{"id":6278,"date":"2018-01-07T13:40:29","date_gmt":"2018-01-07T13:40:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/?p=6278"},"modified":"2026-04-18T19:34:32","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T19:34:32","slug":"failing-boys-school-failing-society","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sceptical.scot\/staging\/2018\/01\/failing-boys-school-failing-society\/","title":{"rendered":"Failing boys at school, failing society"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The education system is failing white working class boys. It\u2019s not news and it\u2019s not peculiar to the UK \u2013 different studies across the wider world have been saying it in academic language for some time. But Angela Rayner, the shadow education secretary, made headlines with her clearly expressed views this week.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps not surprisingly The Telegraph<\/a> chose to emphasise the negative, leading with what could be interpreted as a jibe at misguided liberal policies:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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White working class boys are being left behind because of the ‘negative impact’ of a focus on ethnic minorities and women, a member of Jeremy Corbyn\u2019s shadow cabinet has said. The Telegraph<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

What she actually said is set in the context of an extraordinary interview with The Spectator\u2019s Fraser Nelson<\/a>. The shadow education secretary, who left school, pregnant, at 16, is driven by a personal mission to tackle a dysfunctional system which perpetuates inequality. \u201cFor Rayner,\u201d writes Nelson, \u201cthis is the point about welfare: failure to support people leads to greater economic and social cost later. She\u2019s almost evangelical while talking about it, presenting her life story as proof.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So the comment about white working class boys has to be understood in the context of a wider social inequity and political failure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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‘They have not been able to adapt,\u2019 says Rayner of white working class boys. \u2018Culturally, we are not telling them that they need to learn and they need to aspire. They are under the impression that they don\u2019t need to push themselves, in the way that disadvantaged groups had to before.\u2019 The Spectator<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

That rings a bell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is it all girls and all boys?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Once again it\u2019s well worth digging through the archives of the David Hume Institute for evidence. And we don\u2019t have to dig very far. Here\u2019s the Irish academic, Professor Emer Smyth of the Economic & Social Research Institute, Dublin, talking to a room full of (if they\u2019ll excuse me saying so) middle class achievers in Edinburgh last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n