1 Introduction
Background
1. In June 2013, Ofsted's report Unseen children:
access and achievement 20 years on[1]
was reported as having exposed the problem of "white
working class children" underachieving in England's education
system.[2] Ofsted described
how white British children eligible for free school meals were
now the lowest-performing children at age 16, with only 31% of
this group achieving five or more GCSEs at A*-C including English
and Mathematics.[3] At
the launch of the report, Her Majesty's Chief Inspector (Sir Michael
Wilshaw) noted that the size of this group meant that tackling
this issue was an important part of the "closing the gap"
agenda:
The underperformance of low-income white British
pupils matters, particularly because they make up the majority—two-thirds—of
such pupils. So the lowest-performing group of poor children is
also the largest. If we don't crack the problem of low achievement
by poor white British boys and girls, then we won't solve the
problem overall.[4]
PISA 2009 data has shown that in England the impact
of a student's socio-economic background is significantly higher
than the OECD average; countries such as Hong Kong, Canada, Finland,
Iceland and Korea all do better for their socially and economically
disadvantaged students than England does.[5]
Public attention has also been drawn to the educational prospects
of white working class children within higher education. In January
2013, the Minister for Universities and Science (Rt Hon David
Willetts MP) suggested that white working class boys should be
a particular focus for the Office for Fair Access, in a similar
manner to its approach to ethnic minorities and disadvantaged
groups.[6]
2. The Government's stated aim is to "ensure
that a child's socio-economic disadvantage does not limit their
educational outcomes by age 19, compared to their peers",
with a strategy of raising the attainment of all pupils, ensuring
that more disadvantaged pupils reach the thresholds that are crucial
for future success, and narrowing the attainment gap between them
and their peers.[7] As
part of this strategy it has implemented policies such as the
pupil premium.[8] We therefore
decided to investigate the underachievement in education of white
working class children.
OUR INQUIRY
3. We launched our inquiry on 23 July 2013, seeking
written evidence on the following points:
- the extent of white working class pupils' educational
underachievement;
- the factors responsible for white working class
pupils' educational underachievement, including the impact of
home and family;
- whether the problem is significantly worse for
white working class boys than girls;
- what steps schools can take to improve the educational
outcomes and attainment of white working class pupils;
- the potential for a wider range of educational
approaches, for example vocational pathways, to improve outcomes
for white working class pupils; and
- what role the Government can play in delivering
improved educational outcomes for white working class pupils.
4. We received over 30 written submissions from
a range of witnesses. We took oral evidence on four occasions,
hearing from seven panels of witnesses including the Minister
for Schools, Rt Hon David Laws MP, and held a seminar in November
2013 to help steer our inquiry. We also visited Peterborough on
6 February 2014 to explore the issues raised in the inquiry in
a local context.[9] We
are grateful to all those who contributed to our inquiry, and
especially those who organised or participated in our visit to
Peterborough.
5. During this inquiry we benefitted from the
expertise and assistance of Professor Steve Strand, who was appointed
as a Special Adviser to the Committee for his specific understanding
of white working class underachievement in education, and, as
ever, from the advice and expertise of Professor Alan Smithers
as our standing Special Adviser on education matters.[10]
The scope of this report
6. We received evidence relating to a wide range
of education issues during our inquiry, not all of which were
unique to the question of white working class underachievement,
or strictly within the boundaries of our education remit. This
is a natural consequence of the issue we sought to explore: white
children constitute the vast majority of the school population,
and their interests are likely to reflect the English school system
as a whole rather than occupy an easily-defined niche within it.
All of the areas discussed in this report are important and deserving
of focused policy attention, but in the interests of producing
a report that accurately reflects the time devoted to examining
them individually, they are discussed relatively briefly and in
some cases are presented without definitive conclusions or recommendations.
In doing so, it is our intention that this report will provide
a useful 'map' of the issue and its connections to other policy
areas, for future reference. Where relevant we have highlighted
specific issues for further scrutiny by ourselves or our successor
in the next Parliament and by the Government itself.
Definitions
Defining "working class"
7. The starting point for our inquiry was "white
working class children", but from the oral and written evidence
it became apparent that this group was not well-defined. Traditional
notions of what constitutes "the working class" are
based on a categorisation of employment occupations[11]—the
child's parents' occupations in this case—but national education
data based on parental occupations is not always readily available
or used by commentators. Chapter 2 discusses what data exists
and what conclusions can be drawn.
