Social mobility and the end of the post-war consensus
Posted on Thursday 13 December, 2007
Filed Under Society
The standard case against any form of redistributionist or egalitarian politics is that Britain today is – more or less – a meritocracy. Never mind if you’re old man’s a dustman and he wears a dustman’s hat; he probably made a killing after he bought that council flat of his, after all.
OK, so the public schoolies have still got a bit of a head start. But never mind, son. Concentrate on your studies, put the graft in, and one day you too will be on a middle management wedge with a Ford Focus to round off the compensation package.
In the meantime, chill out and tune in to the classless society, brought to you courtesy of capitalism rather than communism.
On a superficial level, it is true that there have seen major changes in the class structure of Britain in recent decades. The traditional ruling class is in decline. That is not down to the rise of the proletariat, but rather the increased power of the corporation and the state.
Many white-collar jobs have been objectively proletarianised, to use the sociological jargon. However, class consciousness and organisation has lagged far behind this development.
Working class communities – previously often based around a single large employer – have been atomised. Solidarity is even more out of fashion that flared trousers.
But other than in appearances, little has changed. Here’s the Independent’s take on a story that made it into several newspapers today:
Class divisions in the UK are just as wide as they were 30 years ago, according to new research published today.
They are so stark, according to the report, that a three-year-old child from a poor home who shines in tests is likely to be overtaken by a low-performing child from a rich background by the age of seven.
The report by the Sutton Trust, the education charity set up by Sir Peter Lampl, says social mobility in the UK remains at the low level set in 1970 – when the country was bottom of an international league table. Only the United States amongst Western democracies is on a par with the UK.
It adds that children born today face “stark inequalities”, with 44 per cent of young people from the richest fifth of the population going on to university, compared with only 10 per cent of those from the fifth of the population living in the poorest households. It also says that the expansion of higher education has – almost exclusively – been achieved by increasing the number of well-off students from middle-class or rich families going to university.
Indeed, the proportion of children from the poorest-income homes dropped from 11 per cent to 10 per cent between the early 1990s and 2002 – while those from the richest groups rose by four percentage points.
I haven’t seen the full report. But presumably the Sutton Trust doesn’t point out that this 30-year stasis roughly coincides with the switch from the social democratic post-war consensus – which, however much the left criticised it at the time, did actively seek to bolster social mobility – to neoliberalism.
Thatcherism, for all its enrichissez vous rhetoric, did not actually provide greater opportunities to ordinary people. Nor, shamefully, has ten years of New Labourism. And if social democratic government doesn’t at least achieve that, what is its purpose?
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30 Responses to “Social mobility and the end of the post-war consensus”
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It’s not a ‘social democratic’ government and it’s purpose is to ensure the conditions for the maintenance of profits and to keep the power and wealth of the British ruling class intact.
I can’t understand why you quite correctly left the lift when you knew someone was going to stay in there and keep farting, then the doors opened again, that same person was still there and yet you strolled back in – the logic escapes me.
Because all the other lifts are out of service or have had their cables cut?
The press reports on the research are interesting, but:
How do they compare with other places and other times? What inferences can we draw from the parents level of education (not mentioned) as well as income or savings (completely confused with each other)?
Is there any difference between the children of employees and of self-employed people in otherwise comparable economic circumstances? If not why do the researchers and the journalists refer to class?
All these reports tell us about class is that there are people gormless enough to think that the most important division in society is between tradespeople and professionals. That is a very silly idea.
I wonder if the report also points out that this 30 year stasis also coincides with the vandalising of British state education. Social mobility, you say? Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, here.
British state schools are still finding the business of producing functionally literate and numerate teenagers quite a challenging one. So much so that teaching unions are finding ever more inventive excuses for their failure to achieve something Cuba manages without much trouble.
Teaching unions object to testing childrens’ reading ability on the rather marvellous grounds that it would cause long-lasting harm to late developers by labelling them as failures at a young age. And the NUT even objects to teaching reading using synthetic phonics, even though West Dunbartonshire council says it has virtually eradicated illiteracy by using a teaching programme based on the method. Truly, you couldn’t make it up.
