, directly connected to recent immigrant families from the former colonies. Either Windrush generation grandparents (or great-grandparents, at this point...showing my age, here), or parents/grandparents from Nigeria/Ghana/etc. The expectations around education are radically different for these kids than white working-class kids from the same areas, with the same economic status.
It can be very hard to disentangle class from economics if you're not raised with it. I didn't see it growing up in Canada, and it took a fair while before I could read it in England. The report itself doesn't mention it (literally, the word is not used), but it shows up a bit, e.g. "students from poorer backgrounds". jb and emilyw's comments are definitely worth reading before you look at the study, if you're not familiar with how things work over there.
I (stereotypically middle-class, by their standards) had a working-class girlfriend that I lived with when I was there, and our conversations about what our families expected of us, what we expected of them, what they taught us or did for us, were a constant source of wonderment for us both.
posted by Kreiger at 11:33 AM on October 30, 2015 [3 favorites]
I didn't get it all, by any means, in the five years I was there, no question; was also in a relationship with a someone who took pains to explain the influence of class in his life, and I'm not sure I'll ever really know the subtleties. Definitely interested in personal experiences; also in more academic analyses. (More for an Ask, I think!)
posted by cotton dress sock at 11:37 AM on October 30, 2015
posted by cotton dress sock at 11:37 AM on October 30, 2015
Francis' comment about rural diversity seems to hit at a fundamental point, and one that is pretty true in both America and the UK.
Progressives haven't figured out a good way to protect rural areas from the business cycle. Social programs are designed to protect low-income folks, in the hope that they will eventually make their lives better. But they're mostly designed to help people join in the economic recovery. They don't do much to create economic recovery.
Rural areas often don't see economic recovery once they hit a recession. Instead they usually lose their most mobile citizens, leaving fewer resources to dig themselves out of that hole.
And the truth is that a lot of liberals/progressives shrug at this problem. Not necessarily because they don't care. But there are other priorities, and it doesn't hurt that those priorities have a concrete path forward. Ending racism might be a huge problem that will outlive my lifespan. But I can think of a dozen policies I can support that could work towards that goal. For rural areas, I'm skeptical of any universal solutions.
posted by politikitty at 11:49 AM on October 30, 2015 [2 favorites]
Progressives haven't figured out a good way to protect rural areas from the business cycle. Social programs are designed to protect low-income folks, in the hope that they will eventually make their lives better. But they're mostly designed to help people join in the economic recovery. They don't do much to create economic recovery.
Rural areas often don't see economic recovery once they hit a recession. Instead they usually lose their most mobile citizens, leaving fewer resources to dig themselves out of that hole.
And the truth is that a lot of liberals/progressives shrug at this problem. Not necessarily because they don't care. But there are other priorities, and it doesn't hurt that those priorities have a concrete path forward. Ending racism might be a huge problem that will outlive my lifespan. But I can think of a dozen policies I can support that could work towards that goal. For rural areas, I'm skeptical of any universal solutions.
posted by politikitty at 11:49 AM on October 30, 2015 [2 favorites]
Having actually read the whole ehrc report, the bbc framing of it feels really misleading... It implies that 'poor white boys facing the toughest challenge' is a direct quote but I can't find it anywhere in the report? And it not even really implied at all the in report, which does note educational attainment at gcse level showing the widest gap for white boys receiving free school meals but doesn't draw any conclusions other than that... and has whole other sections about how other groups are particularly disadvantaged in work and life after gcse level?
posted by ninjablob at 11:59 AM on October 30, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by ninjablob at 11:59 AM on October 30, 2015 [2 favorites]
Hoopo, I was a bit confused by Fizz's comment too. It's a little unusual to hear people from the sub-continent called Asians here, but I've never heard them called "Middle Easterners" either and I've lived in several provinces.
posted by peppermind at 1:28 PM on October 30 [1 favorite +] [!]
To continue the Canada derail, a Muslim from Pakistan reads as much closer to someone from Saudi Arabia than they do to someone from China. And at workplaces like tech companies with heavy international populations, they would socialize with the people from what we'd call the Middle East while Chinese, Cambodian etc. folks tended to socialize with each other. And if someone used Asian the first assumption was that that would include the East Asian folks but only the others if we were being pedantic.
Apologies if I made it seem like this was a national thing, it could just be my weird experience in my specific area. And my unfortunate luck to have run into some ignorant people. It's just something I've heard a few times in my life, enough that it raised my eyebrows and made me go, "huh."
