"The Forgotten" Report Analysis Part 1: Introduction and Context

What's this all about then?

On the 22nd of June 2021, a report was finalised and released to the public authored by the House of Commons Education Select Committee. It was a big day for me, actually! I was due to give a talk for TouchConsulting's FE SwapShop about Cultural Poverty and it's effect on our young learners. Not much has ever been said about C.P, even though it's actually an assessment area for Ofsted (They call it Cultural Capital though). Now, here was a report full of potential academic and political backing. However, it was not perfect.

The members of the Select Committee

Very little is perfect though, Josh!

Yeah yeah, I know. Anyone who's spent more than 5 minutes in a room with me understands my need to evaluate the most basic of concepts. I also understand however that reports such as "The Forgotten" have been written by people with political agendas and with differing experiences of the education system. I also know that without an understanding of context, we can often lose our way when taking in new information. What I really want to do is break down this report, analyse and extract important information that'll guide us towards some understanding of C.P and inherent solutions.

Before I do that though this post is going to look at the context of the report!

Want to read it yourself. Here you go!

Or download it Here (I'm not responsible for any content of external sites)

Context: The Report 

Work on this report began on the 17th of April 2020. This puts it slap bang in the middle of the first major lockdown. It expresses that the report itself takes into consideration the effects on education that the pandemic has, but really it draws more from findings of previous Education Select Committees and is looking to amplify the findings it had. (page 4)

Fitting in...

This subject area is the statistical low attainment figures amongst "White Working Class Learners". Why the speech marks? The category of "white" is exceptionally broad, a fact recognised by the report as it goes on to specify these learners are "British". This excludes white students with English as an additional language and Roma/Gypsy/Travellers. 

A numbers game...

Their reasons for doing this are statistical on the surface, although one issue for analysis here is that while white British working class learners (The report classifies working class as eligible for free school meals- A fact it does bring up as a blunt instrument of data) are in the numerical minority (16%) for low attainment (measured by whether they get into uni or not), students of Black Caribbean heritage see 31.8% of their disadvantaged learners go into university. However what is left out of this comparison is the fact that there is a huge majority gap between overall numbers of students who fit into these categories. 

In short, it is hard to make these direct comparisons with these variable data sets. 

Oh, by the way, I'm not a statistician. Just pointing out things I think are worth a contextual consideration- comment below if you've got insights and I'll update! 

What to call it?

An interesting thing to note as well is the two potential titles this report had before release.

One of the select committee (Kim Johnson) wanted to call it:

"Facing the facts: how the systemic underinvestment in de-industrialised communities in ‘left behind’ regions is bringing down the educational attainment of working-class pupils"

However, this was voted down (6-4, a very common sight if you read the meeting minutes starting page 64!) I would recommend reading Kim's full reasoning for this (page 64) as I could probably write an entire blog post about it alone.

The decision was made to go with the Chair's (Robert Halfon) proposal for a title: "The forgotten: how White working-class pupils have been let down, and how to change it"

My major point of concern here is the move towards a racial bias. The figures themselves do seem somewhat twisted to suit this agenda and the root cause of inequality that causes low attainment (lack of opportunities for working class families and children) is therefore second place. 

How does this report address Cultural Poverty?

Naturally this is the purpose of this series of posts, in short however it is the best we've got and the closest the institutions of power within education have come to admitting C.P exists and that it needs to be dealt with. Yes, I know OFSTED talk about cultural capital but A: They don't do it enough and B: It's cultural poverty that's the issue. Do go and read more on why those two terms are separate here.

Context: The People Behind It

I'll keep this short.

The Education Select Committee is made up of 11 members drawn from the House of Commons. It has 4 Labour and 7 Conservatives in it, with the chairman being a Conservative himself. The Chair doesn't get to vote except in the case of a tie.

The group is primarily white and male. The two members of the committee who come from BAME backgrounds are from the Labour side. Out of the female quotient, only one woman is on the Conservative side. 

It is worth keeping this in consideration considering the class and racial issues raised by this report. It could be argued that the perspectives are not diverse enough to create a report that is well rounded and that right-wing "white popularism" may have had some impact.

Consider in addition to this that only two members of the committee (both Labour) are present in the North of England, which this report focuses on as an area of great concern.

The sources of information drawn from are wide ranging and multi racial. These are used to impact decision making. 

I feel as if I didn't keep this short...

Context: Media/Public Response

Naturally the media response was a racial one. Bias and sensationalism are often reasons for this. I would suggest reading a few news articles and piecing together the truth from all of them.  As always, when an issue becomes racial, it becomes so very important to ensure you are informed and sourcing your information from a wide range of sources.

Context: Conclusion

So, I'm white, male and grew up in a fairly affluent area. I now teach FE in a non affluent area with a range of ethnicities and backgrounds but mostly from a lower income household. I have no real right to say "White Privilege doesn't exist" like this report does, or claim to understand the cultural struggles of ethnic minorities. 

What matters most to me about this report is that it has started the conversation and the actioning on the pandemic of Cultural Poverty. I'll do my best to focus on that.