Lord Tony Sewell CBE is a British educational consultant, author, and life peer. Born in Brixton to Jamaican parents, he trained as a teacher and worked in some of London's most challenging schools, during which time he completed his PhD on black masculinities and schooling at the University of Nottingham. He helped transform education in Hackney as part of the team that established the Learning Trust and the iconic Mossbourne Academy, a flagship of the Academy movement. He is the founder and chair of Generating Genius, a charity that has helped hundreds of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds into STEM careers at top universities. In 2021 he chaired the government's Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities, producing what became known as the Sewell Report. He was awarded a CBE for services to education in 2016 and elevated to the House of Lords as Baron Sewell of Sanderstead in 2022, where he sits as a member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights. His latest book is Black Success: The Surprising Truth, published by Swift Press.

In this conversation, Lord Sewell and I think out loud about:

Why white working-class boys are still at the bottom
How the numbers were deliberately fudged to hide the problem
The three causes behind poor performance: poor schools in post-industrial areas, family breakdown, and no one championing their cause
The self-loathing of middle-class white professionals and how their luxury beliefs that harm those below them
Anti-white animus in the institutions and class warfare dressed up as progressivism
The road man culture cutting across every ethnicity and what John saw on his road trip for his The Call Of England travelogue
Why Sewell thinks Netflix' Adolescence missed the point entirely
A modern-day dissolution of the monasteries. Can the institutions can be trusted or do they need to be replaced?
Individual agency and community-led regeneration and what the state cannot fix
The collapse of Christianity as the root cause underneath all of it
What Sewell changed his mind on and why he came back to Christianity

Find Lord Sewell's work:

Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities report: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-report-of-the-commission-on-race-and-ethnic-disparities
Centre for Social Justice — White Working Class Boys report: https://www.centreforsocialjustice.org.uk/newsroom/white-working-class-boys-still-at-the-bottom-of-the-class-says-race-report-chief
Generating Genius: https://www.generatinggenius.org.uk

About Thinking Class: Thinking Class is a long-form interview podcast exploring the cultural, historical, and moral forces shaping England, Britain, and the wider Western world. Hosted by John Gillam, the show features serious conversations with thinkers, historians, and commentators grappling honestly with the condition of our civilisation.

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