Tuesday, March 15, 2016



Prospects for young people are worse than their parents even after 50 years of sweeping educational reforms, says expert

Surprise, surprise!  Dumbed-down education does nobody any good

The prospects for the 'Millennial generation' is worse than both their parents and their grandparents - despite being better educated, one of Britain's leading sociologists has said.

Dr John Goldthorpe concludes that despite decades of educational reforms and a push for university degrees, social mobility has not improved, and for young people in Britain today, it has worsened.

A recent survey found that about 54 per cent of the country believed young people's lives would be worse than their own generation's, the highest proportion ever recorded.

This has been seconded by Dr Goldthorpe, an emeritus fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford, who argues that educational reforms have done nothing to increase social mobility.

'Successive governments, committed to increasing mobility, have regarded educational policy as the essential means to this end,' Goldthorpe writes in an upcoming lecture, The Observer reports.

'Yet despite all this expansion and reform, inequalities in relative mobility chances have remained little altered.' 

'A situation is emerging that is quite new in modern British history. Young people entering the labour market today face far less favourable mobility prospects than did their parents – or their grandparents.'

This comes after Britain's social mobility tsar warned that the country could be 'permanently divided' because of inequality between the generations.

Alan Milburn, chairman of the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission, told the Guardian that a 'wind of change' needed to sweep through the country and highlighted how difficult it was for young people to buy a home.

Former cabinet minister Mr Milburn said the idea that each successive generation would do better than the previous was part of the glue that bound society together.

But research showed that had failed to be the case and instead, the nation was facing an 'existential crisis' as it considered the nature of society, he said.

He said: 'What both the polling and the data suggest is that we may have reached an inflection point which, if these trends continue, we may become a society that is permanently divided.

'Certainly on home ownership, we're heading for a world where rates of home ownership among young people are below 50 per cent for the first time.

'If this trend line continues we'll be there by the end of the decade. It is a wake up and smell the coffee moment.'

Generation Y, also known as Millennials, who were born between the early 1980s and the early 2000s, have faced rising tuition fees and exploding house prices.

Mr Milburn said that without the help of their baby boomer parents, many would not be able to afford a home and that there was a growing divide between those with and without parental help.

The Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission monitors the progress of the Government's efforts to improve social mobility.

In its most recent State of the Nation report, the commission warned that British society still included 'deep divides', with a wide gulf between the life chances of the rich and poor.

SOURCE 





Now Cambridge University college sparks complaints from Japanese students over 'Tokyo to Kyoto'-themed ball

Yet another Cambridge University ball has attracted controversy, after students complained about its Japanese theme.

A number of students have reportedly been angered by the 'Tokyo to Kyoto'-themed May ball, which is being organised by Cambridge's Trinity Hall college later this year.

The controversy surrounding the £90-a-ticket event is the latest example of students taking a militant approach to political correctness and enforcing it on campuses across Britain.

Students of Japanese origin have complained about the Trinity Hall ball, set to be held in June, and have met with the committee, the Sunday Times reports.

The ball committee themselves, say they chose the Japanese theme to 'celebrate the diversity of world culture'. 

The ball's website states that the organisers have 'diligently researched the cultural context', to ensure that they 'provide a self-conscious and holistic representation of all that is great about Japanese urban culture'.

The ball committee added that they have 'been in dialogue with Japanese artists and suppliers to make this experience as genuine as possible.'

This comes just days after an Orient Express-themed May ball was attacked for its 'toxic' racial connotations this week.

The controversy over the £180-a-ticket event at Clare College, Cambridge, is one of several rows over 'cultural appropriation' in the themes of May balls at the university. The Havana Nights ball at Darwin College has also been attacked as offensive.

The furore comes after the Around The World In Eighty Days party at Cambridge's Pembroke College was cancelled over complaints it was racist.

Clare is promoting its ball as a night of 'romance and adventure' in which 'the sights, sounds and smells of this love letter to luxury travel will blend seamlessly'.

But student Ploy Kingchatchaval said: 'They clearly didn't intend for it to be about travel because Orient is such a loaded term.  'The words 'the Orient' still hold these kind of toxic connotations, of commodification and enjoyment of white people at the expense of others.'

Defending the event, the organisers said they intended 'to celebrate – not denigrate – the cultural richness' of stops on the famed route of the train.

Earlier this week, crowds of Oxford University students marched through the streets campaigning for the statue of 19th century colonialist Cecil Rhodes to be removed.

It is part of an ongoing campaign to remove the statue, which is around 4ft tall, is one of six on the front of the Oriel building and has stood there since 1911.

It commemorates the founder of Rhodesia, a revered figure from the days of the British Empire who left a large sum of his fortune to Oxford to fund scholarships for students worldwide.

Famous Rhodes scholars have included astronomer Edwin Hubble, musician Kris Kristofferson and world leaders such as Wasim Sajjad, Tony Abbott and Bill Clinton.

But a number of students, obsessed with political correctness, believe it is a symbol of colonialism that should be shunned and could offend today's multi-cultural student body.

Calls from Oriel started last year, arguing that the mining magnate and founder of Rhodesia was racist - and benefited from African resources at the expense of many South Africans.

SOURCE 






Students to be taught Feminism at Melbourne school

Feminism is severely out of touch with reality so this is just brainwashing

Fitzroy High School, located in Melbourne has addressed gender equality and launched a new subject in the curriculum focusing on ‘feminism’. The subject is called ‘Fightback: Addressing Everyday Sexism in Australian Schools’.

The topics that are covered over 30 lessons include: domestic violence, media representation of woman, statistical breakdowns around work and visibility of woman in sport.

The Fitzroy Feminist Collective is a group of students who gather to put up posters around the school and proclaim their frustrations to the school board. Each member of the group has a different reason why they needed feminism as a subject in the school.

For Nia aged 17, she thought the growing stereotype of woman ‘living’ in the kitchen was a concern and for Zsuzsa, it was a lack of recognition for woman in sport.

Teacher in charge of the Fitzroy Feminist Collective group, Briony O’Keeffe says she is trying to get young men and woman to think more critically and engage in fighting sexist behavior on a daily basis around their area.

"We wanted to make sure we didn’t reinforce that and show that gender inequality is just one side of discrimination, there is race and sexuality – and you can experience it at an intersecting basis." says Ms O’Keeffe.

"It’s not teaching kids to be feminists, or a political ideology, it’s teaching kids about gender inequality and that it does exist" said student and group member, Nia Stanford to ABC News.

What has been confusing some of the public is whether they will focus mostly on women and their gender equality or include both sexes and how they are being stereotyped in the media. The last lesson in the course will be acknowledging men and how they are stereotyped in certain aspects.

When writing sources for the website, Ms O’Keeffe’s group has been compared to the American white supremacist movement the "KKK" as men’s rights movement have thought about FHS Feminist Collective poking fun of other men’s movements.

SOURCE


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