Dumbing Down & Going Backwards?

 The recent report in The Guardian about the BBC dumbing down some of its content got me thinking about my own research. For readers new to the party, my research focuses on adult education in the 1920s and 1930s, primarily working-class adult education. The Guardian report suggests the BBC is set to "redirect its television budget to make “lighter” dramas and comedies in the belief they will appeal to Britons from poorer backgrounds." The report goes on to explain that these Britons are people who fall into the C2 social grade or skilled working class to you and me, the D social grade or working class, and the E grade or non-working. This got me thinking. How did we get from thousands of working-class men and women spending their limited leisure time listening to lectures in cold, draughty halls to the situation we are now in, where the BBC feels the need to dumb down content to appeal to working-class people?

I have recently returned from a research trip to Birkenhead, where I looked at the archives of "Beechcroft", the Birkenhead Settlement. Beechcroft, similar to other educational settlements of the time, was set up to provide education for adult workers. Unlike the Spennymoor Settlement, which was a much more student-centred settlement, Beechcroft very much functioned as a top-down educational establishment. Students had very little control over what was taught. However, in all adult education centres, the students could vote with their feet. If they were not interested, intrigued or curious about the subject, they could walk away. If, for example, a series of talks on "Democracy in Ancient Greece" (given in 1917) did not stimulate the students, they could be absent from the class. It is interesting to note that attendance at the Settlement did not drop; workers would finish work and regularly attend these lectures, and not just attend them but be engaged by the content. In fact, they were so engaged they would continue the discussion with the lecturer on the way to the railway station, even shouting their ideas at the train carriage as it left the station. Where did this passion for education go? 

Just look at some of the lectures put on at the Beechcroft Settlement:

• Nov 12th 1917. Thinking About Thinking. 
• Jan 20th 1918. The Congestion of Population in England. Its causes; its effects; its remedies. 
• Feb 11th 1918. Anglo-Saxon Ideals in Education.
• Four talks on the "Great Educational Reformers - Pestalozzi, Robert Owen, Herbert Spencer, Montessori.

A list of some of the lectures from "Beechcroft" the Birkenhead Settlement. Fourth Annual Report.

This is not low-brow stuff. These are meaty topics, and there are many, many more. Saturday evenings, (YES, SATURDAY EVENINGS!) were spent chatting about "The Soul of the Worker", "The Romance of Bridge Building", and "Shakespeare's Haunts and Characters", a quick look at today's TV schedule shows me that working-class folk have Strictly Come Dancing and I See Your Voice (Nope, no idea either so I went to the BBC website to find out "Erasure's Andy Bell tries to help sisters Dominique and Tahiela spot the fake singers.")

Now, I am not against a bit of light entertainment, and I am sure that the workers in Birkenhead and across the country went out to the music halls and took in the equivalent of Strictly or Mrs Brown's Boys, but to suggest that to appeal to working-class people the BBC needs to dumb down its content, makes me think we might just have gone backwards. 
What do you think?