Hi, You're listening to The Sociology Show, a podcast about absolutely anything to
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My name is Matthew Wilkin. In each episode, I will speak to someone
working in the field of sociology and let them explain all about their own interests,
their research, and their experiences. So put your ear phones in,
turn the volume up, and let's be sociology geeks together. Ah, Hello,
and welcome to the Sociology Show. My guest for this episode is Professor
Lee Elliott Major, talking about his new book, Equity and Education, leveling
the playing field of learning. Before we get stuck into that, just a
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messages without further ado, let's go over to the interview with Professor Lee Elliott
Major. Enjoy Hello and welcome to the Sociology Show podcast. Would you like
to start by telling us a little bit about who you are and what you
do. Please, So I am Lee Elliott Major. I am the country's
first professor of social mobility. Believe it or not, we actually don't know
of another professor in this film in the world at the moment, so very
proud to be that. At the University of Exeter. I was formerly chief
executive I think called the Sutton Trust, which is what a sort of big
education foundation which is dedicated to improving life prospects through education, dedicated to improving
social mobility. So I'm unusual in the sense I'm a professor practice. There's
someone who's had another role in their career, and my job in a nutshell
is about doing research, but also working with schools, universities and indeed governments
and increasing actually employers to improve prospects for children from underresourced backgrounds. Will come
back to that point on language, because I used to use the term disadvantaged
pupil for most of my career, but we have reassessed that in our latest
book, and we might get back to that, Matthew on that, but
that's in a nutshell. So I increasingly present across the company, indeed in
other countries as well these days. You know, these issues of inequality and
education, social class, influence on life prospects, social mobility are things that
most countries now are interested in. You know, is quite interesting for me,
So so increasing a global topic. Thank you, thank you, And
I'm always always interested in why that particular area. I read that you were
the first of your family to go to university. I just be interested to
know about your own background and in terms of where you are now. So
again, I'm very unusual as a professor in that I do come from basically
a working class background. I'm from West London. I'm a place called Felton,
which is famous for its Young Offenders institution, and that's where I grew
up. My mum and dad, as you say, didn't go to university.
So I was first and families to go university. I lived on my
own from fifteen. It's quite a story actually when I look back on it.
I was on social security. I was quite academic at school, so
I was one of these kids again, we'll get back into this. That
was sort of plucked, you know, because I was very bright academically,
even though I was from a more work class background. I was sort of
helped by teachers to go back to school and they were really instrumental, as
well as some family members who helped me and some friends. I lived with
my best friend's family for a time. They took me in. So one
of the things about my life I always say is that you know, we're
all products of many people, and I really dislike the narratives that you know,
it's all about me and how brilliant I am. Actually, most lives
are a product of many people. It's just that some people forget those people
that help them when they were younger. Right. So I used my story
when I give lectures now. So the Daily Mail did a news piece on
my life and it was from bin man to professor. And it's true I
was a bin man, but I was a bin man during the summer.
It was a job my mum got me. It was nepotism. She worked
for the local council. It was a summer job while I was doing a
PhD. Right, So there's always a different side of these headline stories.
But it's an important story for me because when we discuss it with students and
in d T and undergraduates, it's a nice example to explore what we actually
mean by social justice or social business. That I would argue that we need
good beIN men right as well as professors. So let's not implicitly suggest that
these jobs are somehow inferior to other jobs. And let's not also implicitly suggest
that being working class is inferior to being middle class. So I use my
own story really to explore what I call the sort of deficit mindset which I
think still dominates a lot of education. And the book Equity Education, a
lot of what we talk about is trying to challenge those very dominant sort of
deficit approaches that dog the education systems this day. It's really interesting you think
that because I was reflecting on myself like you, as the first in the
family to go to university, and the expression caught up in here is you
know that the boy that done good? As if had I not gone through
that route and education, had I been a bin man, or had I
worked in a call center, that's not doing good. I find that really
interesting that doing good seems to be progressing further rather than staying in a working
class profession. Yeah. Absolutely, And you know, I would argue that
my job is about enabling young people to find out what they can do with
their lives. You know, irrespect your background shouldn't determine what you do whatever.
