White working class – Will new policies make a difference?
As the government prepares to examine once more the reasons for lower outcomes among ‘white working class’ pupils, perhaps this time we’ll finally see some policies that make a difference…
- by Melissa Benn
- Writer and advocate for comprehensive education Visit website
“Not another one!”. That famous cry uttered by Brenda from Bristol ahead of the 2017 General Election could well apply to the recent announcement of yet another major enquiry into the underachievement of the white working class.
This latest commission, staffed by the influential research and polling organisation Public First, draws on a range of experienced figures in education. Former Education Secretary, Baroness Estelle Morris, is co-chairing it.
The big question, however, is whether the commission comes up with any new solutions to some very old and well-rehearsed problems…
Lagging behind
In the last decade alone, the Commons Education Select Committee has undertaken not one, but two major investigations (in 2014 and 2021) into the underachievement of white working class pupils. The more recent of those reports found that depressingly little had changed.
In summary, white working class children continue to lag behind both their middle class counterparts and ethnic minority pupils from similarly economically disadvantaged backgrounds (bar certain categories of Traveller children) in both Y6 SATs and GCSE results.
Rates of underachievement are particularly marked in rural and coastal areas, with COVID only making the situation even worse.
Two other reports published in the past year have piled on further bad news. In April, the Institute for Government drilled down into the figures behind ‘exploding levels’ of school absence. It put forward some proposals for improvement that drew on lessons from the successes of the New Labour years.
Meanwhile, the latest findings from the National Behaviour Survey reveal that schools suspended 1 in 10 working class children over the last academic year. This is a shockingly high figure.
‘Punished’ by the system?
Listening to public discussion of white working class underachievement in 2025, one glimpses new, more threatening framings of the problem. Some newspapers are suggesting that white working class children are being ‘punished’ by the school system.
Commentators have pointed the finger at diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies as the source of these harms. Or else they’ve claimed – as Matthew Goodwin has, writing in the Daily Mail – that working class children have never been ‘fashionable’ enough to engage the left.
This is dangerous, yet unsurprising stuff. Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson seems keenly aware that Reform and its allies, riding high in the polls, will take every opportunity to stoke up white working-class discontent.
To counter this, Labour could start by recognising the true roots of the problem. These include rising child poverty, educational under-funding and ‘left behind’ places.
Many rural and coastal communities have long been unable to attract sufficient teachers, particularly in specialist subjects. They’re able to offer few employment opportunities for school and university leavers.
To that, we can add the seemingly intractable difficulty of multi-generational educational under-achievement, which has fostered a culture of disengagement.
Disengaged and struggling
Cambridge Professor Diane Reay has identified an even more profound reason for working class alienation – the ‘miseducation’ of disadvantaged white youth.
Labelled from the start as low-achieving in a rigid, competitive and test-driven system, she argues that working class students have been left feeling worthless, with school holding no meaning or value for them.
So what solutions are there?
With its incendiary talk of ‘dumping equality policies’ and introducing a ‘patriotic curriculum’, it’s clear that Reform has no serious proposals for positive change.
The government, for its part, has emphasised the importance of investment in early years education, and the need for parents to get their children to school.
It also recently announced the launch of 21 new attendance and behaviour hubs. This is in an effort to tackle school refusal and challenging behaviour.
These are important steps. However, the government must be bolder, by committing to reducing child poverty and introducing a genuinely engaging curriculum.
There also needs to be targeted interventions in those left-behind areas where white working class achievement is rising.
Only experienced specialist educators can offer the kind of support and scaffolding these children will need, and which disengaged and struggling families may not be in a position to provide.
There are no shortcuts. And those much-needed reforms won’t come cheap. However, these proposals are infinitely preferable to the cheap politics of the populist right, which are currently getting too widespread and respectful a hearing in our national media.
Melissa Benn is the author of Life Lessons: The Case for a National Education Service, and is a Visiting Professor at York St John University.
