Ethnicity and differential achievement

What 5 external factors explain ethnic difference in achievement

1. Linguistic skills

2. Family structure, values, and attitudes

3. Housing

4. Unemployment

5. Racism in wider society

What 7 internal factors explain ethnic differences in achievement

1. Labelling and racism

2. Pupil identities

3. Pupil responses and subcultures

4. Marketisation and segregation

5. Ethnocentric curriculum

6. Assessment

7. New IQism

What did Bereiter and Engelmann find about linguistic skills?

• Working class black American families language was ungrammatical and disjointed

• children are unable to express abstract ideas in education

• struggle in essays and discussion, leading to education failure

What did Moynihan claim about black families values and structure?

• high proportion of single mother households in black communities

• boys lacked an adequate role model of male achievement

• inadequately socialised children from unstable families fail at school

What did Pryce claim about black family value and attitudes

• Colonialism devastating for black population

• More sensitive to racism as a result

• causing low self esteem and under-achievement

• asian families structures, language etc.. not destroyed to the same extent.

What did Sewell claim about black family values and attitudes?

• Not the absence of fathers a lack of discipline

• boys find perverse loyalty and belonging in street gangs

• This creates an anti-school black masculinity in which they feel pressure from their peers to reject school values.

What did Driver and Ballard assert about asian family attitudes?

Asian parents are :

• More positive in their attitudes toward education

• Have higher aspirations of their childrens

• Thus are more supportive

What did Lupton observe about asian family attitudes

Asian culture around respecting authority is similar to that of a school, thus asian children adapt better and parents are more supportive of school policies

What did Strand’s longitudinal research discover about Indian family attitudes

• Indian students are the most likely to complete homework 5/7 evenings

• Parents are most likely to know where their child is when they are out

Relative to other ethnic groups

What did Francis and Archer claim about Asian family values

• high value placed on education by chinese parents

• strong cultural tradition of respect for elders

• asian students derive positive self-esteem from becoming a good student

What did Basit’s study on British Pakistanis and Indians reveal about their family attitudes?

• All generations valued education

• grandparents saw free state education as a blessing

• Children had been shown special effort into ensuring they had the resources for educational achievement

• education viewed as a form capital that transforms lives

What did Lupton’s study reveal about white working class family attitudes?

• Lower levels of aspiration and achievement

• Low parental support

• Negative attitudes

Why does Keddie criticise cultural deprivation?

• victim blaming

• implies that underachieving groups lack the right norms and values

• ethnocentric curriculum is to blame

What estimates did Platt make regarding housing in 2007?

Amount of children growing up in poverty

• 70% of Bangladeshi

• 50% of Pakistani

• 20% white population

2013 improvement

• 40% ethnic minorities living in poverty

• twice the rate of white people

What did Harker claim about housings affect on education?

• Poor overcrowded housing can make it harder for a child to study

• sharing bedrooms causes disturbed sleep and diffculty concentrating

What are three reasons for unemployment

1. Location, people that live in more economically deprived areas.

2. lack of linguistic skills and foreign qualifications

3. asylum seekers not able to work until they are an official refuge

What stats did the Runnymede Trust release about ethnic minority poverty

• ethnic minorities make up 26% of those in deep poverty despite being 15% of the population

• 2.2x more likely to be in deep poverty in comparison to white people

• Bangladeshi 3x more likely

Are material factors more important than cultural?

Indian and chinese children from materially deprived families still achieve higher than other ethnic groups

• 86% of chinese girls who received FSM achieved 5+ high grade GCSEs compared to 65% of white girls (FSM)

What did Gillborn and Youdell argue about labelling and racism within schools?

• Teachers are not intentionally racist

• labelling is the result of racialized expectations

• lower expectations due to teachers believing black students had a difficult home life

How much more likely are Black Caribbean boys to be excluded from school?

37 - according to the Office of the Children’s Commissioner

What did strand assert about racism through setting and streaming?

• Judgement of pupil’s academic ability was distorted by perceptions of their behaviour

• poor behaviour amongst black pupils caused them to be placed in lower sets

• behaviour and academic ability may be correlated but correlation is not causation

What did Archer identify as the three different pupil identies?

1. The ideal pupil identity - white, middle class. achieves through natural ability and initiative

2. The pathologized pupil identity - conformist who succeeds through hard work rather than natural ability

3. The demonised pupil identity - black or white working class. peer-led, culturally deprived underachiever

What did Archer state about ethnic minorities being seen as abnormal

• Chinese students both praised and viewed negatively for being too quiet and too passive

• achieved success in the ‘wrong way’ through hard work and conformism, instead of natural ability

What did Mirza assert about teachers racism towards black girls?

• teachers discouraged them from aspiring to careers and being ambitious

• black girls had high self-esteem

• but despite this their strategies to avoid racism put them at a disadvantage

What did Fuller claim about black girls response to labelling

• channelled anger into educational success

• did not seek approval of teachers and maintained positive self image

• anti-school but pro-education and success

What three type of racist teachers did Mirza identify

• Overt racist

• Colour blind

  • let racism go unchallenged

• Liberal chauvinist

  • ‘help’ came off as patronising and counter productive

What were the four ways Sewell identified black pupils as responding to the label of being anti-authority and anti-school

1. Rebels - reject goals and rules of school, express their opposition and are the black macho lads, as label suggests

2. Conformist - largest group who are keen to succeed

3. Retreatists - disconnect from school and black culture

4. Innovators - pro-education but anti-school

What statement Gillborn make regarding education institutional racism?

ethnic inequality is so deep rooted and so large scale that it is a practically inevitable feature of the education system

What two arguments does Gillborn make against marketisation, in regards to it causing segregation

1. negative stereotypes influence school admissions

2. white pupils twice as likely to be selected for gifted and talented schemes

What did the commission of Racial Equality show about racism in school admission procedures

• reports from primary schools stereotype minority pupils

• Racist bias in interviews for school places

• lack of information in minority languages.

  • parents unaware of things like deadlines

What did Troyna and Williams claim about the curriculum?

• gave priority to white language and culture

• limited provision for teaching Asian languages

What did David claim about the national curriculum

• Concentrates on culture of the host community

• ignores non-euro languages, history, and literature

• christian calendar used

What did the Black Curriculum Report (2020) find

The national curriculum in England systematically omits the contribution of black British history in favour of a dominant white, eurocentric curriculum.

How did Gillborn argue that assessment was racist

• rigged to validate the dominant cultures superiority

• if black children succeed as a group the rules change to re-engineer failure

• The FSP is based on teachers judgement only which increases risk of teacher stereotyping

What did Sanders and Horn find about assessment

When more weighting was given to tasks assessed by teachers rather than written exams, the gap between the scores of different ethnic groups widened

What is the ‘new IQism’

• Access to opportunities such as higher sets and gifted and talented programmes depend on teacher assessment of pupils.

• Gillborn argues that teachers and policymakers make false assumptions about the nature of pupils potential as it is often clouded by racist stereotypes.

What did Bhopal find were the reasons for poor attendance and high dropout rates in GRT pupils

Gypsy, Roma, and Traveller

• Didn’t feel represented by school curriculum

• experienced racism in mainstream schools