Certainly, such technological developments have been trumpeted for their alleged egalitarian and democratic progressiveness. However, it is also arguably the case that much of the discussion about new technological developments in this sphere very often submits to the temptation to see these developments themselves as independent of wider societal conflicts of interest. In so doing, a tacit top-down standpoint is adopted which misses the ideological investment by dominant forces in such controversies. It is these issues which the current review seeks to explore with regard to media representations.

The question of popular representations of the working class appears to be currently attracting renewed interest following the fashionable silence on class characterising the 1980s and most of the 1990s (Kirk, 2007). What emerges from this body of work is the argument that, contrary to widespread claims for classlessness, or at least declining class division, the arena of media representations is an important site where the ‘cold war’ of class struggle is fought out (Skeggs, 2004). It will be argued that if this is the case then educators need to acknowledge the significance of this pervasive and tenacious ideological context, and draw appropriate practical and organisational lessons if the systematic reproduction of educational disadvantage is to be interrupted.

In focusing on cultural meaning-making as an important realm in which class division is produced, it is useful to initially spell out this review’s underlying conceptualisation of class as an objective relationship. The working class, and indeed its political capacities, is viewed as a process of becoming. Thus what is fundamentally at issue are the complex dynamics of the ‘working class-in-the-making’ (Rowbotham and Beynon, 2001, p3). It is a standpoint which is grounded in a view of history as involving regular reshaping of the working class in accordance with wider economic and technological restructuring and its new productive requirements. This view aligns with the notion of class as primarily about one’s relationship to the organisation of social production (Ste Croix, 1981). While always manifesting in complex and conditional ways through a variety of more or less transitory visible ’symptoms’ – in the shape of different types of subjectivities, cultural forms and lifestyle behaviours – it is certainly not reducible to such things.

The connection between this reshaping of the working class, and the latter’s changing level of self-consciousness as a class, including as a political agent, is a much mediated one. But, essentially, a viewpoint which takes the working class as a process represents an important place from which to criticise common attempts to simply collapse the future into present states of consciousness; or, in other words, to conflate class as an analytic category into class as a category of consciousness: ‘as long as unequal and exploitative conditions persist, there is a strong likelihood of an awareness of class refiguring, even though the manner in which a new consciousness of class will be expressed is not apparent’ (Rowbotham and Beynon, 2001, p3).

Frozen working-classness

It had been suggested that modern society is partly characterised by tendencies which work to disorganise the working class – economically, politically, and ideologically – as a class, including through ‘pulverizing… [it]… into atoms easily manipulated by the bourgeoisie’ (Lukács, 1924/1997, p66). Various studies of media representations appear to confirm this process – at least as it operates at the ideological level – including the negative implications for the availability of valued independent working class identities. By inflating the individualised cultural realm of personal relations, consumption and self-fashioning of the private self, a situation arises whereby certain subjectivities, cultural attitudes and lifestyles come to be treated as wholly definitive of class. Correspondingly, the formative role of material constraints becomes obscured (Crompton and Scott, 2005; Harry, 2004). Class, the studies claim, is both present, with, for example, television viewers led to negatively judge participants’ assorted cultural and psychological faux pas from the stand-point of the middle class norm, and absent in that we have only isolated individuals with seemingly endogenous character traits, detached from any explanatory material circumstances.

Across a range of TV entertainment formats, including sitcoms, drama, and reality TV, common tropes through which working class people can be devalued relative to middle class identities have been identified. These include excess, waste and disgust; overly authentic; tastelessness; and lacking modernity (Skeggs, 2004). Recent detailed study of reality TV, for example, has shown it to offer an almost bottomless reservoir of scenarios for displaying the ‘moral failure’ of working class attitudes and self-management, such as in relation to child care or diet, for example. It is observed that while ‘”lifestyling” is often mooted as one of the indicators of the demise of class… it is in fact one of the rhetorical techniques used to devalue working-class taste and culture’ (Wood and Skeggs, 2007, p9). One witnesses then a class-based pathologizing of working class personhood and self. Although such studies do point to a few scattered moments of resistance to middle class evaluations, such moments only seem to confirm the overall atmosphere of futility. The final impression is a grim one of individuals trapped within unequal struggles over taste which they must almost always lose. Lawler refers to working class people becoming ‘little more than personae in a bourgeois drama’ (2005, p442).

More contradictory and less pre-closed scenarios do however emerge in other TV formats. A recent example is the series Jamie’s Ministry of Food, documenting the efforts of celebrity chef Jamie Oliver to show how people in the working class town of Rotherham who previously did not cook themselves, can learn an easy recipe in a short time and ‘pass it on’ to others. On one had, highlighting the significance of class in shaping people’s diets appears not to form the official agenda of the program. And indeed, Oliver himself, when subsequently appearing in front of a House of Commons select committee on health inequalities, publicly rejected the notion that poor diet was a class issue: ‘”There are plenty of City boys who earn – well, used to earn – a lot of money who can’t nourish their kids, even on a gold card… I can tell you it is categorically not about money or time. It’s about knowledge… It is a poverty of being able to nourish their family, in any class”‘ (quoted in Pidd, 2008). On the other hand, and despite this classless orientation, the powerful effect of material conditions on people’s dietary habits regularly bursts through in a striking fashion (Lawrence, 2008), as does the message that, contrary to some myths, working class people do not want to live on a diet of unhealthy food.

However, it remains the case that most of the time in the popular media circuits, the notions of change and working class consciousness is a contradiction in terms. There is a freezing of working-classness, such that future consciousness is identified with the permanently ‘fallen’ present, and temporally specific features appear as an inherent and eternal truth (Ollman, 1993). This erasure of potentiality for development is reinforced both by the one-sided perspectives in which people appear as psychologically fixed clichés and caricatures (Garnett, 2001); and by the invisibility of material and social conditions. But if there can be no progressive change in working class consciousness, it is often the case that the only solution to the ‘problem’ of this devalued consciousness is a change out of such consciousness by becoming more like the middle class (Lawler, 2000). And this involves adopting a version of individuality which represents the negation of working-classness. Thus while working-classness is always static (for change means negation of one’s classed position), it is sometimes also inherent and eternally fixed and thus cannot be escaped from via religious-style conversion.

This is illustrated with respect to the theme of cultural development. In most media portrayals, if there is such a thing as working class culture it is not ‘real’ culture but rather ‘non-culture’ in the sense of lacking all intelligence and intellectual aspiration, thus being the opposite to a culture of the mind (Lawler, 2005). Indeed, just as historically there was a distinction in the Social Democratic imagination between the mindless mass resembling inert matter, and the benevolent saviour from above representing pure idea and spirit (thus standing opposed to the notions of working class self-consciousness and self-emancipation) (Draper, 1978), so in contemporary representations the qualities of the mindless mass live on in the now individualised framing of the (overly) embodied working class figure.

Again, either the person is incapable of cultural development (and the raising of consciousness in general terms), or if it does happen it must be at the price of losing that which underpinned their own class identity. One can note in this regard how the tenacious image of working class stupidity or ‘buffoonery’ (Butsch, 2003) echoes the consistent efforts of the British class system to draw ‘a sharp distinction between workers and thinkers’ whereby ‘it was the prerogative of the latter to interpret religion, economics, society and literature for the former’ (Rose, 2001, p7). Such an image is contradicted however by recent scholarship which has further unearthed the extremely rich history of autodidactic culture amongst the British working class (Rose, 2001). Whether through the Mutual Improvement Societies, or the Workers Educational Association (WEA), whole generations of worker-intellectuals were able to utilise the contradictions of culture in order to appropriate specific aspects of canonical ‘Bourgeois’ literature, theatre and music in a way which ‘tended to ignite insurrections in the minds of workers’ (p9). Such a movement for self-education through the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth centuries, often based on a suspicion of state provision or middle-class philanthropy, was driven by the realisation of founders of the Labour Party and other self-educated radicals that ‘no disenfranchised people could be emancipated unless they created an autonomous intellectual life. Working people would have to develop their own ways of framing the world, their own political goals, their own strategies for achieving those goals’ (p7).

The record of very many of the educated classes treating this movement with hostility, realising the threat which it posed to their own social position, justifies the founding concern with defending intellectual independence. In this way they followed the balancing act whereby one ‘has to learn regardless of the fact that learning carries certain dangers because out of necessity one has to learn from one’s enemies’ (Trotsky, 1960, p205; see also Au, 2007).

A survey of the continuing reproduction of the thinker-worker distinction in the media realm would need to include the process of decontextualisation of working class people such that they find themselves disorientated in a setting alien to their usual class-stamped milieu. Thus one could note the role of the technological setting of the TV studio in helping foster images of working people as fundamentally feeble-minded and rarely with thoughtful things to say about their condition and the world. This is expressed in the following section of an interview with film maker Ken Loach:

“He believes that TV and broadcasting should be about ‘finding exactly what people have got to say rather than trying to confuse them into inarticulateness’. Instead the media usually ‘works against people being articulate’ by transplanting them into an alien setting, where they face unstated assumptions that cast them in predetermined roles.

‘A television studio is a very hostile place. You can be an articulate person but not be able to express yourself in a TV studio. The lights are very harsh, and you’re blinded. You are in a very strange environment, talking to somebody who is accustomed to a sound-bite politician. They won’t ask the core questions; they will ask the ones that are superficial. So you have to change the question in order to make your point, and that’s a skill in itself. If you put people in a situation where they feel at ease they will talk absolutely clearly. All you have to do is listen and ask the question that is central to the issue’.” (Rowbotham, 2001, p84)

Similar reference to the deployment of technological setting in reality TV to decontextualise people in the interest of devaluing them is also found in Skeggs (2007):

“Reality TV objectifies class by detaching persons from the set of relations (working-class) that make up their experience in the world, to place them inside another set of relations. Objectification is accomplished through the technologies deployed (camera angles, lighting, mis-en-scene, music, etc), performances, speaking to camera; all of which constitute aural and visual evidence about the person and their value. The technologies materialise a subject position. Personhood is bracketed out from the conditions of possibility through which it is constituted.” (p17)

Media coverage of everyday work life

Paradoxical though it seems, the other side of the coin to the counter-position of workers to thinkers is a severe absence of media coverage of working class people at work, as well as of the activity of associated institutions such as trade unions. In other words, central components of the daily lives of the large majority of a national population are treated as somehow not worthy of media attention. As such, yet another opportunity for class-based identification is closed down. The worker appears only as an abstract atomized citizen, rather than a concrete person occupying a specific position within social production. Kirk (2007) notes that ‘it is the economic where the working class is, or should be, most visible’, and that this ‘accounts for the tendency within middle class discourse on class, going as far back as the nineteenth century, to discount or displace or simply mystify economic relations, not to mention emphasizing strategies to weaken and to attack working class institutions… spaces through which working class identities might be voiced and celebrated’ (pp.101-2). Martin (2004) argues that in the ‘consumer is king’ society, the news media adopts a frame summed up in the statement ‘the process of production is none of our business’, and ‘collective economic action is bad’. Regarding the former, there is a clear preference for the process of production and work life in general to remain a hidden realm, with news characterising the lack of disclosure about this sphere as normal.

With reference to trade unions in the United States, Zweig (2000) claims that ‘organizations of working people, especially unions, are systematically ignored or attacked’ (p56). Similarly, despite British trade unions with their seven million members being the country’s largest voluntary organisation, there is minimal coverage of their work. And where they are mentioned it is often in a way which exaggerates their decline, helped by a very inaccurate picture of a disproportionately male and white membership (Harman, 2008). Studies have also argued that in the rare moments of media interest trade unions are generally presented as only ‘dispute’ organisations, and that broader everyday aspects of their work in negotiating central aspects of economic life – not to mention other social contributions such as concerted anti-racist work – remain invisible (Walsh, 1988). Ken Loach goes as far as to argue that this media suppression helps ensure that the ‘whole body of experience and ideas’ represented by the Labour movement ‘has no existence in our political and cultural life; it can only exist as an alternative’ (Rowbotham, 2001, p85).

However, evidence suggests that even when there is news focus on work life its framing can still reflect the over-expansion of the cultural and the personal spheres. Thus stark working class realities may be obscured by nostalgic middle class fantasies about the lives of those working in traditional industries. Kitch (2007), for example, considered media coverage of a coal mine explosion in Sago, West Virginia in which 12 miners died. Through notions of working-class heroes, following their ‘tough’, ‘proud’ and patriotic vocational duties in the ‘tradition of sacrifice’ as part of the national ‘family’, the rural miners were made to bear the weight of others’ romanticised expectations. Consequently, the working class disappears as a category with which to think about workers’ experience. And the notion of working class identity as tied to a conflict of interests is undermined in favour of the suggestion of an essential industrial and national harmony. Thus the nationally told story of Sago was not one about the horrible conditions of mining and a deadly industrial accident’ – one which was preventable if the proper health and safety regulations had been prioritised over cost-cutting – ‘but one about life-affirming acts of faith and sacrifice’ (p125) and ‘down-to-earth people who stand for the best in all of us’ (p128).

This example points to the particular susceptability of workers associated with declining traditional industries to being represented in ways which reflect the needs of commodification. Stangleman et al (1999) trace this process with regard to ex-mining communities which can be mythologised in both positive and negative terms. Attracting inward investment, for instance, may require an emphasis on the supposed impressive work ethic of the ex-miners. In this sense the mining industry is framed within a heritage discourse (Dicks, 2008). Alternatively, attributing a ‘culture of dependency’ may fit nicely into a narrative of modernization, whereby ‘backward’ character traits of the labour force can be blamed for their alleged failure to embrace new working conditions. Again, therefore, essentialising of certain personality traits excises an objective picture of developing class relations in the context of specific social and economic problems affecting former coalfield areas.

Consistent with the lack of attention given to work-based existence and institutions is an over-inflation of the image of the underclass wherein the working class poor are confined to a degraded space peripheral to productive life and thus economic power. This then comes at the cost of obscuring the reality of the overwhelming majority of working class people in regular employment, with, for instance, most part-time workers being permanent workers (Harman, 2008). A notable example of this underclass discourse is the recent concern with ‘Chavs’ (Tyler, 2007). In this case, immediately visible cultural markers such as purported habits of dress, lifestyle, deportment and speech come to signify a range of classic ‘underclass’ traits, such as dirt, sexual promiscuity, ignorance, psychological stasis, work-shy, aggressive masculinities, and over-fertile femininities – ones which continue the well-worn tradition of positing an existential divide between the ‘respectable’ and ‘disreputable’ working class. The overall result is that the wider context of significant rises in inequality, deindustrialization, the often sudden economic ’shock’ experienced by traditional sources of employment, and cuts in welfare services (Thomas and Dorling, 2007), remain hidden.

It is notable that in addition to the role of traditional news outlets in helping to foster such images, there has been an unprecedented growth of internet forums, such as chavscum and urbandictionary dedicated to especially violent expressions of class hate. Tyler suggests that ‘that the level of disgust directed at the chav is suggestive of a heightened class antagonism’ (p18). However, it is also useful to include not only objective increases in inequality in the explanation of such class snobbery, but also a range of political attacks on the working class poor, which involve individualised scapegoating as part of a heightened political authoritarianism (Callinicos, 2001).

Educational implications

These observations enable us to raise two broad issues with regard to education. Firstly, given that the study of media representations highlights various tenacious assumptions about working class people, it can help indicate how certain educational practices may confirm such assumptions and stereotypes, but also suggest how a school classroom can be an important site whereby such perspectives can be challenged. The second issue relates to the theme of the contradictions of culture – where, for example, the form and content of education will both express a middle class bias (Evans, 2006) at the same time as possessing aspects of a more universal value. In order for learners to access the latter, there is a need for educators to acknowledge the former, in the shape of respecting working class students’ own cultural and historical particularities.

This points to a challenge to the above-mentioned narrative characterising individual development exclusively in terms of becoming more middle class. As against the long tradition of students facing a stark alternative of school success or continuing involvement in their neighbourhood and friends, various evidence from community schools and projects ’show that learning is enriched and achievement rises when schools build on the lives and interests of the neighbourhood… This is the challenge whenever communities are at a distance from the orthodox school curriculum’ (Wrigley, 2005, p130; see also Ajegbo, 2007). A similar point applies to the language used in the classroom. Keeping any grammar – whether Cockney or Creole – other than Standard English outside the classroom was the norm for many years. But a growing body of argument has suggested that while general prejudice meant that ‘Black and white working class students would face serious disadvantage without competence in Standard English, both spoken and written’, such competence ‘could only be achieved on the basis of respect for other forms of speech and encouraging its use for school learning’ (Wrigley, 2005, p129).