Hang on, in Germany news reports and research on the same theme with the same results (social mobility not existing, working class children and ‘children with a migrant background’ having no chance at school, this being the ‘worst in the western world’, education on a par with various tin-pot African dictatorships) are all the rage at the moment, and have been for a few years. No wonder, as most parts of Germany still have the 11 plus/secondary modern/grammar school/something even worse than an old secondary modern/leave school and learn a trade at 15 without any exams (and often drop out and have nothing) education system; along with ‘staff shortages’ (caused via cuts – there are many unemployed teachers) and the entire lack of any concept known as ‘sickness cover’ or ‘supply teachers’. I’m sure many Germans would be annoyed to find out that the British and the Americans’ schools are seemingly worse than theirs. Though I wouldn’t believe it, to be honest.
No, they probably wouldn’t believe that British state comprehensive schools are as bad as they are. They would no doubt scratch their heads in incredulity at the disgraceful role of teaching unions in defending low educational standards. They would find it extraordinary that in this day and age, private education of some sort, either in terms of schooling or extra tuition is considered a necessity by many parents who wouldn’t dream of relying on the hopeless British state system. It does indeed defy belief.
They would find it extraordinary that in this day and age, private education of some sort, either in terms of schooling or extra tuition is considered a necessity by many parents
No they wouldn’t find it “extraordinary”. I find it extraordinary that the “answer” propagated in Germany by many parents who want to take their kids out of the state system – for amounts tiny compared to the cost of private schools in the UK – is that of mumbojumbo nonsense as once propagated by Rudolf Steiner.
I find it however extraordinary that you seem to assume agreement on my part re. your comments on the “disgraceful role of teaching unions”.
You misread me. I didn’t assume any agreement – though possibly considerable ignorance of British state education – on your part at all.
I would be interested to see some evidence – maybe just one quote – demonstrating how teaching unions defend low educational standards.
Not them defending any practices or theories but them defending “low educational standards”.
One quote will do.
I can’t believe the low quality of education available in our state schools, you know, if I’d of realised how good my state education was thirty years ago, I would have tried harder! It’s no surprise to me that many children go on to secondary school unable to read and write to any high standard, and that once at secondary school, they fall further behind. From what I have seen, the education on offer is vacuous, unchallenging and the teachers sometimes get their facts wrong. Is it any wonder that teenagers are so bored they have to go out stabbing each other or drug and gun running? Both my children go to top state chools, that regualry feature in the top 50 lists of state schools, and yet I know that the work they are doing is not a patch on what I did at school, where you were actually expected to LEARN. Of-course middle class children who come from homes where intellectual curiosity is encouraged etc do well, because the standards are so appallingly low, you’d have to be a total div not to. Even me, who is dyxcalcic would have got tripple A’s in Maths doing today’s maths. I just think that our children are being sold short. But then, if their aren’t any jobs for them, what’s the point of raising their expectations? Another pet peeve is that all the grammar schools that do remain are full of Indians and Chinese from professional backgrounds. I don’t want to be racist (I expect someone will say I am being racist) but it does make it harder for white workingclass children to get to those schools. The answer is obviously to raise the standard in ALL schools, so that bright workingclass children of all hues can have a chance to develop intellectually and also provide a grown up Maths and Science curriculum but it ain’t going to happen, is it?
> I expect someone will say I am being racist
Well, at least it’s Indians and Chinese Asians you’re having a go at this time, rather than Muslim Asians…
There may be racist undertones to Sue R’s remarks concerning grammer schools but it is a fact that elite schols within the state education system do contain disproportionate numbers of South Asian children from petty bourgeois families. The reason for this has everything to do with class and nothing to do with race/ethnicity.
Gosh, does this mean I’ve made it? My very own ‘Sue R watch’! Incidentally, I would not claim that is purely through being a South Asian that pupils are admitted to the local grammar schools. The families, because of their class position, have a very strong ethic of succeeding at school and they all start private tutors from Year 4 onwards. This is obviously to do with their class position. Any non-Asian parent who wants their child to go to Latymer or Henrietta Barnett (the schools in question) has to do the same thing, which means children from families that are not so ‘committed’ to education ie getting their children into the professions do not stand a chance. Before anyone accuses me of sour grapes, I would like to point out that we did tutorour eldest and she did in fact pass for Latymer, but we decided to send her to another very old, established school with as equally as good record for Oxbridge entrance because she thought Latymer too gloomy.
