Unraveling the white working-class conundrum: A closer look at its utility and pitfalls

Abstract

The term “white working-class” has emerged as a focal point in recent discourse, igniting fervent debates around its usage and purpose. Critics like Gillborn have contended that the term, often wielded by right-leaning academics and commentators, artificially segregates the working-class. In this article I seek to understand this, and other criticisms raised in relation to the rise of populism, which have been aimed at the usage and purpose of the term “white working-class”. By weighing these criticisms against one another and acknowledging the intersectionality inherent in class formation, I propose a more specific and limited application of the term that I think better aligns with scholarly pursuits and helps to mitigate some of these critics core concerns around the term’s overgeneralisation in-particular. Thus, while I also acknowledge that the term “white working-class” ignites debate, it can also unveil intricate social realities, as evidence from Skeggs and Reay suggest. It must ultimately be employed judiciously to avoid sidelining the struggles of other marginalised groups within the class. Balancing its use with caution is essential to harness its potential without undermining the broader context of class-based issues that affect individuals from all backgrounds.

Introduction

In the realm of sociopolitical discourse, the term “white working-class” has sparked both heated debates and profound insights. While some critics argue that its usage artificially divides the working-people, others contend that it sheds light on the unique concerns faced by a specific class sub-group. In this article, I seek to explore the criticisms and merits of this term, advancing a nuanced understanding of how we can best utilise it to gain valuable insights without perpetuating divisive narratives.

With this in mind, I begin by exploring criticisms of the term, which tend to revolve around its usage by right-leaning academics and social commentators, before moving to examine these perspectives in greater depth to determine the extent to which their overgeneralisations contain genuine concerns amongst a particular white working-class sub-group. Having weighed these concerns and criticisms against one-another, and further considered the intersectional nature of class-formation, I will endeavour to outline how a more specific and limited application of the term is compatible with scholarly pursuits and can be utilised in such a way as to avoid overgeneralisation and the negative consequences which have arisen out of it.

Conceptualising class

In order to contextualise this discussion, it is worthwhile the reader making note of the class-schema that I understand the working-class in reference to- though the scholars mentioned themselves adhere to diverse definitions. Notably, the definition of working-class implicit here, and elaborated upon in my previous work (Taylor Hill, 2023), follows the Bourdieusian inspired class-schema of Mike Savage (2011), as established in the Great British Class Study. Under this scheme, the working-class as able to be split into three working-classes known as the precariat, the traditional working-class (TWC), and the emergent service workers (ESW), alongside the class straddling new affluent workers (NAW), who are nevertheless tied to the class as their relatives, through their upbringing, and in relation to class-culture (Reay in Calver, 2017).

In my previous work, I utilise this framework to understand the complexity of the class experience, moving to suggest that the working-class experience is complicated by an individual’s belonging within different sub-groups which are, nevertheless, ultimately tied together into one overarching group that we can still call the working-class. This reflects the diversity that is present within the class but acknowledges class-culture and attachments in the sense that, for instance, members of the NAW and ESW are often related to members of the TWC, with an upbringing in the class habitus to match this position (Savage, 2015).

Please refer to a more substantive discussion of my work for more detail, but the core of this class-definition rests on the belief that the impact of globalisation and changing economic circumstances has facilitated an evolution and warping of traditional understandings of class, and yet in that we can recognise a reconstituted working-class, defined by their unique class experiences, forms of work, upbringing, and relationships, as well as their degradations over the past forty-or-so years (Taylor Hill, 2023). This understanding transforms the working-class into sub-groups, which is beneficial for inter-and-intra factional analysis.

In this article, I consider the ways in which some scholars have sought to understand, conceptualise, and organise the working-class into other potentially useful sub-groups, namely in relation to ethnicity. These sub-groups have the potential to enhance our analysis and can work in tandem with the understanding of class laid out here, so long as we can account for those issues associated with the term White Working-Class and consider a series of other framings which could help to further delineate the relevant sub-groups within the wider working-class.

Unpacking the criticisms

A number of social commentators like Zoe Williams (2022), Lynsey Hanley (2008, 2017a), and critical race theorists like Liburd (2023) and Gillborn (2010) condemn the usage of the term white working-class for exacerbating societal divisions. Opponents tend to express concern that the term is used as a vehicle for right-wing narratives, themselves coded to separate the white working-class from a wider class-grouping that is more diverse than these authors acknowledge. Indeed, Hanley (2017b) asks the central question of “when did the “white working class” become a separate group from the working class in general?” and suggests that this separation is deliberate, weaponised to “pit people in similar circumstances against each other.” She also offers a critique of terms that evoke similar images, like the ‘left behind’, which is more popular amongst the left but which, Hanley argues, is almost exclusively used to denote white, socially conservative, working-people. She says that these terms mean similar things: “people who are written about as if they are curious moon specimens, and are believed to hold the same views en masse and thus are not really responsible for their actions; people who are nostalgic, backward and need to get with the programme.” In this, they are not so much a group with agency, but a weapon to be wielded in critique against the establishment, elites, and, a few years ago, the Remain camp.

