some of these same working class whites whose sons are underperforming may well not be doing anything constructive to support their child's education. Perhaps they can't if they have literacy and numeracy problems themselves but there is also a culture that is anti-education, anti-employment amongst some of those groups
Now, to say that the white working class subculture handicaps itself relative to BME subcultures is a concept that is going to go down really well with the voters.
But nobody's going to say that since those who care about lifting people out of poverty through education have cultural-relativist reflexes which prevent them from thinking that one subculture is inferior to another one. A vivid image of what should exist acts as a surrogate for reality. Pursuit of the image then prevents pursuit of the reality -- John K. Galbraith
ie kid A is underperforming at school because his parents do not value education and do not work,and expect the state to provide for them. They provide no constructive input for their child and do not support good study habits. They pass their anti-authority values onto their child. Kid A could be black or white or male or female. But the issue to tackle is the culture they are growing up in, which unless the child and the school are fairly exceptional, is going to keep that child trapped with poor outcomes for life.
Which reminds me that this is where we are just beginning to see a shift in the way the UK is looking at equality and it is a welcome move IMO. The equality and human rights commission is setting about developing a new narrative that has a stronger focus on human rights, on the needs of everybody as an individual. Moving away from blanket policies and incorrect assumptions about an individuals needs based on their 'category' eg black/pakistani and towards a more holistic way at looking at social problems, their causes and thus solutions.
But early stages here - mindsets are still very much siloed through equality categories. Until this changes then we'll have that resentment towards 'minorities'. Ad astra per aspera
