Classics and Class in Britain

The words ‘Classics’ (Latin classicus) and ‘class’ (classis) have the same root; both words come from the Latin verb clamare, to ‘call out’, ‘acclaim’. While in Rome the word classici referred to the highest class of the Roman people, Classics has always meant ‘first class’ literary products (Lewis and Short, Reference Lewis and Short1896). In the late 2nd century AD, the Roman writer Aulus Gellius referred to the greatest authors as scriptores classici, ‘classic writers’ – as opposed to second-rate authors, scriptores proletarii (Noctes Atticae 19.18.15), the writing proletariat. The British people, especially the English, has always felt a particular association with the Graeco-Roman world (Hingley, Reference Hingley2000, pp. 1–16; Stray, Reference Stray1998, pp. 7–45). In the Britain of the past three centuries, the Classical curriculum, with its all-male boarding schools mostly run by Anglican priests, has long been understood as a pathway to ‘gentlemanliness’, which meant access to Oxford and Cambridge for the privileged few enrolled in it (Hall and Stead, Reference Hall and Stead2020, pp. 10; 24). Today, things are gradually changing. In Oxbridge, a new Classics programme was created to ensure that students without A Levels in Latin or Ancient Greek are able to study it successfully. The issue of access, however, remains. In 2019, only one in four (26%) students who accepted a place on the three-year Classics course at Cambridge came from state schools, and 14% were from BAME backgrounds, with British Black, Pakistani, and Bangladeshi students among the most under-represented (The Guardian, 2021).

In November 2020, the Council of University Classics Departments published their Equality and Diversity Report, which opens with the following, alarming sentence:

Whilst income and ethnicity have long been recognised as factors historically impacting access to Higher Education, relatively little research work has gone so far into the repercussions at university level of systematic class divide, especially in relation to Classical educationFootnote ¹. Class is not a protected characteristic in the Equality Act 2010, but is crucial in understanding: (i) in what way a significant portion of the student body in Britain has been and is currently being deprived of the possibility of receiving a Classical education; (ii) how those who do, may feel disempowered, alienated, marginalised, thus unable to fit in institutions that are alien spaces modelled on and dominated by the middle-class experience (Canevaro et al., Reference Canevaro, Canevaro, Stead and Williams-Reed2021)Footnote ². For working-class students, barriers are everywhere, at every level:

Class is a concept that is difficult to quantify and may mean different things to different people. The report ‘How White Working-class Pupils Have Been Let Down, And How To Change It’ by the Education Committee of the House of CommonsFootnote ³ states that Free School Meals-eligibility ‘is currently the most pragmatic way to evaluate disadvantage, and is frequently used as a proxy for ‘working class’ (House of Commons, 2021). This clearly amounts to playing to the lowest common denominator: 1.63 million pupils (19.7%) were eligible for Free School Meals (FSM) as of October 2020, but as many as 40% of UK 18–24-year-olds think of themselves as working class. (Social Mobility Barometer, 2021).Footnote ⁴ The Committee's report appears to draw from the written evidence to the Committee by Universities UK in July 2020, which states that ‘there is no single definition in what constitutes a pupil as being from a ‘working-class’ background’.Footnote ⁵ But this should not be used as an excuse not to devise and implement reform to a system that keeps failing a large portion of youngsters. The crude reality is that the percentage of students from low-income background (referred to as low participation groups) entering Higher Education has not risen above 15% since 1998 (Higher Education Statistics Agency, 2022, Fig. 6). In addition, research suggests a ‘strong direct association between social class background and success in education: put simply, the higher a child's social class, the greater are their attainments on average’ (Gillborn and Mirza, Reference Gillborn and Mirza2000, pp. 18–19).

According to OCR, the UK awarding body that creates exam papers for GCSEs and A Levels, including Greek and Latin, a total of 1016 students took Latin at A-Level and 188 took Greek in 2020. The figure for Latin is about one twentieth of the figure for Biology or Chemistry. And the trend is downwards: in 2019, it was 1128 for Latin, 219 for Greek; in 2018, it was 1179 for Latin, 246 for Greek. The real problem is not so much one of numbers, but – again – of class: the study of Latin and Greek languages is almost non-existent in the state sector. ‘You could almost say that a working-class state school […] is one that does not offer any form of Classics’, writes Jerome Moran in his recent pamphlet Working Class(ics): an Immodest Proposal (Moran, Reference Moran2019, p. 105). Considering that state schools count for 93% of the entire student body in England, it is clear that at A level Classics students come from, almost entirely, that mere 7% of pupils for whose education their parents can pay. The scarcity of pupils in the ever-at-threat Classics field is therefore inextricably linked with the very limited access enjoyed by the vast majority of students to Classics as a discipline (Hodgkinson, Reference Hodgkinson2021).