This second quotation raises another concern about the usage of the term, namely in the way that it is applied. This is because it is a distinction that is not made by many working-class people who are white, and instead is attributed to them by scholars and commentators. In being an applied term, we might therefore be at risk of defining a group that does not really exist in the way that scholars insinuate, and is in reality far more limited (Beider, 2016). In fact, the term is more often than not used to signal a group that is socially-conservative, white, male, and older- which cannot possibly account for all working-people who are white. This is a narrow way of defining the term, and really fails to capture the breadth of opinion even just amongst white workers themselves. This has the worrying result of marginalising groups and obscuring the agential concerns of a whole host of working-class people, both for those who are white and are not spoken for under this understanding of the white working-class as essentially conservative, as well as for a whole host of working-class minority peoples (Grogan, 2020).

There are further criticisms of the term too, which relate particularly to its use, but which also ask us to take a step back and ask why the term has even come into usage. There is a rich literature, originating in Critical Race Theory, which is concerned by the emergence of a politicised ‘white’ identity politics focused on a limited, ethnicity-oriented set of grievances. Gillborn (2010) identifies episodes of historic alignment along ethnic lines in which a white working-class was mobilised or ‘imagined’ to channel concerns not along pure class lines, but along racialised ones. In fact, he notes how the National Front, as well as maintstream politicians like Margaret Thatcher were able to channel working-class concerns over their conditions, pay, and access to work, erstwhile heavily impacted by government action at a time when most industries were nationalised, against their fellow, minority, workers. This took the form of slogans like “British jobs for British workers”, or narratives wherein white workers were losing out as the country became “swamped” or that that “foreigners are taking our jobs”. Historically, such mobilisations and divisions across ethnic, racialised, lines have been used to justify strict immigration controls, heavy-handed policing, and a series of other discriminatory provisions, whilst minority protests against unfair treatment have often been unable to gain support of their white fellows who have been marshalled in direct opposition to their concerns. Here, Gillborn (2010) suggests, terms like white working-class are used to suggest that minorities are somehow in conflict with whites as a distinct group, and that issues which have a positive outcome for minorities naturally have a corresponding negative impact on white people. For the working-class as a whole, the result is the further fracturing of the class along lines which diminish their collective agency, and turn working-people against one-another by stoking tensions between them. This is a powerful and historically validated critique, and I think it is fair to say that there are bad faith actors who readily use the term white working-class for these same purposes, to stoke divisions for their own ends, or in support of their ideological outlooks.

This realisation feeds well into the last criticism I present here, wherein the ambiguity of the term is transformed into a vehicle through which minority issues are reimagined as widespread concerns; thereby misleading the public, scholars, and politicans in their priorities and perceptions of a far wider class-grouping. For instance, many social commentators on the right, such as Douglas Murray (2019), claim to speak for the white working-class by exclusively discussing issues in the so-called ‘culture wars’ from a deeply conservative perspective. This is, however, a problematic application as authors use the term to speak to issues that they see as relevant, but which many white working-class people likely do not care for. In fact, despite a series of works focused on the white working-class and their interest in the culture wars (see Goodwin (2023), Murray (2019), and Goodhart (2020)), More in Common (2023) suggest that the culture wars are not that important to most working-people, nor citizens more broadly. Indeed, contentious issues like trans rights are viewed either in a positive way, or citizens tend to have no strong opinion, with just 3% seeing it as a top priority. It is not that they are outright opposed or even supportive of these rights; it is simply that, for a great number of people, they pale in comparison to other issues. More in Common’s poll in May 2023 cites the top issues that are affecting Britons, and nowhere to be seen are culture wars, nor a “war on woke”, amongst a list of 16 things, despite their consistent appearance in literature concerning the plight of the white working-class. Instead, we see the cost-of-living crisis rise to the forefront with 75% concerned, whilst the feeling of division, itself likely a by-product of government posturing on cultural issues, is reiterated consistently in their polling since 2020 (More in Common, 2020, 2023). The working-class as a whole are, of course, not a paragon of social justice, nor a bastion of progressivism; indeed, they are mostly ambivalent and, as a result, largely tolerant in their daily lives- doing so out of a common respect that forms the basis of British social convention. This is a point that Goodwin (2023) even argues, but he does not necessarily see this as evidence against the presentation of the white working-class as essentially conservative. To use the term white working-class as it so often is, effectively as a vehicle for social conservatism, is then unable to accurately capture the breadth of perspectives of those members of the working-class who are white.

