A matter of ambition: re-visiting class in 21st Century Britain.
By chrissie on Friday, August 7 2009, 16:55 - Permalink
The rise of the BNP, the loss of the support of the traditional working class voter and an election in the offing. Suddenly, in the UK at least, class is back on the agenda.
Eleven years into a Labour Government and it takes an independent "panel of experts" to inform us that social mobility is on the decline, the top professions are increasingly out of the reach of all but the most affluent and informal recruitment systems, such as internships and work placements, are becoming a back-door to top jobs for the well-off and better-connected.
What the present working class needs, it seems, is a good old-fashioned dose of aspiration.
After all, as Simon Carr wrote in the Independent last week: "The middle class has never been more open, more accessible, more permeable.........the only thing you have to do to become middle class is to do what the middle class does......The belief that education matters. The desire to know things. The desire to get on in life. The urge to have your children do better than you have done......."
So straightforward: so uncomplicated. How could today's working class have failed to grasp such a basic tenet? Is it that they simply don't have the ambition, the determination or the drive of some of those 1950s counterparts?
Or is it, as it has always been, more complex than that? In the search for some clues, I re-examine my own childhood in post-war Britain.
Comments
Its not that simple - if only it were - having the drive and ambition doesnt mean you'll achieve the bettering of oneself!! Its the confidence that one recieves as a matter of right in the majority of middle class homes through being exposed to unconditional love and support. The knowledge that you won't sink in new situations and circumstances because you have had the 'best' education possible which enables you to converse with the right volcablary and accent. All these things are what makes the middle classes contiue to thrive.
The determination to 'better' yourself or children is an ongoing struggle, those that make the leap from working class to the middleclasses dont normally truely succeed themselves. Even though they appear to have made the journey there will always be the 'voice in the head' that makes them check that they are 'doing it right'.. It will be the children who will benefit from the right schools, living in the right area and making the friendships that will support them in later years at University i to the professional world. Ambition alone it isn't enough.