Posted on 06/18/2008 10:14:43 AM PDT by blam
White working-class boys becoming an underclass
By Graeme Paton, Education Editor
Last Updated: 4:11PM BST 18/06/2008
White teenagers are less likely to go to university than school-leavers from other ethnic groups - even with the same A-level results, according to official figures.
The gap is widest among male teenagers from poor backgrounds, raising fresh fears that working class boys are becoming the education "underclass" in England.
According to a Government report, just over one-in-20 white boys from poor homes goes on to university.
This compares to 66 per cent of Indian girls and 65 per cent of young women from Chinese families.
An analysis published by the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills said the rise in the number of women going to university over the last 10 or 20 years "had made the performance of males look relatively dismal".
The report said many working class white boys dropped out of education at the earliest opportunity, aged 16.
Bill Rammell, the higher education minister, said schools needed to intervene at an earlier age to get white boys interested in college and university.
"I think that culture plays a very important role," he said. "Part of what we have to do is to look across society and look among the ethnic minority groups where there is a very strong attachment to education and try to learn from that."
An analysis carried out by the DIUS looked at the number of teenagers going on to university, broken down by gender, ethnicity, social class and achievement at school.
It found that women were in the minority at university up to 1992, but over the last 15 years the balance had shifted.
Last year the proportion of young men studying for a degree fell to 35 per cent, compared to 47 per cent of women.
Despite fears that women are much more likely to go to university, the report said ethnicity and social class had a "larger" bearing on staying on rates.
The gaps "did not disappear entirely" even when comparing students with the same A-level results, researchers said.
"In fact, in the case of ethnicity, it was overwhelmingly clear the young people from non-white backgrounds were much more likely to participate in higher education than their white peers with similar prior attainment," said the study.
Just six per cent of white boys eligible for free school meals went to university compared to 26 per cent of working class young men from ethnic minority backgrounds. Some 34 per cent of girls from deprived ethnic minority families went to university, according to researchers.
Young white men from poor homes were eight and a half times less likely to go to university than ethnic minority women from middle-class families.
Among some ethnic groups, university participation rates were even higher.
Overall, 58 per cent of men from Indian backgrounds and 66 per cent of women go on to university. Among Chinese families, 60 per cent of boys and 65 per cent of women go to university.
Black Caribbean boys were the only group less likely to go to university than white boys.
The Conservatives said the disclosure proved that Labour was failing pupils from poor homes.
But the Government insisted a series of programmes had been launched to break down the barriers, including sending successful male role models into state schools.
In Leicester, undergraduates hold a football competition for schoolboys to give them a taste of student life.
It is also hoped the Government's new-style diploma qualifications - combining work-based training and classroom study - will prove more popular than traditional A-levels among many young men.
Dr. Dalrymple (”Life at the Bottom,” “Our Culture, What’s Left of It”) was all over that phenomena in one of his columns for City-Journal.com.
It’s the muslim factor. The Pakis and Bangaladeshis are muslim and (in glaring contrast to the Hindus and Sikhs) they refuse to adapt. They refuse to go to school with, work with, or live amongst, infidels. So ghettoization and welfare be their lot.
WSJ had an interesting article a few months back on how thoroughly India’s muslims have excluded themselves from the recent tech-prosperity. They won’t associate or allow their children to associate with non-muslims so they condemn themselves to righteous poverty as peasant farmers and small shopkeepers.
“It’s the culture, stupid.”
Yeah, I’ve seen that too. I also think, even from some personal experience, that since many HR departments are themselves run by females or supplicant males (be they fey, gay or whatever) that they screen out straight males for the ‘regular’ non-professional positions.
I also think that the non-confrontational passive-aggressive management style shown in Office Space came about as a result of the large-scale presence of non-professional females.
Welcome to the club. The freedom is exhilarating.
You work for SW?
One of the least masculine things is excuse making.
This from wardaddy Sr.
unappreciated generosity breeds dependence which breeds resentment which in turn breeds contempt.
he may have heard it somewhere but he said it in reference to when the Great Society transferal of wealth began.
You evil racist you.
Well you got your tepid replies. Reminds me of when I saw a comparison of Jewish Nobel science winners versus Arabic.
Silence.
{shrugging} I did’nt figure that part would change any...
Nowhere Man, what you said is music to my 52 year old ears!
“You work for SW?”
SW?
“You evil racist you.”
The facts are there. Each of us can draw our own conclusions. However, in the brave new Amerika, you can’t voice your conclusion if it’s not PC.
Being well dressed is equated with competence and/or the strength of an argument is directly related to the loudness of the voice/level of sarcasm.
That they are my friend yet in our culture today we look more for excuses at best or denial at worst....never at the solution.
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