ethnic differences in education✅

External factors that cause ethnic differences in achievement

1. Cultural deprivation

2. Material deprivation and class

3. Racism in wider society

Aspects within cultural deprivation theory

1. Intellectual and linguistic skills

2. Attitudes and values

3. Family structure and parental support

What do sociologists say about black families and linguistic skills

Low income black families lack intellectual stimulation and enriching experiences, this leaves them poorly equipped for school

AO3 of intellectual and linguistic skills factor

Gillborn and Mirza:

• Indian pupils do very well despite not having English as their home language

Differences in attitudes that causes ethnic differences in achievement

Most children are socialised into the mainstream culture which instils ambition, competition and willingness to make sacrifices to achieve long term goals. Whereas black children are socialised into a subculture that instils ambition fatalistic “live for today” attitude that does not value education.

Moynihan - family structure and support

Black families are headed by lone mothers so children are left with inadequate care since the mother struggles financially in the absence of a male bread winner

Scruton - Cultural deprivation

Low achievement levels of some minorities is a result from failure to embrace mainstream British culture

Murray - Cultural deprivation (family structure and support)

High rate of lone parenthood and a lack of positive male role models lead to underachievement for black boys

Pryce - Cultural deprivation

Asian culture is more resistant to racism and gives a sense of self worth whereas black Caribbeans are less cohesive and resistant to racism which creates a low self esteem causing underachievement in education

Why do black pupils have a low self esteem according to Pryce

Impact of colonialism:

• Slavery was culturally devastating for black people as they lost their language, family systems, religion etc. Whereas Asian culture was not destroyed by colonial rule

What does Sewell (2009) talk about

Fathers, gangs and culture

Anti-school black masculinity culture

Arnot (2004):

• “The ultra-tough ghetto superstar, an image constantly reinforced through rap lyrics and MTV videos”

Sewell - absence of fathers for black boys..

Causes a lack of fatherly nurturing or “tough love”, results in black boys finding “perverse loyalty and love” in street gangs

What are black boys subject to according to Sewell

Powerful anti-educational peer group pressure. The biggest barrier facing black boys is actually black peer pressure

Evaluation of Sewell’s idea

Gillborn:

• It is not peer pressure but institutional racism within the education system that systematically produces the failure of large numbers of black boys

Asian families

Sewell:

• Indian and Chinese pupils benefit from supportive families and have an ‘Asian work ethic’ and place a high value on education

Lupton:

• Asian families have adult authority, which is similar to the model that operates in school

White W/C families

Low level of parental support and parents have a negative attitude towards education which causes low aspirations, underachievement and behavioural issues

Evaluation to cultural deprivation theorists

Driver:

• Ignores the positives, black girls are provided with role models of strong independent women which is why they outperform black boys

Lawrence:

• It is not low self esteem but racism that causes underachievement for black boys

Keddie:

• Victim blaming explanation, ethnic minorities underachieve because schools are ethnocentric

What do cultural deprivation critics say about compensatory education

It’s an attempt to impose the dominant white culture on children who already have a coherent culture of their own

2 alternatives cultural deprivation theorists propose to help ethnic differences in education

1. Multi-cultural education

2. Anti-racist education

What did Palmer (2012) find

Almost ½ of all ethnic minority children live in low-income households, as against ¼ of white children

Why do ethnic minorities experience material deprivation

• Many live in economically depressed areas with high unemployment and low wage rates.

• They have a lack of language sills, and foreign qualifications.

• Racial discrimination in the labour and housing market

Modood (2004)

While children from low-income families generally did less well, the effects of low income were much less for other ethnic groups than for white pupils

What does the material deprivation explanation argue

Class differences explain why Pakistani pupils tend to do worse than Indian and White pupils

Mason (2000)

“Discrimination is a continuing and persistent feature of the experience of British citizens of minority ethnic origin”

Rex (1986)

“Racial discrimination leads to social exclusion, this worsens the poverty faced by ethnic minorities”

Discrimination in employment

Wood et al (2010):

• Sent 3 closely matched job applications to 1000 job vacancies from fictitious applicants using names associated with different ethnic groups

• 1/16 ethnic minority applicants were offered an interview, against 1/9 white applicants

What does Wood et al show

Why members of ethnic minorities are more likely to face unemployment and low pay, this in turn has a negative affect on their children’s educational prospects

Internal factors affecting achievement by ethnicity

1. Labelling and teacher racism

2. Pupil identities

3. Pupil responses and subcultures

4. Institutional racism

Gillborn and Mirza on Internal factors

In one local education authority, black children were the highest achievers on entry to primary school, yet by the time it came to GCSE they had the worst results of any group

Who focuses on labels teachers give to children from different ethnic backgrounds

Interactionists

Gillborn and Youdell - black pupils

Teachers were quick to discipline black pupils compared to others for the same behaviour, show racialised expectations

Racialised expectations

Teachers expected black pupils to present more discipline problems and when they act on this misperception, pupils respond negatively and conflict results

What did Osler find

Black pupils suffer from the most unrecorded exclusions (being sent out) which excludes them from access to mainstream curriculum

What did Bourne find

Schools tend to see black boys as a threat and label them negatively leading to exclusion, only 1/5 excluded pupils achieve 5 GCSE’s