I should be careful here to note that the working-class do tend to skew towards the right on cultural issues and left on economic ones. This is certainly something that is broadly agreed upon by scholars across the political spectrum, with Goodwin (2023), Sobolewska and Ford (2020) and Surridge (2010, 2021a, 2021b, 2021c, 2022). However, my core point here is that those social attitudes related to the culture wars do not have as much relevance to the concerns of the working-class, nor white working-class, as right-leaning authors suggest, and therefore it is misleading to attribute hardline socially conservative views of a minority of realistically diverse working-people. This again reiterates the central concern that the term is all too easily abused and exaggerated, largely because it is presently so ambiguous a term that it is open to such actions.

These critiques highlight how the term is all-too-often overgeneralised and misused by authors who misrepresent the views of the white working-class, or focus on issues which, in reality, hold little relevance for the daily lives of many such workers. The term loses a significant amount of its analytical value when it is applied like this, essentially as a legitimising mouthpiece for the views of these authors, and consequently undermines the usefulness of the term, which could reasonably be applied to a series of issues, as I will note later on within the article. Each of these criticisms are clear in demonstrating that the usage of the term is often divisive, pitting white and minority peoples with genuine overlapping interests against one-another. Gillborn (2010) shows effectively the historical roots of such actions, as well as the dangers of the narratives that flow from that usage- namely that anything positive that happens for racialised minorities must somehow be an attack, and corresponding loss, for whites (Abrajano and Hajnal, 2017). However, I do not see the term going anywhere soon, and so it might be reasonable to assert here that, if we are to minimise these effects, and challenge their outcomes, we must be able to come to an understanding of the term white working-class that expresses none of these sentiments, and has a clear analytical role in facilitating helpful, constructive discussions.

Appreciating valid concerns

Having largely agreed with the concerns of these critics of the term white working-class, particularly the way that it is so-often misused, it would be possible to suggest that I see little value in the accounts of right-leaning scholars and social commentators. This would be to misunderstand my concerns, as well as the analytical value that this white working-class frame has had in recent research. In fact, scholars like Matthew Goodwin (2018, 2023), who is guilty of overapplying and overgeneralising the term, nevertheless highlights real issues faced by a specific section of the working-class.

Right-leaning authors also articulate an argument in which the white working-class have been left behind by the advancement of the Knowledge Economy, and the destruction of older, rooted forms of community, typically formed around shared professions in the former-coal mining regions, but also shared struggles. ¹ These authors detail how these communities were uprooted as industries closed, trade unions declined, and the new Knowledge Economy arose, forcing many young people to move away in search of a university education that was fast becoming a prerequisite for dignified work above minimum wage. I do not have sufficient space to delve into the specifics of this argument fully here. However, it is one that both features heavily in the right-leaning literature, and yet finds itself in agreement with other works, notably by Michael Sandel (2020) and Jon Cruddas (2021), who highlight the transformation of work and routes to social mobility in their understanding of the decline of the working-classes sense of community, their agency, and their dignity. These authors, especially Cruddas (2021), frame their arguments at times in reference to the white working-class, focusing on this particular group when making their claims. In Cruddas and Sandel’s case, however, they articulate a white working-class decline specifically because it is this group which has moved to support populist candidates and causes, including Trump in Sandel’s United States, and Brexit in the United Kingdom. In this instance, the focus on the white working-class does offer some clear value as we are able to determine the factors which have driven significant political changes in recent history, whilst the detailed arguments made by right-leaning authors around decline and the growth of the Knowledge Economy can be broadened and reapplied to the working-class as a whole.

We are made aware in these accounts by Goodwin (2018), as well as Sandel (2020) and Cruddas (2021), that ethnicity has a role to play in shaping attitudes, particularly when discussing important issues like Brexit, wherein differing histories of discrimination left older white workers on the whole receptive, and minority workers unreceptive, to Leave narratives (Begum, 2023). Kaufmann (2018), Goodwin (2018, 2023), and Goodhart (2020) all articulate this point well, noting how a mixture of nostalgia for the past, and a sense that it was genuinely better for many people who did not suffer the perils of social discrimination, namely white, male, heterosexual working-people, sought to “turn back the clock” by expressing their resentment at the changes that have occurred in recent decades. The value of the ethnic angle here is one that demonstrates the lack of discrimination faced by this group in the past, which helps to qualify their sense of historical circumstances. In other words, being white has shielded these voters from the discriminations that minority voters of the same age generally faced, making them more skeptical of causes that appear to offer a return to the past in a broad sense. Such narratives were popular amongst both the Leave campaign and Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016 wherein his slogan “Make America Great Again” implied a desire to return to a glorified past where the very real issues faced by working-people like deindustrialisation and a series of agential, communal, and dignity declines could be reversed; with their place restored (Campanella and Dassù, 2019). It is a worthwhile focus because it identifies a targeted focus and a reason for looking at the white working-class specifically, since this group has in some way been shaped by its ethnicity, or at least the way that they have been racialised. Here we do not overcome the concern fully that the white working-class is an overbroad category, yet such authors do at least qualify that age alongside ethnicity are strong indicators of support for populist candidates- whilst the addition of the ‘white’ to working-class is relevant as a factor influencing reactions to these social issues and the answers presented to them by politicians and political actors.