Cheers.
posted by Fizz at 1:26 PM on October 30, 2015
It can be very hard to disentangle class from economics if you're not raised with it. I didn't see it growing up in Canada
We have class separate from economics here in America too, and I'd assume in Canada, just people talk less about it.
posted by save alive nothing that breatheth at 2:01 PM on October 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
We have class separate from economics here in America too, and I'd assume in Canada, just people talk less about it.
posted by save alive nothing that breatheth at 2:01 PM on October 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
you must remember that Britain, unlike the United States or any other settler country, does not have a large non-white, non-immigrant community
Well, now the Irish are white, we don't. But maybe that's an important difference.
Before the First World War, for example, Roman Catholics - that is, Irish immigrants - were barred from the better-paid, more dependable jobs in the factories and trades, and required to work in casual occupations like portage, where economic downturns pre-Keynes/Welfare State were dreadful. And Irish immigrants made up a higher proportion of the population of England/Scotland than non-whites now, especially after the Famine.
They are still here: so are my fellow Britons who suffered literally centuries of discrimination over-represented in this "poor white" category? Anyone know?
posted by alasdair at 2:08 PM on October 30, 2015 [2 favorites]
Well, now the Irish are white, we don't. But maybe that's an important difference.
Before the First World War, for example, Roman Catholics - that is, Irish immigrants - were barred from the better-paid, more dependable jobs in the factories and trades, and required to work in casual occupations like portage, where economic downturns pre-Keynes/Welfare State were dreadful. And Irish immigrants made up a higher proportion of the population of England/Scotland than non-whites now, especially after the Famine.
They are still here: so are my fellow Britons who suffered literally centuries of discrimination over-represented in this "poor white" category? Anyone know?
posted by alasdair at 2:08 PM on October 30, 2015 [2 favorites]
To answer my own question a little: there are differing statistics in the House of Commons report for Irish and British, but they conclude they are the same for the purposes of this discussion.
posted by alasdair at 2:14 PM on October 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by alasdair at 2:14 PM on October 30, 2015 [1 favorite]
Having actually read the whole ehrc report, the bbc framing of it feels really misleading... It implies that 'poor white boys facing the toughest challenge' is a direct quote but I can't find it anywhere in the report? And it not even really implied at all the in report...
Absolutely. The BBC has been well and truly cowed by the Conservative government, and a lot of articles seem to be clumsily aiming at being like the Telegraph or Daily Mail. The whole report (I've read part of it, it seems good) is being largely ignored in favour of taking a detail out of context.
Not only is this line of 'racism leads to stupid poor white kids and smart poor black kids' argument offensive in the British context, it is somewhat bizarre in the American context, where poor black kids have lower SAT scores than poor white kids (the opposite of the racial finding here, although in the US poor boys still underperform poor girls). Would the argument then be that there is no anti-black racism in the US?
It's a complicated report on a very complicated issue, which gets even more complicated when you try to compare different countries. I've looked up a bit on how things differ in the US and found this:
If you do want to make UK/American comparisons, I notice from Googling that certain racists are trying to use the black/white gap in US scores even at low incomes as evidence of racial inferiority. You could perhaps point at these UK results to disprove that.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 11:29 PM on October 30, 2015 [2 favorites]
Absolutely. The BBC has been well and truly cowed by the Conservative government, and a lot of articles seem to be clumsily aiming at being like the Telegraph or Daily Mail. The whole report (I've read part of it, it seems good) is being largely ignored in favour of taking a detail out of context.
Not only is this line of 'racism leads to stupid poor white kids and smart poor black kids' argument offensive in the British context, it is somewhat bizarre in the American context, where poor black kids have lower SAT scores than poor white kids (the opposite of the racial finding here, although in the US poor boys still underperform poor girls). Would the argument then be that there is no anti-black racism in the US?
It's a complicated report on a very complicated issue, which gets even more complicated when you try to compare different countries. I've looked up a bit on how things differ in the US and found this:
A major reason for the SAT racial gap appears to be the fact that black students who take the SAT have not followed the same academic track as white students. It is true that 97 percent of both blacks and whites who take the SAT have studied algebra in high school. But in higher level mathematics courses such as trigonometry and calculus, whites hold a large lead. In 2005, 47 percent of white SAT test takers had taken trigonometry in high school compared to 35 percent of black test takers...I would suspect from that that the UK system may be somewhat less racially biased than the US, at least at this level. The state school system in the UK follows a National Curriculum. For the GCSE results that we're talking about, everyone who sits the exam has studied the same curriculum. So, some factors that hamper black Americans taking SATs do not hamper black Britons taking GCSEs.
