Ethnicity Flashcards
Ethnicity
Social and cultural differences between people, but this can include elements of ‘race’ too.
Race
Biological differences between people.
Key trends in ethnicity and education
- Chinese and Indian heritage girls achieve the highest outcomes,
- white, working class boys make least progress and are the greatest concern,
- Pakistan heritage boys are a concern,
- black Caribbean boys are a concern,
- in all ethnic groups, girls outperform boys,
- in all ethnic groups, middle class pupils out preform working class students.
Cultural deprivation trends
Sociologists have highlighted evidence of fatalism and immediate gratification as distinct elements of white, working-class identity. In contrast, Chinese and Indian heritage children have the lowest levels of cultural deprivation. Strong, pro-education socialisation is likely to have a massive influence on continued educational success.
‘They did well, but not Asian well’ - Haleema Khanum
- interviewed a small sample of British Asian pupils to discuss the extent of which their educational ambitions were shaped and influenced by their family and wider community.
- in most British Indian families, it was found that STEM subjects were widely accepted and encouraged (almost ‘blinded’ by the sciences) and the arts were discouraged.
- Pakistani heritage pupils valued science and medicine, however, children often felt as though they had more freedom to study and explore humanitarian subjects.
- ‘honour’ and ‘bragging rights’ underpin subject and career choices among British Asian pupils.
- female respondents from British Asian heritage were typically ambitious to achieve, however, also found the added pressure of marriage and children by their families and community. It was almost more looked down upon to not get married and still live with parents (despite the educational success the daughter may have) as an adult, than to not achieve educationally.
Tony Sewell - fathers, gangs and culture
Interviewed black boys in school.
In black matrifocal households, the absence of father figures can mean that young, black boys miss out on the nurturing and ‘tough love’ that other boys receive. They turn to street gangs for that missing hole, filling it with ‘perverse loyalty and love’. Black boys are presented with media inspired role models of anti school, black subculture, as featured in tough ghetto superstar lyrics and MTV videos.
Many black boys are subjected to powerful anti school peer pressure from other boys to not be seen as ‘selling out’ to the white establishment.
To address pressures and problems black boys face in school, Sewell argues that schools and teachers must have high expectations placed on them to raise aspirations and ambitions, hopefully leading to a self fulfilling prophecy of educational achievement.
Racism in wider society
2015- unemployment rate among ethnic minorities was 11.3%. More than twice the rate for white groups (5.5%). Black people are 3x as likely to be unemployed (15.5%) in general. 38% of young black men were unemployed compared to 17.8% of young white men.
This can explain the staggering wage gap between the average white household (£221,000) to the black Caribbean households (£76,000), to Bangladeshi households (£21,000) and black Africans (£15,000). 60% of black and Asian households have no savings at all, highlighting clear ethnic inequalities in employment and lifestyle opportunities. This has a ‘filtering down’ effect to the performance of some ethnic minorities at school.
Mike Noon
Conducted a study to attempt to see whether it was true to say that racism in wider society leads to differences in educational achievement for different ethnic groups. He sent identical pairs of letters, enquiring about employment opportunities to the top 100 UK companies. Some letters were signed ‘Patel’, others ‘Evans’. Helpfulness of replies were much more positive to those signed ‘Evans’, many of those signed ‘Patel’ didn’t receive a reply. Concluded that racism still existed and held ethnic minority groups back.
Gillborn and Youdell - ethnicity, labelling and teacher racism
Teachers often labelled black pupils as ‘troublemakers’ and as ‘threatening’ and challenging authority. This inevitably leads to conflict between black pupils and white teachers. They claim this hostility came from radicalised stereotypes held by teachers. Believed this may explain the higher levels of exclusions among black boys in the UK.
Gillborn and Youdell - criticisms
Fail to explain why teachers would negatively label black pupils and not pupils of other ethnicities. Also doesn’t explain why exclusion rates are high for black Caribbean pupils but lower for black African pupils.
