1.3 Education - Ethnicity Flashcards
What is meant by ETHNIC GROUPS? Tony Lawson and Joan Garrod
“`Tony Lawson and Joan Garrod (2000) define ethnic groups as “people who share common history, customs and identity as well as, in most cases, language and religion, and who see themselves as a distinct unit”.
CULTURAL DEPRIVATION:
Intellectual/Linguistic Skills: Bereiter and Englemann
Bereiter and Englemann believe the language spoken
by low income, black American families is inadequate for educational success.
A concern has also been that children who do not speak English at home may be held back.
CULTURAL DEPRIVATION:
Intellectual/Linguistic Skills: AO3: Gillborn and Mirza
Gillborn and Mirza (2000)
reject this as they found Indian pupils do very well despite often not having English as their first language.
ETHNICITY: CULTURAL DEPRIVATION:
Attitudes and Values
Lack of motivation causes the failure of many black children.
Most pupils are socialised into mainstream culture, instilling ambition, competitiveness and a willingness to make sacrifices to achieve long term goals .
By contrast CD theorists claim black children are socialised into a subculture which believes we should “live for today” which doesn’t value education. Much like SUGARMAN’S theory of ‘present time orientation’.
CULTURAL DEPRIVATION:
Family Structure and Parental Support: Moynihan
Many black families are headed by a lone mother, where she struggles financially in the absence of a male breadwinner. This also means boys do not have a male role model to look up to.
CULTURAL DEPRIVATION:
Family Structure and Parental Support: Pryce
Black Caribbean culture is less cohesive and less resistant to racism, leading to low self-esteem and underachievement.
Slavery was culturally devastating to blacks as they lost their language, religion and family structure. By comparison Asian pupils do better because they haven’t been affected in the same way by Colonialism.
CULTURAL DEPRIVATION:
Family Structure and Parental Support: Sewell (Fathers)
Sewell believes it is not the absence of fathers, but a lack of fatherly nurturing or “tough love” (firm, fair, non-abusive discipline).
Instead other black, fatherless boys present boys with a media-inspired role model of anti-school black masculinity.
Many black boys are subject to anti-educational, peer group pressure. Speaking in Standard English and doing well at school was viewed as suspicious.
Black pupils do worse than Asian pupils because of cultural differences in socialisation and attitudes to education. Sewell believes black children (especially boys) need to have greater expectations put on them.
AO3: Gillborn argues it is not peer pressure but institutional racism within the system which leads to the failure of black boys.
CULTURAL DEPRIVATION:
Family Structure and Parental Support: Sewell (Asian families)
believes Asian and Chinese students benefit from supportive families,
having an “Asian work ethic” and placing high emphasis on education.
CULTURAL DEPRIVATION:
Family Structure and Parental Support: Lupton (Asian families)
found adult authority in Asian families is similar to the model used in schools. This meant parents were more likely to support the school’s behaviour policies.
CULTURAL DEPRIVATION:
Family Structure and Parental Support: McCulloch (White WC families)
surveyed 16,000 pupils and found ethnic minority pupils were more likely to aspire to go to university than white British pupils.
This low level of aspiration could stem from parental attitudes:
CULTURAL DEPRIVATION:
Family Structure and Parental Support: Lupton (White WC families)
Ethnic minorities are more likely to see education as a “way up” in society.
CULTURAL DEPRIVATION:
Family Structure and Parental Support: Evans (White WC families)
argues white working class street culture can be brutal, power games which are played on the street are replicated in school, bringing disruption and making it hard for pupils to succeed.
CULTURAL DEPRIVATION:
Why is COMPENSATORY EDUCATION bad for EM?
Some theorists reject compensatory education as an attempt to impose dominant white culture. They suggest two alternatives:
Multicultural Education – recognizes and values minority cultures and includes them in the curriculum
Anti-Racist Education – challenges prejudice and discrimination
ETHNICITY: CULTURAL DEPRIVATION:
AO3: Driver
Driver (1977) CD ignores the positive effects ethnicity can have on achievement. Within black Caribbean families, girls are provided with positive roles models of strong independent women.