FSM eligibility as a proxy for working class
8. Statements relating to the achievements of
white working class children are almost always based on the exam
results of children who are eligible for free school meals (FSM).[12]
While Ofsted's Unseen Children report does not itself use
the term "working class", media coverage of the issue
raised in this report issue frequently used working class as a
shorthand for this group.[13],[14],[15]
9. 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:
Of course, how much money a child's parents earned
last year (the qualifier for the lunch program) does not itself
impede learning. 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. Each of these predicts lower achievement for children, but
none of these (including low income) itself causes low achievement,
and lower social class families don't necessarily have all of
these characteristics, but they are likely to have many of them.[16]
Nevertheless, measuring working class performance
in education through FSM data can be misleading. The Centre for
Research in Race and Education (CRRE) drew our attention to a
mismatch between the proportion of children who were eligible
for free school meals and the proportion of adults who would self-define
as working class:[17]
in 2012/13, 15% of pupils at the end of key stage 4 were known
to be eligible for free school meals,[18]
compared with 57% of British adults who defined themselves as
'working class' as part of a survey by the National Centre for
Social Research.[19]
The CRRE warned that projecting the educational performance of
a small group of economically deprived pupils onto what could
otherwise be understood to be a much larger proportion of the
population had "damaging consequences" on public understanding
of the issue.[20] The
logical result of equating FSM with working class was that 85%
of children were being characterised as middle class or above.[21]
10. Conversely, while a large proportion of adults
may self-identify as working class as a result of their backgrounds
or their parents' occupations, this does not correspond well with
the proportion of adults who now work in semi-routine or routine
occupations or are unemployed. The Office for National Statistics
uses the National Statistics Socio-economic Classification (NS-SEC)[22]
to categorise occupations under eight headings as in the table
below. Within this, categories 6-8 might be grouped together as
a "working class";[23]
data from the 2011 census show that 34% of 16-74 year olds (excluding
students) fall within these categories of employment. Extending
this to categories 5-8 would create a larger group of 41%, while
groups 4-8 represent 52% of the population. However, the NS-SEC
does not label any group working class since "changes in
the nature and structure of both industry and occupations have
rendered this distinction [between manual and non-manual occupations]
outmoded and misleading".[24]
There is therefore some debate as to whether "working class"
gives a meaningful reflection of current occupations.Table
1: NS-SEC Categories (2011 census data, England only)
| NS-SEC category
| Examples[25]
| Number of people (usual residents aged 16-74)
| Proportion
| "Working class" (NS-SEC 6-8)
|
| 1. Higher managerial, administrative & professional occupations
| Lawyers, Architects, Medical doctors, Chief executives, Economists
| 4,045,823 | 11.4%
| |
| 2. Lower managerial, administrative & professional occupations
| Social workers, Nurses, Journalists, Retail managers, Teachers
| 8,132,107 | 23.0%
| |
| 3. Intermediate occupations
| Armed forces up to sergeant, Paramedics, Nursery Nurses, Police up to sergeant, Bank staff
| 4,972,044 | 14.1%
| |
| 4. Small employers and own account workers
| Farmers, Shopkeepers, Taxi drivers, Driving instructors, Window cleaners
| 3,662,611 | 10.4%
| |
| 5. Lower supervisory and technical occupations
| Mechanics, Chefs, Train drivers, Plumbers, Electricians
| 2,676,118 | 7.6%
| |
| 6. Semi-routine occupations
| Traffic wardens, Receptionists, Shelf-stackers, Care workers, Telephone Salespersons
| 5,430,863 | 15.4%
| 15.4% |
| 7. Routine occupations
| Bar staff, cleaners, labourers, Bus drivers, Lorry drivers
| 4,277,483 | 12.1%
| 12.1% |
| 8. Never worked and long-term unemployed
| N/A | 2,180,026
| 6.2% | 6.2%
|
| Total
| | 35,377,075
| 100.0% | 33.7%
|
| Not classified (full time students)
| | 7,008,598
| | |
Source: Office for National Statistics, 2011 census,
Table KS611EW
11. Thus, FSM eligibility corresponds to a small
group of children (15%), NS-SEC classifications 6-8 equate to
a larger group of adults (34%), and self-perception of working
class produces a larger group still (57%). Overall, the statistical
evidence base for an inquiry in this area requires careful interpretation,
and it is easy for loosely-phrased statements to be misleading.
The CRRE summarises the situation as follows:
The present debate is largely shaped by crude
data (based on free school statistics) that dangerously mis-represent
the true situation when they are reported in broad and over-simplistic
terms.[26]
The exact nature of the "true" situation
will inevitably depend on how working class is defined. The evidence
we have received shows that this can vary considerably.
