Has wokeism crushed the working class?
White working class educational failure is hardly a new story, but it has become more visible and started to attract more attention for two reasons. First, because it compares so badly with the educational success of ethnic minority Britons, including poor ones, all of whom (excluding Roma) do better than poor whites in the Progress 8 scores that measure progress made in secondary school. And all of whom progress to university in higher proportions. The second reason is that, in too many places, there is no longer a decent alternative for those who do not succeed academically. A generation or two back, there were various ways of leading an achieved life that was recognised by the wider society in skilled manual labour, conscientious office work, the armed forces, or just being a good parent or member of the wider community. Many of those things are still, of course, possible  but the terms of trade have turned against the non-academic from lower income backgrounds: there are fewer good jobs for those without academic qualifications; less than 10 per cent of school leavers now go into apprenticeships and non-academic post-school education and training has, until recently, been neglected; practical and creative subjects have largely disappeared from the school curriculum and schools are judged on how many pupils they send to university. More open immigration  at least until the Brexit vote  has also reinforced a sense of displacement for many poor whites and a sense that ones national citizenship confers less value than it used to. One might even argue that those who have driven the liberalisation of Britain in recent decades have looked with positive disfavour on poor whites and their presumed failure to abandon more traditional attachments. While much chatter happens around levelling up, the national debate always manages to overlook this group, the community that progressive politics forgot. Anti-school attitudes and parental indifference to, or even suspicion of, academic success was widespread even in the heyday of working class Britain in the early post-war period. As the working class has shrunk and, in many places, lost the work that gave shape to its collective life  the reports definition of white working class pupils is the nearly 1 million who are poor enough to qualify for free school meals  there has been little incentive to abandon these attitudes. Poverty, the report stresses, is a factor for disadvantaged whites, but clearly one that can, in principle, be overcome with sufficient encouragement, as so many ethnic minority pupils show. The great success of London schools, partly driven by ethnic minority aspiration, is helping to pull up poor whites, too  but while more than 40 per cent of the total ethnic minority population lives in London, less than 10 per cent of the total white British population does. There is a sense of stuckness about poorer whites, which is less the case with most ethnic minority groups, who have had a national narrative, usually based on educational success, of overcoming disadvantage. The report fully supports the industry that has emerged to support minorities  but can only lament its absence for poor whites. Things are finally beginning to change with the Governments focus on the left-behind areas, and with levelling up, which might be seen as a sort of coded narrative for poorer whites, who have yet to fit into a dominant liberal elite narrative; and its investment in non-university forms of vocational and technical training. I would like to add an idea to the reports recommendations  that every pupil should leave secondary school having mastered to a reasonable level one practical skill, from carpentry to coding. The recommendations will not, however, change anything soon. Yet the fact that the report has attracted so much attention is surely a sign that poor whites can no longer be regarded as the embarrassing relatives of British society, best not invited to the party. David Goodhart is head of the demography, immigration, and integration unit at the Policy Exchange. His latest book is Head Hand Heart: The Struggle for Dignity and Status in the 21st Century (Penguin, 10.99). Buy now for 9.99 at books.telegraph.co.uk, or call 0844 871 1514