A related point applies with regard to the highly standardised national curriculum, as well as more passive and disembedded forms of teaching and learning in general which replicates the same disorientating effect of the TV studio mentioned earlier. In the case of the former, by embodying a particular elite vision, it is highly likely to foster boredom, frustration and disengagement unless spaces emerge for critical questioning of the nature of worthwhile knowledge.

Here arises also the constant danger whereby educational practices can provoke a situation in which educators’ stereotypes concerning student’s intellectual inferiority can seem to gain confirmation, and so guide teachers’ perspectives, such that disadvantage is reproduced. This is especially pertinent with regard to the tendency for placing pupils from economically impoverished backgrounds, whose parents are less well educated or who speak little English at home, in ‘low ability’ groups. That these groups ‘are likely to have a less interesting curriculum, based heavily on dull and repetitive exercises without any meaningful context or purpose’ (Wrigley, 2006, p18), would in turn provoke resistant behaviour which seemingly reinforces the negative stereotypes.

Furthermore, the underclass discourse looms large in this respect. The more social and cultural distance between school and wider community/neighbourhood, the easier it is for teachers to ‘generalise from dramatic incidents and conclude that the neighbourhood they serve is nothing but a concrete jungle full of dysfunctional families and drug-crazed youths.’ Thus, any chance to appreciate the community for its positive features, including how its particular interests and social network can foster ‘different patterns of learning’ compared to the orthodox decontextualized classroom agenda, are likely to be sidelined (Wrigley, 2006, p69)

Finally, alongside the risk of excluding a specifically working class route to intellectual achievement, so also we have the appearance in policy of attempted accommodation to the traditional dichotomy between workers and thinkers with its pessimistic view of immutable consciousness. This is seen in the government’s Five Year Strategy for Children and Learners (Department for Education and Skills, 2004) whereby training for work is attributed the key role in making education more relevant and accessible for working class children. There is evidence that this has brought with it acceptance of unspoken limits on which children will be able to develop creativity, cooperation and thinking skills, and what they will be allowed to think creatively about. In this way, the universal entitlement of all students to gain a broad sweep of knowledge is sacrificed to the mantra of ‘preparation for work’.

Anti-racism and the question of the ‘white working class’

In the previous section we saw how media representations commonly work against both the acknowledgement of structured class disadvantage, and also the development of valued independent working class identities. It was also suggested how related tendencies in the educational sphere can lead to pupil alienation and the reproduction of class-based segregation. In what follows these themes will be expanded by considering a trend in certain areas of media discourse to defend a particular section of the working class. In the process, the idea of working class identity as standing for potential progressive and dynamic unity across different national and cultural traditions is undermined. Such a situation provides further support for incorporating respect for the category of the working class within anti-racist practice in school.

As part of the academic criticism of media treatment of the working class, the racialised nature of some of the representations has been noted, especially the way in which particularly white working class people have been targeted.

“Whilst the term chav is a term of abuse directed almost exclusively towards the white poor, chavs are not invisible normative whites, but rather hypervisible ‘filthy whites.’ In a way that bears striking similarities to other national stereotypes of the white poor such as the US ‘white trash’ figure, the chav foregrounds a dirty whiteness – a whiteness contaminated with poverty.” (Tyler, 2008, p25)

There is evidence that there is significant ambivalence in representations of poor whites: on one hand recognising their intimate proximity – geographical, cultural, familial and sexual – with working class blacks and Asians (Tyler, 2007; Collins, 2004); on the other hand still portrayed in terms of an ethnically exclusive grouping. Critics have suggested that whiteness can indeed come in certain situations to signify the ‘unmodern’ – such that poor working class whites are portrayed as specially prone to racism and general cultural backwardness (Skeggs, 2004), thus becoming a vessel into which middle class racism can conveniently be projected. A seemingly primitive psychology thus becomes emblematic of the idea that the working class no longer exists as a viable or privileged political agency. Consider, for example, the following passage from an article by journalist Janet Daly in The Times newspaper:

“This self-loathing, self-destructive tranche of the population is far less assimilable into morally constructive social life than any immigrant group… Those ethnic minorities which bring with them religion, cultural dignity and a sense of family will find a way. The only bar to their steady progress will be the mindless hatred of the indigenous working classes, who loathe them precisely for their cultural integrity… I fear that long after Britain has become a successful multi-racial society, it will be plagued by this diminishing (but increasingly alienated) detritus of the Industrial Revolution.” (Daly, 1994; cited in Haylett, 2001, p359).

One response to this sort of attack has been to defend white working class identity against what are seen as attempts to bolster middle class identities as precisely modern and forward-looking. And an issue is sometimes made of how the ‘white working class’ has been treated with embarrassed silence within an academic discourse primarily concerned with more ‘exotic’ oppressed identities. Haylett (2001), for example, in her analysis of the political rhetoric of welfare reform in the UK, suggests that the white working class is represented as embodying ‘a poverty of identity based on outdated ways of thinking and being’ (p352), and as such forms an obstacle to the development of the modern nation.

“[A] representative middle class is positioned at the vanguard of ‘the modern’ which becomes a moral category referring to liberal, cosmopolitan, work and consumption based lifestyles and values, and ‘the unmodern’ on which this category depends is the white working class ‘other’, emblematically a throwback to other times and places. This middle class dependency on working-class ‘backwardness’ for its own claim to modern multicultural citizenship is an unspoken interest within the discourse of illegitimacy around the white working-class poor” (pp364-5)

While there is a focus here on the gains for middle class identities, there is no expression of concern with the implications for working class identities. This includes the implications of a focus – demonstrated by the media, but also echoed in academic studies – on the white working class as a distinct identity separate from the working class in general. In fact, there is a danger that in defending ‘white working class culture’ it is illegitimately reified as an oppressed ethnic grouping; that an apparent defence of working class people may work to undermine the specificity of the category of working class as representing underlying commonality of interest between groups of workers.

This danger has been highlighted in the recent series of television programmes which have taken the theme of the marginalized white working class and given it a distinct slant which is arguably open to Far-Right political appropriation (Evans, 2008). BBC2’s White Season series screened in March 2008, and carrying the subtitle ‘Is white working class Britain becoming invisible?’, presented a pessimistic picture of the post-industrial white working class as forming a hermetically sealed cultural unit under siege in a multicultural Britain. It was portrayed as resenting the loss of its identity and rights to its own cultural space to non-white immigrant communities in the competition for social welfare, and as banished to a voiceless wilderness of disenfranchisement and disorientation. This was the predominant framing of the series as a whole even though it was particularly three out of the series of five programmes which were most representative of this line: Last Orders is about a Working Men’s Club in Bradford; Rivers of Blood considers the fortune of Enoch Powell’s dire warning in 1968 about the social consequences of immigration and multiculturalism to Britain; and The Poles are Coming is about the tensions which are claimed to have been generated by recent immigration of East European labourers into Peterborough.

Richard Klein, who as the BBC’s commissioner for documentaries commissioned the White Season series, explains his motivation in an article entitled: ‘White and working class: the one ethnic group the BBC has ignored’. Here he argues that in the midst of the debate over the consequences of the changes in Britain over the last two decades wrought by globalisation, mass migration and economic upheaval, ‘one voice has been largely absent: that of the white working class’. He notes a common perception of the white working class as ‘reactionary or backward’ whereas once they ‘were seen as an integral and respected part of our national life’. The TV series is presented as a factual vehicle by which the white working class express their perception of themselves as what an interviewee in one documentary called ‘the forgotten people’. Klein wished to convey the ‘complexity of working class attitudes’, for ‘it is far too easy for the middle classes, who benefit from cheap labour – whether it be from a Polish plumber or a Ukrainian nanny – to fail to understand the difficulties facing the white working class’.

“In part as a consequence [of] multiculturalism, the irony is that many of the white working class see themselves as an oppressed ethnic minority too, and lower down the ladder than other ethnic groups on the hierarchy of victimhood. They complain of double standards and hypocrisy, pointing out that the media revel in telling stories [about] Asian and African immigrants, but ignores tales from the white working class. Every other culture, they argue, is revered except that of the indigenous population… they feel abandoned. I am in no way a spokesman for the white working class. But I think the message from the White Season is a troubling one. In the modern world’s rush to embrace diversity and globalisation, we cannot afford to ignore the voices of any section of society which feels bewildered by the pace of change. If we don’t give everyone a voice, it may only lead to further social division.” (Klein, 2008)

In contrast to the concerns of radical film makers who have sought to give voice to excluded sections of the working class by highlighting the injustices and material and social fetters of class society as a whole (Bromley, 2000; Rowbotham, 2001), the issue is now transformed into one concerning competition within the working class for resources and recognition.

This view of the white working class as an oppressed ethnicity seeking recognition is also found in another journalistic intervention which can be seen as part of the same tendency. Michael Collins’ book entitled The Likes of Us: A Biography of the White Working Class (2004), based on his Channel 4 television documentary The British Working Class, is presented as partly inspired by the growing ‘demonisation of the white working class’, especially ‘by middle class progressives who had traditionally come out fighting these underdogs’ corner, or reporting their condition as missionaries or journalists’ (p8).

Collins argues that the contemptuous portrayal of the white working class led him to write his book because ‘it ignored both the detailed experience and the wider history of the white working class, and simply reduced them to a caricature similar to that in which they were cast centuries before’ (p8). As against this he offers a history of the ‘white working class that dominated the area [of Southwark, in South East London] for so long [and] … the inside story of a tribe on a particular reservation and during a particular period, as told by an erstwhile native son’ (p11). On the website for the Channel 4 documentary Collins complains that ‘whites were not allowed the status of an ethnic group, and in the urban areas with which the white working class were synonymous, anything that identified them with a culture, a history, and a singular experience was omitted from any dialogue or literature that took multiculturalism as its theme’.

What results is an exercise in essentializing white working class culture such that the rich historical processes of ongoing reconstitution of the working class through successive waves of immigration (Winder, 2005) disappear from view. This includes, for example, the key role of Irish (not to mention also Jewish) labour in the area discussed by Collins, and the central function of the Labour movement – especially during periods of heightened economic conflict – in breaking down ethnic separatism and encouraging class-based forms of occupational identification to come to the forefront (Davis, 2000; see also Virdee, 2000). Collins instead provides a deeply nostalgic and romanticized image which relies on very minimal coverage of the realities and struggles of workplace life. In this way, it ‘flies in the face of historical-geographical processes of place and community construction and ignores the fact that cultures are just as relationally (“and dialogically”) constructed as individuals, and a good deal more porous’. Consequently, what results is ‘the building of a ‘”particularist theory of justice” with respect to cultures as embodied things‘, thus advocating ‘a politics that would effectively freeze geographical structures of place for evermore’ (Harvey, 1996, p342).

It can be seen as simply one of the many historical examples of ‘ethnic’ divisions being invented arbitrarily through any range of different characteristics being inflated into an imaginary and determining essence called ‘ethnicity’. One witnesses in particular varieties of the appeal which seem uncomfortably close to the rhetorical tropes of what Balibar (1991) terms ‘neo-racism’. That is to say

“a racism whose dominant theme is not biological heredity but the insurmountability of cultural differences, a racism which, at first sight, does not postulate the superiority of certain groups or peoples in relation to others but ‘only’ the harmfulness of abolishing frontiers, the incompatibility of life-styles and traditions; in short, it is… a differentialist racism.” (p21; italics in original)

Here then is a discourse which illustrates how ‘culture can also function like nature’, as a ‘way of locking individuals and groups a priori into a genealogy, into a determination that is immutable and intangible in origin’ (p22). Furthermore, this discourse also proposes to explain racism as resulting from what is pilloried as ‘abstract’ anti-racism. Attempts to go against human proclivity to maintain our ‘natural’ cultural difference and particularity, will, it is claimed, inevitably result in eruptions of collective elemental aggressiveness.

The pertinent nature of these observations for grasping the underlying pessimistic assumptions of claims around the white working class is exemplified in a final study by Robson (2000) looking at Millwall Football Club. Here one can see the possible dangers of trying to defend what is said to be aspects of ‘authentic’ white working class culture against middle class hegemony. The study highlights the moral and cultural forms expressed by Millwall fans, including the ‘rather menacing sense of carnival’ (p228), traditional masculinities, and racist taunts, underpinned by the values of ‘physical and personal inviolability, contempt for pretension, volatile emotionality and ruthless gallows humour’ (p227). He suggests that this represents a working class identity which has resisted attempts by middle class ‘outsiders’ to introduce their own sets of values and standards. He argues that prevalent media characterisations of Millwall as a racist subculture manages to ‘obscure the complex realities of relationships between Millwallism, identity and race’ (p225). And he suggests that fans’ resistance to anti-racist initiatives can be explained in the context of defending ‘particular working-class identities and traditions’:

“The central perspectives of Millwallism are implacably opposed to liberal culture. Anti-fascist ’stances’ are associated with leftist local authorities and liberal progressivism in general. If, as I have argued, Millwallism is best understood as an expression of defensive but culturally entrenched opposition to bourgeois cultural hegemony, then a certain reluctance to embrace ‘politically correct’ moral perspectives is one of its central perspectives…” (p227)

Robson adopts a discourse of the rights of white working class Millwall fans to their own specific cultural traditions, traditions which middle class activists derogate for their backwardness, thus risking ‘driving underground… white claims to pride in cultural identity’ with the effect that ‘new forms of aggressive nativism’ (p229) may be consolidated.

“This highlights the complex ways in which Millwall is kept Millwall less out of white nativism pure and simple than a demand for the right to the kind of cultural particularism which is perceived as acceptable when practised by other groups than the white working class, and positively encouraged among them by the liberal/leftist culture of municipal anti-racism in inner London.” (p230)

Rather than pointing to the potential for a progressive transformation of ‘white working class’ identity into ‘working class’ identity, and exposing the political factors which hold it back, the projected future is solely one of a struggle for recognition by eternally competing frozen cultural particularisms. There is little analysis in Robson’s work of the wider context of economic decline and restructuring, nor of the role of external political forces, in forming an environment in which ‘tribalist’ divisions within the working class thrive (and often attract disproportionate media attention). This is despite the function of such factors in working in the interest of the very middle class hegemony which Robson is supposed to be targeting.

Furthermore, it is interesting that collective expressions of racism are explained by means of a particular version of crowd psychology which reintroduces assumptions about the immutability of working class consciousness. Thus the issue is one of provocation (by anti-racism) of people’s aggressive instincts for maintaining cultural distinctness: ‘The masses are presented with an explanation of their own “spontaneity” and at the same time they are implicitly disparaged as a “primitive” crowd’ (Balibar, 1991, p23).

There have been attempts to transfer similar notions of the white working class into educational contexts – for example, the idea that one fights racism by affirming the particularity of culturally sealed collective units, as when it is argued that white working class youth should be provided with a reconstructed white identity (Fekete, 1998). By contrast, an alternative pedagogic approach to identity involves an attempt to take account of historical struggles to overcome conditions of economic and social degradation and of cultural segregation in the locality to which the school is tied (Fekete, 1998). The latter approach would then form a basis for understanding the origin of anti-immigrant themes which represent the corruption of the progressive traditions.

Consistent anti-racism involves both an emphasis on black and white unity, and an acknowledgement of the class relations at work, thus reasserting the importance of space for affirming independent working class identity. This issue of class simply can no longer be ducked. And against recent attempts to counter-pose the needs of Black and white working class pupils in a context of scarce resources (Mahamdallie, 2005), it is necessary to emphasise their common interest in well resourced education protected from the logic of market competition and associated managerial standardization. One of the challenges here is the way that segregating practices in which, for example, Black pupils are more likely to be put in bottom sets, reinforces stereotypes, including amongst students themselves, that they are the ‘under-achievers’ (Bennett, 2005).

All of these points would also require improvement in the shallow and tokenistic multiculturalism which has been previously offered: ‘Traditional culture was frozen and dynamic fusions were overlooked. More than this, multicultural education often stopped short of challenging racism’ (Wrigley, 2005, p130; see also Ajegbo, 2007).

