Terminology like “white privilege” may have contributed towards a “systemic neglect” of white working-class pupils who need support, MPs have concluded.
A Commons Education Select Committee report released tonight said schools should consider whether the promotion of such “politically controversial” terminology is consistent with their duties under the Equality Act 2010.
Disadvantaged white pupils have also been badly let down by “muddled” policy thinking and the Department for Education (DfE) has failed to acknowledge the extent of the problem, the report says.
The MPs make a series of recommendations to improve white working-class pupils’ outcomes, including finding “a better way to talk about racial disparities” to avoid pitting different groups against each other.
The committee agreed with the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities that discourse around the term “white privilege” can be “divisive”.
A strong network of family hubs should be introduced across the country to boost parental engagement and mitigate the effects of multi-generational disadvantage, the report said.
It added that funding needs to be tailor-made at a local level, initiatives should focus on attracting good teachers to challenging areas, and vocational and apprenticeship opportunities should be promoted.
The report also calls for the reform of school accountability measures. The MPs want a “widening” of the English Baccalaureate (EBacc) performance measure to include subjects that have been in decline over the past 10 years, such as Design and Technology.
They also highlight the fact that 47 per cent of free school meal-eligible (FSM) white British pupils did not meet the expected standard of development at the end of the early years foundation stage in 2018-19 - around 28,000 children.
In 2019, just 17.7 per cent of FSM-eligible white British pupils achieved at least a strong pass (grade 5 or above) in English and maths at GCSE, compared with 22.5 per cent of all FSM-eligible pupils. This equates to nearly 39,000 pupils.
The committee found these disparities particularly striking because white people are the ethnic majority in the country - and yet FSM-eligible white British pupils are the largest disadvantaged group.
During its inquiry, MPs heard of many factors that combine to put white poorer pupils at a disadvantage, but they were not convinced by the Department for Education’s claim that the gap can be attributed to poverty alone.
Committee chairman Robert Halfon said: “For decades now, white working-class pupils have been let down and neglected by an education system that condemns them to falling behind their peers every step of the way.
“White working-class pupils underperform significantly compared to other ethnic groups, but there has been muddled thinking from all governments and a lack of attention and care to help these disadvantaged white pupils in towns across our country.
“If the government is serious about closing the overall attainment gap, then the problems faced by the biggest group of disadvantaged pupils can no longer be swept under the carpet.
“Never again should we lazily put the gap down to poverty alone, given that we know free school meal eligible pupils from other ethnic groups consistently outperform their white British peers.”
The Tory MP accused the DfE of being “reluctant” to recognise the specific challenges faced by the group and he urged them to address the issues.
Mr Halfon added: “We also desperately need to move away from dealing with racial disparity by using divisive concepts like white privilege that pits one group against another. Disadvantaged white children feel anything but privileged when it comes to education.
“Privilege is the very opposite to what disadvantaged white children enjoy or benefit from in an education system which is now leaving far too many behind.”
Speaking to Tes, Mr Halfon said: “I’m from a Jewish background, my father came here as an immigrant, believe me, I know what racism’s about and I know what anti-semitism’s about because I’ve experienced it through my life, so I’m not someone who’s denying that racism exists, neither is the committee.
“But the concept of white privilege is entirely a wrong-headed one. It’s wrong-headed because what it does is it means collective guilt rather than individual responsibility for racist behaviour. It tells one group of people that they are privileged yet those people - if you’re telling everyone who’s white that they have white privilege, you’re basically saying all those pupils who are underperforming compared to most other ethnic groups have white privilege, how does that make sense?”
“You’re telling the single parent in my constituency who may live in a small, tiny bedsit, trying to bring up a child and do the best for that child, that she is somebody who has white privilege. And what it does is it’s divisive, there’s research that shows that it reduces sympathy for white people who are struggling with poverty.
“We’ve linked it to the Equalities Act because the Equality Act says you have to promote harmonious relationships between individual groups and you shouldn’t discriminate one group against another. So I think this has got to stop, it’s being used more and more.”
He added that he anticipated some pushback to the report but that the committee felt the issue of underperformance of white disadvantaged pupils had been “swept under the carpet”.
The Pupil Premium should be brought down to neighbourhood level to target pupil disadvantage more specifically, he said.
Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), said: “We’re not quite sure why the committee has chosen to enter the debate about the widely discredited report from the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities, and the term ‘white privilege’.
“This does not seem helpful and is likely to divert attention from the rest of the report.
“Schools are well aware of their responsibilities and do a very good job in providing opportunities for discussion around issues in a sensitive, balanced and measured way.”
Mary Bousted, joint general secretary of the NEU teaching union, said: “The NEU believes that experiences and stereotypes around class and ethnicity are inter-related, and we must therefore support schools to think about sex, class and ethnicity. Indeed, from the report’s own evidence, it is gypsy, Roma and traveller children whose attainment and entry to higher education needs the most attention, and findings for black Caribbean children on free school meals are insignificantly different to white children on FSM.
“Making critical statements about teacher quality in poorer areas, as this report does, obscures the real discussion about what heads and teachers in high-poverty schools actually need in order to champion and empower learners. The school accountability system must understand the context for different schools. We certainly don’t support more punitive sanctions as a route to retain teachers.”
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