This should be made clear and separated from the transformation of this focus on white workers and their concerns into a situation wherein the white working-class experience becomes the working-class experience. In many ways it does overlap with the issues faced by minorities, but presenting the working-class experience through white eyes does little to acknowledge this, nor the diverse nature of the class itself (Commission on Diversity in the North, 2019). Many minority working-people are just as worried by the decline of community, are suspicious of their neighbours, and feel that same sense of separation and distrust towards white majorities in their areas, as members of white majorities feel towards them. Similarly, they decry the decline of secure work, and strong full-time contracts, highlighting the slide into precarity that many white workers face. However, again, there is a broad context to this as British-Bangladeshi’s are comparatively more likely to be in work that is deemed as insecure than their white counterparts, but this is a problem that the entire class face as more of its members fall into the precariat- a group defined by reliance on the gig economy and, with that, insecure work (Standing, 2011).

To do justice to the experiences of these workers, we must surely not only speak of such declines as being faced by white workers, because we run the risk of pushing or legitimising those same narratives raised by Gillborn (2010, 2021) which perpetuate artificial divisions and the perceived victimhood of white workers at the hands of employers who are seen to unfairly privilege minorities. This is not to say that we cannot speak of problems that arise out of one’s whiteness, as I will note in the next section there may be some legitimate grievances here, but through the careful identification of commonality across these distinct lines of division, where ethnic identities are relevant as a source or factor in one’s feelings, we might see some use for the term, conversely used here to identify and bridge boundaries across those lines. Indeed, we might posit a use for signifiers like the white working-class as sometimes not about placing an artificial boundary between working-class people, but separating them into sub-groups, which do appear to have distinct tensions between them, in order to then demonstrate areas of mutuality. In this way, I propose that the term might be used in a more positive and expansive way within a pluralistic framework to identify areas of shared concern, or raise concerns, across relevant boundaries which are currently marked by conflict- and which cause very real divisions amongst members of the working-class.

We must also consider that sometimes discussion of the white working-class has nothing to do with whiteness or, to put it in another way, the portrayal of something as a white working-class issue is inappropriate when it is something that applies to the entire working-class. The working-class does have genuine concerns, and these right-leaning scholars do effectively highlight such concerns. However, they speak to them through only a focus on the white working-class, rather than as a whole. For example, scholars on the right have identified that many white working-class boys suffer in schools, both in terms of their educational achievements and access to decent school lunches which provide the nutrition necessary for a healthy life. As a result of this, and other issues, white working-class boys are often seen as being in the worst possible position to pursue their education, with limited prospects. The result of this has been an increased focus on their specific struggles, which is not a negative action in itself of course, but it neglects to consider that this is not fully a ‘white’ issue only. Rather, this plight is shared across the various working-class sub-groups as 47% of Black Children, 54% of Pakistani Children, and 60% of Bangladeshi Children require free schools meals, facing those same struggles for nutrition in schools as the much larger white ethnic group which has a free school meal rate of 23%. This lower figure makes sense given that the country is predominantly white, and this is a plight that similarly cannot be ignored given that the circumstances for these students are all a struggle, but it does not make sense to identify that these 23% of students are struggling to eat or attain higher grades because they are white. Instead, they are struggling as their fellows across the working-class sub-groups do, in schools that are often poorly funded, with larger than average class sizes, limited food budgets, and a high demand for additional support (Treloar, 2021). Research by Reay (in Ferguson, 2017) underlines this fact that schools in working-class areas, or with high-levels of working-class students, tend to be overstretched compared to their middle-class counterparts. To misrecognise this as an ethnic or racial issue, limited exclusively to white members of the working-class, does nothing to highlight the class-injustice that white and minority workers, and their children, share. In this way we must be more careful with our use of the term and its application to specific contexts or instances of injustice that are felt more widely. In this way, right-leaning scholars do make some valuable contributions to our understanding of the issues facing the working-class, but do make the mistake of attributing genuine class issues to ethnic ones instead. In this, important concerns facing the class are raised, and knowledge of such issues expanded, but it is done so in a way that could be divisive and damaging to minority class members whose struggles go unrecognised.

A delicate balancing act

Thus far, even where I have praised right-leaning authors for their attention to the plight of working-people, I have been deeply critical of their misapplication of the white working-class when concerns are far more about class, rather than ethnicity, whilst simultaneously being critical of their misrepresentation of the concerns of what are a small minority of working-people as a majority issue. The reader might be under the impression that the term lacks usefulness or value as a true analytical tool still, and I may well have done little to challenge that assumption. However, in this section I hope to make clear that it can have significant usefulness for scholars and that, further, there is a place for ethnic considerations in coming to understand a range of issues.