Conclusion: some future trends

The future direction in which representations of the working class may tend is tied to wider economic and political developments. On one hand, it is possible that continuing increase in inequalities and social polarisation, together with a growing authoritarian emphasis on criminalizing working class youth, and demonising welfare recipients, will find its corresponding supportive images in the media. In addition, various historical reference points indicate how, in response to growing popular discontent around the effects of economic recession, there is a strong probability of increasingly racialised representations, scapegoating the most vulnerable sections of the working class, and so functioning to weaken potential for building unity.

This could unfold in a direction indicated by the White Season documentary The Poles are Coming, which painted quite a dark portrait of apparently inevitable division and conflict between recently arrived immigrant labour and the host labour force. In this way, the extensive current examples of mixed workplace cultures and trade union efforts to recruit Eastern European workers as members and as full-time union organisers, remained out of view. We have also witnessed other attempts by influential social commentators to explicitly respond to economic recession by reasserting the role of the white working class as the ‘true losers’ who should be targeted with ’special measures’ to make them ‘more competitive’ and prevent a seemingly natural resentment being targeted at East European or non-white beneficiaries of jobs and welfare services (Travis, 2008).

On the other hand, depending on the wider political balance of forces, not least an increased likelihood of a more co-ordinated trade union response to recession-related cuts in people’s jobs, pay, and conditions (Harman, 2008), there is a fertile ground in which more class-conscious representations could flourish, marked by a greater historical awareness. This potential unity also finds its roots in the high levels of racial integration relative to the European average as measured at the levels of geographical neighbourhoods, workplaces, and the family, and the already deep commonalities in the lives of working class people of different nationalities and cultural backgrounds (Simpson, 2008). The role of the anti-war movement in building unprecedented political unity between Muslims and non-Muslims could also be a significant building block here.

Earlier on we saw how technology of various kinds – whether the TV studio, or the internet – provided means for reinforcing derogatory representations, whether directly in their role as dissemination hubs, or indirectly through predisposing participants to behave in ways which would seem to justify particular stereotypes. Despite the existence of such examples, one can predict that ongoing triumphantist claims for technology as itself beckoning a more egalitarian or classless future will continue largely unabated.

Some additional remarks can be made concerning the prospects for both the propagation of derogatory stereotypes by internet forum participants, and for online efforts to challenge them. Despite early claims for the openness of online newsgroup technology as an alleged guarantor against the seclusion and uninterrupted self-confirmation of the worldview of groups fostering hate speech (Zickmund, 1997), this has been proven very over-optimistic. The reason largely relates to limitations of the Usernet and bulletin board format more generally in terms of fostering open political discussion. The lack of a moderating role, of accountability, and of engagement with those holding differing viewpoints, mean that provision of rational argument and supporting evidence can be simply bypassed by many users, and self-reinforcement dominate over interaction and exchange (Davis, 2005). Thus the prevailing tendency for personal attacks and harangues has often been commented on. Furthermore, online talk ’segregates participants into a multitude of narrowly specialised discussion groups… The internet, generally, produces severe audience fragmentation’, and even ‘when participants do interact, they often talk past each other without enough listening to others, particularly those with whom they disagree’ (Davis, 2005, p123).

In cases where online reinforcement of shared stereotypes can grow in a symbiotic relationship with popular TV entertainment – such as the invented characters populating certain comedy programmes (Tyler, 2007) – then constantly evolving opportunities for apparently pleasurable dehumanisation flourish. Indeed, nourished by the heightened versatility of internet multimedia technology, and a social setting characterised by geographically disparate, isolated individuals, novel manifestations of the fetishistic fascination with the Other characterising colonial anthropology are made possible. Opportunities for resistance will depend on the relative resources of the demonised groups which, as, for example, in the case of working class poor, remain very limited. However, it is possible to envisage more hopeful scenarios, albeit ones which again are largely dependent on the trajectory of the wider working class movement. Nevertheless, it seems wise not to foreclose the possibility of such demonised groups following, in unpredictable ways, the example of stigmatised groups such as gays for whom internet forum participation may have contributed to a situation whereby identity ‘demarginalisation’ can take place and stereotypes debunked (McKenna and Bargh, 1998).

If there is a role for education here it may be partly signalled in the evolving pan-European co-operative development of more radical programmes of critical literacy skills. Such skills could be brought to bear on students’ understandings of media images and the different interests at stake (Wrigley, 2006). And this could also beckon a greater willingness to embrace controversies and contradictions as part of the official teaching curriculum.

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See: www.chavscum-resurrection.co.uk

See: www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=chavscum

See www.bbc.co.uk/white/

See also the study produced by the Young Foundation entitled The New East End: Kinship, Race and Conflict (Dench, Gavron and Young, 2006) for a good illustration of this tendency.

See: www.channel4.com/culture/microsites/R/racedebate/talkingpoint/feature/michael-collins.html

This document has been commissioned as part of the UK Department for Children, Schools and Families’ Beyond Current Horizons project, led by Futurelab. The views expressed do not represent the policy of any Government or organisation.

Over the last 70 years, the English education system has been twice remade – first in 1944, and then in 1988. These episodes introduced important institutional change, but they went further than this. In each case, they configured new relationships between education and other kinds of social arrangement, both economic and cultural. The 1944 Education Act established education as key to economic growth, and made school for the first time central to the experience of working-class teenagers; the changes brought about by the Education Reform Act (1988) connected education to an emerging knowledge economy, and laid the basis for a culture of attainment and competition, in school and beyond. In each case, educational reform was driven by powerful forces of social and political change: broadly social democratic in the first instance, Conservative – that is to say, market-orientated – in the second. In each case, too, a political revolution was involved, in which some social actors came to the fore, while others faded from the scene. Thus 1944 promoted local education authorities and teachers’ organisations to a position of power, while 1988 saw these actors largely replaced by the rising influence of school managements, and, later, private providers.

The educational energies set in motion by ‘1988′ carried through into the New Labour years, and in many ways were strengthened and systematised then (Ball, 2008). This review seeks to take the measure of their impact. But it also addresses wider issues. ‘1988′ was part of a larger programme of transformation, often called ‘neo-liberal’ (Harvey, 2005) and to make sense of issues of knowledge, identity, culture and community, means that the interaction of education with the other elements of this programme needs to be addressed. It is by taking the measure of these combined transformations that the review tries to think its way into the future. Will the period 2010-2025 see such a profound re-shaping of the education system as those of 1944 and 1988? Will it accelerate, or divert, the cultural and social energies set in motion in the 1980s? Will the social and occupational arrangements associated with the famously uneven patterns of wealth distribution created through neo-liberalism harden into permanent structures? We can start to answer such questions by looking at what social research is telling us about the present.

Grounded, differentiated cultures

Social theory, Majima and Savage (2006) point out, is prone to make the claim that some time in the late 20th century, a transformation of the human personality occurred, that can be described in terms of ‘individualisation’ (Beck and Beck-Gersheim, 2001), detraditionalisation (Giddens, 1994) or an accommodation of ‘liquid modernity’ (Bauman, 2000). These accounts depict a world in which people have become increasingly ‘reflexive’ about their lifestyle choices and their values; they rely less on traditional modes of thinking, and are, compared with earlier generations, less influenced by the cultures to which they belong. Majima and Savage are sceptical; they regard these claims as being ‘empirically ungrounded’. For them, values and meanings are in a strong sense culturally located. They grow out of mundane experience, and are more susceptible to immediate material pressures than to long waves of cultural change. Specifically, ‘attitudes and values’ arise from the processes through which people seek to differentiate themselves from some social groups and claim affinity with others. (2007, p297). These processes occur in a ‘politically charged environment’; they are products of ‘wars of manoeuvres’ between social groups and positions (2007, p312). If we want to understand culture, therefore, we need to understand it in terms of social location, of difference and of contestation.

These arguments direct us towards two kinds of understanding. The first prioritises the material position of young people, in terms of the influence upon them of the job market, of education, and of their communities. The second emphasises cultural difference. In both cases, the intention is not to construct ‘youth’ or ‘young people’ as unified categories, but to look at patterns of change from a perspective concerned with their varied impacts on the young. French researchers, reflecting on the youth uprisings against police violence and economic insecurity in 2005-6, have written of the need to think in terms of ‘deux jeunesses’, those of the banlieues and those outside, whose conditions and prospects differ widely, though over both there hangs the shadow of ‘precarity’ (Mauger, 2006). A similar emphasis runs through this paper.

Knowledge

Knowledge is increasingly understood in terms of its economic value. One of the main tenets underlying education policy is that ‘information and knowledge are replacing capital and energy as the primary wealth-creating assets’. (Ball, 2008, p19) This claim is sometimes linked to an expectation that the workforce of the future will be increasingly knowledgeable and more highly skilled. From this stems the ‘promise’ that underlies policy exhortations to young people, that they should seek higher levels of qualification, and longer periods in education, in return for rewarding jobs. However, the nature and extent of the knowledge economy have been called into question by many researchers in ways that suggest a very different configuration of knowledge from that sketched by policy. At stake in this questioning are issues of qualification, skill, quality of experience and reward. These issues, of course, are played out among the adult workforce, but their backwash effect in education, training and the social positioning of young people is considerable.

According to Castells (1998), knowledge economies are, in terms of their social relations, divided economies, with the categories of ’symbolic analyst’ and ‘generic labour’ standing on opposite sides of a social divide. Other writers elaborate this point. Nolan (2004) writes of an ‘hour-glass economy’, in which the occupational structure is polarised between relatively secure high-skilled work, and a mass of lower-skilled, lower-paid and insecure employment. Brown (2003) and Brown and Hesketh (2004) tell a similar story, in which, while management, professional and technical jobs are expanding, so too are routine service jobs. Ewart Keep points out that these projections of polarisation are of crucial importance for education ‘because the assumption is that a knowledge-driven economy and an associated labour market demand for ever higher skills is just around the corner is implicitly seen as one of the main means by which expansion of all phases and forms of post-compulsory learning can be justified and learners motivated’ (Keep, 2005, p548). If this assumption is incorrect, then the motivating promise of ‘good jobs for all’ is unlikely to be believed. Lebaron (2006) writes in this context about the ‘devalorisation’ of educational qualifications: levels of educational attainment have risen, and expectations have been heightened, yet access to secure jobs, to housing and to an ‘autonomous’ adult life is harder to come by. In such a situation, education, for a sizeable section of the youth population, loses legitimacy (Bendit 2006).

So far, we have discussed knowledge in terms of training and qualifications – issues which cover only part of the field. Another set of arguments, running much wider than the ’skills’ debate, concerns the relationship to the economy of the whole body of knowledge generated by populations – some of it certified and explicit, some of it ‘tacit’ and informal. This is the context in which some theorists have developed the idea of ‘mass intelligence’ or the ‘general intellect’ (Dyer-Witheford, 1999; Virno, 2004; Dowling, 2006). Knowledge is now the ‘principal productive force’ (Virno, 2004, p100); and ‘immaterial labour’ the defining form of work. Immaterial labour is an elastic concept that includes both the kind of knowledge work associated with ‘mental’ labour, and what Michael Hardt’s calls’the affective labour of human contact and interaction’ which through ‘the creation and manipulation of effects’ can bring into being ‘a feeling of ease, well being, satisfaction, excitement, passion – even a sense of connectedness or community’ (Hardt, n.d.). Whatever type of immaterial labour is emphasized, the tendency is to argue that it is produced in the course of the ‘ordinary’ exchanges of daily life, as well as through more specialized training. To understand the contemporary workforce and its capacities, one thus needs to think outside the workplace, and outside the educational institutions which have traditionally served it. Dowling explains that the ability to manage affect that was the basis of her waitressing work depended on social skills acquired outside the restaurant. Dyer-Witheford claims that the new communicational capacities and technological competencies developed through young people’s media practices are both ‘the premises of everyday life’ and an economic resource that employers can exploit. Constantly on-line, immersed in a continuous, electronically mediated communicability, young people acquire the know-how required to perform immaterial labour. But this ‘know-how’ has a complicated relationship with business requirements. It may well be the case that management seeks to make ‘the worker’s personality and subjectivity susceptible to organisation and command’ (Lazzarato, 1996, quoted in Dowling, 2006), but in practice, subjectivity also contains a surplus of ‘excessive’ human capacity, underemployed in the contemporary workplace.

These understandings complement, in a different theoretical idiom, the recent findings of sociologists of work, who identify a gap between the capacities of worker and the requirements of the enterprise in which they work. Pursuing this argument, Warhurst and Thompson (2006) develop a number of themes. They are sceptical about claims for upskilling, suggesting that firms’ investment in ICT tends more to routinise than to make complex the demands of work; and following the Canadian research of Livingstone and Schottz (2006), they suggest that ‘current labour processes’ are not effective in ‘utilising the existing skills of workers’. Higher education may have created a ‘mass of potential knowledge workers’ (2006, p788) but for an important section of the workforce, what is required of them by the work process is much less than their education and experience have rendered them capable of. Moreover, any upskilling that may be required ‘appears to be complemented by deteriorations in other work aspects, namely autonomy and discretion’ (2006, p790). The ‘knowledge gap’, in this case, has less to do with the deficiencies of school-leavers, than with the unfulfilling aspects of work. It is for reasons connected to the cultural surveillance and control that are exercised in the workplace, argues Willis (2003), that working-class energies have directed themselves away from production, and towards consumption, as a source of fulfilment and a resource for the construction of identity.

This is not the whole picture, though. More innovative enterprises, write Warhurst and Thompson, are keen to ‘identify and utilise’ the knowledgeability of their workforces, wanting to ‘introduce organisational structures and practices that facilitate initiative and innovation in the form of creativity and continuous improvement’ on the part of workers, whether routine or expert (2006, p794). Hartley, in a review of contemporary educational discourse, adds that it is not just at the top end of the labour market that such capacities capacities are thought to be required. There are sections of the economy – personal services, for instance – which are ‘high touch’ more than they are high tech and in which emotional intelligence is an asset which management needs to tap (Hartley, 2003). (Here Hartley echoes some of the argument of Hardt, above.) This reading of economic need validates new educational approaches, to which issues of ‘creativity’ are central. In Anna Craft’s words, the ‘economic imperative to foster creativity in business has helped to raise the profile and credentials of creativity in education more generally’ (1999, p11). This, in terms of educational history, is creativity of a new type, going well beyond the traditional arts-based model – an approach exemplified in some of the work sponsored between 2002 and 2009 by Creative Partnerships. The key point that educationalists must absorb is that adapting to new social and economic complexities is not something that can be learned systematically, as a set of rules but rather requires attentiveness to what James Scott (1998) terms ‘metis’, practical knowledge, that stems from the subject’s ability to draw from the entire range of their experience, to articulate that which in other circumstances would remain tacit, and in doing so to respond productively – creatively – to new challenges. Creativity is not only a set of skills, but a modality of life.

The pattern of argument here is a complex one, in which the possibilities of a fuller development of the personality, of the sort at which educationalists have traditionally aimed, is mixed up with more instrumental ideas of what it means to be creative. As the French sociologists Boltanski and Chiapello put it, work has become ’simultaneously more autonomous and more constrained’ (2005, p430), and a similar tension is likely to run through schooling, so that ‘creativity’ comes to mean both the promise of a new and more liberated way of ‘doing education’, and a preparation for a working life in which to be ‘creative’ is to be an economic asset as much as a free individual.

Social influences on the cultural

Michael Rustin (2008) makes a distinction between policy norms and what, following Lockwood (1964), he calls systemic conflict. Since the late nineties, he suggests, English society may well have experienced consensus at the level of policy, with few disagreeing with ‘Third Way’ approaches to problems of economic and social change; but this should not cause us to overlook the continued existence of deep-rooted systemic tensions. He specifies two kinds of tension in particular. The first is ‘current levels of social inequality’, which mean among other things that ‘educational outcomes and therefore employment prospects for the lowest third of the population remain obstinately poor’ (2008, p278). Rustin is doing no more here than confirming a wealth of research data, which attests not only to continuing inequality but to rates of social mobility that were lower at the end of the 20th century than during the post-war decades of educational reform and occupational change (Sutton Trust, 2005). Cultural patterns and senses of individual and collective identity are, and will be, profoundly affected by the closure and exclusion involved in this impasse. Indeed, Gayo-Cal, Savage and Warde (2006), in their attempt to draw ‘a cultural map of the United Kingdom’, refer to ‘entrenched cultural divisions within the social body’, identifying patterns not just of cultural diversity, but of antagonism, ‘Young, poorly educated males’ are deeply at odds with the cultural attachments of wealthier groups, without, according to the researchers, having alternative, positive preferences of their own (2006, p219, p226). Thus here too the concept of ‘deux jeunesses’- two stratified kinds of youth experience – is salient.