ETHNICITY: CULTURAL DEPRIVATION:
AO3: Lawrence
Black pupils underachieve not because of low self-esteem, but because of racism.
CULTURAL DEPRIVATION:
AO3: Keddie
Ethnic minorities are not culturally deprived but culturally different. They under-achieve because schools are ethnocentric (favour white culture and against minorities).
MATERIAL DEPRIVATION:
Statistics (Palmer)
Almost half ethnic minority children live in low income households, against a quarter of white children.
Almost half of Bangladeshi and Pakistani workers earn under £7 an hour compared to only a quarter of whites.
Ethnic minorities are x3 more likely to be homeless.
Ethnic minorities are x2 as likely to be unemployed compared with whites.
Why are EM’s at a greater risk of MATERIAL DEPRIVATION?
We can link ethnic minorities’ greater risk of MD as stemming from
unemployment, low pay and overcrowding:
- Many live in economically depressed areas, with high unemployment and low wages
- Cultural factors can prevent women from going out to work (e.g. the tradition of Niqab in Muslim households)
- A lack of language skills or foreign qualifications which UK employers don’t recognise.
- Asylum seekers may not be allowed to work
- Racial discrimination in labour market and housing market.
ETHNICITY: MATERIAL DEPRIVATION:
AO3
Chinese and Indian students who are MD still do better than most.
This suggests MD and class factors do not completely override the influence of ethnicity.
Madood (2004) found while children from low income families generally did less well, the effects of low income were mush less for other ethnic groups than whites.
RACISM IN WIDER SOCIETY:
Wood et al.
Racial discrimination can result in increased poverty for ethnic minority groups.
Wood et al (2010) sent three closely matched job applications to 1000 job vacancies. These applicants had names associated with particular ethnic groups (1 application appeared to come from a white person, 2 from members of ethnic minority groups.)
Wood et al found only 1 in 16 ethnic minority applications received an interview, compared to 1 in 9 “white” applications.
What statistic shows factors inside schools led to the under-achievement of Black Boys?
Gillborn and Mirza (2000) found black children were the highest achievers on entry to primary school, but by GCSE they had the worst results of any ethnic group.
LABELLING/TEACHER RACISM: Gillborn and Youdell (DISCIPLINE)
teachers are quicker to discipline black pupils.
This is a result of teacher’s “racialized expectations” – they expected black pupils to present more behaviour problems and often misinterpreted their behaviour as a challenge to authority.
This resulted in teacher-pupil conflict.
The conflict was a result of racial stereotypes, rather than actual behaviour.
This can be linked to exclusions from school, black boys are seen as a threat, eventually leading to exclusion
LABELLING/TEACHER RACISM: Gillborn and Youdell (STREAMING)
Gillborn and Youdell: As a result of the “A-C Economy” and “educational triage” negative stereotypes about black pupil’s ability can mean they are placed in lower sets - this can lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy and under-achievement.
LABELLING/TEACHER RACISM: Wright
WRIGHT found teachers held ethnocentric views.
Teachers assumed Asian pupils would have a poor grasp of English and left them out of group discussions, they also felt isolated when teachers disapproved of their customs or mispronounced names.
Unlike black pupils they were not seen as a threat but a problem to ignore.
PUPIL IDENTITIES: Archer (ETHNIC MINORITIES)
Archer (2008) aimed to look beyond simplistic stereotypes of underachievement. ethnic minority identities as lacking the favoured identity of “ideal pupil”.
3 different pupil identities:
- Ideal pupil: a white, middles class masculinised identity with a normal sexuality. Achieves in the “right” way, through ability and initiative.
- Pathologised pupil: Asian “deserving poor”, feminised identity, either asexual or with an oppressed sexuality. A conformist and culture bound “over- achiever” – succeeds through hard work. Often still ‘othered’ by teachers.
- Demonised pupil: A black or white working class, hypersexualised identity. They’re unintelligent, peer led, culturally deprived and anunder-achiever.
