The law was passed in order to extend the possibility of higher education to a working class which had been excluded from the elite classical education offered by the traditional system.

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The first is a developed world problem, the challenge working-class youth without higher education face finding work in a de-industrialized society.

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Interestingly, those in the creative class had lower likelihood of unemployment than those with the same level of education who worked in service and working class jobs.

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However, Dr Strand cautioned against seeing white working class pupils as the only problem for the education system.

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He is a member of the first generation of working-class Britons to have received a college education, which fostered in them a sense of possibility that was thwarted by the country's rigidly stratified class system.

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Black Afro-Caribbean boys are among the lowest achievers in England's education system, alongside poor white working class boys, according to official statistics.

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Born into a working-class, immigrant family, she speaks persuasively about the transformative power of education and personifies her own message.

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