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Don’t miss this book if you want to understand what is wrong with state education; or if you want to understand how classism diminishes us all. This book is the result of a life’s work, and although that work took an academic turn about twenty years ago, this book is not ‘academic’ - it is passionately and accessibly written for a wide readership. The author Diane Reay knows the research on education thoroughly and this book quotes this research to give evidence for her arguments. But she hersel
Don’t miss this book if you want to understand what is wrong with state education; or if you want to understand how classism diminishes us all. This book is the result of a life’s work, and although that work took an academic turn about twenty years ago, this book is not ‘academic’ - it is passionately and accessibly written for a wide readership. The author Diane Reay knows the research on education thoroughly and this book quotes this research to give evidence for her arguments. But she herself has also been engaged in research in the last twenty years and her many papers earned her a professorship at Cambridge. This research is also used to give a voice to the often unheard voices of working class young people in schools and universities. There are also the voices of middle class children. The book argues convincingly that education is structured to give the middle class the main benefits of an education system that is organised on their terms. However, it also show us that these benefits are often bought at a cost of desperate anxiety and a loss of empathy which blocks communication between the classes and reinforces stereotypes and class separation.
The book is brought alive at frequent intervals by the inclusion of Reay’s own experience in education as a ‘gifted’ working class girl and then young woman at university. The academic curriculum worked for her, but still her stories of injustice are moving and bring a strong response from me, more perhaps than much of the quotations from research. This could be because we are roughly from the same generation of working class learners. (e.g. p.107)
The first chapter is a summary of class oppression and how it got worse (again) after a brief period of relative respite after WW2. The next chapter is a history of the working class experience of education. Again it is clearly and concisely written and shows the huge amount of research that backs up her view. The detail is well chosen and does not overburden her critical arguments. The later chapters drill deeper into into the working class experience of schooling and call on her own extensive sociological research.
Three of the main points that stood out to me were: 1. The skewed curriculum that is made with little or no understanding of working class interests and activities. Too often the school curriculum appears irrelevant to working class life. 2. The middle classes see their children as ‘brighter’ than the working class majority and so deserving of special attention. 3. Education contributes to a ‘negative and deficit view of working class culture’ (p.12) and makes the working class increasingly excluded from the political system.
Educational research is used to elucidate this key area in which class oppression is inculcated into vulnerable young people. Her analysis is especially acute about the part played by the middle class in their efforts to maintain their advantage. The working-class student too often “inhabits a psychic economy of class defined by fear, anxiety and unease where failure looms large and success is elusive, a space where they are positioned and see themselves as losers.” (p.147). The middle class are driven to maintain their advantage at all costs by a incessant competitive anxiety that pushes their children to succeed in ways that can only diminish the inevitable losers. Those who do not shine ‘brightly’ in academic terms are destined to be the ‘losers’ in a stratified society.
As I have pointed out elsewhere the core of class oppression is the claiming of an intellectual function for the middle and bourgeois classes and a manual function for the working class. What goes along with this is a myth that intellectual work is superior to manual work. School embeds and polices that nexus of inferiority/ superiority in the population. This is more cruel than we can easily contemplate… The whole school curriculum and assessment process is aligned to celebrate intellectual success of the ‘brightest’ and to underline the failure of those whose communities do not aspire to that kind of work. Not that working class work in making the world does not use thought and analysis! Of course it does. But the school curriculum is made to study a particular kind of abstracted thinking based on the reading of a literary tradition, rather than thinking that is part of the direct experience of productive doing. It is a curriculum that alienates most working class students from what they know about. Although working class people are those who have made the whole of the world we live in, school suggests that the world keeps spinning because of intellectual work. I have not seen an argument that puts a curricular shift towards practical thinking into a concrete programme whilst having an inclusive approach. Even attempts at a separate ‘technical education’ has never really taken off (p.33). 'Vocational' programmes are seen to be for the school failures. Successful working class led education would celebrate the practical thinking involved with being a successful plumber, mechanic, engineer, nurse, carer, etc. The sticking point here is that the graduate path of training teachers is enclosed within the academic environment of the university, rather than the workshop or factory, so they are not really able to see outside of that mind cage. As Reay says:
Different kinds of jobs should be of more equal value. Why should practical makers and doers have to go through the ordeal of being declared intellectual failures before going on to having a satisfying and often reasonably well-paid job? Why should middle-class children be made to jump though intellectual hoops just to please their parents neurotic sense of status? Many middle class people ‘end up’ as successful makers but they often carry a hurtful experience of shame and humiliation from their education through their adult lives. Also there are many graduates in huge debt from doing degrees that are doing dead-end jobs in call centres etc.