Indeed, there are circumstances where we might consider using the term, and where it can add value to our analysis. There are issues that we should identify as at least partially related to the intersection of one’s class and race. Indeed, Skeggs (2009) demonstrates that scorn and prejudice against the poor is often most unproblematically directed against the white members of working-class. She identifies how the demonisation of working-class children as ‘chavs’ is most easily targeted against white working-class children because it is possible to sidestep the racist connotations that would be presented if applied to another grouping. For instance, the respect agenda laid out by New Labour was targeted in its imagery against the white-working class, utilising pictures on the news of white working-class children and teenagers in hoodies (Le Grand, 2015; Skeggs and Loveday, 2012). Similarly, programmes aired on the BBC depicting working-class life in a negative fashion have tended to show mostly white Britons, with these crude caricatures often left uncriticised or undercriticised. A 2020 BBC Diversity Report suggested that “often those from lower socio-economic backgrounds are depicted negatively, fuelled by stereotypes and seen as the object of ridicule”. They identify shows such as “Little Britain” and characters such as socially-housed teen-mum Vicky Pollard as a caricature of the working-class that tends to find a lot of media representation, because of its entertainment value to others. Across the media we might also identify The Jeremy Kyle Show, which often portrayed those that went on it as an underclass, unintelligent, and worthy only of being spoken down to, covering themes like alcohol abuse, dependency, domestic violence, and welfare dependency in a way that made such issues seem commonplace in working-class life; as a feature of the class rather than as the struggles of some of its members.

This is a tendency which is felt more broadly too. The show Benefits Street, for example, “portrayed the absolute worst of the residents, showcasing shoplifting, drugs, gangs and more – further worsening the prejudice towards people who receive benefits” (Van Der Bom et al., 2018). These issues exist, but their overrepresentation or portrayal as the ‘typical’ working-class person or family is often felt as demeaning to its members, whilst these negative representations are usually of its white members. Similarly, stereotypes applied to the working-class in the form of racist or stupid caricatures, especially in the wake of Brexit are common, becoming a new phase of what Owen Jones (2020) calls the “demonisation” of working-people- where the ills and discriminations of this country are both attributed to the working-class, and serve to discriminate against them in-turn. In-particular, this Brexit-induced discrimination is applied to those members of the working-class who are white, since such themes as racism have most overtly been expressed by a minority of white working-people, but here become overapplied to stereotype all workers who are white (McKenzie, 2019). This continues a process identified in Skeggs and Loveday (2012) whereby working-people are depicted in ways that intensify their devaluation, without recourse to challenge the process. Such depictions can be applied either to the whole class, as portrayals of all working-people as perhaps unintelligent or lazy, or can be found to apply differently to specific ethnic or other sub-groups, with white workers depicted as bigoted or racist, or British Pakistani’s as somehow distant or unwilling to integrate (Mirza, 2020; Vinter, 2022). In each case, ethnicity clearly has relevance to the ways that different degradations are inflicted upon working-people.

These degradations have a curious relationship with race because the working-class suffers as a whole here. These class-critiques (which cut across its sub-groups) are damaging for the entire working-class since they express examples of class culture which are seen deficient and something to be erased. However, we might go further to say that the white working-class are among the easiest ethnicity within the class to critique, acting as a legitimate target through which the wider working-classes perceived deficiencies are portrayed. Indeed, shows like Benefits Street, Skint, and characters like Vicky Pollard are overwhelmingly white. Of course, the issue remains that negative representations are damaging, and one would not want such representations to be ‘diversified’. However, because these representations exist, and continue to evolve, they tend to fall on those members of the class who are white. They see people like them, that look like them, are only portrayed as deserving of their poverty, and as deviants with track records of abuse, low-intelligence, and alcoholism. They have little way to disassociate from such imagery, other than by saying that is not how they are, whilst it feels a little closer to home than it could for others who may conceive of their class in relation to other frames or find some internal strength in them (Skeggs, 2013). What we see here then is a class issue which perhaps hits its white members hardest. The reasons for this over-representation of white members of the class are unclear, but we might wonder, would they draw greater criticism if those portrayed were from a minority background? In that case, the awareness of race and racism might well provoke a serious response to such representations because, as a society, we are much more in-tune to these discriminations. However, perhaps because whiteness is often ‘invisible’ and, in other contexts a sign of privilege, it shields these representations from the most powerful critiques, whilst classism as a form of discrimination can continue comparably unchallenged. Again, this classism has negative effects on the whole class, but it is driven home through the portrayal of white workers primarily. Here, white is relevant as the catalyst through which indignities are inflicted upon the whole class.

