White working-class students in education: Read my comment piece on Wonkhe

 

A few weeks ago the Education Select Committee published a report from its most recent inquiry into 'Left behind white pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds'. Given the focus of my research on the low HE participation rates of White British girls from working-class families, I had been following the inquiry with interest - in particular the oral evidence sessions with academics and third sector leaders and the discourses drawn upon within these. 

I had some thoughts about the report's lack of intersectionality when it came to considering how gender plays into the educational outcomes of White British children in receipt of free school meals (the group that the report is really discussing). Among the many issues with the report that have been discussed widely on Twitter and elsewhere, I argue that it represents a continuation of gendered education discourses which position all boys as failing and all girls as succeeding, rendering invisible the experiences of young women and girls at the intersections of class and ethnicity/'race' who are being failed by the education system. 

You can read more in my comment piece on Wonkhe: Gendered education policy does more harm to white working-class girls than discussing white privilege. [Sidenote: the piece I submitted talked about 'discourses' rather than 'policy' but I suspected that might be too academic-sounding to get past the Wonkhe editors!] 

You can also hear me reading a one-minute summary of the piece on this episode of the Wonkhe podcast at the 8.50 mark. 

Image credit Markus Winkler