Ethnic Differnces In Achievment - Internal Factors (2)

Question 1

Institutional racism - troyna and Williams (1986)

Answer 1

• troyna and Williams argue that to explain ethnic differences in achievement, we need to go beyond simply examining individual teacher racism - and look at how schools and colleges routinely and even unconsciously discriminate against ethnic minorities and they make a distinction between:
  1. Individual racism
  2. Institutional racism

Question 2

What is Individual racism?

Answer 2

That results from prejudiced vies of individual teachers and others

Question 3

What is institutional racism?

Answer 3

Discrimination that is built into the way institutions such as schools and colleges operate

Question 4

What is critical race theory?

Answer 4

• critical race theory sees racism as an ingrained feature of society. Means that it involves not just the intentional actions of individuals but, more importantly institutional racism.

Question 5

What do stockely Carmichael and Charles Hamilton (1967) say institutional racism is?

Answer 5

• according to two of the founders of the black panther party in the USA, Carmichael and Hamilton say institutional racism is:
  ‘Less overt, more subtle, less identifiable in terms of specific individuals committing the acts it originates the operation of established and respected forces in society’

Question 6

Locked in inequality

Answer 6

• for critical race theorists such as roithmayr (2003), institutional racism is a ‘locked in inequality’. The scale of historical discrimination is so large that there is no longer needs to be any conscious intent to discriminate - the inequality becomes self perpetuating: it feeds on itself
• gillborn (2008), applies the concept of locked in inequality to education. He sees the ethnic inequality as ‘so deep rooted and so large that it is a practically inevitable feature of the education system’
• critical race theorists see the education system as institutionally racist in several ways

Question 7

Marketisation and segregation

Answer 7

• gillborn argues that because marketisation gives schools more scope to select pupils, it allows negative stereotypes to influence decisions about school admissions
• gillborns view is supported by moor and Davenport’s (1990) American research.

Question 8

What did Moore and davenport (1990) find in their research of marketisation and selection

Answer 8

• In their American research, they show how selection procedures lead to ethnic segregation, with minority pupils failing to get into better secondary schools due to discrimination. E.g, they found that primary schools reports were used to screen out pupils with language difficulties, while the application process was difficult for non English speaking parents to understand
• these procedures favoured white pupils and disadvantaged those from ethnic minority backgrounds.
• Moore and Davenport conclude that selection leads to an ethnically stratified background system.

Question 9

What did the commission for racial equality (1993) find - marketisation and segregation

Answer 9

• the commission for racial equality (1993) identified similar biases in Britain. Noted that racism in school admissions procedures means that ethnic minority children are more likely to end up un unpopular schools. The report noted that:
• reported from primary schools that sterotype minority pupils
• racist bias in interviews for school places
• lack of information and application forms in minority languages
• ethnic minority parents are often unaware if how the waiting list system works and the importance of deadlines

Question 10

What does ‘ethnocentric’ mean

Answer 10

• the term ‘ethnocentric’ describes an attitude or policy that gives priority ti the culture and viewpoint of one particular ethnic group, while disregarding others

Question 11

What is the ethnocentric curriculum

Answer 11

• the ethnocentric curriculum is a curriculum that reflects the culture of one ethnic group - usually the dominant culture.
• many sociologist see the ethnocentric curriculum as a prime example of institutional racism because it builds a racial bias into the everyday workings of school

Question 12

What does the ethnocentric curriculum include?

Answer 12

• languages, literature and music
• history

Question 13

Language, literature and music - ethnocentric curriculum

Answer 13

• troyna and Williams note the meagre provision for teaching Asian languages as compared with European languages.
• David (1993) describes the national curriculum as a ‘specifically British’ curriculum that largely ignores non European languages, literature and music.

Question 14

History - the ethnocentric curriculum

Answer 14

• ball (1994) criticises the national curriculum for ignoring ethnic diversity and for promoting an attitude of ‘little Englandism’ e.g, the history curriculum tried to recreate a ‘mythical age of empire and past glories’, while ignoring the history of black and Asian people

Question 15

Coard and the ethnocentric curriculum

Answer 15

• coard explains how the ethnocentric curriculum may produce underachievement. E.g, in the history of the British may be presented as brining civilisation to the ‘primitive ‘ peoples they colonised. He argues that this image of black people as inferior undermines black children’s self esteem and leads to their failure
• however, it is not clear what impact the ethnocentric curriculum has e..g, it may ignore Asian culture, Indian and Chinese pupils achievement is above the nation average

Question 16

Assessment - gillborn (2008)

Answer 16

• gillborn argues that the ‘assessment game’ is rigged so as to validate the dominant cultures superiority. If black children succeed as a group, ‘the rules will be changed to re-engineer failure’ e.g, in the past, primary schools uses ‘baseline assessments’ which tested pupils when they started compulsory schooling. However, these were replaced in 2003 by a new way of measuring pupils abilities, the foundation stage profile (FSP)

Question 17

The results of the foundation stage profile

Answer 17

• black children appeared to do worse than white pupils. E.g, in one local authority in 2000 they had been the highest achievers on entry to school, by 2003 the new FSP had black children ranked lower then whites across all developmental areas it measured

Question 18

What does gillborn say about the new measures of FSP

Answer 18

• gillborn explains this reversal as a result of two related institutional factors
  1. The FSP is based on teachers judgements, whereas baseline assessments often used written testes as well
  2. A change in the timing: the FSP is completed at the end of reception year, whereas baseline assessments were done at the start of primary school
• gillborn argues that both these factors increase the risk of teacher stereotyping affecting the result. E.g, a study of GCSE by sanders and horn (1995) found that there were more weighting was given to tasks assessed by teachers rather than by written exams, the gap between scores of different ethnic groups widened

