Ethnic Differences in Achievement (External)

Question 1

Language

Answer 1

• Cultural slang, language and accents.
• 13% of students have English as a secondary language.
• Can cause problems with communication, leading teachers to believe minorities to be less intelligent = teacher labelling leads to self-fulfilling prophecy, so lower educational achievement.

Evaluation = The Department for Education (2013) found that this doesn’t affect student’s achievements.

Question 2

Material Deprivation

Answer 2

2/5 ethnic minorities live in low-income households, therefore class differences and not being able to afford educational resources etc can affect achievement.
E.g: housing, diet/health, catchment areas, hidden cost of education.

Evaluation = suggests class is a more significant factor than ethnicity, therefore challenging all other factors linked to ethnicity.
However, Gillborn and Mirza argue that ethnicity as important as there are still differences between students from different ethnicities with the same social class.

Question 3

Ethnic Subcultures

Answer 3

• Subcultures in the family: close-knit family means more support, extended family means more discipline, encouragement, etc.
• Pilkington = Asian cultures = high ambitions, supportive.
• Lupton = Asian cultures reflects key aspects of school culture such as obedience, therefore more likely to behave respectfully towards teachers.
• Murray = lack of positive role models therefore lone-parenthood can cause underachievement.

Education = pressures in Asian subcultures amplified during exam seasons, leading to mental health breakdowns. Driver = Murray ignores the positives of ethnic subculture in black women, having positive female role models.

Question 4

Racism in Wider Society

Answer 4

Wood = 3 types of applications to 1000 jobs, found that the ‘white’ application was offered interviews for more jobs than the minority applications.
- More likely to be searched by police, prison sentence longer, violent in media, etc.

Rex = racism in society worsens the effects of poverty, etc.

= leads to majority of the factors that affect underachievement due to self-fulfilling prophecies, etc.

Evaluation = Pryce argues that Chinese students are more resistant to racism than Black students due to slavery. Therefore = stronger self worth so better in education.
However, this counts as victim blaming, implying that black people need to cope with racism better rather than society working to eradicate racism completely.