FSM eligibility as a measure of poverty
12. Criticisms are also levelled at the use of
FSM eligibility as a measure of poverty. Children are eligible
for free school meals if their parents receive any of the following
payments:[27]
· Income Support
· Income-based Jobseekers Allowance
· Income-related Employment and Support
Allowance
· Support under Part VI of the Immigration
and Asylum Act 1999
· the guaranteed element of State Pension
Credit
· Child Tax Credit (provided they are not
also entitled to Working Tax Credit and have an annual gross income
of no more than £16,190)
· Working Tax Credit run-on—paid for
4 weeks after they stop qualifying for Working Tax Credit
· Universal Credit
13. A report for the Children's Society noted
that the criteria for FSM mean that parents working 16 or more
hours per week (24 hours for couples from April 2012) lose their
entitlement to FSM since they are eligible for working tax credit;
as a result there are around 700,000 children living in poverty
who are not entitled to receive free school meals.[28]
In addition, not all those who may be eligible for FSM register
for it; a recent report for the Department for Education estimated
under-registration to be 11% in 2013.[29]
This figure varies across the country: in the North East under-registration
is estimated to be 1%, compared to 18% in the East of England
and 19% in the South East.[30]
Pragmatism versus precision
14. Nevertheless, free school meals data is readily
available, has the advantage of being easy to conceptualise, and
has been consistently collected for many years; in contrast, national
datasets on education performance based on NS-SEC classifications
of parental occupations (or self-perceptions of social class)
are less frequently produced. Pragmatism has led us to pursue
analyses of free school meals data as an insight into the issue
that Ofsted and others have raised.
15. Statements relating to the underachievement
in education of white working class pupils often use eligibility
for free school meals as a proxy for working class. Entitlement
to FSM is not synonymous with working class, but it is a useful
proxy for poverty which itself has an association with educational
underachievement.
DEFINING "WHITE"
16. 'White' is a broad heading within classifications
of ethnicity which can be used to make comparisons against other
aggregated groups such as black and Asian. Within the white group
the overwhelming majority of children fall into the subgroup of
white British, but other subgroups include white Irish, Gypsy/Roma,
and 'Other white', which encompasses a range of white mostly European
ethnicities. Thus, information referring to 'white' and 'white
British' should not be conflated, and we have been careful to
distinguish throughout. The smaller size and greater complexity
of other groups within the 'white' category has led us to focus
primarily on the performance of white British children, and this
matches the focus of Ofsted's Unseen Children report. Chapter
2 examines this in more detail.
DEFINING "UNDERACHIEVEMENT"
17. "Underachievement" can be defined
as relative to what a pupil could be predicted to achieve based
on prior attainment, or could be thought of in terms of a comparison
with another group, such as children from more prosperous homes,
a different ethnic group, or a different part of the country.
Again, we have taken our cue from the data that is most readily
available, which are threshold performance indicators: at key
stage 4, the achievement of five GCSEs at grades A*-C, including
in English and mathematics; at key stage 2, achieving level 4
or above in English and mathematics; and in the early years, the
proportion of children who achieve the expected level in all 17
Early Learning Goals. Strictly speaking, these are measures of
low achievement rather than "underachievement", and
where we refer to underachievement in this report we mean that
attainment is low, and lower than other comparison groups.
18. Finally, the data we have used in this report
reflects group averages. This is not to suggest that individuals
and schools do not buck these trends, as personal anecdotes will
readily confirm.
RISKS OF FOCUSING SPECIFICALLY ON
WHITE WORKING CLASS UNDERACHIEVEMENT
19. Evidence to our inquiry questioned whether
focusing on white working class underachievement carried risks
in itself. The Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL)
argued that shifting the focus to white working class children
could lead to other groups falling back in turn, and that it should
be up to schools to decide how to strike a balance in their particular
area.[31] NASUWT felt
that "In the context of educational achievement, there is
a significant risk that focusing on white working class underachievement
leads to the assumption that racial discrimination is no longer
a problem".[32]
Similarly, Professor Gillborn argued that:
[…] while social class is of enormous importance,
it does not explain away gender inequalities, disability inequalities,
and race inequalities [...] One of the key problems [...] with
the current debate about white working class as it is described
in relation to free school meals is that it ignores huge inequalities
in other parts of the system by focusing on this very particular
area.[33]
20. More generally, Professor Gillborn warned
us of the dangers of a "deficit" interpretation of white
FSM underperformance, and the extent to which this can obscure
the issue of racial bias in the education system:
[...] it is easy to fall into a kind of deficit
analysis: an assumption that, if a group is underachieving, there
must be a problem with the group, whereas we have an awful lot
of research showing that schools tend to treat different groups
in systematically different ways.[34]
[...] the debates about poverty get lost amid
a wider question of whether white people are suffering because
of multiculturalism, which I think is hugely dangerous.[35]
He also cautioned against inferring that white children
had somehow lost out as a result of previous attention to other
ethnic groups. As Jenny North (Impetus—the Private Equity
Foundation) described the situation, "[...] ethnic minority
acceleration of performance has not pushed white working-class
boys' attainment down. It has simply exposed what was already
there".[36]
21. Nevertheless, as Chapter 2 demonstrates,
there are some worrying trends in the data that warrant investigation.