If you do want to make UK/American comparisons, I notice from Googling that certain racists are trying to use the black/white gap in US scores even at low incomes as evidence of racial inferiority. You could perhaps point at these UK results to disprove that.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 11:29 PM on October 30, 2015 [2 favorites]
A couple of additional details for US readers - a C grade at GCSE is not 70% or above. It's between 50 and 60 ( varying by subject). For some mathematics papers its 30%ish.
Generally, 35%-40% of 16 year olds don't get 5 c grade and above GCSEs. This is the age you can leave school. By comparison the U.S. Graduation rate is over 80%.
I think the bigger question is the academic underachievement of so many of our young people. I suspect class plays a big part of it.
posted by eyeofthetiger at 2:05 AM on October 31, 2015
Generally, 35%-40% of 16 year olds don't get 5 c grade and above GCSEs. This is the age you can leave school. By comparison the U.S. Graduation rate is over 80%.
I think the bigger question is the academic underachievement of so many of our young people. I suspect class plays a big part of it.
posted by eyeofthetiger at 2:05 AM on October 31, 2015
and you must remember that Britain, unlike the United States or any other settler country, does not have a large non-white, non-immigrant community
At this point there have been large Jamaican, Pakistani, and other immigrant communities in the UK for more than 50 years. (I think the previous immigrant waves were Polish and Jewish, but I am sure I am missing an intervening step or two.)
Is there a point at which those immigrant waves become incontrovertibly British? Or is the current pattern that they will be forever "immigrant"?
posted by Dip Flash at 2:43 AM on October 31, 2015
At this point there have been large Jamaican, Pakistani, and other immigrant communities in the UK for more than 50 years. (I think the previous immigrant waves were Polish and Jewish, but I am sure I am missing an intervening step or two.)
Is there a point at which those immigrant waves become incontrovertibly British? Or is the current pattern that they will be forever "immigrant"?
posted by Dip Flash at 2:43 AM on October 31, 2015
So much good discussion above. I know that in the few places that retain the 11+ exam there's a massive industry for parents with the means to ensure that their children have been tutored in how to pass it. The argument to keep it is that it allows social mobility for smart working class children- they can get into the better schools and have more resources to get to university. As you can imagine, it doesn't work when the middle-class kids have all been tutored in how to pass and the working-class ones haven't.
For those not familiar with the 11+, it's supposed to test if you're more suitable for a-levels and then university, or a technical college and a practical vocation. By and large it's been removed, because it was seen as a barrier, rather than an aide to social mobility.
Dip Flash, following two thousand years of immigration, all it will take is for a different group of people to become the new visible category. To an extent this is happening with people from eastern Europe- they're the new immigrants, and people who's families have been in this country for decades are very British. As has been implied above, the family expectation about academics mesh very nicely with those of the traditional middle classes. Anecdotally, when I went from one very white school to a very Asian (ie Indian) school, the people around me went from complaining about "pushy parents" to "Asian parents" with no change in meaning.
Again, anecdotally, but I try and point out that I've got immigrant grandparents, they were just white. Considering they came from Europe, rather than the former colonies it's certainly arguable that they were less British in everything but skin colour. (My grandmother spoke French fluently, sure the least British language of all.)
posted by Braeburn at 2:52 AM on October 31, 2015 [2 favorites]
For those not familiar with the 11+, it's supposed to test if you're more suitable for a-levels and then university, or a technical college and a practical vocation. By and large it's been removed, because it was seen as a barrier, rather than an aide to social mobility.
Dip Flash, following two thousand years of immigration, all it will take is for a different group of people to become the new visible category. To an extent this is happening with people from eastern Europe- they're the new immigrants, and people who's families have been in this country for decades are very British. As has been implied above, the family expectation about academics mesh very nicely with those of the traditional middle classes. Anecdotally, when I went from one very white school to a very Asian (ie Indian) school, the people around me went from complaining about "pushy parents" to "Asian parents" with no change in meaning.
Again, anecdotally, but I try and point out that I've got immigrant grandparents, they were just white. Considering they came from Europe, rather than the former colonies it's certainly arguable that they were less British in everything but skin colour. (My grandmother spoke French fluently, sure the least British language of all.)
posted by Braeburn at 2:52 AM on October 31, 2015 [2 favorites]
Is there a point at which those immigrant waves become incontrovertibly British? Or is the current pattern that they will be forever "immigrant"?