The second tension identified by Rustin has to do with social solidarity, with the norms and collective practices which, for classical sociology, contribute to social cohesion. Again what are at issue are enduring tendencies, rather than episodic quirks. Referring to work by Layard (2005) and Offer (2006), and adopting arguments similar to those of Wilkinson (1997) and Oliver James (2007), Rustin suggests that ‘improvements in living standards seem to be accompanied by no increases in self-reported happiness’ (2008, p278). On the contrary, inequalities and ’social epidemics’ of family breakdown, of depression and addiction produce effects of ‘ill-being’. As others (for instance, Buckingham, 2000) have pointed out, young people and children are strongly affected by such tensions. Economically and culturally, they have benefited from the growth of the youth market for consumer goods: as Willis (1990) showed, commercialised, ‘commodified’ products provide vital symbolic resources for the creation of youth identities. But such commercialised engagement is also seen to put children in moral and sometimes physical danger (Buckingham. 2000). Socially, children and young people are the focus of considerable anxiety, both as victims (’stranger danger’) and as threats (‘feral youth’). Educationally, the pressures of a performance culture seem to contribute to low levels of happiness (UNESCO. 2007). It seems right to understand these various tensions as long-lasting, as inter-connected, and as powerful shapers of culture and identity.

However, this is not the only way in which the social and cultural positioning of young people is described. Majima and Savage (2007) in their longitudinal study of cultural attitudes in the period 1981-1999 claim to detect a shift towards ‘more rebellious and conscientious’ attitudes. Cunningham and Lavalette, in a study of school-student participation in the anti-war movement of 2003, identified similar attitudes (2004). It seems reasonable to predict that, among a section of children and young people, the environmental and social crises that one can envisage for 2025 will provoke similar responses. Solidarity, lost in one area, may be regained in another.

Ethnicity

The growing demographic importance of ethnic communities, and of mixed heritage populations, is generally recognised (Finney and Simpson, 2008). The kinds of inter-community relations which are connected to these trends are much more disputed, as are the associated issues of identity.

Broadly, there are three positions in the identity debate. None of them is simply a commentary on cultural trends; each seeks to shape the reality they describe in a desired direction. The character of ‘identity’, both individual and collective, will be strongly affected by which model(s) emerge from the contest as dominant.

The first model is based on a theory of communities divided primarily on lines of ethnicity and leading ‘parallel lives’. (Cantle, 2005). Meaningful interaction is here ‘virtually non-existent’ (Burnett, 2007), and communities develop their own separate identities and belief systems. This diagnosis has been politically influential and has supported a drive to consolidate a general sense of Britishness, ‘a political identity (created) through active membership of the nation state, which regulates individual behaviour and provides for collective action’ (Cantle, quoted in Burnett, 2007, p117.) A second, alternative model, supported by recent social research (Wetherell, 2008), emphasises less the separateness of communities than the interaction between them. In the process of interaction, ‘new, complex, hybrid forms of identity are emerging among second and subsequent generations of migrants as part of the normal process of identity change over time’ (Wetherell, 2008, p780). These identities, it is argued, in the great majority of cases, include a strong British component. Not all identities are hybridised, of course: some groups, including white British working-class people, ‘try to hang on to older cultural forms and senses of belonging’. And, in all cases, ethnically-based identities are articulated, in different ways, with social class.

A third model accepts much of what is said about hybridisation, but is much less certain that it necessarily creates what Gilroy celebrates as ‘a convivial mode of interaction where differences have to be negotiated’ (Gilroy, 2005, p438, cited in Wetherell, 2008). Yousuf notes that ‘growing numbers’ of people have ‘dual or multiple loyalties’ that cross national boundaries: ‘globalisation of communications allows people to align themselves with any social, cultural or political group anywhere in the world’ (2007, p362). Her account is different from that of others who write about hybridity, however, because she accentuates the element of potential conflict between such loyalties. In globalised times, to separate the ‘inside’ of the national state from the ‘outside’ is not possible. At particular moments, where the relationship between ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ is one of tension, then potential conflicts are activated, and the attachment of some groups of citizens to what they customarily see as ‘their’ state becomes strained: ‘loyalties can be recalcitrant and unpredictable’ (2007, p363). Evidence collected by Liz Fekete (2008) develops the point further. In a world where there is no ‘over there’ – no international space entirely separate from that of the national state – the response of states to perceived threats to their security adds to internal tensions, with particular consequences for some minority groups. In the wake of the London bombings of 2005, and what Muslim communities experienced as a backlash, Fekete described a process of cultural and social withdrawal, ‘a kind of counter-culture, a refusal to participate, on the basis of “I don’t want what I can’t get.”

Thus, while the salience of ethnicity to culture and identity is beyond question, the modes through which it will be experienced – convivial, defensive – are harder to predict.

Education: differentiated expansion

Education is, of course, shaped by forces that have their origins elsewhere, in the economy, or in wider patterns of social change. But it is also a force in its own right, constructing knowledge, allocating social positions, shaping identities. Making sense of trends in education is therefore vital to understanding the future patterning of knowledge, culture, communities and identities.

We can begin this work of making sense by noting two long-term, interlinked tendencies, summed up in the phrase ‘differentiated expansion’. Education has vastly expanded, in ways that affect all social groups. Expansion has occurred along several axes: ‘vertically’, one can speak of the development of under-5 and post-16 education; further steps towards the massification of higher education; the demands of lifelong learning. ‘Horizontally’, the formal curricular work of the school is increasingly accompanied by pre-school and after-school provision. As the summer rituals surrounding examination results show, the majority of the school population has been drawn into processes of certification and has a strong emotional investment in them. As we shall see, whether one looks at the span of a day or the course of a lifetime, education occupies an ever-larger and personally important part of it, so that Bernstein’s diagnosis of a ‘pedagogisation’ of society (2001) looks more and more accurate. Yet this rich landscape of education is highly differentiated: access, attainment, quality, resources and occupational destination are all strongly conditioned by gender, ethnicity and social class. Understandings of ‘knowledge’, ‘identity’ and ‘culture’ have therefore to grasp both general patterns of experience in a pedagogised world, and specific, differentiated situations.

A disarticulated system

Ball (2008) describes the current school system as ‘disarticulated’, based increasingly on diversity of provision. Diversity has allowed opportunities for the exercise of parental choice, with ’skilled chooser’ parents, mainly middle-class, able to secure advantage for their children (Gewirtz et al, 1995). This is a competitive system, in which those who can afford it have developed the habit of buying resources to support their children, over and above what is offered by the school. Buckingham and Scanlon (2003) describe parents’ investment in home-based ICT; Ball (2007, 2008) shows the ways in which parents make use of the growing market in private provision (home tutoring, for instance) in an attempt to ensure success. Competition, also, is not just a matter of securing access to ‘good’ primary and secondary schools. It extends upwards to university level, with a growing status distinction between groups of universities, and with assessment systems that increasingly register the small differences in exam performance that make a difference to university admission. Here, too, individuals need to develop the skills of choice and calculation, so that, according to some researchers (Brown 2003), education is more than ever seen as a ‘positional’ rather than an ‘absolute’ good.

Are there any reasons to think that these strong tendencies, which have been in motion for nearly two decades, will lessen in their effects over the next 15 years? To answer the question, several possibilities need to be taken into account. One is that government investment in early years education and in targeted programmes of student support will lessen some of the effects of social disadvantage, and weaken the effects of middle-class advantage. Another is that the habits of ’skilled choosing’ will be learned by working-class parents and students. A third is that the cultures of schools – because they need to motivate rather than disengage students – will make a turn away from ‘performativity’ towards an agenda that emphasises other needs. We have already seen how this might occur under the banner of ‘creativity’. It is conceivable that ‘personalisation’ might also support such a change. Leadbeater (2008) thinks that a personalised agenda based on mentoring, family support, individualised timetables and a meaningful curriculum would transform the school experience of large numbers of working-class students, and claims to see the beginnings of such an agenda already, in some schools, taking shape. A pre-condition of success, he argues, is that schools should be capable of acts of ‘cultural recognition’, which understand and positively evaluate the meaning-making capacities of students, and of the communities they come from. Extending Leadbeater’s argument, one might envisage schools recognising, too, their students’ investment in popular culture.

Against these possibilities might be placed the stratifying influence of labour markets, an influence whose pressure on the school it is hard to see diminishing. Also relevant is the capacity of more privileged groups, demonstrated frequently in educational history, to keep ahead of the game (Crouch, 1998), or to turn to their advantage policies which were drawn up with equal opportunity in mind. From this point of view, it is possible to see how, when making an informed choice of secondary school has become a capability within the reach of all parents, the skills of choice are replayed at a higher and more complex level, in relation to A level pathways and to higher education. Likewise, ‘personalisation’ might become an effective means of providing for the privileged, as much as it served the needs of less privileged groups; while the content acquired by the ‘creativity’ agenda could quite feasibly vary according to class and status. Finally, as the Ajegbo Report on cultural diversity (2007, p34) pointed out, the capacities of schools to respond to the cultures of non-privileged students have often been limited: it is one thing to set out a policy of personalisation, another thing to construct a school that can deliver it. While one line of policy may offer support to the development of students’ voice, another may endorse practices of exclusion from school, or strong forms of surveillance and discipline, that tend to discourage it (Monk, 2005). It may be, too, that although schools have acquired many new capacities, especially in the area of ‘effectiveness’, there have also been significant losses along the way. Between 1970, say, and 1990, attentiveness to the languages, dialects and cultures of school-students was well-developed in some curriculum areas (Burgess and Martin, 1990) and was linked to an often-productive questioning of the relationship between the formal knowledge of the school and the everyday experience of its students. Arguably, since 1988, this interest has been pushed to the margins of a teacher consciousness shaped by the requirements of national curricula and literacy frameworks.

Identity issues

Schools are places where attempts occur to realise the designs of policy – to produce responsible citizens, capable workers and so on. But if we limit ourselves to such topics, we do not fully capture the ‘identity work’ that occurs in schools – work which involves the responses of the school population as much as it does the intentions of policy-makers. Ethnographic research in schools has, since the 1960s, uncovered various and localised patterns of sub-culture that are often resistant to the official culture of the school, and that are important sites for the formation of student identity. Willis (1990) showed the extent to which such identity formation made use of commercial culture – clothes, music, pub culture – partly because of its lack of connection to formal education. Phoenix (2005) presented evidence to suggest that this identity work was significantly differentiated by class. Others, more recently, have researched the affordances for identity formation that electronic media provide (Pahl and Rowsell, 2005). One important and consistent finding of research is that the identities that some groups of students make for themselves are both resources from which they can achieve a sense of self-worth and group solidarity, and, at the same time, a route to educational exclusion. This was the conclusion of Paul Willis’s classic work ‘Learning to Labour’ (1977), and it has been reiterated by other researchers since. Most recently, Louise Archer and her colleagues (2003, 2007) have shown the processes through which students construct identities that equip them well for aspects of urban life, while disqualifying themselves from prospects of educational success. The problems that arise from such choices are all the more difficult because the identities which students construct are plainly seen by them as a valuable resource, rather than the result of a mistaken choice. It is reasonable to predict, that if inequality continues to be a feature of the social life of young people, then so, also, for some groups, will be what Willis calls the ‘desperate work’ of (counter-cultural) identity formation.

Elsewhere, in a disarticulated school system, other kinds of identity will be constructed, whose cultural markers will be different. Still salient here are the distinctions between high and low culture which framed discourses about culture and education in the post-war period (Jones, 2009, forthcoming). A complete polarisation of these terms is unfeasible, since the vast growth of the culture industries has blurred the distinction between the two spheres, and high culture itself, now more thoroughly exposed to commodification, has incorporated popular forms. (Anderson, 1998); even the most culturally privileged of students will have a knowledge of popular media culture. Nevertheless, markers of cultural difference, arranged along an axis of ‘high’ and ‘low’, facilitate the processes of ‘distinction’ that is vital to class and group identities (Bourdieu, 1986) and high culture continues to supply elite groups with cultural capital.

Conjecturing the Future

What can these sketches of the present tell us about the future? One set of possibilities insistently presents itself: 2010-2025 will not see a profound rearrangement of the education system. The main reason for thinking this is that the social and political energies that are needed to bring about transformative change are lacking. A decade before 1944, it was obvious that there existed a powerful demand for ’secondary education for all’. Likewise, in the decade leading up to 1988, the existence of a Conservative project, capable of addressing the social and economic tensions of the 1970s, was plain to see. Nothing comparable exists now, and for this reason it is plausible to construct a future based on the projection of current tendencies, rather than the emergence of a radically new scenario. And what applies to education applies, a fortiori, to the wider tendencies that shape knowledge identities, cultures and communities.

On such a basis, one might construct a scenario like the following:

Conflict beyond British borders catches Britain in its flames. A narrow and embattled national identity is reinforced. Race and religion become conduits through which global tensions flow. Environmental issues likewise become a battleground: climate change,

global shortages of food and natural resources, provoke a competition for survival.

Economic and social polarisation continues. For large sections of the population, precarity – intermittent and partial access to the labour market – becomes a way of life. In the absence of social housing, the dependency of younger on older generations grows. Education remains a field in which processes of differentiation are intense, and where the pressure to perform is the basic principle that regulates institutional life.

The problems of youth are at the heart of the country’s social conflicts. The promise that educational achievement will enable security and fulfilment is seen as a rotten one. One response – following the model of France in 2005/6 and Italy in 2008 – is spectacular outbreaks of protest. Another is the everyday ‘refusal’ of the school by large sections of its population.

There develops also a culture of refusal and defiant marginality. In an effort to re-engage their students, schools attempt to relate to it – under a variety of banners, from ‘creativity’ to ‘thinking skills’ to ‘emotional intelligence’. But the pressures of performativity, the difficulties faced by teachers trained to work with a fixed and orthodox curriculum, the intensity of students’ refusal and the overwhelming effects on the school of social breakdown, make this attempt, in many urban schools, a failure. Aspirations to ‘cohesion’ are still voiced by policy-makers, but increasingly ring hollow. Private sector education, meanwhile, continues to guarantee future security, and in those schools (academies, trust schools, well-located church schools) that form large enclaves of relative privilege within the public sector, another kind of education is evolving. Though performance-focused, it sees the necessity of creativity in a knowledge economy, as well as the advantages it can confer. It is here teaching and learning mutate away from the mould in which they were fixed by the national curriculum and by testing. Authentic reform occurs, but is, as always, limited by social situations.

Yet, were other sorts of social energy to be released, culture and education might be configured in very different ways.

Accepting their relative decline, governments of the West withdraw from conflicts whose blowback has heightened domestic tensions. Responding to public clamour, governments co-operate to mitigate the effects of climate change and to apportion the planet’s resources equitably. Strong environmental movements monitor what they do, and make the fate of the earth the central issue in political and social life.

Economic production is reshaped on environmentalist principles. Public investment and redistributive taxation diminish inequalities, and in this new context, the employment and housing prospects of young people improve. As the occupational structure comes to resemble less an hour-glass than a broad-based, low-angled pyramid, so students become more attached to an educational system whose promises they can see as reliable.

The lessening of economic insecurity lifts pressure from the school. Education is less likely to be seen as a positional good, possession of which is only valuable if it confers advantage. Equity becomes a stronger working principle in education, while differentiation diminishes. A new assertiveness among teachers means that they play a greater role in innovation, and can respond without anxiety to cultural change and the tensions that accompany it. Students find that their symbolic creativity is recognised and valued, and that the school has become a place where they can experiment, refine and develop the creativity of home and community.

Argument, debate and protest become ordinary features of the life of schools and communities, which engage continually with the ‘real life’ issues. They contribute to the common stock of intellectual resources that is needed to devise responses to social and environmental problems that exist on a planetary scale. They provide a context and a resource for cultural production.

Neither of these scenarios will come to pass, but they at least measure out the spectrum of possibilities that is open to education and culture. One end of that spectrum, darker in its colours, is closer to realisation than the other. But,as ever, what will happen is not written in the stars, nor even in the best efforts of policy-makers. Identities, knowledges, cultures – even schools – are less ductible than policy sometimes imagines, and there are surprises in store for us, beyond current horizons.

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This document has been commissioned as part of the UK Department for Children, Schools and Families’ Beyond Current Horizons project, led by Futurelab. The views expressed do not represent the policy of any Government or organisation.