That is right and that you know, for some people, they don't
want to move to the big cities and get a high playing job that is
very stressful. They want a decent life, They want to contribute to society,
and they want to stay in their local community or regions. So I
think these debates are really interesting. And the problem with that sort of rags
to riches story is it makes us all feel like we're failures. Right,
so you say, yeah, the system works because these people kind of implicitly
the assumption has worked really hard or were really talented, did and made it
to the top however we defined it, and the rest of you are losers,
you know. So I think we've really got to challenge some of those
dominant narratives we see in the press. And I was very nervous when you're
Daily mail, Honestly, you don't know quite what the headline's going to be.
To be honest, it was a very generous story about me, but
it did play to those assumptions definitely. Yeah. Do you think it is
more of an issue in Britain? People always say Britain is one of the
most classes societies, if not the most classes. I'm just thinking, for
example, I work with a fellow sociology teachers who's German, and he says,
you know, in Germany, if you have a vocational job, if
you have a more manual job, it's got a much more higher status than
we tend to regard in the UK. We still seem to be quite obsessed
with, you know, the academic versus vocational roots and the snobbery that comes
with that. I do think we are obsessive about class divides, and we
certainly invented the class, you know, if you look back at the history
of Britain. But I also think class does exist and persist in other countries.
I just think it's more subtle. I don't think they necessarily call it
class. So in Germany, you know, if you're from a certain part
of Germany with a certain accent, or you have a particular education, and
you're absolutely right, they are properly better on things like apprenticeships than us,
but they still have some sort of class system. Every country I've looked at.
I think there are some what I call status markers in the workplace,
your accent, where you come from, your education, and those are not
directly really about talent. They're just about your class, okay, and it
just means and there's been some lovely work done on this by socialogists, there
is this sort of class ceiling that we observe in the UK. I'm convinced,
and this will be probably the next book, by the way, is
that there is a class ceiling across the world world and in many ways the
British and American cultures have influenced the rest of the world. And you know,
because we have a very globalized business system in this world, and I
think some of the assumptions about how we define talent have been explotted across the
world. So it's a really interesting topic. Maybe that's for another time,
but you know, to what extent is class global I think is a really
interesting question. Yeah, it's interesting. I've taught a few international schools and
there's still this obsession. We're going to England for university you know, it's
still got that high prestige and status, even students from Singapore applying for UK
universities when they've got fantastic education in their own country. Yeah. And you
know, speaking English is a real asset across the world. Speaking English with
an accent at an English accent or an American accent is seen as better,
for example, in India, than having an English language but an Indian accent.
There was a real status hierarchy in these different places. Accents are really
interesting. By the way. We do talk about this a bit in the
book. My accent has changed a lot. You know, I come from
Western I was basically talked a bit like that when I was younger, and
I always remark on this when I give lectures. The fact is my accent
has changed, and I'm not sure if I did that consciously, but you
see this with a lot of people like me who are what I would call
awkward climbers. We've we've kind of lost the place we came from. We
don't quite know where. We still feel a slightly imposter syndrome when I give
lectures. I got an obe from Buckingham Palace. You know, I still
felt someone was going to grab me on the back of the shoulder, say
Lee, right, go back to where you came from. Honestly genuinely felt
that, as well as pride in being recognized for my work. And I
think this is something that a lot of people relate to in my generation.
And I think I was, in many ways the first wave of social mobility,
that sort of model of you know, picking these kids from disadvantages around
the resource backgrounds, giving them a chance to get into a leading university.
And I think a lot of my generation are reflecting on that now and saying,
yeah, it was okay for us as individuals, but the system has
stayed the same. So how do we change the cultures of schools, universities,
and employers to make them more inclusive rather than you know, making me
and others become sort of middle class clients. Right. So I think that's
going to be a big discussion over the next decade. How do we make
places more inclusive. It's interesting that you say that you know that the system
or the ideas are still the same. I mean a level sociology students listening
that will have studied the likes of Paul Willis in the nineteen seventies, and
how are Becker's labeling theory right up to Diane raise miseducation study. It sounds
like nothing's changed. You know, some of those studies go that fifty plus
years, are we still talking about the same issues and the same problems.
I do think some of these issues are very persistent. So if you look
at some of those earlier studies, I think they apply equally today. Diane
raised great work calls, but you know, there's some really interesting stuff in
America. Annette Lore's work on concerted cultivation when she looked quite a small study
actually looked at middle class and working class families in America, and what she
found was that the families from middle class background, on average get you gotta
be careful to generalize, and this had a sort of what I would call
this sort of sharp elbow behavior. She called it concerted cultivation, basically getting
your kids to advocate for themselves in the classroom, you know, getting questions
from the teacher, getting getting feedback, advocate for yourself, and you know,
doing all sorts of activities at home, doing all those extra activities that
middle class parents do with their children. Whereas working class families did what she
called natural growth parenting, right, and that is much more it's less structured.
