Lee Elliot Major, writing in a new book, blames a mindset in education that treats working-class children as "inferior" and requires them to become "middle-class clones" in order to succeed in school.
Elliot Major said lessons should celebrate working-class achievement and feature figures such as Stormzy, Tracey Emin, the 19th-century palaeontologist Mary Anning and the scientist Michael Faraday to help level the education playing field.
He also suggested pupils from low income families should be referred to as "under-resourced" rather than "disadvantaged", as he said the term can lead to lower expectations for these children.
"The book comes from frustration," Elliot Major said. "I've been working in this field over many years and we are seeing the gap between pupils from under-resourced backgrounds and their more privileged counterparts widening in the postpandemic era.
This story is from the October 03, 2023 edition of The Guardian.
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This story is from the October 03, 2023 edition of The Guardian.
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