Cloning the Blairs: New Labour's programme for the re-socialization of working-class parents

Abstract

In his speech to the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) in July 1999, the UK Secretary of State for Education, David Blunkett, set out New Labour's vision for a system of education in which there is ‘excellence for the many not just the few’. He outlined what is essentially a bi-focal strategy for achieving this vision. The first focus is on the education system itself, the structures and practices that New Labour believes need to be in place if schools and services are going to meet the needs of all children and not just a privileged minority. The second focus is on the need to promote ‘a culture of achievement’, as, according to Blunkett, the vision ‘depends on changing attitudes as well as the system itself’. This paper focuses on this second strategy, more specifically the government's attempts to change the attitudes of parents. It is argued that this strategy aims to eradicate class differences by reconstructing and transforming working-class parents into middle-class ones, that it represents possibly the most important and far-reaching aspect of New Labour's policy agenda, and that it has not so far received the attention it deserves. The paper is in two parts. The first part sets out what is involved in New Labour's programme of re-socialization and explores the mechanisms by which New Labour is attempting to universalize the values, attitudes and behaviour of a certain fraction of middle-class parents. The second part develops a critique of this programme.