People Like Us
SynopsisPlot
Raised on benefits and having attended some of the lowest-performing schools in the country, barrister Hashi Mohamed knows something about social mobility. In People Like Us, he shares what he has learned: from the stark statistics that reveal the depth of the problem to the failures of imagination, education and confidence that compound it. We live in a society where the single greatest indicator of what your job will be is the job of your parents. Where power and privilege are concentrated among the 7 per cent of the population who were privately educated. Where, if your name sounds black or Asian, you'll need to send out twice as many job applications as your white neighbour.
Story
About this book
Hashi Mohamed arrived in Britain at the age of nine as a refugee from the Somali civil war. He grew up on state benefits, attended some of the lowest-performing schools in the country, and eventually became a barrister. People Like Us draws on that personal history to examine the state of social mobility in Britain, asking how far individual effort can carry someone when structural barriers remain firmly in place.
Mohamed presents data showing that parental occupation remains the strongest predictor of a person's own career prospects. He notes that roughly seven per cent of the British population attend private schools, yet this group holds a disproportionate share of positions of power and influence. He also addresses research indicating that applicants whose names sound black or Asian must send out significantly more applications than white counterparts to receive the same number of responses. These patterns, he argues, reflect failures not only in education policy but in imagination and confidence at every level of society.
Rather than presenting his own trajectory as proof that the system works, Mohamed treats it as an outlier. The book examines how deep divisions in class, race, and access continue to shape outcomes for children from deprived backgrounds across the country.
