This is a version of an article by Matt Bromley which has appeared in various publications including Headteacher Update, SecEd, and DiverseEd, written to accompany the book, The Working Classroom.
The Equality Act 2010 makes it unlawful for schools to discriminate against, harass or victimise a pupil or potential pupil:
- in relation to admissions,
- in the way they provide education for pupils, and
- in the way they provide pupils access to any benefit, facility or service…
…because of their:
- sex
- race
- disability
- religion or belief
- sexual orientation
- gender reassignment
- pregnancy or maternity
These seven identifiers are called ‘protected characteristics’. There are nine characteristics in total with ‘age’ and ‘marriage and civil partnership’ making up the list.
I agree with this, but I simply don’t think the law goes far enough. I think there should be a tenth protected characteristic: social class.
Why? Because I think it should be unlawful for schools to discriminate against a pupil on the basis of their social class. After all, class plays an important role in education and in later life…
Classism in education leads to underachievement and under-representation. Class inequality is intersectional; its impact is entwined with other social injustices such as racism and sexism. For example, the class pay gap is worse for women, ethnic minorities, and people with disabilities.
Working-class students are among the lowest performers in our schools. If you’re a high-ability student from a low social class, you won’t do as well in school and in later life as a low-ability student from a high social class. Put another way, it is social class and wealth – not ability – that define a pupil’s educational outcomes and their future life chances.
Working-class people are also less likely to have a degree, work in professional employment, or be an academic compared to those from more elite backgrounds.
For proof of this, look at the Institute for Fiscal Studies’ Deaton Review of Inequalities. The review concludes that disadvantaged students start school behind their better-off peers, and the education system isn’t succeeding in closing these gaps. Educational inequalities result in substantial differences in life chances, leaving millions disadvantaged throughout their lifetime. The report finds that those who have not been successful at school are left behind by an education system that doesn’t offer the right opportunities for further education. The review also concludes that inequalities, such as the disadvantage gap at GCSE, have barely changed over the last twenty years.
Your social class impacts you in almost every sector of employment. According to the Office for National Statistics, only 10% of those from working-class backgrounds reach Britain’s higher managerial, professional or cultural occupations. You are seventeen times more likely to go into law if your parents are lawyers, while the children of those in film and television are twelve times more likely to enter these fields.
Classism in education is a real source of inequality and thus social class should be considered a protected characteristic making discrimination against pupils because of their class unlawful.
To examine the difference this change in law would make, let’s return to the Equality Act 2010…
The Act defines four kinds of unlawful behaviour:
- Direct discrimination occurs when one person treats another less favourably, because of a protected characteristic, than they treat – or would treat – other people.
- Indirect discrimination occurs when a “provision, criterion or practice” is applied generally but has the effect of putting people with a particular characteristic at a disadvantage when compared to people without that characteristic.
- Harassment has a specific legal definition in the Act – it is “unwanted conduct, related to a relevant protected characteristic, which has the purpose or effect of violating a person’s dignity or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for that person”.
- Victimisation occurs when a person is treated less favourably than they otherwise would have been because of something they have done (“a protected act”) in connection with the Act.
The Equality Act 2010 also introduced a single Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) that applies to maintained schools and academies. In carrying out their functions, schools are required to have due regard to the need to:
- Eliminate discrimination and other conduct that is prohibited by the Act,
- Advance equality of opportunity between people who share a protected characteristic and people who do not share it,
- Foster good relations across all characteristics – between people who share a protected characteristic and people who do not share it.
And now Ofsted are getting in on the Act (pun intended) by inspecting the teaching of protected characteristics in schools.
The inspectorate announced in August 2023 that, from September, inspectors will gather evidence on how schools promote equality and pupils’ understanding of the protected characteristics. They will use this evidence as part of evaluating and coming to judgements on:
- the personal development of pupils
- the effectiveness of leadership and management
If inspectors identify at inspection that a school is not teaching about all the protected characteristics, they will always report on this and will explain how (if at all) it has affected the school’s inspection judgements.
Class as a protected characteristic
Research shows that 67% of UK citizens think social class is an issue when securing a job and one in three (29.3%) feel discriminated against during their job search because of their class. According to the Social Mobility Commission’s 2019 poll, 77% of people feel there is a large gap between the social classes in Britain today.
And yet, because class is not currently a protected characteristic, it is technically legal to discriminate against candidates due to their accent or home address, and for individuals to perpetuate negative stereotypes of working-class people with disparaging and offensive comments.
Just as some acts of racism are deliberate while others are accidental, some forms of classism are deliberate, not accidental.
William Ming Liu identified four forms of classism: downward, upward, lateral and internalised. The concepts most relevant to this argument are that of downward classism and internalised classism…
Downward classism occurs when people in higher social class groups discriminate against or marginalise people whom they perceive to be in a lower social group. Downward classist behaviours and attitudes often take the form of micro-aggressions – that is, everyday interactions that intentionally or unintentionally degrade, insult, or diminish the humanity, customs or values of people in non-dominant groups.
Internalised classism is the acceptance and justification of classism by working-class people themselves. Examples include feeling inferior around higher-class people, deference to the values of higher-class people or shame about your family background or heritage.
The working class are not synonymous with those living in poverty. Many working-class people don’t, in fact, live in poverty. But it is equally important to note that all those who do live in poverty are, by definition, working class.
At the time of writing, more than one in five of the UK population are classed as living in poverty, which equates to a staggering 13.4 million people. Child poverty continues to rise with almost one in three (31%) children in the UK living in poverty. To put that into context, an average of nine students out of a class of thirty are living in poverty. Some 75% of children in poverty live in a household where at least one person works.
According to the charity Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG), ‘pupils experiencing poverty in England are financially excluded from full participation in a wide range of school subjects and activities, including PE, music, swimming and art and design’. In addition, ‘day-to-day practices in England’s schools often unintentionally draw attention to family incomes and make children feel embarrassed and different. These include expensive uniform policies, non-uniform days, and requests from school to bring in material possessions like pencil cases.’ Some policies and practices relating to food in school often mean that children experiencing poverty don’t have the same options as their peers at lunchtime.
Professor Diane Reay claims that working-class children get less of everything in education: ‘If you’re a working-class child, you’re starting the race halfway round the track behind the middle class child [because] middle class parents do a lot via extra resources and activities.’ Less affluent children get a more restrictive educational offer and are denied an education in art, drama or dance because, Reay says, ‘their parents can’t afford to pay for them to do those activities out of school’.
Class and the curriculum
The content of the school curriculum is not covered by discrimination law and so schools are free to include a full range of issues, ideas, and materials in their syllabus, and to expose pupils to thoughts and ideas of all kinds, however challenging or controversial, without fear of legal challenge based on a protected characteristic.
But, crucially, the way in which a school provides education – curriculum delivery – is explicitly included. As such, schools need to ensure that the way in which issues are taught does not subject individual pupils to discrimination.
I believe schools should consider curriculum delivery through the lens of social class. Why? Because there are currently three problems with classism with regards curriculum delivery.
In the second instalment of this article, I’ll tell you what these three problems are and what we can do about them.
In the meantime, take a look at my latest book, The Working Classroom. Co-written with Andy Griffith and published by Crown House, it explores ways to making school work better for working-class students. Find out more at www.theworkingclassroom.co.uk
Follow Matt on X @mj_bromley for more teaching tips like these.
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