By the way, Latymer is one of the schools that the Home Secretary warned was being targetted by Islamacists. When we visisted it to look round it last year, there were leaflets up advertising the Islamic Society’s meeting on ‘The Clash of Cultures’, with the slogan ‘Islam, the religion of perfect peace’. I’m long enough in the tooth to recognise something nasty when I see it. Remember, Edmonton is the stamping ground of many of those extremist preachers as well. All of which makes me a grade A Islamophobe, I expect.
I went to Latymer. Left in 99 so not much use in this discussion, I guess.
Oh and no, I wouldn’t choose the same for my kids.
An ex-head of Latymer became the head of my state ‘comprehensive’ when I was doing my GCSEs. I wouldn’t want to send my children to either school or schools like them, but probably not for the same reasons some people in these comments object to the state system.
Teaching children purely so they can pass exams, to make them learn answers by rote to get the best marks in SATs, or introducing new subjects or exams purely to beat other schools in league tables (and being perfectly frank about this) has absolutely nothing to do with education. I’m not even going to mention the coincidences between the final lessons held before certain GCSEs/the ‘recommendations’ to revise certain, particular themes, and the content of those exams, or that these coincidences seemed to occur year on year, year-group on year-group. The rejection of some primary schools’ SATs results this year is clearly just the tip of one large iceberg.
Nevertheless, that was my experience of state education, in an apparently ‘excellent’ school. If the teaching staff there had been better organised – yes, in those teaching unions – my school-based education might have taught me a somewhat more than how to pass exams. The pieces of paper are, I grant, what seem to ‘count’, but useful in a real sense they are not. It wasn’t all bad – nothing ever is – I could have gone to a school where the students weren’t even taught how to pass the exams, I suppose.
(If you’ve ever read comments I’ve written here before, Justine, you’d know I was brought up in London.)
all the grammar schools that do remain are full of Indians and Chinese from professional backgrounds. I don’t want to be racist (I expect someone will say I am being racist) but it does make it harder for white workingclass children to get to those schools.
1. You are being racist, and you know it.
2. It was always hard for working class children to get into grammar schools. That’s the point. Whether they are the children of white, Indian, or Chinese, or whatever, working class parents. You don’t seem to mind that grammar schools are full of the children of ‘professional’ parents of whatever ethnic background. More white lawyers’ kids in grammar schools! That’ll get ‘em on the barricades!
In the days when there were grammar schools in this country 25% of children passed for them. Now, it only about 5% of children (in state education) have a chance of going to onfe of the heavily academic schools. There was a lot wrong with the two tier system, I’m not saying there wasn’t, all I’m saying is that what we have now is bloody rubbish and unfair on the kids. The content of lessons seems to me to be pretty low. My eldest started at a highly regarded secondary school in September and all she has done is ‘colouring in’ and ‘covering her books’. (Actually, I’m exagerrating, but they don’t seem to have text books any more, everything is on little scraps of paper and they are told to log into websites on the internet.). It also seems to me one reason that the Government is not going to invest in education is because it knows there is a steady stream of educated people from abroad who are happy to work here, thus we can benefit from another country’s educational system. Remember Tony Blair said that we could always recruit doctors from abroad and don’t need to train our own. If I ruled the world I would jam televisionsignals for twenty hours per day and make it illegal for children to play computer games for more than an hour a day. These are the enemies of promise. Do you, Karl-Marx Stasse, live in Germany now? Because if you do, you can’t knowd how truely dreadful the schools are in this country. My sister lived in Germany, in fact it is her academic area, and she told me that in Germany the kind of discipline problems we have in this country are unknown. The Germans also have a higher regard for learning and culture than the English as well, the English are rather anti-intellectual, another reason for white working-class underachievenment in schools. I jsut wish we could get away from the stupid idea that if we could only make school fun enough, children would learn. Which translates into vacuous lessons with insultingly easy objectives.
