The Forgotten Report Anlaysis Part 3: Supporting Students and Families to get them out of Cultural Poverty

If you haven't already...

If you're a first time visitor here, hello! I'm currently engaged in action & research on the hidden issue of Cultural Poverty found in our education system. If you don't know what Cultural Poverty (Or C.P as all the cool kids are calling it) is, go and check out my explainer blog here.

This blog is the third part of a multi-part series that is exploring the House of Commons Education Select Committees' report entitled "The Forgotten: How white working-class pupils have been let down, and how to change it". You can find part one of my blog which focuses on the context of this report here and you can find part two here, which looks at pages 18-31 of this report.

Focus areas of Part 3

I'll be analysing the relationship of one section in this blog as oh boy, it's a big one!

Pages 33-42: Supporting white, working class children and families: From Cradle to Career

A Few words before we start...

Inclusive solutions are the right ones

As i've mentioned a couple of times now, this report has a clear racial
bias towards white people. Clue is in the name, right? As a white man, I still struggle to read and respond to this report, feeling that my compliance with its findings may suggest a degree of alliance with it's views. I don't believe the issue of C.P is "whites only" and reject stances that exclude minorities from accessing support to reduce it. 

What is strange however is that despite naming this section "Supporting white, working class children and families: From Cradle to Career" the solutions they pose have no direct focus on white people or exclude minorities. In truth, it seems to focus on the working class aspect. This is worth consideration when you remember what the proposed name of this report was originally going to be...

Also, I am an FE teacher of English and the focus of these blogs is to examine how C.P is tackled in FE. This section of the report has a heavy focus on Early Years provision. I have tried my best to make it relevant to FE! 

1. From a little seed...

This section opens up with an examination of early years (pre reception) provision and how families that do not take advantage of support end up with children who struggle with cognitive understanding. As mentioned before, Cultural Poverty limits our learners when it comes to creative activities so here is a clear area to examine first.

Points 72 to 73 state that not only accessing pre-school education is a proven boon to children, quality of this provision is an additional boost. In addition to this, they also make the direct statement that "the quality of childcare settings that families from lower socio-economic backgrounds can access tends to be lower than that of childcare providers that wealthier families use." The implication of this is those who can afford private childcare get better results for their children. Nothing mind-blowing there right? Better care, more experiences, cultural poverty reduced for life.

This however, is the start of a very strange paradox of the reports own making.

They go on to state that maintained nursery schools (these are funded by the local authority, like state schools) have a much higher percentile of trained staff, are rated higher by Ofsted and all in all, are better than private care if you go by the numbers. Yet, if this were the case, surely the economically disadvantaged would have cultural poverty reduced? 

So why is this not the case? Point 79 argues provision is threadbare and funding for these MNS provides is also reduced. The assumption to make there is simply that yes, these pre-schools exist and do amazing things to tackle CP early, there are just simply not enough of them. In point 80, the report admits that a lack of proper resourcing is to blame for this lack of provision. Summing this up...

Is this the cure for Cultural Poverty? 

• Money= Better provision 
  
• Better provisions=better infant outcomes

However the question remains:

If it's all down to quality of provision, why do richer families with private provision have learners who do better? 

No doubt you've got some ideas...

Check them out if you can!

2. Family Matters

The report focuses a lot on Family Hubs for the next few pages. In short, a family hub is a one stop resources bank and advice service for families with children aged 0-19.

Family Hubs are an amalgam of services that already exist, located
within the communities they serve as opposed to being located in some out of the way place. This scheme is already going ahead, piloted in Stockton-On-Tees in the North East of England. The NE is one of the most deprived areas for academic achievement and cultural mobility so already this gets some brownie points for being done right! However, remember what I said before about the support being offered spans the racial gap, in contrast to the reports title? 

Points 83-84 state that it is a lack of awareness of help services that stop families from accessing support. Many parents using the Stockton family hub were unaware of how child tax credits, free childcare or even how additions to their UC (Universal credit) could be signed up for. How often do these sections mention that this support system was designed primarily for white families? Once- and only to say this support system "included" white families. 

Interesting, right? Almost like they are having to shoehorn in a racial element to a report that really needed to focus on low-income families rather than a ethnic majority. Remember that question I asked at the end of section 1? Let's add to that...

Why can richer families access provision without support from a Family Hub?

On the C.P side of this, we are presented with an interesting area to examine. Cultural Capital lends itself very well to knowing ones place in the community, but also allows for an understanding of rights, entitlements and general political savvy. Parents unaware of support services, who lack the will, access or understanding to filter the jabberjaw of politicians and policies into knowledge of that would effect them will be let down by their own unearned ignorance. 

Other search engines available!

This is weird, because if you look on the surface of this issue you'd likely
ask the question: "Why don't these families looking for support just Google it?"

Answer: Because these families don't know what they don't know. More often than not a family existing in C.P are working with knowledge out of date from a time they were kids, or rely on grandparents or friends to share their knowledge which is most likely effected by the same issues.

Here's an outlying consideration for you though: It's not just economically poor families that struggle to access support- indeed some low income families access this support very well. In addition, some richer families removed from the social environment, such as the children of agricultural families are some of the most culturally disadvantaged of the lot! 

Family Hubs are are fantastic idea! I hope they expand and they offer more services that re-open our communities to new members and ideas. Older organisations, such as the triangle of support mentioned in points 103-104 actually make the direct connection between schools, families and youth organisations have a direct impact in providing a cultural floor and improve social capital. Great stuff!

3. Time for some answers

So, if your answers to the questions i've posed today have been: 

"Simple, they've got the cash so the kids are better off culturally" 

It all comes back to literacy!

I'm not sure we're considering the entire picture.

One last point to make here in this section is located in points 109-110. In it, there is a callback to how a lack of attainment in English GCSEs can lead to an increase in a learners cultural poverty status. Inability to express ideas, access written information and develop inference skills puts anyone at a marked disadvantage within civilised society. The report suggests something interesting there- that the targets here shouldn't just be the children, but the parents as well. Delivering quality English education to adults that want it will reduce C.P within the family unit. 

It's true. I've seen it first hand as an post-16 educator. I've seen families with no respect for English drive their young people further down the road of cultural ignorance. I've seen parents take the time to attend classes and get their qualifications evolve into happier, successful and culturally rich people. Let's hope this continues!

4. Conclusions?

The issue here isn't just "throw all the money at the wider issue of cultural poverty" because untargeted, it'll just go to waste. Focusing on adult English provision improves the ability of families of all economic backgrounds to access community services. 

The issue of C.P isn't one to be solved over a single school cycle. It is one that is multigenerational; a slow burn fix that has to target the roots of the problem. Family Hubs are plasters over a rash that could be treated other ways, leaving these hubs to grow their service outwards, ever stronger.