Although the 2021 British Council Language Trends report draws on responses from only 34 state schools in England currently offering Latin at Key Stage 3 (ages 11–14) (British Council, 2021), it must conceal the true, higher figure. For example, Department for Education examination statistics for 2019 (the latest data set available) show that 283 state schools entered students for Latin GCSE that year (Department for Education, 2019)Footnote ⁶. However, a stark class divide can be seen between independent and state schools at GCSE level: 65% of independent schools offer GCSE Latin and one in three offer Ancient Greek, compared to 9% and fewer than 2% of state schools respectively (Bracke, Reference Bracke2016, p. 35; Hall, Reference Hall2016, p. 3). The situation with A-levels is also pretty disheartening. In 2019, only 2% of state-maintained schools offered A-level Latin and only 0.2% offered Greek (Hunt and Holmes-Henderson, Reference Hunt and Holmes-Henderson2021). In 2015, Camden School for Girls in north London, the only non-selective, state school in the country to offer A-level Greek, considered ditching the programme citing financial concerns. Teachers issued an appeal for help, published in The Guardian newspaper, which apparently prevented the closing of the subject (The Guardian, 2015)Footnote ⁷. It is paradoxical that of the currently 21 universities offering 32 language-based Classics courses in the UK, 16 of these 32 courses either require or prefer students to have taken Latin and/or Greek at A-Level (Holmes-Henderson and Watts, Reference Holmes-Henderson and Watts2021, pp. 86–87). If the pool of qualified candidates for these language-based Classics courses comes almost exclusively from the independent sector, Classics will always be facing the threat of extinction.

Classics and Class at Liverpool

In this article we reflect on students' self-perception of class. In particular, we will deal with class composition in terms of class background, focusing on the kind of experience and problems that new Classicists, that is Classics students entering the discipline for the first time, may experience if their class background is not the default one, i.e. the middle class.

At the University of Liverpool, undergraduate students can study the ancient worlds of Greece and Rome via three degrees: Classics, Classical Studies and Ancient History. Of these, only Classics actually requires students to learn Ancient Greek and Latin. In other words, if students wish to study the Classical world, they will not be required to study the language. In Classics (as opposed to Classical Studies or Ancient History), half of the credits in their programme will be spent learning the grammar of Greek and Latin – something that requires a significant investment in time and effort. A typical 15-credit language module, especially at beginners and post-beginners level, will require students to have 33 contact hours and 117 hours of independent study, compared to around 20 hours of lectures and seminars and 130 hours of independent study in other non-language modulesFootnote ⁸. After typically two modules of Latin and four modules of Greek, students are rewarded with the chance to access the works of literature from Greece and Rome in the original language, without having to rely on someone else's translation – a basic principle of Classical scholarship. It is true that students are not scholars, but they may become such: 27.6% of respondents in the survey informing this study declare in fact that it was precisely their plan to become an academic that motivated them to study Greek and/or Latin.

Data on 2021–2022 modular enrolment of first year-students in the Department of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology reveal a very low uptake of language modules: only eight students decided to study Classics, the only undergraduate programme where the language component is required. Of the 11 incoming students interested in Classical culture (Classical Studies, i.e. Classics without languages, or with optional language component), only four are taking Greek and two are taking Latin. Of the 17 Ancient History first-year undergraduates, only one is taking Greek and one is taking Latin.

The purpose of this investigation is to understand why Classics students often turn down the chance to learn an ancient language, even when they see the benefits of such an opportunity. I want to find out whether reluctance to take languages is connected with students' perception of self-worth: is this self-imposed distance from socially allocated privilege stopping students from enjoying Classical languages and flourishing as learners of foreign (in the broader sense of non-English) languages? Is it an issue of lack of self-confidence, and if so, where does that lack of self-confidence come from? Is it justified? Is it an issue of actual or self-perceived lack of linguistic skills?Footnote ⁹ Or is it that students are just sloppy and lazy? Do they simply have a narrow and cynical focus on exams and grades, reckoning it will be less demanding to get a language-free degree? The survey ‘Classics and Class at Liverpool’ was created with these questions in mind.

Content and Structure of the Survey

The survey, which was entirely anonymous, consisted of 20 questions (see Figure 1). The first question asked students to give consent to their information being used for research purposes. 67 out of 68 respondents gave consent and completed the survey. Question 2 asked students to identify themselves as either working, middle, or upper class. The remaining 18 questions were subdivided into two main sections, one (Q3–11, pp. 3–11) addressing the concerns of students identifying as working class, the other (Q12–20a, b and c, pp. 12–20) surveying all Liverpool students within the Department of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology, regardless of class composition, on their perception of ancient languages at Liverpool and beyond. The final page of the survey provided respondents with a list of recommended scholarly contributions on class and social mobility in England; Classics and Class in Britain; and data on the current state of Classics and Classical Civilisation in state schools and the independent sector. In order to ensure that the results were statistically robust, the survey was open to all students in our Department (425, including undergraduates, postgraduate taught and postgraduate research students). The survey contained a combination of multiple-choice questions (Q3–8; 11–12; 14–20) and open-ended questions (Q9–10, 13).