I can’t know how dreadful the schools are in either Britain or Germany as I have no children.
However, I am good friends with a number of primary school teachers in London, who I’ve known for many years, so I’m not totally uninformed.
I am also aware of exactly the same debates that go on about the state of education in Germany and Britain. The arguments about state education in both countries are almost identical, as far as each country being ‘the worst in the western world’. I also know of severe discipline problems at schools in Germany. One Berlin borough has just last week introduced ‘heavies’ (private security guards, large, muscly men, nightclub bouncers – not that you have those here) on the school gates du to problems with violence.
The Germans also have a higher regard for learning and culture than the English as well, the English are rather anti-intellectual, another reason for white working-class underachievenment in schools.
Yes, of course they do, those cultivated Germans what with their Goethe and Beethoven (we won’t mention that nasty period in history, or Stalinism either). In the same way the Germans say the same about the English. One good thing about moving abroad is that you find out what bizarre ideas other people think about ‘your own’ country. Many Germans seem to seriously imagine Britain is all teacups with saucers, Milton, Shakespeare (and the Royals, obviously), an incredibly high-quality broadcasting system, Oxbridge, Eton and (sometimes) good public services. And everyone speaks ‘BBC English’, apart from a few Cockneys (who are presumably all pearly kings and queens).
That taught me to be wary of stereotypes about any nation or ‘people’. You also get a very healthy scepticism of the media (print and broadcast) as one major scare story seems to occur in Britian one month, only to appear here (in a slow news week) a few months later. And vice-versa.
Anyway, why are you only interested in *white* working class underachievement? Oh yes, that’s pretty clear by now.
As for the ‘anti-intellectualness’ of the English – never heard of the labour movement? How it taught the (white) working class to read, movements for public libraries, the Mechanics’ institutes, the WEA?
Incidentally – we (I did my GCSEs in 1996) didn’t use many textbooks at school either. It was mainly duplicated worksheets. Why? They were cheaper, granted, but they also could be used as required and be created according to the particular needs of a class. They don’t also get out of date quite as quickly (i.e. they can be easily amended). I wouldn’t have minded having up to date worksheets for French instead of textbooks produced in early-to mid 1970s (being used in the mid-90s). Not that it made much difference to the course, to be honest. It was nice to read of the videophone and high speed trains, and the (successful) French version of Prestel, the forerunner of the internet – all things that were at that time still incredibly modern for Britain. Also, worksheets are often used as part of a set course.
You can’t seriously – hang on, you might – argue that having ringbinders and worksheets instead of heavy coursebooks is an argument showing educational decline. Perhaps you’d like to be a bit more concrete, as opposed to just complaining about too many rich foreign-looking kids as opposed to rich white kids in grammar schools.
she told me that in Germany the kind of discipline problems we have in this country are unknown
And on this, Sue R I will throw in one more point, – putting aside ‘discipline’ – if you don’t mind, but on the state of society in general in Germany as compared with Britain.
Germany hasn’t been through the experience of Thatcherism. It hasn’t had a government run by someone claiming that society doesn’t exist. Kohl’s Christian Democrats in the 80s and early 90s were probably, overall, more ‘left wing’ than Blair and co. ever were (though that’s not difficult), and probably more so than Schröder, who as a ‘social democrat’, in coalition with the Greens, was just as Thatcherite as the political situation would allow – being a ‘moderniser’. In Germany, to some extent, a society in which people take an active role in, still exists. Is that still there in Britain on a major scale? I’m not sure. Is there a connection with Thatcher and the smashing of working class organisation and culture (look at what happened to the mining villages, drug abuse, alcoholism, crime..)? I think so.
It can’t be just the fault of the television – here people get around 35 channels (without any kind of subscription) and that’s been the case for a good 2 decades (in the west). And most of it is crap, of course.