Archer found ethnic minorities are likely to be seen as pathologised or demonised, and Asian girls as passive, quiet or docile.
PUPIL IDENTITIES: Shain (ASIAN GIRLS)
Shain (2003) found if Asian girls challenge this (ARCHER: Asian girls as passive, quiet or docile) they’re often dealt with more severely.
PUPIL IDENTITIES: Archer (CHINESE)
Even ethnic minorities who achieve well may be pathologised – Archer found Chinese pupils were seen to have achieved success in the wrong way – through hard work conformism, not natural ability.
A result of this is that successes of ethnic minority pupils is seen as “over-achievement”, as “proper” achievement is seen to be that natural preserve of the privileged, white, middle class ideal pupil.
ETHNICITY - PUPIL RESPONSES/ SUBCULTURES: AO3: Fuller
Fuller (1984) studied a group of year 11 black girls, who were untypical because they were high achievers in a school where most black girls were placed in low streams.
Instead of accepting negative stereotypes they channelled their anger into achieving educational success, but they did not seek approval of the teachers who they regarded as racist and instead relied on impartiality of external exams.
Fuller’s study highlights 2 important things - Firstly, pupils may still succeed when they don’t conform. Secondly, negative labelling doesn’t always lead to failure. The girls rejected the labels, therefore there was no self-fulfilling prophecy.
ETHNICITY - PUPIL RESPONSES/ SUBCULTURES: AO3: Mac an Ghaill
Mac an Ghaill’s (1992) study looked at black and Asian A-Level pupils and found they didn’t always accept the label they felt the
teacher had placed on them. In a similar way to Fuller this shows a label doesn’t necessarily produce a self-fulfilling prophecy.
ETHNICITY - PUPIL RESPONSES/ SUBCULTURES: AO3: Sewell
Sewell: the variety of boys’ responses
Boys’ responses to schooling can impact their achievement. There are 4 types of responses:
The rebels only a small minority, rejected goals and rules of the school, anti-school “black macho lad”.
The conformists were keen to succeed, accepted goals of the school.
The retreatists were disconnected from both school and black subcultures.
The innovators pro education, but anti school, valued success but didn’t seek teachers’ approval.
Sewell found teachers tended to view all black boys as “rebels” which then impacted on their achievement, whatever their attitude to school.
However Sewell does recognise that whilst teacher racism does play a part, external factors are more important in producing underachievement.
What is INSTITUTIONAL RACISM/CRITICAL RACE THEORY?
Institutional racism: discrimination that is
built into the way institutions work.
Critical Race Theory – racism is an ingrained feature of society. Racism is not just
intentional actions of individuals, but institutional racism.
For critical race theorists institutional racism is a “locked in inequality”.
Gillborn (2008) - ethnic inequality is “so deep rooted and so large that it is a
practically inevitable feature of the education system”.
INSTITUTIONAL RACISM: MARKETISATION/ SEGREGATION: Gillborn
Gillborn (1997) Marketisation allows negative stereotypes to influence school
admissions.
INSTITUTIONAL RACISM: MARKETISATION/ SEGREGATION: Moore and Davenport
Moore and Davenport (1990) Selection procedures can lead to ethnic segregation, with minority groups failing to get into better secondary schools and favoring white pupils (for example application process difficult for non-English speaking parents to understand).
This leads to an ethnically stratified education system.
INSTITUTIONAL RACISM: MARKETISATION/ SEGREGATION: The Commision for Racial Equality (1993)
The Commission for Racial Equality (1993) racism in school admissions means ethnic minorities are more likely to end up in unpopular schools due to:
* Reports from primary schools stereotyping minority pupils
* Bias in interviews for school places
* Lack of information/application forms in minority languages
* Parents unaware of how the waiting list system works
INSTITUTIONAL RACISM: ETHNOCENTRIC CURRICULUM: David
Language, literature and music-
David (1993) the National Curriculum is a “specifically British” curriculum which ignores non-European languages, literature and music.
