Claims of white victimhood fuel racism, says expert

16 April 2009

Media reports portraying underachieving white working-class boys as victims of discrimination are fuelling a new kind of racial hatred, a leading academic will warn at a conference today (Thursday 16 April). This leads to the mistaken idea that white students are now a threatened group denied a fair chance because of their ethnicity.

Professor David Gillborn of the Institute of Education, London, will acknowledge that when the GCSE results of white boys who receive free school meals – offered to children of low-income families – are compared with those of similarly disadvantaged boys from minority ethnic groups that also tend to underperform (Bangladeshi, Pakistani, black African and Caribbean), the white boys come off worse. In 2006 for example, only 24 per cent of white boys who received free school meals – a statistic commonly used to indicate disadvantage – achieved five or more good GCSEs, compared to 27.1 per cent of black Caribbean boys and 33.7 per cent of black African boys on free school meals.

Commentators and news reports sometimes blame this on government money targeted at minority groups instead of at white children, Professor Gillborn will say at the American Educational Research Association conference in San Diego, sparking the notion that these groups are "privileged".

"There is an implicit assumption that white under-achievement is the fault of minority students because the system throws extra money at them," he will say. "The truth is that schools and local authorities have to bid for this funding – it isn't automatic at all.

"Teachers and campaigners who call for antiracist change can find ourselves cast as the villains in an educational competition where white kids are cast as the victims."

Professor Gillborn will argue that it is inaccurate to link "entitlement to free school meals" with "working class". He will cite a 2007 survey (the British Social Attitudes Survey) showing that 57 per cent of UK adults described themselves as working class. But only 13 per cent of the students in the GCSE tables got free school meals. And 56 per cent of the white boys who did not get free school meals achieved five or more good GCSEs, which means that the gap between white boys who do and don't get free school meals is three times greater than the gap between disadvantaged white and black boys.

"The media warns of a race war, because of the so-called victimisation of the white working class," Professor Gillborn will maintain. "But there is never any talk of an impending class war. And the idea that white and minority ethnic youth can both excel at the same time is simply not considered.

"The racism that is entrenched in the education system is strengthened through the invention of white people as the new race victims."

---

Press releases, papers and documents published on this page are the intellectual property of an organisation unrelated to Central Lobby. We promote their parliamentary and political campaigning activities as they are subscribers to the Central Lobby service.

As such, Central Lobby does not edit, endorse, or attempt to balance the opinions expressed on this page. The content of press releases and other such types of content are the responsibility of the originating organisation.