As far as I’m concerned, it’s obvious that the state of society as a whole cannot but affect the education of its children. And look at British society today – it’s obvious why schools are ‘rubbish’ (if they are – when I see what my primary teacher friends teach their classes, it’s light years ahead of what I did when in the infants. They learn grammar, how language works, parts of speech, science, biology, sex education… they even have textbooks…). When town centres are full of CCTV and riot police patrol the pedestrian zones every Friday and Saturday night, something’s badly wrong.
Bringing back the birch or conscription won’t help change matters. But what will?
Karl-Marx is spot-on — it’s not an easy or straightforward issue, though.
There is a big gap between “education” and the formal tuition provided in school on a mass scale.
A mistake which is made is to conflate the two together.
Education depends on a whole load of stuff.
If a child comes across just 1 or 2 teachers at school who spark an enthusiasm for a subject, or draw out an existing talent, that is a major achievement.
Other than that, it’s right that there are minimal levels that we should expect, but possibly not realistic to expect these to be entirely reflected in GCSE results. Because then we’re also talking about motivation for revision, and levels of confidence that students may have.
And the simple fact is, that comprehensives do “stream” the students into sets or groups according to estimated ability. It’s a diversion to think that comprehensives are “bog-standard” for this very reason.
So for example, a pupil, being highly rated in Electronics in an equivalent to the old “Technical Schools” would have more confidence in their abilities than one being stuck in the lower ranges of English Literature or History in the equivalent of a grammar school.
The level of ignorance when politicians discuss this isn’t surprising considering the number of MPs who attended these schools. Probably Melissa Benn is a rare exception as a commentator who seems to know what she’s talking about.
My one disagreement with her, is maybe that I do think that schools should be able to specialise and offer a wider range of programs. This in turn would draw more specialists from the field into teaching and instruction. We do need a more varied mix of teachers other than the middle-class and female graduates that predominate.
No quick solutions, but convert the academies into technical schools. No 11+ but allow external assessment based on other criteria than memory tests. Then we have a dual system encouraging flexibility and creativity, where the technical school pupils are expected to excel at different things.
And never forget the Education Secretary on whose watch [1970-74] the greatest number of grammar [spelling!] schools were closed down: clue– rhymes with milk-snatcher.
“Then we have a dual system encouraging flexibility and creativity, where the technical school pupils are expected to excel at different things.”
This can only work when the class distinctions between academic and technical/vocational are erased and all jobs are considered as equally valid.
Ohmigod!!! I actually agree with something Paddy Garcia (or is it Harry Hamlet)said! I must be sickening. I just want to state that I do not separate education/schooling out from the rest of the social nexus. The schools can only reflect society. They cannot work miracles. It is true that the earlier working class had a tradition of self-education, and we had a fantastic adult education system in this country but this Government has destroyed it. I used to know people who came to live in this country just so that they couldgo to insititutions such as CityLit or the Hampstead Institute, adult education centres set up in the 1890s. I don’t think anyother country used to have such an honourable tradition, but I am afraid it still limps on but is a pale shadow of what it was. When this Government talks about ‘lifelong learning’ they mean computing and basic literacy and numeracy. As for worksheets being better than proper books, I suppose it depends what you are used to. When I went to school we had our own desks in a classroom in which to keep our books, nowadays, the pupils have lockers and have to carry a lot of things around. Obviously books would be impractical. I still think the plan is to recruit skilled labour from abroad and thus save on public spending. Are working class people getting stupider, is that why there is less mobility? Last night I read an article in the Standard written by that man who used to be married to Liz Jones (can’t remember his name) in which he argued that the English must be lazy because they won’t do the work that immigrants do such as waiting on table etc, that they don’t see it as a stepping stone to higher things, maybe he has a point.
Karl Marx Strasse: You are making a naive mistake by the way. Assuming that because there are lots (to us adults) exciting things on the syllabus that children actually learn, understand and develop dthrough the knowledge. My experience (and both of my children are in the top ten percent of their classes) is that it just washes over them. The curricula is far too crowded (in my opinion) and from what I’ve seen.the lower streams of the secondary schools just seem to rehash it. Not wonder the poor blighters are bored stiff.
