Schools in England must do more to challenge unconscious bias in the classroom against children from working-class backgrounds, according to the UK’s first professor of social mobility.
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.
To help level the education playing field, Elliot Major says 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.
He also suggests pupils from low-income families should be referred to as “under-resourced” rather than “disadvantaged”, as he says the term can lead to unconscious bias and lower expectations for these children.