It just I call it the hands off approach. The point about this,
Matthew, is that not that one approach is better than the other,
because again they both have their rub advantages and disadvantages. You know, concerned
cultivation, middle class shop elbows is a very stressful environment sometimes and can actually
actually lead to young people having anxiety and not having much free time. Right.
But the point is this, and those studies from early on show this
as well, that the academic system, the schooling system, and certainly the
university system is much more throne or much more sort of use to that middle
class culture. Right. So it is a middle class culture essentially, So
if you're from a middle class family, you're much more likely to prosper in
school than if you're from a work class family. The question that comes from
that, I think, is do we need to make explicit the unwritten rules
of the game that often operate in the classroom or the workplace, or do
we actually want to challenge those rules? Right to what extent are these rules
you know? Needed? Is a really interesting debate, but this goes back
a long way. You know, if I look at Bernstein's stuff on the
language. Here, he talked about the restricted code versus the elaborated code that
was in the nineteen fifties, and his point was that again again on average,
middle class children tended to speak in an elaborated code that's sense to be
more extended senses with bigger words, whereas working classes tend to speaking that more
restricted code, smaller word or sentences. Now, the point is here again
that you need a bit of both. Actually, in good writing is a
bit of elaborating umbership, but when we're when teaching mode and certainly in professor,
you tend to talk more in that elaborated code. This was talked about
the nineteen fifties. I still think that applies today. So I think we
still have this sort of debates, and maybe we're a bit more open about
class, and we can talk about how maybe class has changed in some respects.
But my view is there are still the persistent class divides that are persisted
for quite a time in this country. Some people would argue some more on
the conspiratorial arm of the social mobility world will say that this is all intentional,
This is how the social elites replicate themselves from one generation to another.
Right, they created a system that only they can win. And when you
look at the absence rates now from pupils, many of whom will come from
those low income or work class backgrounds. In a way, I think what
we're seeing post pandemic is almost a rejection of the school model. You know,
what's the point in us coming to school if there's no jobs locally in
our part of the country. It's a very narrow academic curriculum that can be
gained by the middle classes through extra private tutoring. There's not much in it
for us. And now, mum and dad didn't do well school, and
our grandparents didn't do well at school, right, so I can sort of
see why some children aren't going to school. I think we need a debate
about the curriculum that we offer. It's not just about knocking on people's doors.
So yeah, in an nutshell, these things have been persistent for many
decades. Thank you. I was just looking at my phone. Actually I
wasn't being rude. The reason being I asked some of my department if they
wanted me to fire any questions at you and what you were just talking about.
One of my colleagues, James, who's a fellow sociology teacher. If
I could just pose you this one, he says, does he think the
working classes actually value the education that is provided to them? Where is it
on their list of priorities? Do they have different learning needs? And it's
the current system geared up for these. So one thing I'd say to you,
we summarize the literature and aspirations, right, have you, is that
all parents want the best of their children. They're again I've seen a lot
of rhetoric from politicians around you know, working class parents don't have high aspirations
for their children. I would challenge that. I think a lot of this
is about knowing the reality of what realizing those aspirations. How do you go
about doing that for you children? So I'm not convinced that there are low
aspirations among parents. I do think, however, that the education system as
it's currently organized does not fulfill all the needs of all our children. Why
do I say that, Well, if you look at the annual results of
GCSS, for example, around twenty five percent of young people do not get
a grade four in their English and maths GCSS. Right, I believe the
system should be good enough that every child, whatever they go on to do,
whether it's academic or vocation or whatever, should be able to get what
I would call functional literacy and numacy at school. But I don't believe that
the current system is catering for all the talents among our children. So I
would explore, for example, a curriculum that adds more vocational ATMs in their
serious vocational options. I think creative skills, I alwayso think social emotional skills
to add to that. And I know that you know, teachers are so
busy with this is but I do think we need a discussion about how we
judge and measure essentially talent in school. So at the moment, it's a
very narrow conceptualization of ability. It's academic summarizing of you know, which is
you know things I was very good at, right, you know, memorizing
facts, analyzing. I think actually that there are many children who have different
talents that we do not basically nurture in our school. So in the book
we do talk about celebrating a broader mix, if you like, of attributes
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small thank you for your continued support of the show. And you also mentioned
about celebrating working class figures and popular culture as well, Danie, do you
want to say a little bit more about that? So yeah, I don't
think there's enough celebration of working class achievements in the curriculum. So we cite
just a few names. You know Mary Anning, who was an amazing fossil
hunter from Lime Readi's right on the South coast, who came from a really
poor background but was an amazing She was also a woman, by the way,
in an era of Victorian era that didn't celebrate perhaps women as much as
they should done. We talk about Storms as a sort of more recent example,
and that's interesting because of course he has Black history as well comes into
that as well. It's not just working class. We're really keen when we
talk about work class, by the way, to think of it in an
intersectional way, right, So this is not just white working class important as
that is, right, this is about people from a mix of other characteristics.