Whilst this is a complex issue with racial dimensions, we can identify clearer examples of substantive issues that white working-class people more specifically face. In fact, Reay et al. (2010, 2011) identifies how white working-class children have a differing internalised attitude to education than many of their fellows across other ethnic sub-groups. She highlights how the history of education for working-class people has often been elitist and rooted in an assimilationist logic that desires ‘only the best’ to rise above their class, whilst everyone else is to continue in their position. The result of this historically has been an extremely limited social mobility for the working-class, and therefore a hardening of attitudes towards education which tend to see it not as presenting a tangible opportunity; since people like them never get anywhere. This negativity is often felt less in other sub-groups, who might have experience of educational achievement in their origin countries, in spite of downward mobility on arrival into Britain, or feel that the British education system provides a better chance of advancement than that which their parents or grandparents had elsewhere (Stahl, 2015). These are conflicting historical legacies that provoke differing responses, but here we see that the white members of the working-class may have some reasonable grievances that relate to their race and the historical indignities inflicted on their families across generations.

Being white is then relevant when talking about the working-class, because negative depictions, degradations, and demonisations tends to portray the working-class as its white members. This is deemed to be socially acceptable because it can avoid the negative connotations of racism which would otherwise accompany such demonisations. The white working-class are then demonised and treated negatively when people discuss or represent the class itself. The problem with this is that they both bear the brunt of criticism, and are portrayed as defining the class, which is actually diverse. There are then areas that the white working-class perhaps suffer in most explicitly as they are demonised for their class, their culture, and their position (Jones, 2020). This is not to say that other sub-groups do not feel the same way, but here we find that class is experienced through race and other identities in differing ways. We must be aware of these nuances, but we can at least see some legitimacy in referring to the white working-class as its own sub-group. I again stress that we need to be careful in what we apply the term white working-class to, and yet make space for the possibility of analysis along such lines, as detached from the generalisations often made by right-leaning scholars. The use of the term is a delicate balancing act and caution must be exercised in its application to prevent overextension and unintended consequences, but it holds-up to scrutiny in some specific contexts and has analytical value in its application.

Beyond and alongside ethnicity: considering alternate indicators

Part of this delicate balancing act involves us being aware of potential other indicators that can be used to discuss sub-groups within the working-class, many of which have unfortunately fallen out of usage in mainstream discussions of the ‘left behind’. Gerbaudo (2021) speaks to this point effectively in his own criticism of right-leaning scholars, wherein he follows a similar line of argument to those discussed in the first section of this article who see clear risks in overapplying the term and neglecting the unique experiences of other marginalised groups within the working-class. His argument understands that, in saying that the class is diverse, we must recognise that its sub-groups are not monolithic, which is particularly relevant to this white working-class group which is almost universally portrayed as being socially conservative (McDermott et al., 2019). In fact, if we were to split the working-class into age groups, we find that many of the younger generation are far more socially liberal than their elders, though, according to a poll conducted by ComRes as part of the BBC’s “Big British Asian Summer” series, some British Asian sub-group may hold more similarly socially conservative attitudes to the older generation (BBC News, 2018, Janmaat and Keating, 2019). This is important to note because right-leaning authors, in their narrow focus on working-classness as overly white and socially conservative, fail to consider that its younger members do, for the most part, buck this trend, whilst other sub-groups may maintain a larger percentage of social conservatives than the white working-class (Sparrow, 2019). However, there is perhaps more limited data on this than one might expect.

Gerbaudo (2021) builds on this when he speaks of ‘class-fractions’ or sub-groups within the class who tend to shift left or right based on age or profession, amongst other factors. Indeed, he points to those working in manufacturing as having right-leaning stances, but who have also pushed towards the middle-class as the work that is left has become more technical and rural, whilst those based in primarily service work have tended to move to the left as a result of their circumstances. These groups too are distinguished further in terms of their priorities, with the manufacturing working-class most likely to be concerned with the threat of outsourcing in the economy, and a desire for strong border protections and migration control, whereas service workers admittedly are also concerned with these issues, but are most concerned with the precarity of their work and the strengthening of their economic position. In terms of work too, he notes that where the dominant working-class profession 40 years ago would have been in industry, it is now in this services sector, with the most numerous working-class job title being that of ‘sales assistant’ (Gerbaudo, 2021). This makes for a more complicated view of class in which, broadly speaking, we can identify that the working-class have shifted right on culture and left on economics. However, it is worth noting that different sub-groups, here expressed in terms of profession, have different priorities when it comes to the issues which they want to see discussed and resolved. What we can see from this is that the white working-class is far more diverse than these scholars allow. It is true that a section of it are indeed socially conservative and older, but we must also recognise that many minority members of the working-class are also socially conservative (though sometimes the focus of said conservatism differs), and that these are typically also its older members (Malik, 2016). In this sense, the use of the white working-class to denote socially conservative white workers is misleading, and whilst they could well make up a majority of white-workers, they do not speak for all workers who are white. Rather, it would be better to identify other facets of identity that we can use to further distinguish between members of the white working-class, such as age and profession, which remain useful categories for distinction. Because of this, I think it pays to be careful in the way that we use the term white working-class, and what we apply it to. The addition of further factors and alternative indicators such as age and profession undoubtedly go some way to addressing this problem of overgeneralisation, and help to make further, specific claims about sections of the working-class.

