{"id":585,"date":"2009-05-12T16:48:00","date_gmt":"2009-05-12T16:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/2009\/05\/12\/middle-class-children-have-better-genes\/"},"modified":"2009-05-12T16:48:00","modified_gmt":"2009-05-12T16:48:00","slug":"middle-class-children-have-better-genes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/2009\/05\/12\/middle-class-children-have-better-genes\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Middle class children have better genes&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A while back I wrote this about <a href=\"http:\/\/stephenlaw.blogspot.com\/2008\/05\/blairs-meritocracy.html\">&#8220;Blair&#8217;s Meritocracy&#8221;<\/a>:<br \/><span style=\"font-style:italic\"><br \/>Dig down a bit, however, and I suspect you\u2019ll find yourself harbouring a slightly less savoury view. It\u2019s not just that we middle classes are the fortunate beneficiaries of better life-chances and a better education. Yes, there may be one or two bright people living on that council estate, but generally speaking, we\u2019re a breed apart, aren\u2019t we? Something akin to natural selection has divided society roughly along class lines into the more and less able. That\u2019s what many right-wingers believe, though they generally admit it only to each other. And it is, I suspect, what the rest of us broadsheet readers believe too, if we&#8217;re honest with ourselves. Go on. Tell the truth. Isn\u2019t that what you really think?<br \/><\/span><br \/>Today I discover it&#8217;s what Blair&#8217;s old school inspector Chris Woodhead really thinks:<br \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/education\/educationnews\/5312798\/Middle-class-children-have-better-genes-says-Chris-Woodhead.html\"><br \/>Middle-class children &#8216;have better genes&#8217;, says Chris Woodhead<br \/>Children from middle-class families do well at school because they have &#8220;better genes&#8221;, according to Chris Woodhead, the former head of Ofsted.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A while back I wrote this about &#8220;Blair&#8217;s Meritocracy&#8221;:Dig down a bit, however, and I suspect you\u2019ll find yourself harbouring a slightly less savoury view. It\u2019s not just that we middle classes are the fortunate beneficiaries of better life-chances and a better education. Yes, there may be one or two bright people living on that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ban-private-schools"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/believingbullshit\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}