Question 19

Access to opportunites - the ‘gifted and talented’ programme

Answer 19

• the ‘gifted and talented programme - was created its the aim of meeting the needs of more able pupils in inner city schools. While this might seem to benefit bright pupils from minority groups, gillborn (2008) points out that official statistics shows whites are over twice as likely as black Caribbean’s to be identities as gifted and talented, and five times more likely than black Africans

Question 20

Access to opportunites - exam tiers

Answer 20

• tikly et al (2006) found that in 30 schools in the ‘aiming high’ initiative to raise black Caribbean pupils achievement, blacks were nevertheless more likely than whites to be entered for lower tier GCSE exams. Often because black pupils had been places in lower sets. The effects is that they can only gain a graded C at best

Question 21

The ‘new IQism’ - gillborn

Answer 21

• access to opportunites such as higher sets or the gifted and talented programmed depended heavily on teachers assessments of pupils ability. This work against black pupils because, as gillborn notes:
  ‘When teachers are asked to judge the ‘potential’ and/or ‘motivation’ of their students, they tend to place disproportionate numbers of black students in low ranked groups’

Question 22

The ‘new IQism’

Answer 22

• teachers place students in sets not only on the basis of prior attainment, but also on disciplinary concerns and perceptions of their ‘attitude’. As we sa earlier, gillborn and you’d do found that teachers had ‘racialised expectations’ that black pupils would pose more discipline problems
• in what gilborn calls the new IQism, he argues that teachers and policymakers make false assumptions about the nature of pupils ‘ability’ or ‘potenial’
• ## they see potential as a fixed quality that can easily be measured - laced a pupils potential has been measures they can be put into the ‘right’ set or stream , onto the gifted and talented programme, and so on

Question 23

The new IQism - gillborn and youdell (2001)

Answer 23

• gillborn and youdell not that secondary schools are increasingly using old style intelligence (IQ) tests to different streams on entry
• for gillborn, there is no genuine measure of ‘potenial’. All a test can do, is tell us what a person has learned already or can d now, not what they may be able to do in the future
• from his analysis of school assessments methods, programmes for gillborn concludes that the education system is institutionally racist, creating an environment in which ethnic minority pupils are routinely disadvantaged

Question 24

Black boys underachievement

Answer 24

• critical race theorists such as gillborn argue institutional racism is the main cause of underachievement. Argue that internal factors within. The education system, such as assessment and setting systematically produce the failure of large numbers of ethnic minority pupils, epically boys
• in contrast, sociologists such as Sewell reject this fires although he does no believe that racism has dissapred from schools, he argues that it is not powerful enough to prevent individuals from succeeding. In Sewell view we need to focus on external factors such as boys anti school attitudes, the peer group and the nurturing role of the father

Question 25

Criticism of gillborn

Answer 25

• Criticisms of gillborn view that ethnic differences in achievement are the result of two issues:
  1. The underachievement of some minority groups such as black boys
  2. The over achievement of Indian and Chinese pupils

Question 26

Model minorities: Indian and Chinese achievement

Answer 26

• there is also the ‘overachievement’ by other ‘model minorities’. E.g, Indian and Chinese students perform better than white majority.
• if these two groups do so well, now then how can there be institutional racism, as critical race theorists claim?

Question 27

Gillborn and model minorities

Answer 27

-gillborn (2008) responds by arguing that the image of Indians and Chinese as hardworking ‘model minorities’ performed an ideological function. It conceals the fact that the education system is institutionally racist:
- it makes the system appear fair and meritocratic - that Indians and Chinese succeed because they make an effort and take advantage of opportunites offered to them
- it justifies the failure of other minorities such as blacks - that they fail because they are unable to or unwilling to make the effort, due to their ‘unspirational’ home culture
- it ignores the fact that ‘model minorities’ still suffer racism in schools - e.g, Chinese students report similar levels of harassment of black Caribbean

Question 28

Ethnicity, class and gender - Evan’s (2006)

Answer 28

• Evan’s argues that, to fully understand the relationship between ethnicity and achievement, we need to look at how ethnicity interacts with gender and class. E.g, she claims that in examining black children’s achievement, sociologists tend to look at their culture and ethnicity, but rarely at their class

Question 29

Ethnicity, class and gender - Connolly (1998)

Answer 29

• in connollys study of 5 and 6 yr olds in multi ethnic inner city primary school.
• Connolly shows how pupils and teachers construct masculinity differently depending on a child’s ethnicity. Teachers saw black boys as disruptive under achievers and controlled them by punishing them more and challenging their energies into sport. The boys responded by seeking status in no academic ways, such as playing kiss chase and football
• in contrast, teachers saw Asian boys as passive, conformists, keen and academic, when they misbehaved, they were seen as immature rather than threatening. Other boys picked on them to assert their own masculinity and exceeded them from playing football, both teachers and pupils saw Asian boys as more ‘feminine’, vulnerable and in need of protection from bullying

Question 30

What do studies such as Evan’s and connollys show

Answer 30

• show that we cannot consider ethnicity in isolation from gender and class
• e.g Connolly notes that there is an ‘interactions effect’ class and gender interaction differently with ethnicity depending on which ethnic group we are looking at.