An alternative indicator of viewpoints has also been proposed by More In Common (2023) which, although not class-based, does offer a means of categorising the British public in a way that is more inclusive, and better captures the differences of opinion which exist within our society. It splits Britain into Seven Segments, namely:

1) Progressive Activists- educated urbanites driven by global concerns, identifying strongly with their political beliefs, supporting left-leaning parties, engaging in debates, and actively sharing political content, favouring The Guardian.

2) Civil Pragmatists- mostly women, prioritise community and consensus, donate to charity, are informed on issues but don’t strongly tie beliefs to personal identity, and often watch Channel 5 alongside using the BBC for news.

3) Disengaged Battlers- facing daily survival struggles with insecure jobs, feel disconnected, have given up on the system, and often experience loneliness during the pandemic. They primarily consume news from sources like the BBC, The Daily Mirror, The Metro, or commercial radio.

4) Established Liberals- educated and affluent, are comfortable and trusting of institutions, believing their voices are heard in politics. They value compromise, diversity, global orientation, and often read The Times while tuning into BBC Radio 4.

5) Loyal Nationals- deeply patriotic and concerned about threats to Britain, are frustrated by exclusion from decision-makers in London, feeling disrespected by educated elites, and believing that others’ interests often take precedence. They rely on news from sources like The Daily Mail, The Sun, ITV, Facebook, and local newspapers.

6) Disengaged Traditionalists- prioritize self-reliance, value hard work, and focus on crime and justice in a well-ordered society. They view social and political debates with suspicion towards others’ behaviour and emphasize individual perspectives, sharing some views with Loyal Nationals. However, they pay limited attention to public debates.

7) Backbone Conservatives- typically older and affluent, take pride in being British, are nostalgic about their history and the monarchy, and believe the country is on the right track. They are highly engaged in social and political issues, closely follow the news, and staunchly support the Conservative Party. They hold conservative views on immigration, racism, public spending, and the North/South divide, and prefer news sources like The Daily Mail, The Daily Telegraph, and The Daily Express in addition to the BBC.

Each of these categories are defined in relation to the core issues and trends within the segment, grouping people together based on self-determined priorities, a collection of their views, and sometimes backgrounds. This has been applied to the country as a whole, but the methodology offers a way of breaking-down more complex groups into categories that may hold relevance for the way that we characterise class sub-groups.

The Seven Segments are, of course, not perfect but it is a methodology that could be applied to a schema of the working-class with some effort on the part of researchers. Indeed, where there is a concern that white working-people do not define themselves in ethnic terms, we see in the Seven Segments a distinct desire to construct groupings around core values, issues, and beliefs that people see as of value to themselves. This bypasses, albeit not perfectly, that first concern by ensuring that groups correspond to ideas that people do define themselves in accordance with; giving them a sense of agency in the presentation of said ideas by academics. This is also a schema where white working-class as a term to define a group could potentially be substituted for a term that better acknowledges the differences between members of the class who are white, and potential similarities between, say, older white and minority working-people on certain social issues. Whether this would be an effective way of reconsidering the way that we classify class-groups is uncertain- and I note More in Common here because it is an interesting and unique method of categorisation with scope for further study. However, there are a series of factors, frames, and methodologies available to us which might well be more accurate means of understanding the differences, and similarities, that exist within the working-class, without resorting to categories that seem to speak to a large, in this case ethnic, group but which, paradoxically, have very narrow parameters for membership- for the white working-class this being only older white males with socially conservative outlooks.

In this way, the term certainly has its usage, notably where ethnicity is likely to have a noticeable or relevant impact on the way that a group comes to hold their views or experience their circumstances. However, at present, ethnicity has come to define a position, and a series of issues in relation to a white working-class that is overgeneralised and, often, unclear or inaccurate. The result of this is that we end up missing the nuances of class, and ultimately ignore a number of people and sub-groups who do not fit the narrow definition of, say, white working-class as white, older, male, and socially conservative. In fact, it is unclear who exactly we can possibly be talking about, with little in the way of clarification from the predominantly right-leaning scholars and social commentators who use the term as they interchangeably talk of their narrow white working-class, and the working-class as a whole, who they too assume to hold those same views as a narrow minority. As such, whilst it can be of use, we must question whether it is the clearest way of expressing our concern for groups amongst the working-class, or whether other factors, like age, profession, or even an alternative schema, could more accurately capture the subject of our discussions. At present, the term white working-class can be used too liberally, and without qualification, which ultimately makes it easier for bad-faith actors to carry out a weaponisation of term as per the critiques offered in section one.