Tony Sewell - negative labelling
Found that teachers often held stereotypical views of black machoism, whereby black boys are assumed to be rebellious and anti authority. The way school staff interacted with black boys made it clear that they had a degree of suspicion and fear about them. Consequently, many black boys respond in a way that create education subcultures.
- the rebels: actively rebelling against the values held by the school. They exaggerate their masculinity, played upon by the stereotype of the ‘black macho lad’ and resisted the authority of teachers.
- the innovators: the groups rejected teachers and school, however, recognised the value of education. They were able to maintain a balance between keeping credibility with the rebels, whilst also working hard to succeed.
- the conformists: this was the largest group. Despite teacher’s stereotypes, they worked hard and were keen to succeed. They followed the norms and values of the school.
Mary Fuller - negative labelling
Looked at African-Caribbean girls in year 11 who attended a comprehensive school in London and found that, despite the girls having been negatively labelled by teachers, they worked hard to reject them. The girls were high achieving despite feeling as though teachers had low expectations of them. They worked hard to not let the self fulfilling prophecy take place and channelled their anger into work. The negative labelling had motivated them to do better and they achieved excellent results.
Negative labelling - criticism
Labelling theory is deterministic and can easily be assumed that labels automatically determine particular outcomes when that isn’t the case.
Institutional racism
An entire institution’s policies, procedures and and practices that systematically disadvantage ethnic minority pupils. Inequalities some ethnic minority groups experience in schools is so deep rooted and discriminatory, it’s locked- in inequality.
Teacher assessments
The way schools assess pupils changed. Before, there’d be an initial baseline test upon entering primary school to know what students can do upon entering school. Today, this has been replaced with a foundation test profile assessment based entirely on teacher judgements on pupils after they get to know them well. Immediately identified black heritage pupils as a cause for concern one the data was analysed. Black students are unfairly disadvantaged due to the teacher’s radicalised stereotypes, considering black pupils to have ‘fixed’ intelligence, with labels such as ‘low sets’. This ‘new IQism’ based on teacher perceptions and judgements has long term impact and underachievement for disadvantaged pupils.
Teacher assessments - data
Summer 2020 - summer examinations were cancelled. SATs was also cancelled. Schools were asked to submit centre assessed grades to help award pupils the qualifications they needed. Many believed this was a positive move for the professional judgement of teachers to come out, but grades may have been awarded based on radicalised stereotyping, advantaging some ethnic groups and disadvantaging others.
Ethnicity and material deprivation - Smith and Nobel
- All minority ethnic groups have higher FSM rates than white British. Bangladeshi have the highest %.
- Around 2/5 of people from ethnic minorities live in low income households, 2x the rate for white people.
- Pakistani and Bangladeshis are over 3x more likely than white people to live in poorer housing. 15% of ethnic minority households are over crowded vs 2% of white households.
- Pakistani and Bangladeshi heritage citizens are more than likely to be unemployed than white people.
Ethnicity and material deprivation- criticisms
Chinese heritage pupils receiving FSM still typically out preform white British pupils who don’t receive FSM. Pupil premium should also be given equally to all on FSM. Poverty penalty doesn’t affect Chinese heritage people.
Teacher labelling and ethnicity - Louise Archer
Teacher perceptions:
The ideal pupil- white middle class achieving student
Pathological (compulsory motivated pupils)- Asian, culture bound, hardworking, passive, docile, restricted
Demonised pupils- black or white working class, unintelligent, peer led, hypersexualised, underachieving
Ethnocentrism
Seeing or looking at things from a biased way, from the viewpoint of one particular culture and considering this to be superior.
Ethnocentrism - criticisms
The education system has worked hard to be more culturally inclusive, especially in schools where pupil in take is predominantly mixed race.
White working class boys underachieve the most. How is this explained by the ethnocentric schooling argument?
Why do some ethnic minority children appear to be disadvantaged by an ethnocentric school experience, but not others?