Although the book is highly critical of our education system it has a section towards the end that grapples with how to improve things. Clearly a change of policies from above is not going to eradicate centuries of classism. There is a wider struggle against class injustice and the knowledge put forward by Reay needs to be more clearly known by the many groups involved in challenging the class system.
Reay says there are 800 co-operative schools in England (p.190) but there seems to be no research of what they bring to education. I would like to have heard more about these schools and other examples of groups offering resistance to the neo-liberal pressure to cream profits from schools and at the same time produce comotose and indebted worker subjects. The world-wide interest in the ‘The Ignorant Schoolmaster’ by Jaques Ranciere is another example of an educational approach that is perhaps too wild to be considered here. (My extensive blog review has had 25000 views)
The main contribution that this marvellous book, ‘Miseducation’, makes is in elucidating how class oppression is embedded and maintained through our years of schooling. It is very clear in describing how working class young people suffer intolerable humiliations in their period of schooling. Many, like Reay herself have survived this, but not enough are giving voice to it and demanding it changes. Diane Reay has painstakingly constructed a platform for herself and marshalled the best research being done to empower her arguments. Where there are gaps in the official discourses she has done the research herself and with colleagues. It is up to us now, dear working class readers, to read, discuss and celebrate her achievement.
Essential reading for all those who value equality.
More quotes:
The book is brought alive at frequent intervals by the inclusion of Reay’s own experience in education as a ‘gifted’ working class girl and then young woman at university. The academic curriculum worked for her, but still her stories of injustice are moving and bring a strong response from me, more perhaps than much of the quotations from research. This could be because we are roughly from the same generation of working class learners. (e.g. p.107)
The first chapter is a summary of class oppression and how it got worse (again) after a brief period of relative respite after WW2. The next chapter is a history of the working class experience of education. Again it is clearly and concisely written and shows the huge amount of research that backs up her view. The detail is well chosen and does not overburden her critical arguments. The later chapters drill deeper into into the working class experience of schooling and call on her own extensive sociological research.
Three of the main points that stood out to me were: 1. The skewed curriculum that is made with little or no understanding of working class interests and activities. Too often the school curriculum appears irrelevant to working class life. 2. The middle classes see their children as ‘brighter’ than the working class majority and so deserving of special attention. 3. Education contributes to a ‘negative and deficit view of working class culture’ (p.12) and makes the working class increasingly excluded from the political system.
“Deference has been and still is expected of the working class.” (p.15)
Educational research is used to elucidate this key area in which class oppression is inculcated into vulnerable young people. Her analysis is especially acute about the part played by the middle class in their efforts to maintain their advantage. The working-class student too often “inhabits a psychic economy of class defined by fear, anxiety and unease where failure looms large and success is elusive, a space where they are positioned and see themselves as losers.” (p.147). The middle class are driven to maintain their advantage at all costs by a incessant competitive anxiety that pushes their children to succeed in ways that can only diminish the inevitable losers. Those who do not shine ‘brightly’ in academic terms are destined to be the ‘losers’ in a stratified society.
“As both working class young people and working class adults regularly pointed out, they often felt overlooked and disregarded in schooling, part of an anonymous backdrop that middle class children can shine against.” (p.138).
