Ethnic differences in achievement

Berieter and Englemann

Berieter and Englemann

language spoken by low income black families are ungrammatical and disjointed.

Gillborn and Mirza

Indian pupils do very well in school despite often not having English as their first home language.

Attitudes and Values

Some black pupils are socialised into a subculture with fatalistic values that does not care for education.

Murray

High rates of lone parenthood and lack of male role models lead to the underachievement of minorities.

Sewell

Fathers, gangs and culture

Slavery

Culturally devastating for the Black community and caused low self-esteem due to the loss of their language and history.

Asian families

More positive attitude towards education and have higher aspirations. Different experiences of colonialism to black people.

White working class families

Don’t aspire to go to university as they view it as only for middle class students. Whereas BAME students see university as a way out.

Criticisms of cultural deprivation theory

Black single mothers are often strong role models for their daughters, underestimation of teacher racism, blames ethnic minorities instead of the school.

What ethnic groups are more likely to experience material deprivation?

Bangladeshi, Pakistani and Black African

What does the material deprivation theory explain?

It argues that class differences explain why Pakistani pupils tend to do worse than Indian and white pupils.

Guy Palmer

Ethnic minorities are twice as likely to be unemployed and three times as likely to be homeless as white people.

Does class override ethnicity?

No. Even some Indian and Chinese pupils who are materially deprived still do better than most.

Racism in society

Racial discrimination leads to social exclusion such as housing and employment, causing material deprivation for ethnic minority groups.

Wood

Did a study on racism on who is most and less likely to be employed.

Gillborn and Youdell

Teachers are quicker to discipline black pupils due to having ‘radicalised’ expectations of them.

Labelling

Teachers see Black and Asian pupils as being far from the ideal pupil, therefore labelling them as disruptive and passive.

Archer

Teachers define pupils as having stereotypical ethnic identities. They believe these identities lack the favoured identity of the ideal pupil.

What pupil identities does Archer describe?

The ideal pupil, The pathologised pupil, The Demonised pupil.

Fuller

Study of black girls in a secondary school who rejected labels.

Mirza

Three types of teacher racism: The colour blind, the liberal chauvinists, the overt racists.

The Colour-Blind

Teachers who believe that all pupils are equal, but in practice they allow racism to go unchallenged.

The Liberal Chauvinists

Teachers who believe that black pupils are culturally deprived and have low expectations of them.

Sewell: boys’ responses

The rebels, the conformists, the retreatists, the innovators

Advantage of labelling theory

It shows how teachers stereotypes can lead to failure, instead of blaming the child’s background.

Limitations of Labelling theory

There is a danger of seeing these stereotypes as simply the product of teacher prejudice rather than institutional racism as a whole.

Gillborn

Critical race theorist for institutional racism

Marketisation and segregation

Marketisation gives schools more scope to select pupils, allowing negative stereotypes to influence who they admit into the school.

Ethnocentric Curriculum

Schools give priority to the dominant culture and neglect ethnic minority groups in their curriculum.

Assessment

Primary schools switched from using baseline tests to using foundation stage profiles which are based on teachers’ judgments instead of actual ability.

Access to Opportunities

The ‘Gifted and talented programme’ was made to help bright pupils from inner-city schools. However, white children were more likely to be seen as gifted, therefore excluding black pupils.

Criticisms of Gillborn

Sociologists such a Sewell believe that external factors are the most important when studying minority groups.

If Indian and Chinese students still do really well, then how can there be institutional racism?