In the last few decades, the population of Britain has experienced a steady increase which can be attributed primarily to net migration and the declining number of deaths rather than a rising number of births (Office for National Statistics, 2008). With the UK facing a future of the ageing structure shifting to the right, questions naturally rise about the organization of society, the provision of social services and the adjustment of the labour force. Amongst those, the possible role of ethnicity in mitigating the negative effects of the demographic change occupies a primary focus.

Several indications exist how ethnic minority groups may have a beneficial effect upon Britain’s ageing population. First, minorities frequently have a larger number of dependent children in the household than the UK-born White (Office for National Statistics, 2008). Moreover, there is no evidence to suggest that the delaying of family formation and childbirth characteristic of White British households would affect Asian migrant or Asian British households in the same magnitude (Modood et al, 1997). In this way, it could be expected that the importance of ethnic households for the correction of the downward trends in the number of births would become more pronounced in the future.

Next, the overall ageing of the British population would continue to create job vacancies in all sectors and especially in low-skilled manual work. Unlike skilled work in which the impact of the demographic change can be softened by adult and life-long training schemes and longevity of the employees, unskilled and low-skilled work, with its dependence upon physical conditions, is bound to receive a hard blow. It could be argued that low-skilled jobs would become more and more mechanized, or disappear in certain industries, yet recent research shows that complete substitution of manual labour is hard to envisage in the next 40 years (Handel, 2003). Furthermore, in sectors such as health and social services shortages of skilled labour are felt even now and these vacancies are primarily filled by immigrants. For example, according to the Learning and Skills Council, 679,000 vacancies in health and social work, business services, hotels, catering, and construction were available in 2003 (Selective Admission: Making Migration Work, 2004).

These prospects bring to the forefront the issues of the integration and the successful incorporation of ethnic minority groups – both first and second generation ones. This paper will examine the progress achieved in this direction, as well as commenting on undergoing and possible future changes in the organization of ethnic groups in Britain. This paper will also strive to convey the need for long-term programmes to resolve the gaps between ethnic minorities and UK-born Whites.

The first half of the paper will present the laws governing the processes of immigration and naturalization and will dwell on some characteristic patterns in family structure and labour market performance of the ethnic minority groups in Britain. It will show that segregation continues to operate and that despite the existence of extensive anti-discrimination legislation the labour market performance of the majority and minority groups is still quite divergent even for second generation minority members educated in Britain.

The second half of this paper (sections Social Resources and Host Country Institutions, and the Europeanisation of the Migration Waves) will introduce new evidence of the differentiating availability of social resources on the part of ethnic minority groups and their impact upon their labour market trajectories. The role of host country institutions in facilitating minority members and securing their incorporation will also be discussed and possible future developments will be outlined. In addition, some new research on the latest migration flows – the increasing share of White migrants in the post-1990s migration waves – and the change in societal perceptions and attitudes will be discussed. Finally, some predictions for the future of British minority groups and their labour market inclusion will be offered. Thus, the present paper will give some insight into the ongoing changes within Britain’s ethnic groups and the challenges that might be faced by them in a future of rapid demographic transitions.

Ethnicity in Britain

According to the 2001 Census, the majority of the UK population were White (92%). The remaining 4.6 million people belonged to different ethnic groups. Amongst those, Indians were the largest community followed by Pakistanis, people of Mixed Ethnicity, Black Caribbeans, Black Africans and Bangladeshis. Around half of the non-White population were Asians of Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin (Office for National Statistics, 2008).

Table 1: Population of the United Kingdom: by ethnic group, April 2001

Source: Office for National Statistics, 2008

The ethnic composition of Britain thus reflects the strong links between Britain and its former colonies and areas of influence and interest, nowadays known as the British Commonwealth – New Commonwealth and Old Commonwealth countries³ inclusive.

Immigration and naturalisation laws

One of the main reasons for the population growth in Britain as already stated is net migration. In mid-2007, the population of the United Kingdom was estimated to be 60,975,000 (Office for National Statistics, 2008). In comparison with 2006, an increase of 388,000 was witnessed which equalled approximately 1,000 people a day. Net migration rather than natural change is responsible for this boom in population growth. For example, in 2002 net migration accounted for more than 70% of the total population change (Office for National Statistics, 2008). Therefore, it is of great importance to understand the operation of the immigration system and its supply and demand sides.

Graph 1: Comparison between the shares of Natural Change and Net Migration in the UK Population Change

Source: Office for National Statistics, 2008.

The main routes of migration to Britain are labour migration, family reunion and asylum. Control over the flow of labour migrants to the UK has been primarily exercised through the Work Permit System. Work permits were first introduced in 1919 to restrict the entry of Non-Commonwealth migrants, but with the enactment of the 1971 Immigration Act they became obligatory for all foreign workers from outside the European Economic Community. The latter act was aimed at curbing the increasing number of Black and Asian Commonwealth migrants. The system has undergone continuous change in the Acts⁴ following the 1971 Immigration Act to meet the shortages of labour in certain sectors such as hospitality and food processing, and has become increasingly orientated towards the facilitation of the entry of highly-skilled migrants.

The current Managed Migration policies of the British Government are best reflected in the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act, 2002. For example, apart from the main work permit scheme for skilled migrants, the Highly Skilled Migrants Programme (HSMP) was introduced in 2002 which allows workers to move to the UK without having prior job offers. Low-skilled and semi-skilled workers have been managed by the Seasonal Agricultural Worker Scheme (SAWS); the au-pair scheme, officially a cultural exchange scheme rather than a labour immigration programme; the domestic worker scheme for domestic workers who travel to the UK with their employers, and the Sector Based Scheme⁵ (SBS) which allows UK employers to recruit a limited number of workers to fill vacancies in particular sectors (Ruhs, 2006). All work permit holders are invited to apply for an indefinite period of settlement in the UK after five years. Self-employed entrepreneurs have not been under the obligation to apply for a work permit.

Control has certainly tightened over family migration as well. The 1971 Immigration Act put severe restrictions upon family reunification and chain migration. Different regulations⁶ have also been implemented to lower the number of other dependents, and to limit family migration only to spouses and children (Berkeley et al, 2005).

In contrast, the number of asylum seekers in the UK started growing in the 1990s. The trend holds for the rest of Northern Europe with a high number of asylum seekers settling in Germany and the Netherlands as well. A further increase was witnessed between 1999 and 2002, and in 2002 the number of asylum seekers in Britain peaked to 84,100 (Home Office Research and Statistics Department, 2007). Subsequently, there has been a decrease in the number of asylum seekers due to the stricter regulations of the 2002 Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act. Unlike labour migrants, asylum seekers benefit from facilitated access to state-provided support and accommodation, and there are no restrictions on their period of stay (Gardner, 2006).

On the whole, British governments have moved over the years towards the imposition of more severe restrictions upon all channels of migration. A period of ‘leniency’ has always been followed by a period of tightening of the rules: consider the great number of refugee applications in 2000-2001 and consequential introduction of new restrictions upon refugee entry in 2002. At the same time, no real drop in the number of incoming migrants has been witnessed (Heath and Cheung, 2007), as vacancies within the economy clearly exist and hence the demand remains for migrant labour. That the idea of the integration of migrants is becoming more and more part of the political discourse is evident in the change of legislation to facilitate highly-skilled migrants or migrants who have received British education and have higher awareness of British culture (and in this way will constitute an easily assimilated pool of labour 20 years from now). In contrast, restrictions have been imposed upon low-skilled labour migrants with the introduction of sector-based quotas and the seasonal workers scheme although these vacancies continue to constitute the primary pull of migrants to the UK (Ruhs, 2006).

Many of the latter vacancies are advertised as only permanent openings. The question of how many of the migrants move to another job after the expiration of their contract or reside illegally in the UK, however, remains unanswered. This is an issue of great speculation. After the enlargement of the EU in 2004 and the underestimation of the migration flows from the new EU10 countries, the British media has become more and more focused on migration and problems associated with housing shortages, labour market competition and crime, although the link between the latter and international migration has been only spurious (The Guardian, 2008). Thus, fluctuations in public opinion are likely to arise in the future as well and will depend very much on the group size, level of visibility and integration of the migrants, especially during times of harsh economic conditions. We could assume that in the next 40 to 60 years the understanding of other cultures and increased opportunities for mobility will facilitate the integration of migrants. Yet, the visibility of ethnic groups will not necessarily disappear and if shortages of labour continue to dominate in unskilled and low-skilled jobs, the migrants filling them will not necessarily be drawn from the upper tail of the skill distribution in their countries of origin. This issue will be discussed in greater length in the second section of this paper.

Naturalization

With the 1981 Naturalization Act in operation, children of immigrants born in Britain are no longer automatically British citizens unless their parents are British citizens. Immigrants who have resided in the UK for more than six years can apply for naturalization (only three years should be spent in the UK before application if the applicant’s spouse is a UK citizen).

Ethnic minority households

The Census showed that three quarters (74% per cent) of Bangldeshi households followed by 66% of Pakistani and 50% of Indian households contained at least one dependent child. In comparison, the proportion for British-born White households was 28% (Office for National Statistics, 2008).

Overall, Asian households registered the highest proportion of married couples under pension age as well as the largest proportion of more than one family with dependent children living together. Only 2% of all household in Britain could be classified in that category, whereas the percentage amongst Bangladeshis was 17%.

The level of segregation amongst the ethnic minority communities in Britain is certainly highest amongst South Asians (Modood et al, 1997) and it has been associated with the existence of cultural, linguistic, religious and aspirational differences from the mainstream institutions on the part of South Asians (Simpson, 2004). Self-segregation, however, seems a myth as Census data showed that the growing number of South Asians in certain areas can be attributed to natural growth and not to movement of South Asian residents towards areas of South Asian concentration (Simpson, 2004). Nevertheless, the issue of segregation will always present a problem since, among other reasons, the increasing concentration of minority members in certain areas can put severe constraints upon housing and the provision of social services; and thus further tilt the equality in services, resources and employment between the majority and the minorities.

Labour market performance

An important aspect and evidence for the successful integration of ethnic minority groups is parity in terms of wage and work opportunities between the minorities and the native majority. The demographic changes in the British population and the need for younger workers are likely to further push towards the closing of the existing gaps. Whether that happens easily, however, is a totally different question. In this section, the progress made in the last few decades within the enactment of stringent anti-discrimination laws will be overviewed and some areas of major concern will be highlighted.

It is generally believed that in comparison with the 1960s the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s were characterized by convergence of the economic profiles of the ethnic minority groups and the White British workforce (Ignaski and Payne, 1996). The immigrants’ labour market performance seemed to improve perhaps with the acquisition of human capital (Fielding, 1995); the arrival of better qualified migrants drawn from the upper tail distribution of the human capital in their home countries (Bell, 1997); the introduction of a series of anti-discrimination laws, and/or simply the nature of the labour market which registered economic expansion (Bell, 1997). Some researchers question, however, these optimistic findings (Modood et al, 1997), arguing that they were based on aggregate data that did not distinguish between first and second generation minority members and consecutively overstated the declining trend in ethnic minority disadvantage. This is to say that ethnic minorities in the 1980s and early 1990s compared to the 1960s might have been taking better jobs, but they were still doing so to a lesser extent than White people with the same qualifications (Modood et al, 1997).

Even if there was a positive trend in the economic profile of minority groups in Britain in the 1980s, it has certainly reversed by the mid-1990s. The findings of the Fourth National Survey of Ethnic Minorities carried out in 1994 showed that Caribbeans, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis suffered substantial employment and earnings disadvantages with almost two-thirds of male respondents from these groups concentrated into manual jobs. In comparison half of the Indians, and two thirds of Chinese men were in non-manual work (Modood et al, 1997). The good representation of Chinese and South Asians, particularly Indians, in professional, managerial and employers position at the time (the 1990s) has been largely attributed to the high rate of self-employment amongst these groups (Clark and Drinkwater, 1998).

Whether integration works very much depends on the performance of second generation minority members in the labour market. The offspring raised in the host country are assumed to be doing better than their parents and to have reached parity with Whites (Chiswick, 1978). Various studies distinguish between the two generations and explore this assumption with British survey data. Simpson et al (2006), comparing the 1991 and 2001 Censuses, found that the net disadvantage of ethnic minorities in the labour market has become greater for men born in the UK. For example, unemployment amongst unqualified men in their thirties was 16% for Pakistanis born overseas, a little more than the unemployment for unqualified White males, but for Pakistanis born in the United Kingdom, it was 25%. Heath and Cheung (2006) using a cumulated sample of the General Household Survey 1979-1999 and 1992-1997 LFS datasets also reached the conclusion that in terms of avoiding unemployment, the ethnic disadvantage was stronger in the second generation rather than the first one. In their study, the disadvantage was highest for Black Caribbeans and Pakistanis. On the other hand, in terms of accessing professional and managerial positions, the ethnic disadvantage was sharply reduced in the second generation and in the case of Black Caribbeans and Indians it became insignificant (Leslie et al, 1998; Heath and Cheung, 2006).

Unfortunately due to data limitations, few studies simultaneously offer control for educational attainment and knowledge of English. An exception is an article by Dustmann and Fabbri (2000)⁷ who found that English fluency reduced the likelihood of unemployment and the earnings differentials between ethnic minorities and Whites. It is nevertheless hard to believe that lack of language proficiency can solely explain the aforementioned patterns of disadvantage as Caribbean migrants arrive with a good knowledge of English (Heath and Yu, 2005), and second generation respondents have been educated in the British system. In the study by Berthoud (2000), the members of the African minority group stayed longer in education than the respective UK-born White and Black Caribbean groups; however, their unemployment and earnings prospects were similar to those of Black Caribbeans.

One of the explanations most commonly associated with the existence of the divide described above is discrimination.

Several steps have been undertaken since the 1950s to establish equal treatment of all ethnic groups in the British labour market. First, the 1965 Race Relations Act banned ethnic discrimination at public places and was followed by the 1968 Race Relations Act which ensured that it was unlawful to discriminate on grounds of colour, race, ethnic or national origins in recruitment and terms and conditions of employment (Layton-Henry, 1984). This definition of discrimination was extended in the 1976 Race Relations Act to cover forms of implicit discrimination in which there is absence of deliberate intention to discriminate but employers’ practices still put certain ethnic groups at disadvantage (Heath and Yu, 2005). More recently, the Race Relations Act 2000 was instituted to maintain the provisions of the previous act and to encourage public authorities to fight discrimination. Nevertheless, as will be highlighted, field experiments and attitudinal studies indicate that both indirect and direct discrimination continues to shape the labour market outcomes of minority members in Britain.

The Home Office Citizenship Survey, for example, has registered a steady increase in the perception of prejudice and discrimination in the British society from 2003 to 2005 (Home Office Citizenship Survey, 2003, 2005). Arguably, however, the White British population does not exhibit higher levels of prejudice towards a particular Commonwealth group. Waters (1999), comparing the US and the UK, claimed that to be ‘black‘ in Britain entails that the person is simply ‘non-white’ and there is no ethnic hierarchy as observed in the US. However, the evidence in favour of the reduction of the racial distinctions to ‘whites’ versus ‘non-whites’ in the British case is not exemplary strong. The field experiments conducted in the UK on which we can rely for some insight into the operation of discrimination in the hiring process are outdated and have some serious flaws. The majority of them do not distinguish between the different ethnic minority communities, often grouping West Indian and Asian testers under the term of ‘black applicants’ or ‘coloured’ applicants (Firth, 1981). Consider the generality of the evidence provided by the 1966 Political and Economic Planning (PEP) study which found that when comparing ‘coloured’ applicants (presumably Black Caribbeans, Indians or Pakistanis) and White migrant applicants, the latter experienced much less disadvantage (Daniel, 1968). Jowell and Prescott-Clarke (1970) obtained similar results for white-collar jobs. More recently, Hoque and Noon (1999) claimed that there is little discrimination against Asians in big companies but most of their fake applicants had Hindu-sounding names implying that they belonged to the Indian minority group which renders the extension of Hoque and Noon’s results to the Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities impossible. It is true that those studies distinguishing between Black Caribbeans and Asians usually have registered the same level of prejudice against both groups (Brown and Gay, 1994) or a slightly higher level of prejudice against Black Caribbeans (McIntosh and Smith, 1974). Yet, better up-to-date data⁸ is needed with detailed ethnic groupings, as so far the conclusion that British-born Whites do not discriminate against a specific migrant group relies on a data that does not make a very clear initial distinction between the minority groups in Britain.