As I have pointed out elsewhere the core of class oppression is the claiming of an intellectual function for the middle and bourgeois classes and a manual function for the working class. What goes along with this is a myth that intellectual work is superior to manual work. School embeds and polices that nexus of inferiority/ superiority in the population. This is more cruel than we can easily contemplate… The whole school curriculum and assessment process is aligned to celebrate intellectual success of the ‘brightest’ and to underline the failure of those whose communities do not aspire to that kind of work. Not that working class work in making the world does not use thought and analysis! Of course it does. But the school curriculum is made to study a particular kind of abstracted thinking based on the reading of a literary tradition, rather than thinking that is part of the direct experience of productive doing. It is a curriculum that alienates most working class students from what they know about. Although working class people are those who have made the whole of the world we live in, school suggests that the world keeps spinning because of intellectual work. I have not seen an argument that puts a curricular shift towards practical thinking into a concrete programme whilst having an inclusive approach. Even attempts at a separate ‘technical education’ has never really taken off (p.33). 'Vocational' programmes are seen to be for the school failures. Successful working class led education would celebrate the practical thinking involved with being a successful plumber, mechanic, engineer, nurse, carer, etc. The sticking point here is that the graduate path of training teachers is enclosed within the academic environment of the university, rather than the workshop or factory, so they are not really able to see outside of that mind cage. As Reay says:
“This would require an educative relationship between schools and working class communities, on that works in both directions.” (p.191)
Different kinds of jobs should be of more equal value. Why should practical makers and doers have to go through the ordeal of being declared intellectual failures before going on to having a satisfying and often reasonably well-paid job? Why should middle-class children be made to jump though intellectual hoops just to please their parents neurotic sense of status? Many middle class people ‘end up’ as successful makers but they often carry a hurtful experience of shame and humiliation from their education through their adult lives. Also there are many graduates in huge debt from doing degrees that are doing dead-end jobs in call centres etc.
“Failure within education to respect and value working-class knowledge has resulted in the invidious divide between vocational and academic knowledge.” (p.65).
“Working-class students will now graduate with an average of £14,000 more debt and their wealthier peers.” (p.128).
Although the book is highly critical of our education system it has a section towards the end that grapples with how to improve things. Clearly a change of policies from above is not going to eradicate centuries of classism. There is a wider struggle against class injustice and the knowledge put forward by Reay needs to be more clearly known by the many groups involved in challenging the class system.
Reay says there are 800 co-operative schools in England (p.190) but there seems to be no research of what they bring to education. I would like to have heard more about these schools and other examples of groups offering resistance to the neo-liberal pressure to cream profits from schools and at the same time produce comotose and indebted worker subjects. The world-wide interest in the ‘The Ignorant Schoolmaster’ by Jaques Ranciere is another example of an educational approach that is perhaps too wild to be considered here. (My extensive blog review has had 25000 views)
The main contribution that this marvellous book, ‘Miseducation’, makes is in elucidating how class oppression is embedded and maintained through our years of schooling. It is very clear in describing how working class young people suffer intolerable humiliations in their period of schooling. Many, like Reay herself have survived this, but not enough are giving voice to it and demanding it changes. Diane Reay has painstakingly constructed a platform for herself and marshalled the best research being done to empower her arguments. Where there are gaps in the official discourses she has done the research herself and with colleagues. It is up to us now, dear working class readers, to read, discuss and celebrate her achievement.
Essential reading for all those who value equality.
More quotes:
“Educational polices often work to reinforce and entrench the low esteem in which the working classes are held, rather than to modify and alleviate class prejudices and discriminations.” p.25....more
“If you are working class in England, and especially if you are poor, you're likely to have less experienced and less qualified teachers than more privileged students have, as well as poorer educational facilities…” p.74.
“The hidden injuries of class that are enshrined and perpetuated through educational policies and practices… are particularly raw and vivid in relation to the growing processes of assessment and testing in schools.” p.82.
“There is a pressing need to re-centre care, collaboration and empathy in our schools.” p.98.
“Social mobility is no solution to either educational inequalities or wider social and economic injustices. p.102.
“The key issue we need to tackle in education is not social mobility but inequality.” p.127.
“Complicated combinations of guilt, shame, anger, fear, defensiveness empathy and conciliation… are generated in response to class inequalities in education.” p.155.
“The continued failure to critically educate and to creatively stimulate working-class students is little short of criminal and, at the very least, morally indefensible.” p.161.
“The normative working-class educational experience is one of neglect, unrealised potential, an unfair allocation of resources and exploitation and oppression.” p.184.
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