The working classes just aren't very bright so have no chance of bettering themselves

Although the Nazis used the theories of eugenics to argue for the Master Race it was a theory that was popular around the world in the 1930s. Hitler just had an opportunity to carry out weird selective breeding programmes on an industrial scale and those around the world - often upper class (very) and in Universities who backed it just went very quiet after the war.

This guy seems to be saying two different things but then this is an extract of a lengthier book. What I wonder is why Conservative Home published it? What is their intention?

Sorry! Validation that you can achieve anything!

As a teacher, who has always worked with disadvantaged and disengaged pupils, I have always believed that education is the way out of poverty and encouraged my pupils to reach for the sky. My husband and I are prime examples of what can be achieved.

I came from a very poor, Irish immigrant family, brought up on benefits as my father was chronically ill for most of his working life and my mother had to give up her job as a midwifery sister to care for him.
I went to a grammar school, run by nuns and many of the pupils were from well off families. I was looked down on by staff and pupils and humilitated on a daily basis because I received free school meals.
There was obvious discrimination towards pupils who were less well off.

Sadly, my parents did not nurture nor encourage my ambition to go to university and my mother actively discouraged me. She wanted me out there earning money! Her words to me were, People like us, don't go to university.
I defied her and applied for university. When she demanded that I contribute to the housekeeping from my grant, I got a job in a bar to support myself.

I had no-one to network for me, everything I have achieved I have achieved through my own efforts and with the support of my husband who has the same ethos.
I have witnessed networking and nepotism in my teaching career, teachers with little experience or expertise being promoted because the HT and their parents were best friends.

It was a very difficult road, especially as I allowed myself to be ashamed of my background and had little or no confidence in my ability.
I am no longer ashamed, I am proud of what I have achieved, against all the odds.
I have continued to study all of my adult life because those certificates and degrees are the validndn

It does however, take a certain determination to better yourself and bolshiness to get there!

vampirequeen

Welcome to the 2021 version Brave New World. Ruling by the 'super intelligent' elite, organising by the 'intelligent' middle classes and work done by the 'low intelligence' workers.

Snap?

PippaZ

Whether or not this is an article of some standing I find the drift I see in it, towards eugenics, i.e., accepting that some, from a certain background, cannot improve their lives, worrying. But then he seems to say that they can and they are but we must accept that we can do no better than we are doing for some people.

To be honest, I find the whole article very confusing and would do whichever platform it was on. My inbuilt bias finds it worrying that the platform is Conservative Home. From memory, I believe that those in favour of the eugenics theories in Britain in the 1930s were often found among the far-right and in Universities.

Could someone please tell me what he is saying?

Poor article, nothing to do with you pippa

Eugenics was used by the Nazis to explain their society.

Remember the great Aryan Race and of course the Holocaust?

All based on eugenics.

You get the ultimate novel about eugenics in Aldous Huxley Brave New World, where society assumes that people are born into a particular class so they decided to by passed the stage of free birth and simply planned and produced the number of workers or intellectual etc that was needed - in the laboratory.

A much tidier way of proceeding

Welcome to the 2021 version Brave New World. Ruling by the 'super intelligent' elite, organising by the 'intelligent' middle classes and work done by the 'low intelligence' workers.

And conversely we can be very proud of our children and grandchildren who have succeeded and gone on to get good degrees or happy productive lives despite the comparative lack of resources and crowded classrooms etc.

Arguably you might say that they succeeded where many who have been spoon fed all their lives would have failed.

All power to our children???

Bit controversial I know but adds to the pattern of life

Whether or not this is an article of some standing I find the drift I see in it, towards eugenics, i.e., accepting that some, from a certain background, cannot improve their lives, worrying. But then he seems to say that they can and they are but we must accept that we can do no better than we are doing for some people.

To be honest, I find the whole article very confusing and would do whichever platform it was on. My inbuilt bias finds it worrying that the platform is Conservative Home. From memory, I believe that those in favour of the eugenics theories in Britain in the 1930s were often found among the far-right and in Universities.

Could someone please tell me what he is saying?

Frankly from what I have seen at good private schools and the level of resources and assistance given to the children, it would be difficult to fail.

MOnica- I was just putting the case forward that people who can afford private education (ie mostly not working class in the sense this guy refers to) are no more intelligent, hard working or even well educated than students in state schools. Private schools are not subject to the same level of scrutiny as state schools, and education is not simply about qualifications. It is also about making a better connected pathway to good careers.
The housing market has reflected for years the importance of a 'good' school' and parents go to extreme lengths at times to get their children into those schools.
So, you may be an exception but 'good' schools encourage a kind of snobbery reflected in the article that encourages unhealthy divisions in our society.

silverlining48

The conundrum of the working class Tory vote was a topic debated and researched 40 years ago while studying sociology. I couldn’t understand it then and still can’t now.

???

Many would agree

It may be more helpful if you think in terms of economic class or position.

But of course we do know that class is not just about the level of income, it come with differing values, expectation and culture.

keepingquiet

Private education much extolled by the Tories has very little to do with education and everything to do with networking.

Networking is absolutely correct at every level, including “working class”, dad or mum have a word with their boss, that little Jimmy or Mary are leaving school is there a job going. This runs through society right to the top, the youngsters get a foot on the career ladder it’s intelligence and hard work that determines how high they get. Once Mary has got a job it’s up to her show how smart she is, how good her work is how well she gets on with her co-workers.

I can think of several “cultures” that recruit from within their own community, regardless of that, you have to perform these days, you have to be very smart to get to the top. If there is one skill that you need to make the difference it is communication, the ability to persuade others.

"different social class backgrounds" says the Professor. His categories are simplistic. There are attitudes towards learning that correlate with other attitudes such as freedom to explore and to be eccentric. Social class is not defined by degree of intelligence, social class is nothing but a moveable heuristic.

