Dr Sam Baars interviewed on LBC to discuss outcomes for white working class young people

Today our Director of Research Dr Sam Baars was interviewed on LBC, as part of a discussion on outcomes for white working class young people in the wake of the report of the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities.

More info here:

Sam fed into the Education Select Committee’s inquiry into ‘left behind’ white working-class pupils in October 2020, and has spent over a decade researching the life chances of young people growing up in working class neighbourhoods.

In his interview, Sam drew on CfEY research to make a number of key points:

- Social class matters for young people from all ethnic groups, not just White pupils
- Working class White British pupils are primarily disadvantaged by their class, not their ‘whiteness’
- Working class pupils from other ethnic groups are disadvantaged by their class and by their race
- Different groups fall behind at different stages in the education system: sometimes White British pupils do relatively badly; sometimes they do relatively well
- It’s not a race to the bottom: we can say that poorer White British pupils need attention, and that young people from other ethnic groups (such as Black Caribbean pupils) also need attention
- Parental resources and expectations are an important factor in explaining why White British pupils do relatively poorly at GCSE
- Geography matters: we need to focus more on poor areas on urban outskirts, not just the inner city