Been thinking a lot about what the actual rhetorical effect of “white working-class boys” is as a category since Matthew Goodwin’s thread a couple of weeks ago.

First of all, I totally agree with the contention that “we”—meaning the education establishment and l institutions—should pay attention to class/socioeconomic backgrounds, although I don’t agree that we pay ~no~ attention to it.

Socio-economy background has been part of every conversation about equality and diversity I’ve been part of it heard since I moved to careers work in 2010, & it’s monitored and measured through things like IMD & polar quintiles, so I definitely don’t agree that it’s missed out.

But the thing is, threads like Goodwin’s don’t actually focus on class. This has been true of the majority of “white working class boys” discussions I’ve seen over the years (with some genuine exceptions). They claim their intention is to make class more salient, but >>

> the one thing I have never seen is a comparison of “white working class males” with “white middle class males”.

If you take the phrase "white working-class males" and say you want to increase the salience of class, but then your comparison points are "BAME working class" and "female working class" and "female" and "BAME"-- you're not addressing class.

Making class salient would mean comparing class with ... class. Not comparing white [class] with BAME [class], or male [class] with female [class].

Like, if the variable you want to address is class, then look at that variable. Don't keep that variable consistent and look at other groups in that variable. Keep the other variables consistent and look at the one you say you're talking about.

(Keeping the variable the same and seeing how other variables change might be part of that analysis! But ONLY addressing the other variables? You're not really addressing the variable you're claiming to be talking about.)

What "white working-class boys" discourse nearly always does (with, again, some exceptions) is make white middle-class men invisible and inviolate. Their access to resources is sacrosanct: their overrepresentation is never questioned.

By comparing "white working class males" with other "underrepresented" groups, you make it a competition for the leftover resources. White middle-class men get five biscuits, unquestioned. Now, how should we shared out the other five biscuits?

Two to women, two to "BAME"--oops, only one leftover for the white working class men. That's cos the women and BAME took all your biscuits.

I think some of the discussions of "white working class males" are by people speaking in genuine good faith, who think they've found a problem and want to address it, but just are worse at statistical analysis than ... me. Which means really quite bad!

But others are in bad faith, and are a deliberate attempt to make gender and race/ethnicity more salient by making them "compete" for scarce resources without addressing why the resources are scarce in the first place.

Example here: white male British FSM compared with:
- everyone not on FSM
- Black everyone
- Asian everyone
- everyone in independent schools
- Black African
- Black Carribbean

But not white British men not on FSM. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-54278727

To sum up, we absolutely SHOULD be looking at the way that material deprivation and poverty restrict people's life chances and opportunities. But analysis which pits "white working class males" against "other underrepresented groups" does exactly the opposite.