Cultural deprivation

Cultural deprivation (CD)- the idea that the underachievement of some ethnic/social groups is due to inadequate socialisation in the home

Intellectual and linguistic skills

Low-income Black children

• Low-income Black children lack intellectual stimulation and enriching experiences

  • Leaves them poorly equipped for school due to lack of reasoning and problem-solving skills

Bereiter & Engelmann

Black American English

• Low-income Black American English inadequate for academic success

  • Ungrammatical

  • Disjointed

  • Incapable of expressing abstract ideas

EAL students

• EAL students held back due to inadequate acquisition of English

COUNTERPOINT:

• 2010- EAL students only 3.2 percentage points behind EFL students in the % of 5 A*-C grades at GCSE

• Students that learn English at school have a huge advantage as they learn the elaborated code that is used at school which means they are used to it

Official Statistics (2013)

EAL EBacc results

• 18% of primary and 13% of secondary school pupils EAL

• EAL pupils perform native-English speaking pupils in the EBacc once proficient in English

Swann Report (1985)

EAL overcoming

• Language barriers initially lower attainment but quickly overcome especially among younger pupils

Gillborn & Mirza (2000)

Indian students and EAL

• Indian students do very well despite EAL

Attitudes and values

• Lack of motivation major cause of Black failure

Cultures

• Most children socialised into mainstream culture that

  • Instils ambition

  • Encourages competitiveness

  • Fosters willingness to make sacrifices for long-term goals (delayed gratification)

    • Leads to success in education

• Black children socialised into a subculture that

  • Is fatalistic,

  • Prioritises live for today (immediate gratification, present-time orientation)

  • Doesn’t value education

    • Leaves Black children unequipped for success

Sewell (2009)

Differences between Black and Asian achievement

• Black students do worse than Asian pupils due to cultural differences in socialisation and attitudes to education

• ‘Black students are nurtured by MTV’

• Asian pupils ‘clock up the educational hours’ as they have an ‘Asian work ethic’

Family structure and parental support

Matrifocal single families/absence of male role models in 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 → perpetuating the cycle of disadvantage and limiting 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 and negative influences from their 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

Other EM

Swann Report (1985)

Asian families

• Asian families provide strong parental support and emphasise education as the path to success

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

COUNTERPOINTS:

Bhatti (1999)

Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Indian Asian families

• Parents show high interest and support for their children’s education but lack of familiarity with school processes limits engagement due to feeling unwelcome

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

Moons & Ivins (2004)

EM families

• EM parents more involved in children’s education than general population

• 82% EM parents attend parents’ evenings

• Pakistani and Bangladeshi parents less confident in helping with homework due to differences in cultural capital

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

The New Right

Scruton (1986)

British culture and EM

• Some ethnic minorities underachieve due to failure to embrace mainstream British culture

Pryce (1979)

Underachievement of Black Caribbean pupils in Britain

• Contribuents:

  • Family structure

  • Culture

    • Less cohesive

    • Less resistant to racism

      • Black pupils then have lower self-esteem and underachieve

Asian ‘over’ achievement

• Asian students achieve higher as their culture

  • Is more resistant to racism

  • Gives a greater sense of self-worth

Differences between Black Caribbean and Asian pupils

• Impact of colonialism

  • Slavery was culturally devastating for Black people

    • Being transported and sold caused loss of language/religion/families

• Asian culture was not destroyed by colonial rule

CRITICISM:

• Asian people also suffered under colonialism in various ways even if they were not enslaved, which affected their religion, language and family structures

• Indian People

  • India faced severe economic exploitation under the British

    • Lead to famines and widespread poverty

  • Imposition of British culture undermined local traditions and disrupted social structures

• Japanese People

  • Affected by Western imperialism

    • Rapid modernisation that sometimes disregarded local customs and culture

• Filipino People

  • Forced conversion to Christianity by Spain and the USA

• Vietnam

  • Faced brutal French colonisation

    • Economic exploitation and cultural/lingual imposition