The White Working Class: low expectations? Low aspirations? Or both?
This week a report was published. It was all about white working class (WWC) pupils under-achieving at school. Here's a link: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cq51j10q601o Speaking as someone who was a white working class pupil, here's my tuppennyworth. I was brought up as a white working class pupil. My dad was an NCO in the British Army. My mum was a housewife. Both were educated in secondary modern school, not grammar school. My dad used to joke that his school was so good, it was approved. Both parents left school at 14 and 15 with not a single paper qualification to their name. Until 1982 I led a pads brat lifestyle, moving every 3 or 4 years as my dad went on his next posting. In May 1982 we moved up to Redcar, on the North-East coast of England, minus my dad. My parents had just been through a very acrimonious divorce. We changed from being comfortably-off to being "nouveau pauvre," rather than "nouveau riche." We moved ...