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

Just read Peter Saunders comments following the article and they're much more interesting and informative than the article itself.

GrannyRose15

growstuff

GrannyRose15

In today’s Britain, talent and hard work easily trump social class background. We should be telling our children this........... Maybe then, even more of them will go on to fulfil their potential in the future.

I'd say the conclusion is exactly the opposite of what you claim it is. Working class children have a good chance of bettering themselves through hard work.

I'm not sure how you come to that conclusion GrannyRose. I'd be interested in why you think that.

I'm quoting the actual conclusion of the article. He doesn't say there is no hope for working classs children. He says we should be letting them know that if they work hard they can overcome their background.

No, he's not. He's claiming that they're inherently thick.

MaizieD

^I'd say the conclusion is exactly the opposite of what you claim it is. Working class children have a good chance of bettering themselves through hard work.^

But I'm not claiming anything, GrannyRose. I've just posted what the Conservative Home article says. I thought people might be interested and discuss it.

It's a worry if that is how tories are thinking. A worry for the working class people who vote for them, anyway. Articles like this have some influence.

I have read the article and I don't agree with the title of this post.

OMG! I've just read the article. It's superficial and flawed. Quite honestly, it's the kind of thing a professional writer (which is what Saunders is) would write for a fee. There is a lack of understanding and failure to explore various issues. People have been writing books about these issues for years and he's only just scratched the surface. The article will be read by people who want to believe it and have their views confirmed - which is what the majority of the population do. In the short time Saunders was a professor at Sussex, I hope he wouldn't have approved any of his students writing something like that.

growstuff

GrannyRose15

In today’s Britain, talent and hard work easily trump social class background. We should be telling our children this........... Maybe then, even more of them will go on to fulfil their potential in the future.

I'd say the conclusion is exactly the opposite of what you claim it is. Working class children have a good chance of bettering themselves through hard work.

I'm not sure how you come to that conclusion GrannyRose. I'd be interested in why you think that.

I'm quoting the actual conclusion of the article. He doesn't say there is no hope for working classs children. He says we should be letting them know that if they work hard they can overcome their background.

Actually, GrannyRose, I've misinterpreted you and didn't quite take in the conclusion he comes to.

It's actually nonsense and completely contradicts the rest of his article. He can't claim that working class children are not as bright as middle and upper class children and are not capable of achieving, and then turn round and say that talent and hard work will help people to better themselves.

My only explanation is that he's referring to UC and MC children only in his conclusion. Because he's spent several hundred words telling us that WC children just aren't bright enough to achieve anything..

To Johnson and his ilk, the workers of the country are little more than factory fodder. That some of us aren't actually in factories is irrelevant. We are 'the workers'. We are here to make their profit. Not to be their equals. Very comforting to be able to explain it away as genetics. Excuses everything.

I'd say the conclusion is exactly the opposite of what you claim it is. Working class children have a good chance of bettering themselves through hard work.

But I'm not claiming anything, GrannyRose. I've just posted what the Conservative Home article says. I thought people might be interested and discuss it.

It's a worry if that is how tories are thinking. A worry for the working class people who vote for them, anyway. Articles like this have some influence.

Well, that is obviously crap, isn't it? Tory, eugenic, wishful thinking. Wanting the UC to be superior gentically, to excuse their corrupt accumulation of wealth.

Education can give the children of the poor opportunities, but it depends whether they are then able to capitalise on the opportunities. In any case, that's not what Saunders is suggesting. He's claiming that people are poor because they're not very intelligent and can only do menial jobs.

PS. Saunders is a sociologist who doesn't appear to understand genetics, hasn't been a professor for decades and makes his money as a libertarian writer.

Education gets the children of the poor out of poverty. But our culture tells working class children school is boring. And then underfunded schools compound that issue.

Almost as if the ruling classes want to keep the workers down.

There is a resurgence in the kind of thinking Peter Saunders is writing about. While there is undoubtedly a genetic element in intelligence, the conclusions being drawn here are flawed. Heritablity is much more complicated and interacts with other factors.

GrannyRose15

^In today’s Britain, talent and hard work easily trump social class background. We should be telling our children this........... Maybe then, even more of them will go on to fulfil their potential in the future.^

I'd say the conclusion is exactly the opposite of what you claim it is. Working class children have a good chance of bettering themselves through hard work.

I'm not sure how you come to that conclusion GrannyRose. I'd be interested in why you think that.

In today’s Britain, talent and hard work easily trump social class background. We should be telling our children this........... Maybe then, even more of them will go on to fulfil their potential in the future.

I'd say the conclusion is exactly the opposite of what you claim it is. Working class children have a good chance of bettering themselves through hard work.

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

P.S. IQ testing is widely acknowledged to be a deeply flawed measure of 'intelligence'.

I'm sure that others will elaborate.