And that's important because what we know from the studies is that those young
children who have a number of characters can suffer multiple disadvantage. Right, So
if you happen to be female, black, and working class, that can
be really difficult for you in the classroom. So yeah, I think we
should do far more. There's so many people in our history, right who
have done really well, and often they're in the curriculum, but I think
we need to explain where they came from. Michael Faraday is another example.
You know, I did physics right a level an amazing character and he came
from a very you know, humble background. Changed the world in terms of
what we know about electricity. Right. Without Michael Faraday, we probably wouldn't
have the electricity that runs all the electronic devices we have today. So I
think this is more about It might be in the curricular curriculum, but I
think that it would be really good for pupils. If you come from a
background, under resource background, it's really good to know that there are other
people, right that did contribute to society, saying that you've got to be
careful you don't fall back into that deficit mode. I not everyone could be
Michael Faraday or Mary Anna, right, so you've got to get the balance
right. But I don't think there's enough in the curriculum. And Michael goes
when he introduced that concept of cultural capital. So if you're inspected by a
school now, you know, in the Offsted framework there is this paragraph on
cultural capital, but it tends to be a middle class notion of cultural capital.
You know. It's things like I mean, I'm in a characture here,
but it's like going to the museum, going to the theater really important.
All children know about those opportunities. But it's also important that we talk
about I know, football, that we talk about other rich cultures in this
country that have more of a working class tradition. And again, you know,
I think we tend to fall into deficit mindset. Even the term social
mobility itself implies, isn't it sort of moving from the way politicians of it
are interpreted, is moving from the sum there bottom to the top. It
implies that there is a place that isn't as good as another place, right,
So yeah, I think we could do well. The other thing about
this, Matthew, is, of course teachers come from middle class backgrounds mostly
like professors do, right, And by definition, you know you are middle
class if you're a teach, that is, in believe it or not,
because teachers are of course totally underpaid compared to the other professional groups, right,
But you are classified as one of the professionals. And the problem with
that is that we all fall into unconscious biases. Right. So the studies
are quite humbling on this in that they show, and when I do sessions
with teachers, it's always a really interesting exercise that teacher judgments tend to judge
children from more work class or low income backgrounds more lowly than the actual test
results would suggest, and vice aversa for middle class children. Right. So,
now, I think we all suffer from these biases. And if you're
middle class, you're going to probably tend to rel relate to those middle class
pupils in the classroom a bit more. So you're probably just going to be
a bit more warm, You're going to probably give them a bit more eye
contact. It comes back to actually work. By the way, what you
were talking about earlier. Some of the lately people are talked about labeling theories
in this or you know, self fulfilling prophecies, you know in the classroom
where you kind of make some assumptions about that child and then they kind of
play up to those assumptions and before you know it, you're in a cycle,
which means that that that pupil will not excel as well as they might
do. So so, yeah, really important to understand that that the biases
and barriers in the classroom. Yeah, I was just looking This is another
question by James. I suppose it's more of a statement and you've kind of
answered it, but I just read it anyway. James says, if the
curriculum value system and teaches a white middle class on the whole, why wouldn't
there be biased against working class groups and some ethnic groups as well. I
think you've kind of answered answered that one in that respect. Can I fire
another one? An't you? That's all right? So Leslie another fellow sociology
teacher, and this is something that's always got me thinking, Actually, why
is classism the least discussed of the isms, You know, We often talk
about racism, homophobia, sexism, and see them as you know, very
bad things, you know, in terms of how they're judged. But classism
doesn't seem to quite fall into that sort of severity, if that makes sense.
Yeah, it's almost become a taboo subject in many of these debates.