What is an ETHNOCENTRIC CURRICULUM?
A curriculum that reflects the culture of one ethnic group (usually the dominant ethnic group).
INSTITUTIONAL RACISM: ETHNOCENTRIC CURRICULUM: Ball
History - Ball (1994) the National Curriculum over looks ethnic diversity, promoting an attitude of “Little Englandism”,
ignoring the history of black and Asian people.
INSTITUTIONAL RACISM: ETHNOCENTRIC CURRICULUM: Coard
Coard (1971; 2005) the ethnocentric curriculum can produce underachievement, teaching how the British brought civilisation to the “primitive people” they colonised.
This can lead to low self-esteem amongst black children.
INSTITUTIONAL RACISM: ETHNOCENTRIC CURRICULUM: AO3
A03: The ethnocentric curriculum ignores Asian culture, however Indian and
Chinese pupil’s achievement is above average, disputing claims the ethnocentric
curriculum leads to failure.
INSTITUTIONAL RACISM: ASSESSMENT: Gillborn
Assessment is fixed to maintain dominant culture’s superiority, if black
children do succeed assessment will be changed to “re-engineer” failure.
For example primary school previously used “baseline assessments” (before they started school) to measure ability however in 2003 these were replaced by the Foundation Stage Profile (FSP). This resulted in black pupils now appearing to do worse.
According to Gillborn this is the result of two factors:
- FSP based on teacher’s judgements (the baseline assessments were based on
written tests too) - The change in timing: the FSP is done at the end of reception, whereas baseline
assessments were done before they started school.
Both these factors increase the risk of stereotyping affecting the results.
INSTITUTIONAL RACISM: ACCESS TO OPPORTUNITIES: Gillborn
The “Gifted and Talented” programme:
Gillborn (2008) whites are over twice as likely as Black Caribbean’s, and five times
more likely than Black Africans, to be identified as gifted and talented.
INSTITUTIONAL RACISM: ACCESS TO OPPORTUNITIES: Tikley et al.
Exam Tiers:
Tikley et al (2006) The “Aiming High” initiative was introduced to raise black Caribbean achievement, despite this blacks were more likely to be entered for lower tier GCSE exams (often because they were in lower sets).
INSTITUTIONAL RACISM: THE ‘NEW IQISM’: Gillborn
Access to opportunities such as higher sets or gifted and talented rely heavily on teacher’s assumptions.
Gillborn argues theories around natural ‘intelligence’ have now been discredited, however Gillborn argues there is the existence of the new IQism where teachers make false assumptions about the nature of pupil’s “ability” or “potential”. They believe potential can be fixed and measured and use this to put pupils into the right set.
Gillborn however argues there is no genuine measure of “potential” – all a test does
is measure what someone has learnt so far, not what they may be able to do in the future.
INSTITUTIONAL RACISM: Gillborn: AO3: Sewell
A03 of Gillborn’s view:
Sewell rejects the idea racism in schools is powerful enough to prevent individuals from succeeding, external factors more important.
Gillborn (2008) responds to the image of Indian and Chinese pupils as “model minorities” is an ideology, which hides the institutional racism. This ideology suggests:
- The system is meritocratic – Indian and Chinese succeed because of effort.
- Justifies failure of other groups – Unable or unwilling to make the effort.
- Ignores that “model minorities” still suffer racism in schools, despite their success. For example Chinese students report similar levels of harassment to Black Caribbeans.
INTERSECTIONALITY: Evans, Connolly.
Evans (2006) we need to look at how ethnicity interacts with class and gender.
Connolly (1998) studied 5 and 6 year olds in a multi-ethnic inner-city primary school.
Teachers saw black boys as disruptive under-achievers and controlled them by punishing them more often. Asian boys were seen as passive, conformist, keen and academic, when
they did misbehave teachers saw this as immaturity, not a threat. Teachers and pupils both saw Asian boys as more “feminine” and need protection from bullying.
Studies such as Evans and Connolly show we cannot consider ethnicity in isolation from
gender and class.
