The Student Room Group

Are poor white working class people dragging us down?

.............Or are the Government or Society to blame?


What is this thread about?
I recently did an essay for my access course where I found out that poor white working class children are consistently the lowest performing ethnic group of children from low income households, at all ages within EDUCATION.
[barring other very small white groups like travellers and irish].
This figure includes poor ethnic children for which english is a second language.

What went wrong?
The reports i read identified what I called a 'perfect storm' of:

> economic market changes that have eroded traditional manufacturing jobs.
and
> a drastic reduction in the social benefit state.

A lot of reports have spoken about:
> lack of aspiration amongst white working class families compared to their fellow non-white poor working class pupils who are cited as having a stronger work ethic and an atmosphere of encouraging the uptake of opportunities their parents may not have had.

This has been getting substantially worse for a while, with educational achievement among this group sliding lower and lower [even though they are already at the bottom]. In the essay I said:

"However in my opinion the cause of this issue festering has been endemic marginalization, not least because the plight of the poor white working class has been racialized...."
This has made the issue toxic which means most mainstream representatives in politics and at large won't touch the issue with a barge pole. Hence the marginalization and poor representation of this group.

Imo I think the racialization of this issue is a smokescreen that gives politicians a get out of free card.

So what's gone wrong? Who's to blame?
I'm a second generation ethnic person and was pretty shocked by the figures tbh.
because they are poor and greedy
No one is to blame, you create your own luck. Although increased welfare has dragged them down and created dependency.
Well I would suppose so, however I'd think the problem would be more to do with, as you mentioned yourself, a lack of aspiration and work ethic.
Yeah, all poor should die then middle class people would be forced to work for a living :tongue:

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