And that is a real pity because I think that, like diversity efforts in
the workplace are flawed unless they consider class as well as ethnicity and gender and
are the characteristics souse. If you're missing out that characteristic, you're going to
miss out a lot of young people, right. And it's also, as
we were talking earlier, it's intersectional, so you know, you're missing a
huge bit of what we are as people. And so yeah, I really
worry about that. And a lot of my work is in a sense promoting
this idea that we need to talk about class alongside these other characteristics. I'm
really keen to say that that's not instead of right, this compliments those other
issues, and there's a real complementarity here. You know, some of the
things we talk about in the book, you know, could apply to pupils
who struggled with biases because of other characteristics, Right, The other thing I
would say about this as well, that we've emphasize in the books. Really
important to say on this is that education can't solve all societies ills, right,
So you know, I talk about bias in the classroom, and I'm
working with teachers to think through the practical implications of that. It's been really
interesting actually talking to some geography and history teachers last week about this, and
we were talking about how you give feedback in the classroom. Our children respond
to behavior processes in schools, how do you differentiate in the classroom that There's
so many questions about clash in practice that sort of emanate from these discussions,
but it's really important to also emphasize that schools can do so much. So,
you know, in the book, we talk about the flawed assumptions of
modern capitalism, because what we have, in a sense, whatever party you
look at in the UK, is this assumption that we can have quite wide
inequalities in life, both material and cultural, as long as schools are there
to equalize opportunity. Right. So it's down to you, teachers essentially to
make it all happen, you know, And that's implicit in a lot of
the political debates we have. The evidence points to a very different conclusion,
and that is that a lot of children's outcomes are shaped by the home learning
environment, what happens outside the school gates. And I think in the book
we talk a lot about what can schools contribute to that? So, for
example, many schools now provide free school breakfast, for example, So you're
kind of getting into that social welfare stpaa's effectively right as a school And it
saddens me in some ways because I think teachers are so stretched. But then
you know, when I visit schools, I say, Lee, there is
no one else picking up these pieces. So if no one else is going
to do it as teachers, we're going to try. But I think the
problem with it is that all the evidence suggests that schools can't do it on
their own. So you know, if we're going to have a serious debate
about equity or social ability or social justice, you have to think about how
you address inequalities outside of schools as well as inside them. Right, So
while I'm challenging teachers to reflect on their biases, you've just got to put
that into context, right, which is teachers can be transformative, but they
can't hold the whole of it on their own, right, So you've just
got to make sure you understand that. Yeah, I was going to say
a lot of the inequalities start before the child's even started school at the age
of five, haven't they. We need more Marcus Rashford's in the world.
That would be a good start. This was really interesting. You know,
I do this kind of quiz question when I give lectures, which is,
you know how many universities have produced English Prime minister since the war? Right?
The answers won't everyone is Oxford and nothing on Oxford. I'm a fellow
at one of the colleges then, or but I think it is amazing that
only one universe, not even Cambridge, has produced, let alone someone like
Exeter. Right, and there are primises. By the way, didn't go
to university, and Gordon Brown was Scottish. I'm not including him, So
just any very good questions on that. And by the way, Keir Starmer,
if he does become a crient, I think did a postgraduate degree ox
I've checked that so And by the way, I've had to update that slide
several times the last year, recurring sort of slide. But I mentioned that
because I think it's really important that we do have diversity at the top because
what's happened recently in you know, we got this inquiry into the what happened
in the government sort of management of the COVID, you know, that really
interesting inquiry, and I think a lot of things coming out of that are
when Marcus Rashed was saying, actually, we need to we need to offer
all children, you know, free meals during the summer holidays, and stending
that at the cabinet because they were all from such a small slice of society,
didn't quite understand the issues facing those children, right. So, so
the problem with low social mobility is that you get a dysfunctional I would argue,
and certainly disengaged elite that the governors the country, and then you'd get
those issues where you get a bit of a disconnect between those and the people
they're meant to serve. Yeah, definitely understandable that. And I was just
thinking as well as you were saying that as you sort of move up through
through education, you know, I teach a level myself, I wonder if
the if the gap is even more noticeable at that stage. If I think
of the college that I'm teaching in at the moment. You know, the
A level students come from some very very sort of affluent areas. I live
and hope some very affluent areas, and those students that do come from the
working class backgrounds, I think perhaps even film more fish out of water.
And one of the questions that I've had from another sociology teacher, Sophie,
she says, what is the best way to poverty proof at A level?