In the olden days when we worked at heavy industry such as mining and other heavy industries, and labour -intensive agricultural methods the idea of 'the working class' was a useful one including for philanthropist politicians and employers. However now that workers are socially mobile the old conservative attitude is no longer the case that social classes are rigidly maintained .

Instead of heritable social class, poverty and parameters of poverty are more to the point of social mobility and intelligence.

The conundrum of the working class Tory vote was a topic debated and researched 40 years ago while studying sociology. I couldn’t understand it then and still can’t now.

M0nica

Keepingquiet The advantages of any old oys network is limited to a handful of the top schools, Eton, Harrow, Marlborough. For the majority of privately educated children attending local private day schools, there are no networking advantages whatsoever.

Both my children went to local private secondary schools, it was the early 1980s, state schools were struggling, I do not think either of their schools had or has any kind of network that could benefit them or any of their fellow pupils. Certainly none that operates at the high level people normally associate with the Old Boys/Girls network.

I think you can certainly include the top London day schools - both single sex and co-ed and some others outside of London. Add up these numbers over the years at any one point in time and there is a very far reaching interconnected series of powerful, influential networks. I’ve seen in frequently in operation( with certain girls’ schools) and am in awe of it.

Reports like this take us back centuries.

Even Dickens recognised that the poor are poor not because of their ability, but because of many other factors. He made reference to Malthusian eugenics in his writing. One of course Christmas Carol

Keepingquiet The advantages of any old oys network is limited to a handful of the top schools, Eton, Harrow, Marlborough. For the majority of privately educated children attending local private day schools, there are no networking advantages whatsoever.

Both my children went to local private secondary schools, it was the early 1980s, state schools were struggling, I do not think either of their schools had or has any kind of network that could benefit them or any of their fellow pupils. Certainly none that operates at the high level people normally associate with the Old Boys/Girls network.

*Tbh this is a vast subject and has been studied by sociologists for decades.

However it seems that the report alluded to in the OP has batted the ball straight back into the poorer income court telling them that they poor souls can do nothing about their wretched lives as they were born to be poor and do not have the ability to achieve anything better.*

That's the point I was trying to make in my posts. This is a huge and complicated area, so to cherry pick one small aspect and to dumb the whole argument down, as the article did, is meaningless, except that people will read it and accept the simplified argument as truth. It's a gift for people who believe in eugenics and blaming the poor for their own poverty.

Research has shown that the greater the wealth inequality in any given society the less social mobility in the lower income groups, takes place.

So mobility and achievement appears to be linked to wealth inequality rather than a social groups joint IQ.

Countries with the lowest level of inequality like Denmark, Finland, Norway etc all score well on social mobility. Those countries with a high level of inequality score much less well.

Research also shows that this link between wealth inequality and social mobility affects an individual for the whole of her life.

So education then is often seen as a driver to aid greater mobility in the lower income groups, but again research shows that those in societies with greater wealth inequality score less well in all subjects across the educational board.

Tbh this is a vast subject and has been studied by sociologists for decades.

Factors in the U.K. such as health outcomes, social values, ability to buy education, ability to network, geographical location are amongst the many factors that impinge on social mobility, but it seems one of the biggest drivers of low levels of mobility in any given society is undoubtedly wealth inequality.

The U.K. has a very much higher level of inequality compared to other developed countries.
The majority of households have a disposable level of income below the mean average.
The median average has actually been rising but this is almost entirely accounted for by the wealthy household rise in income. So the higher earners has seen a rise in income by almost 5% in the past 5 years, whilst the poorest households income has been cut by almost 2% in the past 5 years. These figures are before Covid, and it is considered that these disparities will have widened as a result of the pandemic.

It is telling that the government has recently produced a report on social mobility in the U.K. in 2021.

This shows amongst other things that the vast majority over 75% of the public see the lack of social mobility as a major issue, with over half -52% considering that this showed be directly addressed by the central government.

However it seems that the report alluded to in the OP has batted the ball straight back into the poorer income court telling them that they poor souls can do nothing about their wretched lives as they were born to be poor and do not have the ability to achieve anything better.

Brave New World indeed.

MaizieD

Which bit is good, growstuff?

I would have been incensed by it if it had come from a Labour source, too.

His argument and his conclusion are completely contradictory.

He's Malthusian. Malthus proposed that the population had reached its optimum level and should not be enabled to grow further. Saunders claims that mobility has peaked and cannot continue because, he seems to say, the WC has no member bright enough to achieve. The stock has been exhausted.

This is such a useful conclusion for the government and other tories. Why waste money on improving the education children who are not bright enough to benefit?

Errr ... no ... that's not what Saunders is claiming. That's your interpretation.

I was referring to GrannyRose's post.

Which bit is good, growstuff?

I would have been incensed by it if it had come from a Labour source, too.

His argument and his conclusion are completely contradictory.

He's Malthusian. Malthus proposed that the population had reached its optimum level and should not be enabled to grow further. Saunders claims that mobility has peaked and cannot continue because, he seems to say, the WC has no member bright enough to achieve. The stock has been exhausted.

This is such a useful conclusion for the government and other tories. Why waste money on improving the education children who are not bright enough to benefit?

Good post GrannyRose. (Bet that comment surprised you )

I have followed your lead and read the comments too. I agree that they are interesting. It is a fascinating debate that has been going on for decades. Unfortunately, it is one that can be easily scuppered by comments such as the title of this post. Political bias stops people really thinking about the issue objectively and tends to vilify those that do the research, especially if their conclusions are not in line what is currently "acceptable".

If only we could get away from some of the more extreme reactions to the ideas expressed in this article we might be better able to build an education system that allowed ALL children to reach their potential.