I was trying to differentiate between non-white Britons, who are voluntary immigrants or the descendants of voluntary immigrants, and the large numbers of non-white Americans who are descended from involuntary migrants (aka slaves). Even fifty or a hundred years later, the advantages that immigrants tend to have (education, entrepreneurial skills, get-up-and-go) can benefit their children.
Looking at it this way, the vast majority of white people in the United States and Canada are still culturally immigrants. (Though the nature of immigration was different in the past.) The vast majority of white people in Britain are indigenous.
As for the comments above re structural racism keeping back talented non-white people in the UK: Recent immigrants certainly do have disadvantages - language problems, lack of social connections, and (of course) discrimination. The phenomenon of doctors (or engineers or political scientists ...) driving taxis is real, just as it is in North America; there are even PSAs about it. They are poor -- but they are also educated. They give to their children support that similarly poor but non-educated parents cannot (and sometimes aren't interested in giving). Their children may not be inherently brighter, but they aren't coming from the same place.
Now this isn't true for all immigrant families; immigrants who were working class before emigrating may bring more working class values and skills. If your parents only ever had education to Grade 8, they will struggle to help you with trigonometry. Similarly, if your parents, and your grandparents, and all of your aunts and uncles have only ever worked for wages (and low wages at that), and never owned a farm or ran a small business or any kind of entrepreneurial endeavour, you have no example of how to start or run a business, no family connections to get early experience, etc. I'm not saying you can't learn on your own, but people learn from their social networks -- and if your social networks are bereft of education or entrepreneurial skills, it's much harder to gain them.
posted by jb at 7:07 AM on October 31, 2015 [2 favorites]
I was trying to differentiate between non-white Britons, who are voluntary immigrants or the descendants of voluntary immigrants, and the large numbers of non-white Americans who are descended from involuntary migrants (aka slaves). Even fifty or a hundred years later, the advantages that immigrants tend to have (education, entrepreneurial skills, get-up-and-go) can benefit their children.
Looking at it this way, the vast majority of white people in the United States and Canada are still culturally immigrants. (Though the nature of immigration was different in the past.) The vast majority of white people in Britain are indigenous.
As for the comments above re structural racism keeping back talented non-white people in the UK: Recent immigrants certainly do have disadvantages - language problems, lack of social connections, and (of course) discrimination. The phenomenon of doctors (or engineers or political scientists ...) driving taxis is real, just as it is in North America; there are even PSAs about it. They are poor -- but they are also educated. They give to their children support that similarly poor but non-educated parents cannot (and sometimes aren't interested in giving). Their children may not be inherently brighter, but they aren't coming from the same place.
Now this isn't true for all immigrant families; immigrants who were working class before emigrating may bring more working class values and skills. If your parents only ever had education to Grade 8, they will struggle to help you with trigonometry. Similarly, if your parents, and your grandparents, and all of your aunts and uncles have only ever worked for wages (and low wages at that), and never owned a farm or ran a small business or any kind of entrepreneurial endeavour, you have no example of how to start or run a business, no family connections to get early experience, etc. I'm not saying you can't learn on your own, but people learn from their social networks -- and if your social networks are bereft of education or entrepreneurial skills, it's much harder to gain them.
posted by jb at 7:07 AM on October 31, 2015 [2 favorites]
However, if you're not from London/Manchester/Birmingham, even if you're from a city this country is super white.
Not to dispute your point that much of the country is indeed super white, but that seems rather too short a list of exceptions. I realise that a lot of people routinely forget that the Midlands exists (aside from Brum) but you might have heard of places like Coventry or Leicester, for example.
posted by Dysk at 9:42 AM on October 31, 2015
Not to dispute your point that much of the country is indeed super white, but that seems rather too short a list of exceptions. I realise that a lot of people routinely forget that the Midlands exists (aside from Brum) but you might have heard of places like Coventry or Leicester, for example.
posted by Dysk at 9:42 AM on October 31, 2015
I work for the Department for Education. We published a research report and associated analysis in June on the reasons ethnic minorities seem to exhibit higher resilience to the effects of deprivation on educational attainment. It's probably worth a look if you're interested in this issue.
posted by knapah at 10:19 AM on October 31, 2015 [8 favorites]
posted by knapah at 10:19 AM on October 31, 2015 [8 favorites]
For those not familiar with the 11+, it's supposed to test if you're more suitable for a-levels and then university, or a technical college and a practical vocation.