Conclusion

The term “white working-class” undeniably sparks passionate discussions and exposes complex social realities. While it can offer valuable insights into the experiences of a specific section of the working-people, we must be cautious not to perpetuate divisions or neglect the struggles of other marginalised groups within this class. Striking a balance between its usage and careful application is crucial to harness its potential without undermining the broader context of class-based issues affecting people of all backgrounds.

We require an awareness of both the criticisms levied against the term or, in most instances, its usage, as well as how it has been utilised to understand relevant and important social conditions. Curiously, the term has been misused by right-leaning scholars in a way that is impactful and relevant beyond their limited framings. Scholars like Goodwin do help to craft a narrative of working-class decline primarily through a more limited focus on its white members, which has itself proved fruitful in reference to scholars such as Sandel, who tread a similar path but apply their concerns to the working-class as a whole, as well as others such as Cruddas who seek to understand the white working-class and recognise the issues which they face so as to diminish their support for populist politics.

In some respects, the term has insightful uses. Unfortunately, in these white-focused accounts we tend to see arguments that do little to acknowledge how such issues are, broadly speaking, felt by minority working-people as well, albeit to differing extents, relying instead on the reading of these works alongside others, like Sandel’s, for a sense of the wider context. Alone, such works have the downside of potentially perpetuating divisions by presenting white workers as losing-out as other groups are perceived to gain in our society. Of course, a focus on the white working-class does not necessarily necessitate an inclusion of minority working-class sub-groups, nor vice-versa, but there is significant scope for the consideration of both alongside one another, particularly when they share the same concerns, or hold tensions between them. The study of these intra-class interactions is something that could help to ameliorate such tensions, and to bond the class in a way that Gilborn suggests ethnic considerations have historically hampered. It is perhaps too early to tell how effective such a course of action could be, yet there seems to be scope for dialogue and exploration across such boundaries.

I have outlined some scenarios in which I could see the relevant application of the term, notably in areas where scholars trace a link between ethnicity and social or other outcomes. We have seen how Skeggs and Reay have utilised such ethnic framings to great effect in identifying issues such as the representation of the working-class, and it’s degradation, through the use of white representations in the media- which successfully avoid powerful racial-discriminatory and other critiques. Through this, we have been able to see how white working-people often face the brunt of overt critique, with negative consequences for the class as a whole- which itself is likely to have a knock-on effect on the discriminations felt by other sub-groups. Similarly, we also see some use for the term and the ethnicity focus in understanding the reasons behind the declining educational aspirations of white working-class children in schools which, when combined with the further factor of gender, helps us to understand the legacies of educational neglect, cultural impositions, and cultural and historical differences which tend to harm the educational achievements of these white working-class boys. Lastly, the term has shed some light on ethnicity as a factor in influencing one’s views, in my example to vote for Brexit. We have seen how whiteness, and the discriminations that it has historically obscured, might make a voter more likely to support causes that seek to “roll-back-the-clock” or increase nostalgia for a past wherein other members of the class faced significant discrimination that were obscured, or can be overlooked relatively easily by white workers in the present. It is for these purposes that I do defend the use of the term as relevant and potentially beneficial to researchers.

Ultimately however, as scholars and commentators, it is our responsibility to navigate this sensitive territory with empathy and intellectual rigor. Part of this process is about determining whether the term white working-class accurately captures the ideas or circumstances that we wish to highlight, and whether ethnicity in the form of whiteness is itself a relevant factor such that it is worthwhile explicitly mentioning. As we have seen, the term is in danger of being used poorly in several different ways, either in a far too limited way as an expression of what are wider problems; as in the case of the focus on white working-class boys in what is a wider issue around the working-class access to good education and the sustenance needed for it, or is far too broad in discussing a minority of members within the white working-class, whose social conservative views and passionate desire to participate in culture war-related issues give a misleading sense of what white working-class people think, and prioritise, in their daily lives. Therefore, I urge scholars and social commentators to consider alternate or clarifying indicators, as laid out in section four, which could help to clarify or more accurately specify the groups or sub-groupings within the class that are most pertinent in a given context. This is, of course, a suggestion which is ultimately rooted in the perceptions of those who wish to utilise the term, but the act of considering its usage, and how ethnicity or ‘whiteness’ are relevant can perhaps guard against the terms misuse and improve the accuracy of our discussions. By doing so, we can derive meaningful conclusions and contribute to a more nuanced understanding of the diverse challenges faced by the working-class in today’s society.