Hi Gerard,
It’s a fair question, but I’m worried I don’t have sufficient knowledge to answer it. So just a few points by way of an inconclusive reply. There’s a distinction between state schools and pupils from a working class background, and the phrasing of your question makes it clear you’re aware of that. I taught a class for a few years at one Oxford college which made a particular and honourable effort, as some do, to have a large majority of state school students, but as far as I’m competent to assess I’d say that most of the students were from middle class backgrounds. Another college (LMH) – the first and I think as yet the only one to do so – has recently instituted an Access course to address this continuing lack of racial and social diversity. So you could certainly say that there are efforts being made in that small quarter of the university energetically to address the problem. And I’m sure other colleges try to be less exclusive. The difficulty occurs earlier in the educational system, and that’s why I think Zadie Smith is right. Overall the figures may indeed prove you correct – that more students from working class backgrounds are attending university – but that may not be true for the Arts. When I studied (long ago) university education was free and that did mean, at least in Nottingham where I studied, a degree of social diversity. Very much not the case in Oxford then, nor now.
I also found Smith’s comments about ‘outsider’ writers, in contrast to popular music, incisive. That’s not to discount your earlier point that an encounter with, say, Keats at O level could cut through a whole set of other discouraging circumstances. At one level, that’s probably how all of us started out. In my case I think it was reading DIckinson, though out of school.
Maybe someone better informed than me could provide some actual figures...?
Jamie
From: Gerard Greenway
Sent: Sunday, January 21, 2018 6:13 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: "a man speaking to men"
Thanks Jamie, for comment and link. Re the Zadie Smith, I don't wish to sound contrary, but I simply do not accept that it is "much harder now" than it was 10, 20, 50 years ago. It is a plain falsity. Are less people of working class background going to university than 10, 20, 50 years ago? Are less people of working class background, or children from state schools, going to Oxbridge?
Gerard
On Sunday, 21 January 2018, 16:08:22 GMT, Jamie McKendrick <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Merely a marginal note on this topic is that in order to teach in a state school, teachers must also have a teacher’s training degree, where for private schools a university degree in the subject is sufficient. An extra degree by no means guarantees being a good teacher but it at least acts as a kind of quality control. Also take into account many of the best teachers would not want to teach in private schools, though the conditions in which they are teaching often make it a lot harder.
Overall, expectation, encouragement and smaller class sizes especially for gcse often make a decisive difference.
But the central issue is put with devastating cool and clarity by Zadie Smith in a Q & A in today’s Observer. Scroll down to the readers’ question from simonpressinger:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jan/21/zadie-smith-you-ask-the-questions-self-doubt
Jamie
Sent from my iPad
On 21 Jan 2018, at 06:19, Gerard Greenway <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
"or by their parents" - as you say. Sorry.
On Sunday, 21 January 2018, 06:13:48 GMT, Gerard Greenway <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Why would children be more encouraged to take Eng Lit at private schools?
We know that science and vocational studies get pushed harder than the arts and humanities. By everybody. Your mother and father as well as the government. Are you saying we have lost poets because of this?
Gerard
On Saturday, 20 January 2018, 23:26:52 GMT, Reuben Woolley <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Talking about state vs. private schools, Gerard says "You do Eng Lang/Lit you will read the poetry, plays, novels on the syllabus. If you're interested you don't need more than Keats at O-level. You're off". However, although Eng Lit 'A' level is available at state schools, few students are encouraged to study it, either by the school itself or by their parents. Those working-class students who get to do A-levels will do subjects that lead to possibly well-paying jobs. When I started my A-levels just 50 years ago, only three of us made up the class (the same ones who made up the class for French Lang/Lit). I doubt things have changed for the better since then. It's scarcely surprising that the upper-middle classes seem to make up the hierarchy of the mainstream and non-mainstream. I would not be surprised (saddened yes) to learn that make up a higher proportion of the non-mainstream than the mainstream poets.
Reuben
On 20 January 2018 at 21:38, David Bircumshaw <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
My view Gerard is that traditional notions of socio-economic class are continually being re-invented, in that respect the hierarchical is fluid, while too the vocabulary of description often lags behind
poetry is not exceptional in that it is breathed into by its own time
On 20 January 2018 at 14:14, Gerard Greenway <mailto:[log in to unmask]> wrote:
I feel rather strongly that David is certainly not right about that. I would say that traditional notions of socioeconomic class – in the Marxist sense – would be very little use as some sort of master key to understanding the contemporary poetry scene.
Gerard
On Saturday, 20 January 2018, 01:12:25 GMT, Jamie McKendrick <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Well you may be right about that, David – plus ça change. Certainly, looking around at the social politics of Britain that seems very much the case. I don’t take quite as gloomy a view as you about the social politics of poetry, though mine isn’t especially rosy either. Yet I do see some talent scattered about, and very evidently not the preserve of the middle or upper classes.
Anyway, I’ve been spectacularly unpersuasive on this issue of the great divide and have bored myself and others silly, so unless there’s some completely nonsensical claim being made, my belated new year’s resolution is to put a sock in it. A rotten rock might serve as well.
Jamie
From: David Bircumshaw
Sent: Saturday, January 20, 2018 12:47 AM
To: mailto:[log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: "a man speaking to men"
It is a particular and flexible historical fact about the history of dear old Britannia that the old guard always changes, Jamie, but always stays in charge of the gates. Britain has a class system that endures, and the stamp of it runs right through its poetry, like a watermark, or the tooth-rotting tattoo in seaside rock.
Always. The rotten rock in the beating waves.
On 19 January 2018 at 22:27, Jamie McKendrick <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Don’t worry, Luke! It’s not like I’m personally offended. I never signed up to either camp.
You don’t sound stupid, though I think the prejudice mostly is, albeit held tenaciously enough by a number of otherwise intelligent people.
I also think others’ as well as Robert ‘s model for the term is outdated.
Apart from his restrictive and excluding lineage from the modernists, the idea of the ‘commercial’ poetry presses being a distinct entity doesn’t make much sense now. Hardly any poetry is reviewed nowadays, and there’s more likelihood of an appreciative essay if you belong within the academic circle of the avant-garde.
The literary establishment is a spectral fiction, though It wasn’t always thus. If you judge by the recipients of the major prizes over the last five years I’d say there’s been a very discernible switch from an established old guard. About time perhaps?
Jamie
On 19 Jan 2018, at 20:51, Luke <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Sorry if I offended you with the comment about "mainstream" poetry. I just hope I don't seem too stupid, it's probably something about 'underground' pop music.
Cheers,
Luke