Attitudinal studies and self-reported feelings of discrimination perhaps do not provide as good systematic evidence of discrimination in the employment process as field experiments but they can attest to existent prejudices. In the Fourth National Survey of Ethnic Minorities, Bangladeshis and Asians reported lower feelings of discrimination, while members of the Black group especially Black Caribbeans had higher levels of self-reported discrimination: over a quarter of the Caribbeans believed that they had been refused a job on racial grounds (Modood et al, 1997). Since there is a direct negative correlation between feelings of discrimination and trust in institutions (Home Office Citizenship Survey, 2005) and for Black Caribbeans the levels of the latter are usually low (Berthoud, 2000), it is still unclear whether these statistics reflect the true levels of discrimination in the host country or simply perceptions and beliefs of it.

Clearly, over the last few decades, despite the development of extensive anti-discrimination legislation, the ethnic minority groups have been exposed to labour market penalties, and parity with native Whites has not been achieved. Moreover, there are some serious gaps in our knowledge of discrimination in the British labour market that must be filled before any specific strategies for the labour market integration of minority groups are adopted. Indeed, a close monitoring of the level of discrimination will be in order if a more homogenous and equal labour market is to be uncovered in the next 20 years.

The next section of this paper will dwell in detail on new research which tries to throw light on ethnic penalties¹⁰ and possible future developments that may present yet another range of challenges to the ethnic organization of the British society.

Social resources and host country institutions

The second half of this paper focuses on some new research pointing out to the challenges in resolving the gap between UK-born Whites and minority members, and the steps that can be undertaken to ensure the achievment of parity. Researchers believe that overt discrimination¹⁰ may not be the only reason for the penalized position of minority groups in Britain. Ethnic minority members might simply lack the resources and the social networks to gain profitable information about vacancies and obtain those (Peterson et al, 2000). Therefore, before examining the issue of whether an employer hires an individual of ethnic minority origin and on what terms, attention should be paid to the question of whether the ethnic minority member has even heard about the job due to his/her limited social resources.

In my doctoral research which uses the job search behaviour of ethnic minority members in Britain as a proxy for the social resources¹¹ available to them, I find that there is a distinct divide between the members of the Black group and South Asians in the use of social ties which is more pronounced in the first generation than in the second. South Asians rely more on social ties, all things considered. Nevertheless, the indication that when social ties have been used in the second generation, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis are more unlikely to exit unemployment than British-born Whites and members of the Black group; and that South Asian minorities are less successful in reaching the highest occupational positions through social ties compared to British-born Whites suggests that the ties of groups with assumed high levels of bonding capital¹³ are weak and not strong enough to facilitate the gaining of employment.

On the other hand, state employment agencies are a technique very popular among ethnic minorities – even amongst those with a characteristically low possession of English (such as Pakistanis and Bangladeshis). State employment agencies indeed are institutions designed to cater primarily for the needs of the unemployed, and to offer help and advice; however, they are also likely to provide low-skilled to medium level jobs. The fact that many of the minority groups with control for education continue to rely on them and exit unemployment successfully may indicate that minorities value the reliability of state employment agencies, the quickness with which jobs are offered (including jobs in the public sector), and the strict operation of the government’s non-discrimination laws compared to the general labour market climate; and favour these factors over high remuneration.

In fact, it is in this heightened use of state employment agencies with control for benefit claiming that the government policies of the incorporation of ethnic minority members register a clear success. State employment agencies seem to have a particular understanding of the different needs of ethnic groups. To maintain a contact with Pakistani and Bangladeshi job seekers, for example, Career Offices offered the flexibility of written applications to them (Johnson and Fidler, 2005). Minority members registered with state employment agencies enjoy the beneficial effect of a number of minority orientated government policies (Tackey et al, 2006) – eg finding the applicants jobs within the local area, raising awareness about available facilities in the neighbourhood (crèches and day care), and encouraging desegregation by assisting minority members in their application for jobs in other geographical areas. The latter strategy is certainly less successful with impersonal intermediaries such as newspaper advertisements which are rarely consulted by minority members even in the second generation, as my research shows.

Undoubtedly, the policies channelled by state employment agencies are indicative of the government’s commitment to the integration of minority groups and the acknowledgement of the importance of providing information and resources to minorities. Yet, there are many ways for improvement in the future. State employment agencies usually offer primarily semi-skilled and unskilled jobs, and a few professional positions in the public sector (Tackey et al, 2006). As the current legislation stands, employers have to advertise their vacancies without discriminating on the basis of gender, age or ethnicity, but the medium of magazines and newspaper advertisements, as my research suggests, is not enough to reach the potential ethnic minority applicants successfully. In fact, minorities frequently prefer to have a mediator (Tackey et al, 2006) in their contact with employers, perhaps due to fears of discrimination (which holds in the second generation as well) or simply lack of knowledge about the operation of the host labour market (Friedberg, 2000). Even with the globalization of the world’s labour markets, it is unlikely that the need for consulting agencies and seeking assistance will totally disappear.

Both state and private employment agencies can take up this role. So far, however, private employment agencies – a possible alternative source of information and help for highly-skilled individuals – have not entirely acted as the agent through which professional placements can be secured. Private employment agencies are indeed crucial in the recruitment of migrant work but they are also frequently involved with the placement of the migrants in low-skilled sector-based vacancies such as Social services or Transport and Communications (Ruhs, 2006). In some cases, private employment agencies have been involved in complex schemes of perpetuating irregular migration by offering migrants jobs as sub-contractors for food and packaging companies (The Guardian, 2005). More objective research on these issues is, of course, needed; yet, state employment agencies seem the only host country institutions that strictly operate by the government policies and laws.

Europeanisation of the migrant waves

British immigration policy in the last 20 years has been orientated towards the ‘Europeanisation’ of labour recruitment, and of creating a more coherent labour market in which migrants blend more easily, although the dependence upon Commonwealth labour has continued particularly in health and education (Sales, 2007). The attempts at ‘Europeanisation’ peaked with the decision to grant free labour access to the new accession countries in 2004. In the context of the ageing British population, this strategy seems to ensure the presence of European migrants that are likely to adapt more easily to the British culture and labour market. However, public opinion has not been very relaxed towards these new migrants and many fluctuations within the government policy have also been witnessed.

White migrants have always been considered non-’visible’. Since up to the 1990s they were primarily skilled migrants from EU-15 and Old Commonwealth countries or Irish, they were often also described as less ‘problematic’ (Sales, 2007). This rhetoric, and the fact that even in the 1990s Commonwealth migrants still dominated the migration waves, masked the important changes under way in British society. For example, the share of Old and New Commonwealth migrants diminished greatly from 30% and 32% of the migrants in 1971 to 17% and 20% of the migrants in 2002 (Berkeley et al, 2005). On the other hand, the proportion of Eastern European and Middle Eastern migrants has steadily increased. The latter trend went unnoticed by the general public for quite awhile as in 2001 the number of Eastern Europeans living in Britain was relatively low – fewer than 100,000 or roughly 3% of the population (Office for National Statistics, 2008). Consecutively, in the 2001 British Attitudes Survey, Commonwealth migrants were still recognized as the most visible group of migrants and the reported levels of indirect discrimination were higher against New Commonwealth migrants than against migrants from other European countries (Rothon and Heath, 2003).

Attitudes of the British White majority certainly started to change with the enlargement of the European Union. After 2004, Britain experienced an unprecedented boom of European migrants. Only between May 2004 and March 2005, there were 176,000 applications to the New Worker registrations scheme; 56% of them were by Polish workers and 15% by Lithuanians (Accession Monitoring Report, 2004-2006). Moreover, prior to the enlargement, Central and Eastern Europeans in Britain were regarded primarily as temporary workers whose number was too small to be discussed in the debate over the incorporation of the permanently settling foreign-born. The change in figures and the dramatic increase in group size questioned the lack of ‘visibility’ of European White migrants. The concern about underestimating the number of foreigners has led even The Office for National Statistics to set up an Inter-Departmental Task Force on Migration Statistics. In this way, the enlargement of the EU drew attention to the fact that from the 1990s onwards the number of Other Whites in the UK has been constantly rising; however, their labour market performance has also become increasingly divergent (Berkeley et al, 2005; Haque, 2002; Ruhs, 2006) which questions the Europeanisation as a strategy aimed at the consolidation of the British labour market in the years to come.

The ‘Europeanisation’ of the migration waves did not quite meet the expectations in respect to age structures as well. The age profile of the coming Eastern and Central European migrants is one of a large pensioner dependency rate (Haque, 2002); which can be deemed as a sign of increased chances of return migration but is not particularly likely to assist in the correction of Britain’s ageing population.

Graph 2: Old Age Dependency Rate

Source: Haque, 2002

In terms of labour market performance, my research (Demireva, forthcoming) based on combined 1998-2005 LFS datasets shows that Central and Eastern Europeans are concentrated in skilled manual and low-skilled work. Both groups, however, experience high levels of penalization in terms of their participation rates. In terms of access to Professional positions, the disadvantage of Eastern Europeans disappears after control for education; but EU10 migrants remain continuously penalized. Perhaps, this could be explained with the fall of work permits for EU10 migrants. Under the operation of the Work Permit Scheme, a small proportion of highly qualified migrants are recruited for professional jobs and the rest are recruited for low-paid sector-based or seasonal work. Thus, a pre-selection of the quality level of migrants exists, which translates into a lower disadvantage as to salariat jobs of the work permit holders but over-representation of skilled workers into unqualified positions with little opportunity for social mobility as there are no Intermediate vacancies.

How can the disadvantage of permit-exempted migrants be stronger? According to data from the Accession Monitoring Report of the Home Office for 2004-2006, most EU10 migrants are employed in relatively low-skilled seasonal jobs with great turnover (Accession Monitoring Report, 2004-2006). If indeed EU10 migrants perceive their stay as temporary they might be reluctant to invest in host country specific capital and prefer short-term work with quick returns using the labour market in their home countries as ‘a primary frame of reference’ (Piore, 1979). More research is, of course, needed on this topic and a comparison of the performance of Central and Eastern European migrants before and after accession to the EU can be very interesting and important for the understanding of the work permit policies and their influence in the labour market.

In addition, special attention should be paid to self-employment. Both men and women from EU10 countries, Eastern Europe, Old Commonwealth and Old migrants have greater odds than UK-born Whites to be self-employed rather than have an unqualified job with control for individual characteristics (Demireva, forthcoming). Interestingly, New Commonwealth men and migrants from Hong Kong, China and Japan, who are traditionally associated with self-employment amongst the older migrant cohorts, have lower odds of being independent entrepreneurs than UK-born Whites¹³. Perhaps, this is a result of a saturation effect for Commonwealth and Chinese entrepreneurs in the Distributive sector while new opportunities for self-employment open in Construction predominated by EU10 and Eastern European migrants (Ruhs, 2006). What is more, the disadvantage against New Commonwealth and Chinese migrants (who have arrived after 1990) in the mainstream labour market is lower than the penalization of Central and Eastern European migrants as evident from their participation and employment patterns, and self-employment has always been associated with the more disadvantaged groups (Clark and Drinkwater, 1998). Finally, recent studies have implied that self-employment has been used by Central and Eastern Europeans as a way of circumventing the complicated procedure of applying for a work permit as the rates of self-employment are very high for both men and women in these groups, and many self-employers in Construction are in their turn sub-contracting (Ruhs, 2006).

Although these thriving forms of dependent self-employment have brought increased flexibility to the labour market and benefits for the British economy, the uncertainty in pay, working hours and conditions associated with them make their practice and perpetuation questionable (Boheim and Muehlberger, 2006). The issue should be studied in greater detail as dependent self-employment shows all signs of becoming the future migrant labour market niche, especially if migrant turnover increases.

The next 20 years

On the basis of the heretofore outlined patterns in migration and the incorporation of minority members into the British labour market and society in general, it is likely that over the next 20 years, three major trends will be observed.

First, minority groups will have strengthened their participation in decision-making processes due to a growing representation in authority structures. The ever-expanding size of first and second generation minority communities and their importance for the British economy is, of course, not only a matter of debate in the Home Office, but also within the minority groups; with both the realization of their role in civic society and sensitivity towards social and economic inequality on the rise (Edwards, 1995). This certainly reflects upon the improvement of the minorities’ position in government and local authorities and the described momentum will become a major driving force for changes in the future. For example, according to the annual Race Equality Report for 2008, the Home Office made good progress on the representation of ethnic minority staff, with particularly strong results for the representation of ethnic staff in London and Croydon as a whole (24%), the United Kingdom Border Agency (27.5%) and the Identity and Passport Service (13.6%). In terms of the progress made by ethnic minorities along the ranks of civil servants, in 2008 6% (4 out of 65) of Senior Civil Servants were from minority ethnic groupings¹⁴ (Race Equality Report, 2008). The increase in this representation and its extension to the local administration and councils in the future is high on the agenda of the Home Office (Race Equality Report, 2008) and even the need to achieve proportional representation of different minority groups instead of regarding them as one whole is gradually acknowledged and lobbied for (Field, 2002).

Thus, in 20 years time, I think we will have witnessed some serious steps towards the reduction of inequality, and an improvement in the labour market position of first and second generation minority members that will be largely due to active participation of the minority groups in the debate over, and the management of, the British policy.

At the same time, I envisage certain tightening of the immigration controls. The failure to produce a homogenous immigrant flow through the ‘Europeanization’ of the migrant waves even in terms of age structure will bring about the introduction of more severe requirements for work and settlement in the UK. English language fluency is most likely to be the first added requirement, especially given the warning signs and discussions in the press, and the unanimity of the general public opinion on the issue (BBC², 2007). Whereas, language barriers per se might pose less of a challenge in 20 years time with increased mobility and the presence of English in school curricula throughout the world, the debate about the need of migrants to know English can easily expand into a debate about their knowledge of British culture and suitability to become part of British society. I do not think that the current tests accompanying the process of naturalization will be extended to the entry of migrants in 2028; however, in my opinion, the discussion about the imposition of such tests will be in full force at that moment. Again, I think all minority communities will take a very lively participation in this debate, which is exactly why the institutionalizing of the evaluation of ‘Britishness’ will not happen over night. Moreover, the role of tests in positive migrant selection (Independent, 2003) is likely to be one of the future’s most contingent or at least most recurrent topics. On the other hand, these restricting measures will not be carried to extremes. For example, the imposing of absolute control over the age of prospective migrants even in 20 years time when the ageing of the British society will be felt much more explicitly, for me, remains unlikely given the predicted growth say of migrant communities in the decision-making processes.

Finally, in my opinion, vacancies in health, social services and low-skilled work will continue to afflict the British labour market of the future, which will trigger a persistent need for immigrant labour. In the health sector, particularly in the nursing and associate health professions, attempts will probably be made to raise the pay and improve the working conditions in order to encourage second generation minority members to fill the positions in which they are currently underrepresented (Field, 2002). Such practices can be instituted to placate the public fear of unethical recruitment of nurses and counteract the draining of source countries (Kingma, 2006). Yet, such positive trends are unlikely to extend to all vacancies. Negative selection of migrants and skill downgrading are still to be expected if divergence in the levels of income inequality in the source and host countries continues to exist and in more general terms manual labour is not superseded by automated labour.

Conclusion

With the British population rapidly ageing, there is a growing realization of the important role that both first and second generation ethnic minorities can play in demographic change. A great deal, however, depends upon the integration of the minority members and the reaching of parity between ethnic groups. This paper strived to show that to achieve integration the existence of differential social resources between ethnic groups should be acknowledged and programmes put in operation to correct these patterns rather than simply rely on the permeating force of the global cultural and labour market changes which will take place in the next few decades.

It could be argued that in the next 40 years, migration will not present a problem since new technologies and widespread education would guarantee the emergence of a more mobile, culturally integrated world. At the same time, many signs show that such predictions should be regarded with caution. The enlargement of the European Union is a case in point. Although research shows that migrants are centred in low-skilled and seasonal work that the British-born White have left vacant, a rise in the group size of White migrants made them more ‘visible’ and questioned their previously assumed homogeneity. Thus, the ‘Europeanisation’ of the migration waves still raised concerns about the integration and presence of migrants.

