CHAPTER 3 - Pupils and Their Parents

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the home backgrounds of pupils and their parents involved in a study described in the chapter. The great majority of the fathers in the sample did skilled or semi-skilled manual work of various kinds, in trades, factories, and transport. One or two had positions at a relatively high level in terms of the Registrar General's categorization: one father was a site agent and another was a production engineer. Less than a dozen had skilled occupations of a nonmanual kind: a few were store clerks and one was the manager of a city ballroom. Only 16 of the fathers were unskilled manual laborers, and 10 were at a lower level of subsistence as a result of retirement, ill-health, or unemployment. The mothers' premarriage occupations were on the whole of a rather lower order of skill, though about a quarter of them had skilled occupations such as tailoring or clerking. About a quarter of all the mothers had part-time employment at the time of interview and another sixth were working full-time. The more recent employment was at a lower level of skill again, probably as a result of the temporary or part-time nature of the work.