What could be done in our classrooms? And I know the second half of
your book focuses very much on what we the teachers could do, so I
was interested in your thoughts on that. Well. By the way, we
have similar issues in universities. So versus are trying to recruit talent from all
backgrounds, but it's really difficult, particularly at universites where you have very high
A level grades for entry. So in fact, I'm doing a lecture tomorrow
on this at my own institution, my own university, to try and reflect
on how we can up our game as a university on this. I do
think as teachers we need to be aware of those young people in the class
that so for A level, You're absolutely right if you look at the statistics
around a levels, you've already lost many children, for example, on free
school mills right there. The attrition is quite horrifying actually when you look at
the statistics and that then shapes you know, the population that they go on
to university. So I think there's a number of things teachers can do.
I mean, the thing that you've got to be so careful of with all
this is not to label or stereotype the pupils in your class while giving them
support in a non patronizing way. Right You're known this, Matthew is.
It's very difficult. So some of the discussions I get into with teachers is
how you provide support without making those children feel like they're they're they're in need
in some way right, that they're being patronized. We talk in the book
about not labeling and actually thinking in the classroom. Disadvantage is a continuum really
any classroom. It's not pupil premium versus non pupil premium as we tend to
think of in schools, right because funding comes in for those children free school
mills through the pupil premium. So one thing I think you need to really
think about is think about all good teachers do is thinking about pupils as individuals.
They're all basically a product of many different factors, and so you really
got to just be careful in stereotyping I guess those young pupils and just not
assuming. I mean that phrase poverty proofing is a really interesting one, and
I think culture proofing might be another one. Right. So, I think
we're not explicit enough about what's expected at a level and indeed university, so
there is this notion that you're more of an independent learner right a level.
I think that again is a bit of a middle class bias for someone like
me. You know, I was used to that that was my tendency,
right. I think many childrenm middle class flounders have been taught that they've been
developed from very early on, whereas if you come from work class back you
might just not understand that of experience that as much. So I think as
a teacher, you've just got to question your own assumptions and also the fact
that we all come from quite middle class backgrounds, right. So, I
think there's a lot of reflection we could do as teachers to just to think
about some of the biases and barriers that are in cost of the problem.
I think the system is none of their training around teaching mentions these sort of
issues. You know, I do lectures for training teachers on disadvantage on the
quality, but it's to be honest, it's far on fear between that those
teachers will get that sort of grounding, you know. And I think some
of our teachers are put into situations where they've got very little experience of the
spectrum of society that they're actually going to be serving. So I certainly think
we did should do more in training, and I think things like OFSTED inspection
should have much more of a focus, explicit focus on what is this school
doing for those from underresourced backgrounds? Right, And again I really emphasize a
language here. You know, we've moved away from that description disadvantaged pupils because
we feel that that immediately puts the emphasis on the pupil, It defines them,
whereas it's the circumstances that those pupils have experience that might have affected their
learning, it's not them as individuals. And we also spoke to a lot
of A level students who said, I don't particularly want to be labeled as
disadvantaged, right, So I think it's really important the language teacher uses as
well. And just to clarify that you use the word under resource rather than
disadvantage, is that right? Yeah? I mean, you know it's not
the key point here is you know, lots of studies that I and others
are involved in, you do find, you know, one group on average
is low income compared to enough. So you can use those terms when it's
well defined to look at different and we have to do that to find out
what the inequalities are in education. But at classroom level and even at school
level, I think the language we use and the work I do with charities
and other organizations, I think we should use the term, you know,
pupils from underresourced background. Now, not everyone agrees with that, and some
people don't like that word under resourced. By the way, I use that
term because it fits in with some of the board you sort of notions of
cultural capital. You know, board you uses that term capital because it has
an economic parallel, right, And in a way I would argue that that
totally agree with that that you the cultural divides are as important in my view
as economic or material divides. So when I talk about under resourced. I
don't just mean money or you know, I mean culture. You know,
it's just that you haven't been cultivated in the norms of the classroom or the
workplace. And in the book we list actually the advantages that many children have
and that we put onder sort of material things like being you know, paid
to have extra private tutoring or live in a house near a school that is
even demand. And then we look at culture. You know, how you're
helped as you know, by your mum or dad to know how to navigate
the education system right or t advocate for yourself. We talk about education adviangs,
and then we talk about health related advantages because sadly, what we're finding
is that many children and those basic health entitlements are being eroded. So loads
of studies showing that those with short maybe some site issues in terms of their
eyes have not been diagnosed properly and then get sort of labeled as special education
needs right food, clothing, dental checkups on. It horrifies me that our
generation, Matthew, no, I'm cleaning you in this by the way,
you and me, you know, we've allowed those basic entitlements to be eroded
in some ways, I would argue that we have gotten backwards. And if
you look at all the social mobility studies that I know as have done.
