Ethinc difference - Topic 3

Question 1

cultural deprivation

Answer 1

-sees the underachievment of some ethnic groups as the result og inadeqaute socialisation in the home. this explanation has 3 main aspects

-intellectual and linguistic skills
-attitudes and values
-family structure and parental support

Question 2

intellectual and linguistic skills summary

Answer 2

-cultural deprivation theorist see lack of intellectual and language skills as a major cause of under achievment for many minority families

-they argue that many children from low income black families lack intellectual and enriching experiences, leaving them poorly equipped for school and not being able to develop reasoning and problem skills

Question 3

intellectual and linguistic skills theorists

Answer 3

-Bereiter and Engelmann consider the language spoken by low income black American families as inadeqaute for educational succcess. they see it as ungrammatical, disjointed and incapable of expressing abstract ideas

-however gilborn and mirza noted that students who dont speak english as their first langauge are not always held back, for example indian studenrs do very well statisically despite not having english as their home langauge

Question 4

ethnicity in family structure

Answer 4

-Pryce also sees family structure as contribution to underachievment of black carribbean students in britian. from a comparison of black and asian students, he claims asian students are higher achievers due to their culture being more resistant to racism and gives them greater sense of self worth leaving them to achieve greater

Question 5

attitudes and values

Answer 5

-cultural deprivation theorist see lack of motivation as a major cause of the failure of many black children and argue some black children are socialised into a subculture that instils a fatalistic, ‘live for today’ attitude that doesnt value education.

Question 6

parental support Moynihan

Answer 6

-argues that because many black families are headed by lone mothers, children lack support due to their absence of being a lone breadwinner.
-he also sees the lack of father figure leads to a lack of adeqaute role model of male achievement

Question 7

parentals support new right Murray

Answer 7

-argues that a high rate of lone parent hood and a lack of male role models lead to an under achievment of some minorities.

Question 8

Sewell: fathers

Answer 8

-unlike murray, Sewell argues that it is not the absence of fathers as role models that leads to black boys underachieving, but the problem as lack of fahterly nuturing or ‘tough love’, resulting in black boys finding it hard to overcome the emotional and behavioural diffuculties of adolensence

Question 9

Sewell: gangs

Answer 9

-in absence of father figures street gangs of other fatherless boys offer black boys peverse loyalty and love.
-these present boys with a media inspired role modelof anti school black masculinity; chris arnot describes as ultra tough ghetto superstar, an image constantly reinforced through rap and mtv videos
-who tf watches mtv anymore

Question 10

Sewell: culture

Answer 10

-argues black students do worse than their counter parts due to cultural differences in socialisation and attitudes to education. he puts it as one being nutured by mtv the other is clocking up educational hours.

-however critical race theorists claim that its not peer pressure but institutional racism within the educational system produces failure of large numbers of black boys.

Question 11

Asian families

Answer 11

-sewell views that indian and chinese pupils benifits from supportive families that have an asian work ethic that places a high value on education.

Question 12

white working class families

Answer 12

-white working class students often underachieve due and have lower aspirations. for example a survey of 16,000 pupils by McColluch found that ethnic minority students are more likely to aspire to go to uni.

-this may be due to lack of parental support.

Question 13

compensatory education

Answer 13

-the main policy that has been adopted to tackle cultural deprivation is compensatory education. For example the aim of operation head start was to compensate children for the cultural deficit they suffer due to their background through providing extra resources to schools and communities as well as improving parental skills.

Question 14

criticisms of cultural deprivation

Answer 14

-Driver crticises cultural deprivation theory for ignoring the positive effects on ethnicity on achievment.
-he shows black carribean families far from being dysfunctional as it provides girls with positive role models of strong independent women, and argues this is why black girls are more succesfull than black boys.

-Lawrence argues that black pupils dont fail because of low self esteem but due to racism

Question 15

critisicms of compensatory education

Answer 15

-critics oppose it as they belive it to be imposing white culture on children on children who already have a coherent culture and propose two main alternatives

-multicutural education: a policy that recognises and values culture and includes them in the curriculum
-anti racist education: a policy that challenges the prejudice and discrimination that exists in schools in schools and wider society

Question 16

material deprivation and class

Answer 16

Palmer states:
-almost half ethnic minorities live in low income households
-enthic minorities are twice as likelt to be unemployed compared to whites
-ethnic minority households are around 3 times more likely to be homeless compared to whites

Question 17

reasons why ethnic minorities are more likely to be at greater risk of material deprivation