Recently, the Commission for Integration and Cohesion (BBC, 2008) pointed out that language is the single and largest barrier to the successful adaptation of minority members. Without belittling this important issue, it should be acknowledged as the present paper shows that the labour market penalties are high even for second generation minority members who have been raised and educated in Britain, and for Black Caribbean migrants. In addition, migrants are streamlined for jobs according to their skill levels – the highly-educated ones with good knowledge of English occupy professional positions and the rest are concentrated in low-skilled and semi-skilled work. The unavailability of Intermediate positions indirectly guarantees that even better-qualified migrants end up with jobs at the end of the occupational hierarchy. In this way, the problem is not that the nature of White migration has changed from English-speaking Old Commonwealth countries and the US to Central and Eastern European migrants, but the mere existence of unqualified labour.

Moreover, as the living standards are bound to improve within the European Union in the next 40 to 50 years, the ‘European’ migration wave especially for low-skilled work might shift further towards the East and even cease altogether. In which case, the negative selection of migrants is not guaranteed to disappear. A possible resolution of this situation would be to keep large migrant turnover for unskilled vacancies and further restrict settling. Yet, again, travelling distance and high migration costs will make such a decision impractical and in reality unattainable.

Building informed public opinion will also play a large role in the bridging of the gaps between the majority and minority populations. Currently, very little is known about return migration, and many of the temporary migrants are considered potential settlers which raises fears about housing, social services and general anti-migration feelings. However, the recent statistics (Office for National Statistics, 2008) showed that in mid-2007, natural change started playing a greater impact in population change and there was a decline in the net migration rate possibly due to greater return migration. The existing International Passenger Survey (Office for National Statistics, 2008) which records the purpose of stay of people entering the UK and their envisaged date of leaving the country is not enough for the patterns of return migration to be outlined. Likewise, more detailed analyses of the labour market performance of refugees are needed since on the basis of current knowledge, hardly any recommendations can be made about their future integration.

It is clear that a successful adaptation to Britain’s ageing demographic structure cannot happen without ensuring the incorporation of the minority groups already settled in Britain and the extension of the principles of fair treatment to the incoming migration waves. In a way, both are likely to be achieved through the increasing efforts of minority communities to become better represented in public authorities and participate in the decision-making processes; and through the encouragement of research in previously unexplored areas. Nevertheless, migration, equality and inclusion are still very likely to be as hot and as debatable issues in 20 years time in Britain as they are today due to the gradual pace in which the labour market transformations in global as well as local plan take place.

Notes

1. Neli Demireva is a DPhil student in Sociology at the University of Oxford at the end of her studies. Her doctoral thesis is titled “Examining ethnic minority disadvantage in the British labour market – evidence from job search behaviour”. In addition to her post-graduate research, she participated from 2006 till 2008 as a researcher in the Ethnicity and Immigration Research Group of the ‘Economic Change, Quality of Life and Social Cohesion’ (Equalsoc) Network with a specific focus on migrants arriving in the UK after the 1990s. For correspondence: Neli Demireva, St. John’s College, Oxford, OX1 3JP, email: neli.demireva@sjc.ox.ac.uk

2. Bulmer (1996) defines ethnic groups as “a collectivity within a larger population having real or putative ancestry, memories of a shared past, and a cultural focus upon one or more symbolic elements which define the group’s identity, such as kinship, religion, language, shared territory, nationality or physical appearance. Members of an ethnic group are conscious of belonging to an ethnic group” (Bulmer, 1996, p35). The term ethnic minority refers both to first and to second generation minority groups.

3. The term Old Commonwealth refers to Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The major sending countries of the New Commonwealth are India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, the Caribbean, Kenya and South Africa. For full list of Commonwealth states, see McIntyre, 2001. Old Commonwealth and New Commonwealth migrants constitute the largest immigrant groups both before and after 1990. Changes in their immigrant status, however, render the migrants from these communities arriving after the 1990s more similar to other labour migrants. Recent Pakistani migrants, for example, are also defined as aliens and therefore do not benefit from having special residence and work permits as some of the older colonial generation (Soysal, 1994).

4. Asylum and Immigration Act, 1996, Immigration and Asylum Act, 1999, Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act, 2002, and most recently in the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act, 2006.

5. The SBS currently only applies to nationals from Bulgaria and Romania. The programme was scheduled to be phased out by 31 December 2006, but was retained for both nations upon their accession to the European Union on 01 January 2007.

6. The 1981 British Nationality Act introduced the primary purpose rule under which an immigration officer could deny entry to spouse or fiancee if the primary purpose of marriage was immigration.

7. The study is based on data from the Fourth National Survey of Ethnic Minorities and the Family and Working Lives Survey for 1994-1995.

8. Empirical economic studies can contribute little to enlighten this matter. At best, they provide only indirect evidence of discrimination by virtue of existing differentials in the wage and occupational achievements of British-born Whites and ethnic minority members. These differentials can in addition be attributed to a number of factors beside discrimination such as the aforementioned strength of social networks or degree of adaptation to the host country. Amongst the quantitative attempts at more direct evidence of discrimination, the studies using matched employer-employee data should be highlighted. Frijters et al (2006), on the basis of data from the Workplace Employee Relations Survey, showed that job satisfaction was significantly lower for White workers in workplaces with a high density of ethnic minorities, and that White male workers required a wage premium of around 12% to compensate for a move from a work place with no ethnic minorities to a work place with a higher density of ethnic minorities (Frijters et al, 2006).

9. The term ethnic penalty has been introduced to account for “any remaining disparity that persists in ethnic minorities’ chances of securing employment or higher-level jobs, or income, after taking account of their measured personal characteristics such as their qualifications, human capital and the like” (Heath and Yu, 2005, p192).

10. Patterns inconsistent with discrimination used as the sole explanation of ethnic penalization are the similar level of self-reported discrimination amongst minorities with various group economic successes (Modood et al, 1997) and the stable-over-time proportion of British-born White employers who are likely to commit basic acts of discrimination (Brown and Gay, 1994; Simpson and Stevenson, 1994). An example for the first is the particularly low level of self-reported discrimination amongst Bangladeshis – the group pointed out by all other ethnic and religious minority groups as most vulnerable – in contrast to the relatively higher perception of discrimination on the part of Indians (Modood et al, 1997). The second trend is not inconsistent with rising awareness of discrimination in the society in general and in the media discourse that will possibly lead to a situation in which the knowledge of existing discrimination outstrips the actual experience of it (Modood et al, 1997).

11. According to Portes (1995), the term social resources could be used in economic sociology to denote both the referral to the social and often co-ethnic networks available to the minority members but also to the use of the institutional settings of the host country.

12. Bonding social capital refers to relationships between similar persons (for example, those alike with respect to sociodemographic and socioeconomic characteristics), while bridging social capital refers to relationships between dissimilar persons at the same level of hierarchy (Putnam 1995).

13. The sample consists of 1998-2008 datasets. The New Commonwealth migrants referred to have arrived in Britain after the 1990s.

14. Although it should be borne in mind that only 65 out of 118 Senior Civil Servants acknowledged their ethnicity.

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This document has been commissioned as part of the UK Department for Children, Schools and Families’ Beyond Current Horizons project, led by Futurelab. The views expressed do not represent the policy of any Government or organisation.

The 1950s and 1960s saw the emergence of a number of now well known community studies of family life in Britain. Two particularly influential studies included Michael Young and Peter Wilmott’s (1957) classic study of family and kinship in a working class area of East London, and Colin Rosser and Christopher Harris’ (1965) study of family and social change in Swansea. These studies, amongst others (Firth, 1956; Townsend, 1957) were extremely influential, revealing as they did the continuing significance of extended kinship networks in the daily life of families. As a testament to their continued importance, both studies were revisited in the early 21^st century, promising, in so doing, to shed light on half a century of social and community change (Dench et al, 2006; Charles et al ,2008). What is of particular significance, however, is how in undertaking these restudies, the researchers were faced with the challenge of “returning” to communities which had undergone considerable ethnic diversification. Thus Dench et al’s work Family and Kinship in East London becomes The New East End: Kinship, Race and Conflict. Charles et al’s restudy also had to incorporate Swansea’s minority ethnic population. These two particular case studies merely indicate that it is increasingly difficult to truly consider the nature of diversity and change in families in Britain without placing questions of ethnicity and multiculturalism at the centre. It can be argued that the framework of class and community has been replaced by the framework of ethnicity and multiculturalism. Either way, they provide local illustrations of how ethnic diversification resulting from international migration has become a major feature of social structure and personal relationships both in Britain and across the world.

Over a period of two decades after the Second World War, people from Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and the Caribbean migrated to Britain in large numbers as a result of postwar labour shortages. Later, during the 1970s, people of South Asian origin came from Africa in response to the Ugandan and Kenyan governments’ Africanization policies. Since then, the legal entry of unskilled, non-white people has been limited to the dependents or spouses of these earlier immigrants. There has also been significant immigration of Black Africans since the 1980s. According to the 2001 census, the UK has a non-white minority ethnic population of 4.6 million, representing 7.9% of the total population. Those categorized as “Asian or Asian British” (Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi and other Asian) numbered 2.3 million, comprising 4% of the UK population, whilst those termed “Black or Black British” (including Black Caribbean, Black African and Black Other) comprised 1.1 million. Not insignificant proportions (15%) of non-whites are classified as “Mixed”, around a third of whom are from white and Black Caribbean backgrounds.

The focus in this paper will be on Britain’s Asian and Black Caribbean populations making up as they do around two-thirds of the minority population. However, it is important to note that the ‘white’ category comprising 92.1% of the population also contains ethnic differences, for example, white Irish and Poles who have also migrated in large numbers over the course of the 20^th century. Rarely, for instance, do the Irish community appear in ethnically sensitive monitoring, despite evidence of their acute disadvantage. To some extent this is captured via recently added distinctions between White British, White Irish and White Other. This is likely to have added significance given the arrival of Eastern European labour migrants to the UK since EU enlargement, some of whom are becoming parents in the UK, whose children are currently attending primary schools, and who may be joined by other family members. Thus minority ethnic people should not be simply equated with non-white people.

Certain urban areas across the UK have become commonly, perhaps pejoratively, associated within the popular imagination with a strong minority presence – African Caribbeans in Brixton, South London; Punjabi Sikhs in Southall, West London; Bangladeshis in parts of East London; as well as distinctive Black and South Asian communities in the Midlands and North of England. Other ports, such as Cardiff, Liverpool, and Bristol have had notable Black populations since at least the mid 19^th century as a result of the enforced migration of Black people as part of the slave trade. It has been argued that the housing and settlement patterns of ethnic minorities have served to maintain or reproduce their sense of ethnic solidarity vis-a-vis the wider society. Community-based solidarities emerge as forms of protection against their experience of structural disadvantage, exclusion and racism. These communities, as well as voluntary organizations within them, form an important social resource for minority ethnic families; for example, offering valuable support for parents who have arrived in Britain but who have no network of support among their own family or friends living nearby. A crucial issue for policy and research is whether and how recent migrants of African or Asian background, including those who have migrated later in life, are tapping into these built-up networks. Despite the relatively younger age structure of Britain’s minority ethnic population, the generation of Black Caribbean and South Asian post-war migrants to Britain is now moving into retirement age and this raises further important social policy questions about their informal support networks, and the capacity of care and service providers to be culturally sensitive to their needs in old age (Blakemore and Boneham, 1994; Nazroo, 2006).

The presence of these communities has challenged (and continues to challenge) conventional notions of British national belonging, identity and culture and have, to some extent, contributed to a greater understanding of multicultural citizenship in the UK (Parekh, 1999). Most British-born children and grandchildren of Caribbean and South Asian migrants would consider themselves to a greater or lesser degree as British, whilst still maintaining an attachment to their parents’/grandparents’ country or region of origin. Consequently, as young adults, they may adopt and actively maintain a trans-national meaning of family, which extends beyond those residing in Britain. What is of importance is to consider how their family values and relationships reflect both their ethno-cultural background, as well as their adoption of ‘westernized’ British values. “Minoritised families” in which there has been a history of migration leading to trans-national networks thus constitute a key point of differentiation within British families. However, many of the changes occurring in minority ethnic families are also happening to varying degrees within all families, and thus are not simply specific “ethnic” features. The notion of families as exhibiting ethnic differences which are distinct from the majority entails both accurate representations and misrepresentations of reality. As a result, and before turning directly to this, it is first necessary to provide a general background to the patterns of change and diversity that are affecting all families.

Changing Families: The General Picture

In recent decades, Britain, like many countries across the developed world, has witnessed an evolving pattern of change in the nature of family structures, roles and relationships. In particular, there are significant demographic changes taking place that are having a direct influence on patterns of family formation, as well as on relationships between family members. These include shifts towards fewer marriages, more cohabitation and more births outside marriage; increases in divorce, remarriage and reconstituted families; and an increase in the proportion of lone parent and smaller families. In addition to these broad trends, population ageing and the extension of the life course, point to a renewal of multi-generational family relationships, particular with regard to the role of grandparents.

It can be argued that the major trend in current 21^st century families has been a transformation in relation to marriage. Today’s family picture reflects a shift away from the married couple family that dominated for much of the 20^th century. While it remains the case that over half of adults still live as married couples, their percentage is declining. Census figures over the second half of the 20^th century show marked declines from 68% in 1971 to just over 50% in 2001. Alongside this, and as in many European countries, the average age of marriage has increased. Parenthood is also occurring later. Kiernan (2004, p118) has shown that in the mid 1970s, the average age of first time brides in Britain was clustered in the 22-24 years old range, whereby by the year 2000 they are clustered in the late 20s, predominantly at age 27. It should also be noted that this masks considerable variation in the age of first time mothers defined by social class and education.

One of the important drivers behind these trends is the concomitant rise in cohabitation, which doubled between the 1991 and 2001 censuses. While men and women living together outside marriage is certainly not new, there are clear rises in incidence, since the 1980s, of young people living together for sustained periods either as a precursor to, or instead of, marriage. A proportion of cohabiting couples are same sex couples. Since the Civil Partnership Act came into force in January 2005, there have been over 20,000 such partnerships. The number of people living alone has also more than doubled between 1971 and 2005, from 3 to 7 million (Social Trends, 2007).

One change which has received much political and media attention, and which also forms a central aspect of arguments around family breakdown, relates to patterns of divorce. In Britain, rates of divorce have increased steadily since the 1970s, culminating in the current disbanding of around 40% of marriages (Harper, 2003). Although, as Harper (2003) goes on to state, this is counterbalanced by the fact that those marriages that do not end in divorce will be longer because of increased life expectancy for both women and men. Accordingly, divorce, along with the greater number of children born outside marriage, has contributed significantly to changes in household and family composition. On one hand, the proportion of children living in lone parent families in Britain more than tripled between 1972 and 2006 to 24% (Social Trends, 2007). On the other hand is the rise in the number of step- and reconstituted families. Although precise figures are difficult to come by, there is little doubt that numbers have been growing as a consequence of divorce and remarriage (Allan and Crow, 2001).

Demographic changes, along with new family forms, are also impacting upon the position of older people within families. It is increasingly argued that families will be increasingly characterized by multi-generational bonds beyond the household, particularly between grandparents and grandchildren. Recent UK figures suggest that around a third of the population are grandparents and will remain so for an average of 25 years (Harper, 2005). Moreover, three-quarters of the UK population will at some stage attain grandparenthood (Dench and Ogg, 2002). With the expansion of the grandparent role across the span of an individual’s life, it is likely to occur while people are still engaged in numerous other social roles including work, associational and other family roles. In the United Kingdom, this context is reflected by current policy concerns over the role of grandparents (Dench and Ogg, 2002), particularly around childcare (Wheelock and Jones, 2002) and as a resource allowing lone mothers greater participation in the labour market (Harper et al, 2004).

Taken as a whole, these trends illustrate the point that fewer people live in a household characterized in terms of a “simple” nuclear family comprising a heterosexual couple and their two dependent children. In attempting to make sense of the increased diversity and fluidity in family relations, at least two key ideas from family sociology emerge – “individualization” (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, 2002) and “negotiation” (Finch and Mason, 1995). According to the individualization thesis, individuals, over the latter half of the 20^th century have been gradually emancipated from traditional norms and, as a result, are able to exert a greater degree of control over their lives. This may be reflected in changing normative understandings about when is the “right” age to marry, about greater sexual freedom, challenging gender norms, and increased opportunities for educational, labour market and social mobility for women. Evidently there is much more flexibility in becoming a couple and whether people co-reside. Younger people are marrying less and are doing so at older ages. There also appear to be more choices around family and work, albeit choices which are gendered. People are far more able to choose the kinds of intimate relationships that are important to them, and are more likely to end them if they no longer accord with their personal preferences and objectives.