For example, you know, we know you're more likely to be downwardly mobile
in terms of social class compared to your parents. That's the first time on
average, that is, there are some people who are upwardly mobile, but
for the first time there are more people that are downwardly mobile. It's hard
to get a house. If you're young adult, you'll know this is a
teacher. It's really difficult for this generation. And in my view, this
is fundamental stuff. It's about capitalism, It's about is the society we've created,
you know, creating a level playing field that everyone can even lead a
decent life in. And I'm afraid the answer for me is no. At
the moment that brings us, brings me nicely onto the full title of your
book plate because its equity and education, leveling the playing field of learning.
Did you want to say a little bit more about the book if people are
interested in a perhaps reading it or buying it. So I've used that metaphor
the playing field of learning a lot in these debates, and as I said,
I don't believe we exist in a world where there is a level playing
field. The book is a summary of a lot of the issues we've covered.
So the first two chapters really are a summary of sociology and education inequality,
you know, social class and then there's some chapters that are specifically for
teachers, you know, giving teachers advice to how to reflect on this,
and there's stuff from bias in the classroom all the way to how do you
work with parents and communities in your school in again non deficit sort of way.
And then the final chapter really is about international comparisons and we look at
other countries is to see if anyone else is doing this better than us and
what we can learn from them. And there are some things I do think
that other countries do it better than us, That their inspection systems for schools
aren't as narrow as ours. They do take equity really seriously. If you
go to under Scandinavian countries that do very well for social ability, they prioritize
equity before excellence. You know, we tend to have debates about excellence all
the time. You know, they think that you go for equity. I
either children that need help most and everyone else will do. Okay, everyone
else will benefit. So really interesting those international parsons. But that's the book
in a nutshell perfect. Thank you. And if people want to find out
a little bit more about you, they can add you on Twitter or do
you want to give out any other details at all? Yes, so I'm
still on Twitter. Let's call something else now X. Sorry I should say,
excell I'm on LinkedIn and Twitter. I haven't quite got into Instagram and
other yet, but I probably should do. But I'm You can look me
up on the internet very easily. There's a ted X talk that I did
a few years back that talks about this on level playing field if you want
a forty minute summary of that. But there's lots of me and you know
I'm involved in the media quite a lot as a professor, so you know
there's loads of articles in The Guardian, for example, on various things I've
done over the years. So and please get in touch. You know,
I'm very happy I do do lectures for A level students. You know,
I do stuff at Exeter College for example. I do stuff around the world
actually, and it's always lovely to speak with A level students as well as
teachers and undergraduates. Brilliant. Thank you so much for your time Todayly,
I really do appreciate it. And are we positive about the future? I
always like to end on something a bit positive. Do you think we are
going to see changing, We're going to progress? Are we getting there?
Do you see any sort of development as well? Do you know what?
I am optimistic and there's a lot of schemes I'm involved in. We've got
a scheme at the moment using undergraduates as tutors for year seven pupils in local
schools. Right. I think there's a real appetite from people to contribute and
to concentrate on this idea of social justice. And I look back at history.
You know, one of my favorite politicians is President Roosevelt Franklin D.
Roosevelt. You know, America was struggling in the Great Depressions about a hundred
years ago, much bigger issues in many ways than we are facing. And
yet they focused on providing a free high education to more people. To the
New Deal where they provided work for those out of work. You know,
he even proposed a maximum salary. Can imagine that basically no one would be
able. He was hoping to earn over about two hundred and fifty thousand thousand
today's money that didn't get through Congress. I mentioned him because I think that
that focus on social justice created the the America, the Great America of that
sort of twentieth century. I mean there's issues now, of course, which
we could go into, but I think there's a real you know, I
think if we got together as a teachers and undergraduates and young the young generation,
I think we can really change the world. I honestly believe that that
sounds like a perfect point to end the interview. Thank you very much again
for your time today, and good luck with the promotion and the book as
well. Thank you, Matthew. That was really good. I hope I
didn't speak too much because I get quite excited by these no, no,
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