Figure 1. Survery questions.

Structuring the survey in this way allowed me to target working-class students on matters affecting specifically their social class, measuring their attitudes to issues such as privilege and elitism in Higher Education. Q3–11 therefore were only answered by students identifying as working class, whereas Q12–20, which target broader issues affecting the discipline, were answered by all students. The first section of the survey looks into the hurdles faced by working-class students, both on an academic and on a personal level. Q3–7 assess the impact of class and socioeconomic factors more broadly on students' self-perception as learners and their confidence in tackling non-English languages.

The second section was designed to capture data on students' attitude to ancient languages with a view to understanding why not only Archaeology and Egyptology, but – most crucially – also Classics and Ancient History students often decline the chance to learn a Classical language, even when they clearly see the benefits of learning one. Q12 asked students whether they were currently enrolled in or planned to take any Greek or Latin module; those who responded negatively (57.6%) were asked why they decided not to take up Greek or Latin (Q15). Those who responded positively (42.4%, Q13–14) were asked to explain what led them to do so and whether they were satisfied with and enjoyed the process of learning.

Q16–18 were about the role played by school education in students' relationship with ancient languages, specifically whether and how their school experience influenced their choices at university level. Students were asked whether they had any Latin or Greek at school, and at what level (A-Level, GCSE, key stage 3, or just informal sessions). Students who responded negatively (the vast majority, 68.7%) were asked whether any tuition in Latin or Greek at beginners' level would have been beneficial or would have increased their chances to take an ancient language at University (Q18). Q19 tested students' awareness that no prior knowledge of either language was required to attend Greek and Latin modules at Liverpool, with a view to determining whether lack of effective communication from staff was in fact among the contributing factors to the limited take-up of language modules. Finally, Q20 came back to the issue of class from a broader viewpoint, indirectly asking all students (i.e. not just working-class ones) whether maintaining current class structures was in fact among their priorities.

Steps forward and recommendations

Measures to counteract this apparent disadvantage are already being taken, but there is still a long way to go to solve what appears to be a structural problem of access to Classics education for most students and tackle the more subtle and less visible issues of confidence and estrangement among working-class individuals. Several initiatives have recently alerted the Classics community to problems that, if ignored or dismissed, will pose a threat to the survival of an entire discipline. Most recently, the Network for Working Class Classicists have started working with the Council of Universities of Classical Departments EDI Committee to collect data on class demographics in the field of Classics and determine how class dynamics intersect with gender, ethnicity, disability and sexuality (Canevaro et al., Reference Canevaro, Canevaro, Stead and Williams-Reed2021).

As for Liverpool, the University has been recently piloting the use of contextual offers for applicants, offering a two-grade reduction from the standard offer for certain underrepresented groupsFootnote ¹⁶. The Liverpool Hub within Classics for All North has launched a partnership with three independent and four state schools to introduce Classical Civilisation and Ancient History into the schools' curricula (Case and Haley, Reference Case and Haley2020). The Liverpool Schools Classics Project has been organising, under the aegis of the Department of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology, a series of events with schools in the Liverpool areas, most recently talks on the set texts for A-level Latin students. In 2020, the Department launched its own ‘Diversifying the Classics Curriculum’, a project led by Dr Fiona Hobden, where 47 students were asked to question our modular choices and were invited to work with us to ensure greater representation of diversity in the content and delivery of our courses. The project report, produced by Serafina Nicolosi and Kate Caraway, highlighted students' interest in (45%) and willingness to see more space given to (36%) class as a subject. Commenting on Liverpool's Teaching and Learning Environment, 19% of students said they only feel ‘included to some extent’. Class features, directly or indirectly, in some of the students' comments:

The teaching and research units within individual institutions should be listening to these concerns and ensuring a level of support to students who feel disconnected from both their peers and their lecturers. While departments in most HE institutions in Britain have well-oiled support systems to address the personal and academic needs of students, mentors are generally randomly allocated to students, who often decline the opportunity to meet and discuss their academic performance and personal circumstances with their academic advisors. In her recent Higher Education and Working-Class Academics, Teresa Crew (Reference Crew2020) has proposed an alternative advisory system based on mentors willing and able to support their students to construct their own professional identity through fostering a sense of belonging and promoting role models.

Whilst 25% of respondents in the Survey said one of the reasons for not taking up languages is how difficult and intimidating Greek and Latin look, eight out of ten have shown an extremely high appreciation of Classical language classes and an awareness of the important skills these sessions convey. It is now time to capitalise on these successes. As Classical language teachers, we should be committed to dispel this aura of negativity that surrounds languages, something we inherited from centuries of structural elitism and a deeply unequal education system, which neither we nor our students are responsible for.