“…the class distinctions between academic and technical/vocational are erased…”
Without wishing go into a circular argument, it is how these are defined which is the key.
Architecture – technical or academic? I’d say technical…
Management – technical
Graphic design – technical
Theres nothing about these occupations which are lower in status or money than the jobs for “academics” currently available. Wake up please ! We live in a world where plumbers get more money a year than psychotherapists.
Civil servants and museum curators are, of course, academics, and are obviously poorly enumerated in relation to their knowledge / qualifications.
Secondly – Yes, I do think it is possible to use schools for social engineering, and as a socialist in Britain it is utterly imperative if anything is ever going to change, ever again !
It’s rubbish to say that working-class self-education no longer happens. Wherever someone in a manual or semi-skilled job borrows from a public library that is exactly what is happening.
Part of the reason for the huge popularity of football and sports in general is because they engage statistics , strategy and artistic appreciation with an activity that people feel is generally interesting. So you’ll have lots of people with amazing memory feats and intuition across all of the obscure aspects of football.
But I absolutely agree about adult education – and if working class people are getting stupider that is a reflection of deliberate, if unstated government policy, particularly from 1980 to 1998.
A sharp upswing in union membership, maybe resulting from a huge co-ordinated campaign and a fundamental shift in the economy, would reverse the situation pretty quickly.
I think the bumpy ride we are in for in the next 10 years (post-oil economy, anybody?) could actually result in such outcomes, however strange it might seem now…
25% passed the 11+ Sue R?
In some places it was more in others less. Now the question is: What is the point of Secondary Schools that are more difficult to get into than Universities?”
Why are do you assume that none of those Indian and Chinese Professionals are working class?
The first requrement to be working class is to have a job working for an employer; and the second for that to be where your income comes from. The majority of Chartered Professionals are working class. Perhaps that is why the person most likely to be a Trade Union member, and least likely not to be a Trade Union member is a public sector Professional.
The main issue of educational problems of “white working class” children is daft researchers who include the children of long-term unemployed parents. If a child grows up in a home where no adult works, working class is exactly what they are not.
Oh, so the chronically unemployed are not members of the working class? Sorry for thinking they were. As to the Asian and Chinese children at these grammar schools. Well, I know the class background of the children who went from my daughter’s school and I can quite honestly say there was not a workingclass one among them. They were the children of middle managers or self-employed accountants or lawyers. You could argue, yes but lawyers are workingclass because they have to work for their money, but I would argue that ownership of a million-pound house (which many of the residences are in this area) and the skills of legal reasoning are not generally considered proletarian. As for the Chinese, I don’t know their class background. Locally, we have mostly Japanese and they tend to work in the banking sector. Once again as middle managers. I don’t understand your question or the point you are making about universities. In the days of grammar schools, only 2% of the population went to university. It was not necessary to educate the majority of the workforce to a high level because in those days we had a quaint custom know as ‘jobs with careers’. Incidentally, I was only quoting Nirphall whatshisname sarcastically, I don’t think the reason that English people don’t want to do low, menial work is because they are lazy. I suspect there is more to it than that.
No SueR, of course the chronically unemployed are not members of the working class. What they need is opportunities to become working class by learning skills that employers are looking for.
I’ve a vivid memory, during the Brent East byelection, of meeting a single mum who thought the Labour Government’s New Deal had transformed her life. She didn’t live in Brent East, but you (I!) can’t have everything. There are many thousands like her up and down the country. There will be more before Gordon Brown becomes the first non-Oxford graduate to lead Labour to winning a General election.
Self-employed people are not members of the working class, obviously. Long live the works of John H Goldthorpe and all who followed him at Nuffield College, University of Oxford!
In the days when 2% went to University, it was often considered a great achievement for the child of a Tradesperson to become a Professional. Today that would be called keeping pace with the changing labour market.
A significant minority of today’s teenagers, despite rising education achievements, find the transition to adultnood more dificult than previous generations because the skill threshold demanded by employers is higher than that faced by any previous generation.
We used to have a charming phrase for decent jobs, I’ve just remembered it: ‘jobs with prospects’. Those were the days!