I just wrote a ridiculously long comment* about Grammar Schools and the 11-Plus, which I think I should drop. Suffice it to say it was not so much an aptitude test as an instrument of social control. For millions of school children failing the 11-plus literally felt like being officially told you were worth very little.
I'd suggest that the snobbery and class stratification that was explicit in the Grammar / Secondary Modern system still underpins a lot of secondary education, though more subtly. I suspect, though, that it's a bit different in London (and a few other large cities, but mainly London), which is also where most of the ethnic diversity seems to be.
Approaching the problem from the position of race in the first place could be a mistake: the problem is essentially one of class, onto which race may or may not map depending on circumstances (which vary hugely between ethnic groups and parts of the country). Where the education system fails it does so throughout the country as it's a national system - the inherent problems would be the same in Peckham, Scarborough, Devizes, Norwich and Aberystwyth. The education system particularly fails working class boys because it was originally designed to do nothing in particular with them but contain them until they were old enough to go into the factories and down the mines that are no longer there. It just so happens that the vast majority of those boys throughout the UK are white, but that failure also applies to Afro-Caribbean and Asian** boys, though in relatively smaller numbers. Anecdotally, my experience suggests that families from those groups actually do better with instilling self-belief and aspiration in their sons, but that's really not evidence. Certainly, it's very difficult for parents in some of the (far less ethnically diverse) ex-industrial areas to say to their sons "Apply yourself and you can achieve anything" and be believed because it's patently not true.
Why boys are failed rather than girls is another question, of course.
*And this one got a bit out of hand, it must be said.
**Using the ONS definition of Asian.
posted by Grangousier at 6:34 PM on October 31, 2015 [3 favorites]
I just wrote a ridiculously long comment* about Grammar Schools and the 11-Plus, which I think I should drop. Suffice it to say it was not so much an aptitude test as an instrument of social control. For millions of school children failing the 11-plus literally felt like being officially told you were worth very little.
I'd suggest that the snobbery and class stratification that was explicit in the Grammar / Secondary Modern system still underpins a lot of secondary education, though more subtly. I suspect, though, that it's a bit different in London (and a few other large cities, but mainly London), which is also where most of the ethnic diversity seems to be.
Approaching the problem from the position of race in the first place could be a mistake: the problem is essentially one of class, onto which race may or may not map depending on circumstances (which vary hugely between ethnic groups and parts of the country). Where the education system fails it does so throughout the country as it's a national system - the inherent problems would be the same in Peckham, Scarborough, Devizes, Norwich and Aberystwyth. The education system particularly fails working class boys because it was originally designed to do nothing in particular with them but contain them until they were old enough to go into the factories and down the mines that are no longer there. It just so happens that the vast majority of those boys throughout the UK are white, but that failure also applies to Afro-Caribbean and Asian** boys, though in relatively smaller numbers. Anecdotally, my experience suggests that families from those groups actually do better with instilling self-belief and aspiration in their sons, but that's really not evidence. Certainly, it's very difficult for parents in some of the (far less ethnically diverse) ex-industrial areas to say to their sons "Apply yourself and you can achieve anything" and be believed because it's patently not true.
Why boys are failed rather than girls is another question, of course.
*And this one got a bit out of hand, it must be said.
**Using the ONS definition of Asian.
posted by Grangousier at 6:34 PM on October 31, 2015 [3 favorites]
For those not familiar with the 11+, it's supposed to test if you're more suitable for a-levels and then university, or a technical college and a practical vocation.
That's not quite accurate. It determined which type of secondary school you could attend, ostensibly based on intelligence as tested by the exam. Children who didn't do well enough to go to a grammar school would still often go on to do a levels and go to university. Redirection to vocational education comes and came later than 11 years old.
posted by knapah at 4:18 AM on November 1, 2015
That's not quite accurate. It determined which type of secondary school you could attend, ostensibly based on intelligence as tested by the exam. Children who didn't do well enough to go to a grammar school would still often go on to do a levels and go to university. Redirection to vocational education comes and came later than 11 years old.
posted by knapah at 4:18 AM on November 1, 2015
White British pupils are on average the least likely ethnic group in the UK to go to university, a study by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has revealed.posted by EndsOfInvention at 4:05 AM on November 11, 2015 [1 favorite]
Young people from every other ethnic group, including those who tend to perform worse in school exams, such as black Caribbeans, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, are more likely to go on to further education.
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posted by kanewai at 3:08 AM on October 30, 2015