Answer 17

-many live in economically depressed areas with high unemployment and low wage rates
-cultural factors stop women from working
-lack of language skills and foreign qaulifications may not be recognised by employers
-asylum seekers may not be able to work
-racial discrimination in labour market and housing market

Question 18

does class overide ethnicity

Answer 18

-we may over estimate the effect of cultural dep and underestimate the effects of material dep and poverty
-indian and chinese students who are materially deprived still do better than most e.g. 2011 86% of chinese girls on free school meals got 5 or more gcses than 65% of white girls

-this suggest material deprivation and social class do not fully overide the influence of ethnicity

Question 19

racism in wider society

Answer 19

-some sociolgists believe poverty is due to racism
-Rex shows how racial discrimination leads to social exclusion and this some how worsens the poverty
-in housing ethnic minorities are more likely to be forced into substandard accomadation than white people.

Question 20

Woods application racism in employment

Answer 20

-woods sent out 3 closely matched applications to almost 1000 vacancies
-2/3 applications were using names asociated to different ethnic minorities and the 3rd was under a white name
-he found that 1/16 ethnic minorities were offered an interview, where 1/9 where offered to the white application.

Question 21

internal factors labelling and teacher racism

Answer 21

-interactionalists studies showed that teachers often saw black and asian students being far away from ideal pupils.
-for example they saw black students as distruptive and asian students as passive
-negative labels can lead to ethnic minority groups being treated differently resulting in failure or under achievement.

Question 22

black pupils and discipline

Answer 22

-Gilbourn and Youdell found teachers were more likely to discipline black pupils than others with the same behaviour.

-this is as a result as teachers having racialised expectations. this is when they expect black pupils to have more discipline problems and can misinterpret their behaviour as threatening or as a challenge to authority, leading to further conflict

-this may explain higher levels of exclusions from schools leading to underachievment due to miss time and help

Question 23

Osler 2001

Answer 23

-as well as official exclusions black pupils appear more likely to suffer from internal exclusions as well leading to access from the mainstream curriculum.

Question 24

wrights study of multi-ethnic schools

Answer 24

-show that asian pupils can also be the victims of student labelling

-they found that teachers held ethnocentric views holding. this affected asian students as they got left out of discussions or used simple language when spoken to due to believing they have a poor grasp of english

Question 25

pupil identities archers dominant discourse

Answer 25

-how teachers see things
-ideal pupil identity: white MC Straight Masculine identity

-pathologised pupil identity: asian feminised identity ‘deserved poor’ conformist and culture bound over achiever hard work over natural ability

-demonised pupil: black or white WC hyper sexualised unintelligant peer led

Question 26

Pupils responses and subcultures
Fullers study

Answer 26

-a group of black girls in year 11 of a london comprehensive school rejected the negative labels.
-instead of accepting the labels they channeled their anger into pursuit of educational success.
-relied on their own efforts rather than teachers approval, however were still in a anti school subculture.
-No self fulfilling prophecy

Question 27

evaulation of labelling and pupils responses

Answer 27

-not everyone falls victim to sfp
-danger of stereotypes that produce teacher prejudices resulting in under achievment

Question 28

internal factors insitutional racism

Answer 28

-individual racism: results from prejudiced views of individual teachers and others
-institutional racism: discrimination thats built into the way institutions such as schools and colleges.

Question 29

critical race theory

Answer 29

-sees racism as an ingrained feature of society
-means not just intentional individual actions but institutional racism

Question 30

marketisation school admissions

Answer 30

-gilborn argues that marketisation gives schools more scope to select pupils therefore resulting in negative stereotypes influencing decisions about school admissions.

Question 31

the commision for racial equality
marketisation - discrimination in school admissions

Answer 31

-the commision for racial equality identified that ethnic minority students are more likely to end up in unpopular schools due to:
>racist bias in interviews
>lack of information and application forms in minority languages
>ethnic minority parents are not often aware how the waiting list works and the importance of deadlines

Question 32

ethnocentric curriculum

Answer 32

-describes an attitude or policy that gives priority to the culture or one specific view point of one particular ethnic group.
-usually language, literature and history that favours one group due to being taught at schools and the preffered groups home

Question 33

criticisms of Gilborn

Answer 33

-Sewell disagrees with gilborns view of racism being the reason of underachievment for black boys as he believes its external factors such as peer group and nuturing that cause it

-how can their be institutional racism if 2 ethnic minority groups do so well (chinese and indian), however this educational success doesnt disregard the harrasment they face in schools