ethnic differences in achievement Flashcards
what are the three external factors?
cultural deprivation
material deprivation
racism in wider society
what are the 3 main aspects in cultural deprivation?
intellectual and linguistic skills
attitudes and values
family structure and parental support
Bereiter and Englemann - intellectual and linguistic skills
language spoken but low income, black American families inadequate for educational success
AO3 - Gillborn and Mirza reject intellectual and linguistic skills affecting success
Indian pupils achieve the highest despite English not being their first language
what do CD theorists blame failure of black children on?
lack of motivation
most pupils socialised into mainstream culture instilling ambition, competitiveness and willingness to make sacrifices for long term goals
say black children in subculture that says live for today
family structure and parental support - Moynihan
many black families have lone mother
struggles financially as no male breadwinner
boys don’t have male role model
family structure and parental support - Pryce
black caribbean culture less resistant and cohesive to racism so leads to low self esteem and underachievement
Sewell - fathers, gangs and culture
no father means no tough love
black boys subject to anti educational peer group pressure (doing well at schools and speaking standard English seen as suspicious)
blacks do worse than asians due to cultural differences in socialisation and attitudes towards education (black children need higher expectations on them)
AO3 - Gillborn - not peer pressure (what causes failure of black boys)
institutional racism within system leads to failure of black boys
Sewell - Asian families
benefit from supportive families having ‘asian work ethic’ and place high emphasis on education
Lupton - asian families
adult authority in asian family are similar to model in school
more likely for asian parents to support schools behaviour policies
McCullock - white w/c families survey
surveyed 16,000 pupils and found ethnic minority pupils were more likely to aspire going to uni than white w/c
Lupton - why might ethnic minorities aspire going to uni
see education as a ‘way up’ in society
how to overcome social class factors
compensatory education
AO3 - some reject compensatory education as an attempt to impose dominant white culture (two alternatives)
multicultural education
anti racist education
AO3 - criticism of cult dep theory - Driver
ignores that ethnicity can have positive effects on education
in black caribbean families black girls have positive role models of strong independent women
AO3 - Lawrence - why black pupils underachieve
not because of low self esteem but because of racism
AO3 - Keddie - why do they underachieve at school
not culturally deprived but culturally different
underachieve as school is ethnocentric
Palmer - material deprivation - stats
ethnic minorities 3x more likely to be homeless
ethnic minorities 2x more likely to be unemployed than whites
Why are ethnic minorities more likely to be culturally deprived?
many live in economically depressed areas
cultural factors prevent women working
lack of language skills which UK employers don’t recognise
racial discrimination
etc
AO3 - who achieves better even with mat dep
chinese and indian in mat dep still do better than most
shows mat dep and class don’t completely override influence of ethnicity
Madood - white children from low income families
generally did less well
effects of low income much less than effect of ethnicity
racism in wider society - Wood et al study
sent 3 closely matched job applications to 1000 job vacancies
each had name linked to different ethnic groups
found only 1 in 16 ethnic minorities received interview compared to 1 in 9 white
What are the three internal factors?
labelling and teacher racism
pupil identities
pupil responses and subcultures
Gillborn and Youdell - black pupils and discipline
teachers quicker to discipline black pupils
teachers expect behaviour problems
conflict result of racial stereotypes not behaviour
Gillborn and Youdell - black pupils and streaming
result of A-C exonomy and educational triage
negative stereotypes about black pupils abilities meant they were places in lower sets so underachieve and self fulfilling prophecy
Wright - asian pupils - teachers views
teachers held ethnocentric views
teachers assume asian pupils would have poor grasp at english language so left them out of discussions
felt isolated when teachers mispronounced names or disapproved of their customs etc
not seen as threat but to be ignored
Archer - 3 different pupil identities
ideal- white, m/c, masculine, normal sexuality, achieve in right way
pathologised- asian, feminised identity, oppressed sexuality, succees through hard work
demonised- black or white w/c, hyper sexualised identity, unintelligent
Archer- chinese pupils - how they achieve
seen to achieve in wrong way
through hard work not natural ability
seen as overachievers
different ways pupils respond to racism and labelling
may become disruptive or withdrawn
may refuse label and work harder
AO3 - Fuller’s study - pupil responses and subcultures
studied group of yr11 black girls
they were high achievers
they worked hard instead of accepting label
shows they can reject labels and may still succeed when they don’t conform
Who also found results that showed black and asian pupils don’t always accept labels
Mac an Ghaill
Sewell - variety of boy’s responses
(4)
rebels - reject school
conformists - keen to succeed
retreatists - disconnected from both school and black subcultures
innovators - pro education but don’t seek teachers approval
Who made distinction between individual and institutional racism?
Troyna and Williams
What is the difference between individual and institutional racism?
individual- prejudiced views of individual teachers
institutional- racism built into way school runs
what is the critical race theory?
plus Gillborn
racism is an ingrained feature in society
Gillborn- deep rooted so inevitable in education
Moore and Davenport - ethnically stratified education system through selection procedures
selection procedure leads to ethnic segregation so white pupils get in better secondary schools
marketisation and segregation- Gillborn
marketisation allows negative stereotypes to influence school admissions
Commission for racial inequality - ethnic minorities more likely to end up in worse schools due to…
primary school reports stereotyping minority pupils
bias in interviews for school places
lack of information/ application forms in minority language
parents unaware of how waiting list system works
ethnocentric curriculum- David
lang, lit and music
specifically British
ethnocentric curriculum- Ball
history
promote ‘little Englandism’ and ignore ethnic minorities history
Coard - how ethnocentric curriculum effects minorities
can lead to low self esteem as it shows how British brought civilisation to ‘primitive people’
AO3 - ignore asian culture
they ignore asian culture but they still achieve highly so disputed claim ethnocentric curriculum leads to failure
Assessments - Gillborn
fixed to maintain dominant culture’s superiority
baseline assessments changed to foundation stage profile (FSP)
baseline assessments done before going to school to measure ability
changed to FSP in 2003
black students appeared to do worse after the change
Gillborn- baseline change to FSP due to two factors
FSP based on teachers judgement (baseline assessments based on written tests too)
change in timing - FSP at end of assessment whereas baseline done before going to school
access to opportunities - Gillborn - gifted and talented
whites over 2x more likely than black caribbean and 5x more likely than black africans to be identified as gifted and talented
access to opportunities- exam tiers - Tikley et al
aiming high initiative introduced to raise black caribbean achievement
despite this blacks more likely to be put in for lower tier exams at GCSE (often due to being in lower sets)
Gillborn - New IQism
theories around natural intelligence now discredited but Gillborn argues there is new iqism where teachers make false assumptions about nature of pupils ability or potential
believe potential can be fixed and measured and use this to put pupils into right set
Gillborn - no genuine measure of potential
test only measure what they have learnt so far not what they are able to do in the future
AO3 - Sewell rejection of Gillborn (internal or external)
Sewell argues we should focus on external factors such as boys anti school attitudes, peer groups etc
says racism in school not powerful enough to stop achievement
AO3 - asian overachieving
how is there institutional racism when some ethnic groups overachieve
Gillborn response to why some ethnic minorities overachieve
argue image of Indian and Chinese pupils as model minorities is an ideology which hides institutional racism-ideology suggests:
argues system is meritocratic
justifies failure of other groups
ignore model minorities still suffer racism in school despite success
Evans - intersectionality
need to look at how ethnicity interacts with class and gender
Connolly - intersectionality multi ethnic primary school study
studied 5 and 6 year olds
teachers saw black boys as disruptive
asians seen as passive (if they did misbehave it was seen as immature not a threat)-seen as feminine so need protection