Coupled with the notion of “individualization” is the idea of “negotiation”. Relationships between men and women, parents and children, to a greater degree, involve negotiation. Families are not simply “givens” but need to be worked at, particularly when the issue of who is and who is not “family” is fluid and subject to change over time. In addition, relations between parents and (adult) children are increasingly characterized by democratization, mutual agreement, respect and reciprocity, and disclosure of information. Like individualization, the breakdown of ascribed social norms provides a degree of space within which to negotiate. This point is particularly evident when we consider the role of grandparents. As alluded to above, research evidence points to considerable solidarity between the generations within families, and this is reflected in high levels of support provided by grandparents to their children as parents. The current generation of grandparents is healthier and wealthier in their later life. This provides opportunities for them to develop meaningful and reciprocal relationships with their children and grandchildren, not least around education and learning. However, these bonds, whilst strong, still require negotiation. Most grandparents want to help out, but they do not necessarily want to provide child care on a full time basis. This is exemplified in recent debates around grandparents’ rights as well as grandparent support groups offering advice as to how establish ground rules with parents around childcare (see, for example, Hill, 2008). Grandparents can no longer be taken as “door mats”. Thus we see the emphasis upon continuing family responsibilities but in the context of negotiation and choices with other work and leisure roles.

Changing Minority Ethnic Families: Challenges and Trends

Are these changes in family life also impacting upon minority families? Is their influence more or less similar or different to that identified within majority families? Indeed, survey research has identified both similarities and differences in these patterns across ethnic groups. In the 2001 census, among all families, those headed by a person of a non-white ethnic background are much more likely than white families to have children living with them. Nearly 80% of Bangladeshi families had dependent children compared to just 40% of white families. Bangladeshi and Pakistani families tend to be larger than families of any other ethnic group. Mixed, Black Caribbean and White families with dependent children had the largest proportion of cohabiting couples, but cohabitation is less usual amongst Asian and Chinese populations. In turn, over 45% of Black Caribbean, Black African and mixed families were headed by a lone parent, compared with 25% of white families. According to the 4^th National Survey of Ethnic Minorities in Britain (Modood et al, 1997; Berthoud, 2005), only 39% of Caribbean adults under the age of 60 are in formal marriages compared to 60% of white adults under 60. Conversely, South Asians are characterized by higher rates of marriage with around three-quarters of Pakistani women in partnerships by the age of 25, compared with about two-thirds of Indian women and just about half of African-Asian and White women (Berthoud, 2005).

The most common method to help understand and explain ethnic differences in family formation has been to compare the degree to which minority ethnic families are following the path of “individualization” (as illustrated above by, amongst other things, rising patterns of cohabitation, divorce, less children, lone parenting) that is seen to be characterizing white majority families (see Beishon, 1995; Berthoud, 2001, 2005; Modood et al, 1997; Shaw, 2004).

Berthoud (2005), for example, posits a single scale running from “old fashioned values” to “modern individualism” as a way of interpreting ethnic variations with Pakistanis and Bangladeshis at the traditionalistic end and Caribbeans at the individualistic end and ahead of whites. Berthoud goes as far as to say that “the Caribbean family, in the traditional sense of a Caribbean man married to a Caribbean woman, may be dying out” (2005, p249). In contrast, South Asians remain strongly adhered to “old-fashioned values” with very few people cohabiting from an Asian ethnic background. This said, whilst South Asian adults are less likely to be living outside marriage, there is and has been a good number of Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis living alone temporarily due to migration processes which go unreported in surveys. For instance, men may be separated from their families by lengthy immigration procedures and in these cases women may become de facto lone parents for several years and, as a result, not in receipt of the support and benefits available to them.

Ethnic minority families also differ in relation to norms of responsibity towards older family members. As the American Sociologist Talcott Parsons noted some 50 years ago, in white families, an adult’s responsibilities towards partner and children are given precedence over existing obligations towards other kin. This tendency, however, is not so evident in minority ethnic families. Among some of Britain’s Asian population in particular, greater priority is given to parental ties in adulthood. There is much more sharing of the home across three generations, often in the form of common housekeeping. Multi-generational ties, both within and beyond households, have particular resonance amongst South Asian families, and to an extent Chinese families, in which couples continue to live with their parents after starting their own families. For example, around two-thirds of British resident Indian elders live with one of their adult children, compared with just 15% of white elders (Berthoud, 2005). However, young Asian families tend to live more often with the father’s rather than the mother’s family, meaning that, unlike the dominance of maternal grandparents commonly observed amongst whites, it is the widowed paternal grandmother who is most likely to live with the family.

Despite the differences between them, all ethnic groups, including South Asians, are viewed as moving towards the “modern individualism” end of the continuum, with lower rates of marriage and higher rates of cohabitation and single parenthood, albeit at different rates. Berrington (1994), over a decade ago, finds that whilst almost all Asians do get married, the second generation are marrying later than their parents, suggesting some assimilation in patterns towards those of the white population. Arranged marriage is a common form of marriage amongst South Asian groups. However, these patterns are also impacted upon by “western” notions of individual choice, with the individuals who are marrying being given more opportunities to influence partner selection than previously (Crow and Allan, 2001, p60).

It may be too simplistic however to view different ethnic groups in terms of their position on a continuity between modern individualism and traditionalism, but which are all shifting inevitably in the same direction. The result is a tendency to consider minority ethnic families in terms of their deviation from the “norm” or from the “standard white model” with Muslims as the most “culturally different” and resistant to change (see Smart and Shipman, 2004 for a critical discussion). In order to understand the significance of ethnic differences, a deeper understanding of the social and cultural context underlying these trends, of how distinctive cultural traditions and socio-economic pressures are shaping family patterns, is needed.

Shaw (2004) has identified how the family forms and relationships of Caribbeans and South Asians continue to reflect issues and concerns that relate to their respective regions of origin. For instances, Black Caribbean families in Britain reflect similarities with changing patterns of kinship in the Caribbean itself, with high rates of single motherhood, significant grandmother care, and a large proportion of children born outside marriage. Given the cultural continuity of these patterns between Britain and the Caribbean, it is difficult to see how they arise from the pressures of “modern individualism”. Of course, these trends have all appeared in debates surrounding the “problematic” nature of Black single motherhood. However, such a focus also overlooks the importance of ties beyond the household, both in the UK and trans-nationally. Reynolds (2006) has also criticized the stereotypical view of African Caribbean families as reflecting heightened individualism, indicated by weak kinship ties and a fragmented family structure, leading to youth crime, educational under-achievement and high youth unemployment. In fact, Caribbean families continue to demonstrate strong reciprocal ties and bonding both within local communities and across transnational networks (see also Gouldbourne, 2008). Trans-national kinship links continue to be significant for young people. In addition, family roles and relationships may be an important source of identity for young Caribbean men, who may be more likely to be unemployed and suffer ill-health. There is some evidence that family roles such as fatherhood gives these men a sense of purpose and value that is otherwise not available to them. Similarly, Shaw (2004) explores the differences between South Asian families, particular around marriage patterns, suggesting that attempts to group these populations together are unhelpful and overlook internal contradictions.

Certainties and Uncertainties in the Evolving Patterns of Change in Families

The conclusion of many scholars is that characterizations of current and future generations of minority families as moving towards “modern individualism”, and assimilating to the norms and values of the host society, may be misplaced. As has been noted, close trans-national links may actually be increasingly sustained by both the greater social mobility of young Caribbeans and South Asians in Britain, as well as by further developments in communication technology.

If these trends around the globalising of family relationships continue, then one would expect individuals and families to be less rooted around local place and in relation to the communities in which we were born or grew up. They will involve the maintenance of ties across greater distances between Britain, Europe and the World. But there are contradictory trends and we should be careful not to over-generalize about the impact of globalization. There has also been a parallel rise in the importance of the local, the increase in ethnic group solidarity, and different forms of project identity. This will emphasize active family and community togetherness, not free floating individualism. In this sense, physical contact may become even more, rather than less, salient in the form of family gatherings, celebrations and the passing on of traditions and rituals. The global fascination with genealogy and family trees may stem from the need for self-understanding and belonging in a globalizing world where identities can become easily blurred and where choices seem overwhelming.

It would also be erroneous to view the changes referred to above, as often happens in debates about the family, as evidence of instability or as a decline in the importance of family. That family responsibilities based on ascribed traditional norms of responsibility can no longer be assumed is only one side of the story. All the research evidence shows the considerable hard work, time and effort that people put into maintaining their connections to other family members across boundaries and differences and who may live in other countries. Rather than changes driving people apart, making the family more fragile and people more self-focused, we see people continuing to invest considerable energy and value into their personal relationships. As the boundaries of family life become more complicated, we see a greater emphasis upon the communication and “display” (Finch, 2007) of familyness, as the means by which families are established. We also see more attempts to seek out family histories through genealogical software and historical societies, and an interest in resemblances and heritability (Mason, 2008).

All this said, previous misplaced claims about how the family will look today, such as those around family breakdown and fragmentation also serve as warnings against the pitfalls of over-generalisation and unwarranted extrapolation of current trends into the future. Inevitably, visions of possible futures will draw selectively from the range of evidence available. Any predictions around the particular direction that families will take are questionable to the extent that they overlook the scope for diversity. Furthermore, the degree to which current trends represent sharp qualitative breaks with the past is highly questionable. In focusing primarily upon change, we risk overlooking significant consistencies and continuities that would be equally important in understanding how families in the future will unfold. For example, there remains a degree of uniformity in families because of the persistence of structural factors, such as the labour market. There is also little change in gender relations in the household, despite the growth of married women’s paid work. This relates to normative constraints, but also to other issues such as labour market differentials between men and women, as well as gendered assumptions implicit within welfare policies (eg parental leave), which continue to reinforce rational decision making between couples regarding who does what.

The Role of Science and Communication Technology in Shaping Contemporary and Future Family Relations

Developments in communication networks and information technology are already shaping family relations, not least amongst minoritised families dispersed by international migration. The rising availability (and affordability) of air travel, telecommunications and other new digital forms of communication are further encouraging the development of trans-national ties on a global scale. This is occurring, however, not just amongst those with a history of migration, but among a wider range of families whose children, siblings, parents and/or grandparents are living and working for varying amounts of time abroad.

In some families, we will see the internet and other new and advanced telecommunication systems acting as the principal means by which family members and friends establish frequent and regular contact. Recent developments such as SKYPE and VONAGE may be responding to, as well as normalizing, these demands. SKYPE claims to have 309 million registered members worldwide and 12 million users at peak times (BBC News, 2005). Like SMS messaging previously, SKYPE is becoming part of the everyday terminology of family and friends. Again, the availability and affordability of this software is key. Increasingly these facilities will be used by both children and parents to contact each other. However, while we know that these will form an increasingly important role in how family members communicate, there remain uncertainties as to the extent of this change, how it will affect the nature of relations and the meanings people ascribe to family life. There are at least three areas where the effects of technology are already evident and which have particular salience for the future:

Resolving work and family conflict?

One tangible impact of technology on family life is the shift in the work-home relationship. For example, as a result of digital forms of communication people are increasingly able to take their work home, and to combine working from both office and home to suit their family and caring obligations. This has become a particular trend within dual earner families. Conversely this may lead to a colonization of family space and time by work space and time, for example, in “mum is working” times or working during the post-bedtime shift. At certain moments, the space between working and not working becomes blurred, for example, internet searching, and reading newspapers and magazines. Work and family domains are also blurred by the expectation, generated by these technologies that individuals are, and should, be available all the time. Thus, there remain several unanswered questions around how these developments in flexible working conditions will impact upon family life. On one hand, they may provide people with choices in order to resolve work and family conflicts, allowing more and more people work from home and in locations that allow them to combine responsibilities. On the other hand, they may encourage employers to put even more pressure on workers to work further away and spend more time away from home. These developments will undoubtedly impact upon domestic gender divisions and decision making processes within the family. Time pressures can lead to stress for working parents and how people negotiate work and family roles becomes an increasingly important issue.

“Intimacy at a distance”?

There will also be transformations in the relationship between emotional closeness and physical contact. Family members scattered across continents will view themselves as emotionally close because they are making the effort to stay in touch despite their considerable spatial barriers. In turn, the possibility of video calls, which already account for a quarter of all traffic on SKYPE, could change the way in which family members perceive and understand intimacy and the link between physical contact and emotional closeness. It is interesting to note that people who use these facilities regularly will use terms and phrases like ‘intimate’, ‘close’, ‘just like being in the same room’ to describe these forms of communication. What role do they play in how people form relationships? Do they produce necessarily more fragile relationships? Will they enable people to sustain relationships that would otherwise break down and end? Families are creating a ‘networked’ sense of connectedness, for example, by making and sending videotapes and emailing distant relatives, family histories are recorded and distributed across the globe. These are already occurring, but we see them happening on a much grander scale, leading to more fundamental shifts in what being intimate and being close means.

Parenting and children: More or less control?

The rise of more democratic forms of parent-child relationships means that children are taking an even greater interest in, and having an input in decision making. New forms of digital communication will represent a key medium through which these decisions are made. For example, parents may already be encouraging the purchase and use of mobile phones by their children at a young age to the extent that they allow them greater control and monitoring of the children’s activities and whereabouts. They may allow parents to act as “virtual chaperones”, monitoring activity and safety within an increasingly “risky” environment. On one hand this implies more equal partnerships. On the other, the control and monitoring of children’s behaviours may be extended, beyond the physical, at the virtual level. How will potential technological developments by Google around live satellite pictures at street level shape this? How are new forms of communication shaping the democratic openness of how monitoring and supervision works in families?

Education, Ethnicity, Changing Families and Intergenerational learning

As outlined above, demographic changes as well as changing family forms, such as dual income and lone parent families, place a greater emphasis upon the intergenerational relationship between children and their grandparents. The increasing amounts of time children spend with their grandparents raises direct questions about education and its relationship to intergenerational learning that takes place within families as well as in schools (see also Gregory et al, 2007; Kenner et al, 2007). The role of grandparents can often alleviate the time pressures faced by working parents, and in certain situations may substitute parents’ time investments in promoting children’s education. While intergenerational transfers of time, care and money tend to work downward – from grandparents to grandchildren – the nature of intergenerational learning is a reciprocal one. There has been anecdotal evidence for some time regarding how children teach their grandparents to use computers, internet and other technological developments.

We know that the family provides opportunities for frequent interaction between young and old, and this has become an important aspect within debates about age segmentation and segregation. A key area to consider is the role of schools in fostering this. Evidence from intergenerational programmes also suggests that schools need to be more aware of the opportunities available for mutual learning between children and older people, and the wider societal benefits this provides. Changing attitudes towards older people, including grandparents, need to be recognized within educational and learning paradigms – not as conveyors of out-dated traditional forms of knowledge but as agents with skills and knowledge that compliment children’s formal education.

Intergenerational learning also has particular implications for minority ethnic families and citizenship. Previous conventional understandings of citizenship had assumed that acculturation of minorities to the host society values was an inevitable process. The orientations of 2^nd and 3^rd generation migrants would be firmly orientated to the host society as opposed to the country of origin. Most of the UK research evidence has shown this to not be the case. The mutual learning that occurs between grandchildren and grandparents can also act to promote citizenship amongst older people. The current government has initiated a number of policies aimed at citizenship education and the better integration of new citizens to the UK.

Schools represent the key domain through which the state is able to actively foster national values to its citizenry. Yet as patterns of migration change (for example, people migrating during middle and later life), citizenship education needs to be broadened in order to form part of lifelong learning. To what extent will previous migrants, such as those who came during the 1950s and 1960s, act as role models for more recent migrants of a similar age group? The adaptation of new migrants also requires a much broader notion of citizenship education – not simply with regard to civic values, democracy and Britishness – but also with less abstract forms of knowledge which impact directly upon their mobility, eg qualifications, labour market issues, entitlements and service provision, and issues to do with intercultural communication.

Globalization has extended and intensified the flows of migration between societies and this has been met with concerns over the integration and needs of the new and diverse migrants. A good deal of their societal adaptation can be learned from previous and existing migrants, thus there need to be spaces for mutual learning within civil society, for example, through community and adult education centres.

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This document has been commissioned as part of the UK Department for Children, Schools and Families’ Beyond Current Horizons project, led by Futurelab. The views expressed do not represent the policy of any Government or organisation.