Family structure and parental support

Black families

• Failure to properly socialise Black children is due to the dysfunctional family structure

Moynihan (1965)

CD, focus on Black matrifocal single families

• Cultural deprivation is a cycle

Inadequate parents → badly socialised children → educational failure → inadequate parents → perpetuation of the cycle of disadvantage and limitation of opportunities for future generations

• Black matrifocal single families common

  • Deprives children of adequate care as

    • Mother struggles financially without a male breadwinner

    • Boys lack role model of male achievement

Murray (1984) New Right

Lone parenthood and male role models

• High rates of lone parenthood + lack of positive male role models → underachievement of some minorities

Sewell (2009)

Fathers, gangs and culture

• Underachievement of Black boys not due to absence of fathers

  • Due to lack of fatherly nurturing and tough love

    • Black boys then unable to overcome the emotional and behavioural difficulties of adolescence

      • Leads to further disengagement from educational settings

        • More susceptible to negative influences from peers

• Street gangs offer Black boys ‘perverse loyalty and love’

  • Present boys with a media-inspired role model of anti-school Black masculinity

Arnot (2004)

Peer group pressure and media influences

• Rap lyrics and MTV videos reinforce the ideal of an ‘ultra-tough ghetto superstar’

• Black boys subject to anti-educational peer group pressure

  • Speaking in standard English and doing well at school seen as ‘selling out’ to the white establishment, suspicious

CRITICISMS:

Gillborn (2000) Critical race theorist

• Not peer pressure but institutional racism that systematically causes large numbers of Black boys to fail

• Sewell underplays this

Vincent et al.(2011)

Black m/c parents

• Black m/c parents actively engage in children’s education but encounter biases from teachers due to assumed lower parental interest

Modood (2006)

W/c Black and Asian families and higher education

• W/c Black and Asian families more likely to encourage higher education than WB peers

  • Leads to higher Uni participation rates

White British families

Lupton (2004)

W/c White British families

• W/c WB families in disadvantaged areas have lower aspirations (compared to other groups) for education and negative attitudes towards schooling

Behaviour in schools

• Studied 4 schools (2 majority White, 1 Pakistani, 1 ethnically mixed)

• Poorer behaviour in White schools despite lower numbers of FSM

  • Teachers believed due to less parental support and negative w/c parental attitude towards education

• EM parents more likely to see education as a ‘way up in society’

Evans (2006)

Street culture

• Street culture in White w/c areas so brutal young people have to learn to withstand intimidation and intimidate others

  • Power games from ‘the street’ played out in school, inhibiting academic success

Modood (2006)

W/c Black and Asian families and higher education

• W/c Black and Asian families more likely to encourage higher education than WB peers

  • Leads to higher Uni participation rates

McCulloch (2014)

Higher education

• EM pupils more likely to aspire to go to University than WB pupils

  • Due to lack of WB parental support

+compensatory education