What did Foster find

Teachers stereotypes of black pupils as badly behaved can result in them being placed in lower sets. This can result in a self-fulfilling prophecy of underachievements

What did Wright find

Asian Pupils and Labelling:

• Asians were left out and spoken to childishly

• Teachers held ethnocentric views

• Teachers saw them not as a threat but as a problem that can be ignored

• Asian girls were marginalised

What did Archer find

Teachers dominant discourse defines ethnic minority pupils’ identities as lacking the favoured identity of the ideal pupil

3 Pupil Identities

Archer (2008):

1. Ideal Pupil

2. Pathologised Pupil

3. Demonised Pupil

What did Archer find through interviews

Black students are demonised as loud, challenging, excessively sexual with un inspirational home cultures

What does Shain note from Archer’s finds

• Teachers stereotyped Asian girls as quiet, passive or docile

• When Asian girls challenge this stereotype, they are often dealt with more severely than others

What did Archer + Francis find with Chinese students

• Teachers saw them as having achieved success in the wrong way

• This meant they could never legitimately occupy the ideal pupil identity

• The successes of ethnic minority pupils will only ever be seen as “overachievement” since proper achievement is seen to be the natural preserve of the privileged, white, M/C ideal pupil

Pupil responses to teacher racism and negative labelling

Negative labels do not automatically turn into the self-fulfilling prophecy, pupils have agency

Study of pupils rejecting negative labels

Fuller’s study of black, yr11 girls:

• Girls channelled their anger of their teachers negative stereotypes into the pursuit of educational success, they only conformed as far as the schoolwork itself was concerned

• Pupils may still succeed even when they refuse to conform, negative labelling does not always lead to failure and the SFP

Who showed a study of failed strategies for avoiding racism

Mirza (1992)

3 types of teacher racism

Mirza:

1. Colour blind

2. Liberal chauvinists

3. Overt racists

Black boys response to schooling

Sewell:

1. Rebels

2. Conformists

3. Retreatists

4. Innovators

Evaluation of pupil responses and and subcultures

• Danger of not seeing these stereotypes as racism in the way the whole educational system operates

• Danger of assuming that all pupils automatically fall victim to the SFP and fail

Critical race theorists belief

They see racism as an ingrained feature of society

Institutional racism

Carmichael + Hamilton:

• Institutional racism is “less overt, more subtle, less identifiable in terms of specific individuals committing the acts…it originates in the operation of established and respected forces in society”

Ethnic inequality and institutional racism

Gillborn:

• Sees ethnic inequality as “so deeply rooted and so large that it is a practically inevitable feature of the education system”

Marketisation, segregation and IR

Gillborn:

• Marketisation gives schools more scope to select pupils, this allows negative stereotypes to influence decisions about school admissions

Moore and Davenports study/research into IR

• They show how selection lead to ethnic segregation, with minorities failing to get into better schools due to discrimination

• Primary school reports were used to screen out pupils with language difficulties

• Application process was difficult for non-English speaking parents to understand

Commission for Racial Inequality in Britain found..

Racism in school admissions procedures means that ethnic minority children are more likely to end up in unpopular schools

Ethnocentric curriculum - Languages, literature and music

• Tronya and Williams note the meagre provision for teaching Asian languages over European

• David describes the national curriculum as ‘specifically British”

Ethnocentric curriculum - History

• Ball criticises the NC for ignoring ethnic diversity and promoting an attitude of ‘little Englandism’

• It ignores the history of black and Asian people

How does the ethnocentric curriculum produce underachievement

Coard:

• In history the British may be presented as bringing civilisation to the ‘primitive’ people they colonised

• This image of black people as inferior undermines black children’s self-esteem and leads to their failure

AO3 of the ethnocentric curriculum

• Not clear what impact it has

• Ignores Asian culture but they perform the best

• Stone argues that black children do not suffer from low self-esteem

Gillborn’s views on the assessment game

• It’s rigged so as to validate the dominant cultures superiority

• If black children succeed, ‘the rules will be changed to re-engineer failure’

Sanders and Horns findings about IR

• Study of GCSE’s

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

Access to opportunities

Gillborn:

• Whites are 2x more likely as Black Caribbeans to be identified as gifted and talented

• 5x more likely than Black Africans

Exam tiers

Strand:

• Ethnic differences in entry to test tiers reflect teachers expectations, leading to a SFP

Tikly et al:

• In the Aiming High Initiative to raise black pupils achievements, blacks were nevertheless more likely than whites to be entered for lower tier exams

• This is because they had been placed in low sets and can only gain a grade C at best

Gillborn’s conclusion of IR

“Race inequality is a constant and central feature of the education system. Racism is a fundamental defining characteristic of the education system”

Criticisms of Gillborn and IR

• Sewell: Racism is not powerful enough to prevent success, we need to focus on external factors

• Model minorities: Chinese and Indians ‘over-achieve’, if these two groups do so well, how can there be institutional racism in education as critical race theorists claim

Gillborn’s response to model minorities

• They perform an ideological function and conceal racism

Ethnicity, class and gender

• Evans: Looks at how ethnicity interacts with gender and class

• Connolly: Studies show we cannot consider ethnicity in isolation from gender and class