ethnic

parts of CD

• intellectual and linguistic skills

• attitudes and values

• family structure and parental support

linguistic skills

Many ethnic minority students come from a household where English is not the first language, this means that they may struggle to comprehend complex language or find it difficult to communicate their ideas into writing due to English not being used at home

Beteiter and Engelmann

language spoken by low income black American families is inadequate for educational success, this is because it’s ungrammatical and incapable of expressing abstract ideas

Attitudes and values

The lack of motivation is the cause because most students are socialised into mainstream culture which instills ambition, competitiveness and willingness to make long term sacrifices in order to achieve whereas black chrildren are socialised into a subculture which promotes a fatalistic attitude

disfunctional family structure

many black families are headed by a lone mother which means children are deprived of adequate care because she struggles financially without the presence of a male breadwinner or a role model of male achievement

• Murray

Murray

Murray says that a high rate of lone parenthood and lack of positive role models can lead to underachievement

Sewell fathers gangs and culture

black boys under achieve because of ‘tough love’, instead they turn to gangs where they get perverse loyalty and love - providing a role model which is anti - school black masculinity

Arnot - describes this as the ultra tough ghetto superstar that’s reinforced by MTV and rap lyrics

Arnot

He describes the role model of the anti school black masculinity as the ‘ultra tough ghetto superstar’ which is reinforced through MTV and rap lyrics

CD - criticisms

• Keddie says CD is victim blaming. They’re not culturally deprived just different. Schools are just biased of white culture

• Driver says that it ignores the positive effects on education that ethnic minority families can have. Black Caribbean families provide a strong female role model for girls

Lupton

Lupton argues that adult authority in asian families is similar to the model that operates in schools, this is because respectful behaviour towards adults was expected from children which means parents were more likely to be supportive of behavioural policies

Asian work ethic

Sewell says that Indian and Chinese pupils benefit from supportive families and they have an ‘asian work ethic’ placing a high value on education

white WC families

white working class pupils often underachieve and have lower aspirations

• study of 16,000 pupils found ethnic minority pupils have higher aspirations to go to university than white British pupils

this could be because of the lack of parental support, Lupton found that prodominatly white British schools had poorer levels of behaviour despite the fewer children on FSM, teachers blamed this on parents poor attitude to education

Evans

street culture in white WC ares can be so brutal students need yo learn how to withstand intimidation and intimidate others

• this can bring out disruption in class causing white WC schools to have poorer behaviour than ethnic minority schools

what are 2 alternatives to compensatory education

• multicultural education

• anti racist education

racism in wider society

• housing - discrimination means that minorities are more likely to be forced into substandard accommodation than white people of the same class

• unemployment - employers more likely to hire candidates who have white British names

Material deprivation

• Bangladeshi families are more likely to live in overcrowded houses due to financial restrictions and cultural norms

• more likely to live in food desserts

MD criticism

Despite this, Indian and Asian students still outperform white British students regardless of financial constraints

streaming

• more likely to be placed into lower streams due to the educational triage (gillbourne and yodell) due to racist stereotypes

• develop a self fuffiling prophecy

Strand

black Caribbean boys not entitled to FSM made significantly less progress than their white peers

labelling - evaluation

wright found that Asian pupils were also victims of teacher labelling, some even left pupils out of class discussions after assuming they had bad English. Despite this they still outperformed white British students

labelling

teachers see black students as furthest away from the ideal pupil, labelling them as disruptive

• gillbourne and yodell call this racilised expectations

• causes students to feel picked on and discouraged from participating in education

Bourne

labelling causes black boys high exclusion rates because the school sees them as a threat

Archer

Archer found teachers dominant discourse (view) was that ethnic minority pupils don’t fit the stereotypical ‘ideal pupil’ identity

• ideal pupil identity - white MC with a masculine identity and natural ability

• Pathologised pupil identity - Asian, ‘deserving poor’ with a feminised identity and no natural talent

• Demonised pupil identity - black or white WC with a hyper sexualised identity. Peer led, culturally deprived and under achiever

Chinese pupils being pathologised

Chinese pupils were seen as having achieved in the wrong way - hardworking rather than natural ability

• archer calls this the positive negative stereotype

failed strategies at avoiding racism

mirza - studied ambitious black girls faced with teacher racism, finding this discouraged them from being ambitious in their careers eg : professional careers

3 types of teacher racism

• colour blind (believes pupils are equal but doesn’t challenge racism)

• Liberal chauvinists (believes black pupils are CD)

• Overt racists (openly discriminates)

the girls avoided negative attitudes eg : being selective with who they asked for help. although they had a high self asteem, the strategies used put them at a disadvantage

successful strategies at avoiding racism

Fuller - studied a group of black year 11 girls finding that they were high achievers in a school that put black girls in lower streams

• they used their anger about the low ability stereotypes as motivation

• they only conformed as far as school work, relying on their own effort instead of teachers

This shows that pupils can still succeed if they refutes to control and negative labels don’t always lead to self fulfilling prophecy

• a similar study found Asian a level students don’t always accept the negative label given to them

boys responses

Sewell

1. Rebel - most visible and influential. Reject schools rules in favour of conforming to the anti school black macho lad

2. Conformist - accept the schools goals

3. Retreatist - hated by the rebels, isolated from school

4. Innovators - pro education and anti school. Approved by rebels

critical race theory

This means that racism is an ingrained feature of society involving institutionalised racism and the racism of individuals

marketisation and segregation

gillbourne argues that marketisation gives schools more scope to select pupils, allowing negative stereotypes to influence decisions about school admissions

Moore and davenport - selection procedures lead to ethnic segregation eg : application processes in primary schools are hard for non English speaking parents ti understand

the ethnocentric curriculum

• Ball says that the NC ignore ethnic diversity and has a ‘little Englandism’ attitude ignoring black and Asian pupils history

  causes ethnic minority students to see their history as inferior causing low self esteem

However, despite this Chinese and Indian pupils still perform very well

criticisms of Gillbourne

• Black boys underachievement - Sewell argues that although there’s racism in schools, it’s not powerful enough to prevent pupils from succeeding. Instead we should focus on external factors

• Model minorities - how can schools be institutionalised racists when there are ethnic minority groups that perform better than white pupils

assessment

Gillbourne argues the assessment game is rigged to validate white pupils superiority

Evidence - primary schools changed baseline assessments to foundation stage profiling in 2008 - all of a sudden black pupils were doing worse than white pupils

• FSP is based on teachers judgements

access to opportunities

• Gifted and talented programmes - help disadvantaged pupils, but Gillbourn said whites are 5x more likely to be selected than Black Africans

• Exam tiers - found despite schools ‘aiming high’ initiative for black Caribbean pupils, they were still entered for foundation exams at GCSE’s

new IQism

Gillbourne argues teachers and policy makers see potential as a fixed quality they can measure with radicalised expectations - putting ethnic minorities as low ability