1 Ofsted, Unseen children: access and achievement 20 years on
(June 2013) Back
2
"White working class boys are consigned to education scrapheap, Ofsted warns",
The Daily Mail, 15 June 2012 Back
3
Ofsted, Unseen children: access and achievement 20 years on (June
2013), p 30 Back
4
Ofsted, Unseen children - HMCI speech (June 2013), p 4 Back
5
Department for Education, PISA 2009: How does the social attainment gap in England compare with countries internationally?,
Research Report RR206 (April 2012) Back
6
"Universities should target white working class boys, minister says",
The Guardian, 3 January 2013 Back
7
Department for Education (WWC 28) para 51-52 Back
8
"Raising the achievement of disadvantaged children",
Department for Education (accessed 29 April 2014) Back
9
See annex for an outline of the visit programme. Back
10
Professor Alan Smithers (Director of the Centre for Education
and Employment Research, University of Buckingham) and Professor
Steve Strand (Professor of Education, University of Oxford) declared
no interests relevant to this inquiry. Back
11
"What is working class?", BBC News Online, 25 January
2007 Back
12
See, for instance, Centre for Research in Race and Education (WWC 15)
para 17, and Q9. Back
13
"Ofsted chief says England's schools failing white working class children",
The Observer, 8 December 2013 Back
14
"White working class boys are schools' worst performing ethnic group by age of 11",
Daily Mail, 20 March 2009 Back
15
"White working class boys 'worst performers at school'",
The Telegraph, 11 December 2008 Back
16
"Does 'Poverty' Cause Low Achievement?", The
Economic Policy Institute Blog (8 October 2013) Back
17
Centre for Research in Race and Education (WWC 15) para 11 Back
18
See Table 2, para 23 Back
19
"What is working class?", BBC News Online, 25 January
2007 Back
20
Centre for Research in Race and Education (WWC 15) para 17 Back
21
Centre for Research in Race and Education (WWC 15) para 12 Back
22
"The National Statistics Socio-economic Classification",
Office for National Statistics Back
23
The NS-SEC categories of Routine & Semi-routine occupations
(or what were conventionally known as 'semi-skilled' or 'unskilled'
occupations) "entail a 'labour contract' where employees
are closely supervised and given discrete amounts of labour in
return for a wage [...] that was typical of working class
occupations" (Rose & Pevalin, 2001, p10). Also
"Because a basic labour contract is assumed to exist for
both positions it would be normal to consider (categories 6 &
7) as forming a unified class" (p18). Back
24
Office for National Statistics, Standard Occupation Classification 2010: Volume 3, The National Statistics Socio-economic Classification: (Rebased on the SOC2010) User Manual
(2010), para 7.4 Back
25
Examples are taken from Office for National Statistics, Health Gaps by Socio-economic Position of Occupations In England, Wales, English Regions and Local Authorities,
2011 (November 2013); The reduced NS-SEC class to which an
individual belongs is not solely based on occupation but also
other factors such as whether they are employers and how many
people they employ. For example, a window cleaner who is self-employed
or is an employer would be in NS-SEC class 4 while a window cleaner
who is an employee would be in NS-SEC class 7. Back
26
Centre for Research in Race and Education (WWC 15) para 19 Back
27
"Apply for free school meals", Gov.uk, 8 November 2013
Back
28
The Children's Society, Fair and Square: a policy report on the future of free school meals
(April 2012), p 6 Back
29
Department for Education, Pupils not claiming free school meals 2013,
Research report DFE-RR319, December 2013 Back
30
Department for Education, Pupils not claiming free school meals 2013,
Research report DFE-RR319, December 2013, p 9. Figures based on
comparing HMRC benefits data from December 2012 and the January
2013 School Census. Back
31
Association of School and College Leaders (WWC 5) para 22 Back
32
NASUWT (WWC 26) para 6 Back
33
Q15 Back
34
Q4 Back
35
Q4 Back
36
Q53 Back
|
