External ethnic differences in education

Cultural deprivation: Language

A lack of linguistic skills in English can be a major cause of underachievement for children of ethnic minority.

It is argued that children from low-income Black families lack intellectual stimulation and enriching experiences - leading them to lack in these skills.

Evaluation:

These theories date back from the 1960’s and can be seen as crude racist stereotypes.

Cultural deprivation: Attitudes and values

Murray - argues that African Caribbean Lone-Parenthood is the cause of cultural deprivation.

A lack of male role-models means that mothers struggle to socialise children properly.

Moynihan - believes that cultural deprivation is a cycle, where children from unstable families eventually fail at school and become inadequate parents themselves.

Lupton - suggests that the ‘Adult Authoritarian’ Asian family matches the same as the school .

Cultural deprivation: Fathers and gangs

Sewell - sees that cultural deprivation is due to a lack of fatherly nurturing / ‘tough love’ (firm, fair, respectful and non-abusive discipline).

This leads to Black boys finding it difficult to overcome the emotional and behavioural hardships in adolescence.

In the fathers absence, these boys gain ‘perverse loyalty and love’ from gangs.

These present boys with an anti-school Black masculinity, with an ideal of a ‘tough superstar’ that is reinforced through rap lyrics and videos.

Therefore, speaking in Standard English and performing well at school was seen as suspicious by their peers and as ‘selling out’ to the white establishment.

Cultural deprivation: Criticisms of cultural deprivation

Keddie - sees cultural deprivation as victim-blaming .

Ethnically minority children are culturally different - not culturally deprived.

These children underachieve because schools are ethnocentric - in favour of white culture and against those of minority.

Driver - criticises cultural deprivation for ignoring the positive effects of ethnicity on achievement.

A Black Caribbean family is not dysfunctional and can provide gives with positive role models of strong, independent women.

Material explanations / deprivation

Flaherty:

• Pakistanis and Bangladeshis are 3x more likely than Whites to be in the poorest 1/5 of the population.

• Africans, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis are 3x more likely to be unemployed than Whites.

• 15% of minority groups live in overcrowded homes - in comparison to 2% for Whites.

• Pakistanis are 2x likely to be in semi / un-skilled jobs compared to Whites.

Swann Report - social class different account for a high proportion of differences in achievement between ethnic groups.

Racism in wider society: job applications

Some sociologists argue that material deprivation and cultural deprivation is the result of societal racism.

Wood - sent 3 closely matched job applications to 1,000 jobs using fictious applicant with names from different ethnicities - with 1 of the 3 names appearing ‘white’.

He found that only 1 in 16 ‘ethnic minority’ applications were offered an interview - compared to 1 in 9 ‘white’ applications.

This can help to explain why people of ethnic minority are more likely to face unemployment and low pay.

This has a negative effect on their children’s educational prospects.

Racism in wider society: interactions effect

Class and gender can interact differently with ethnicity depending on which ethnic group is being looked at.

e.g - there is a bigger gap between the achievements of white M/C and white W/C pupils - compared to Black M/C and Black W/C pupils.