Ethnicity and acheivement Flashcards
What is an ethnic group?
People who share a common history, customs and identity, seeing themselves as a distinct group
What trends are seen with ethnic differences in acheivement?
Black children do worse at GCSEs than white and asian children.
In all ethnic groups, girls do better than boys
What external factors could be to blame?
Cultural deprivation
Material deprivation
Racism in wider society
What are the main aspects of cultural deprivation?
Intellectual and Linguistic Skills
Attitudes and Values
Family Structure and Parental Support
How does cultural deprivation affect linguistic skills and cognitive development?
Many low income black families lack intellectual stimulation which means they are poorly equiped for school.
Bereiter and Engelmann say the language spoken in black families is poor
Students that speak English as a 2nd language are held back
What do Bereiter and Engelmann say about the langiage spoken in black families?
It’s poor and ungramatical which means children start school without the propper language skills
How does cultural deprivation affect attitudes and values?
Many black children are not socilised to be ambitious so have a lack of motivation. They live in the moment so don’t value education
How does cultural deprivation affect family structure and support?
Black families have a dysfunctional structure and are normally lone parent so they are deprived of adequate care and a father role model
How does Sewell argue that lone parent black families cause underacheivement?
Street ganges take the place of father figures by offering loyalty and love to their members. They hold anti-school values and see sucess as white
How does Sewell argue that Asian children suceed due to their culture?
Asian work ethic places a high value on education and the adult authority structure is similar to school so it’s easier for asian children to adapt
What are the main criticisms of cultural deprivation?
Ignores positive effects
Institutional racism
Victim blaming
How does Driver criticise cultural deprivation?
Ignores the positive effects of culture such as how it provides girls with strong role models
How does Eddie criticise cultural deprivation?
Its a victim blaming explanation and ignores the fact that the education system favours european culure
Why are ethnic minorities at greater risk of poverty?
Many live in urban areas with high unemployment
Cultural factors may prevent women from working
Some have poor language skills or qualifications that aren’t recognised in the UK
What proportion of ethnic minority children are in low income households?
1/2
How can material deprivation not override ethnicity?
80% of Chinese girls who are on free school meals acheive good GCSEs
How does racism in wider society affect attainment?
Discrimination in the housing market means they may only be in the catchment area of bad schools
Discrimination in employment means they’re more likely to be poor (Rex)
What internal factors affect attainment?
Labelling and teacher racism
Pupil identities
Responses and subcultures
Institutinal racism
How does labelling and teacher racism affect attainment?
Black children are less likely to be labelled as the ideal pupil
Gillborn and Youdell: teachers are quicker to discipline black students as they think they’re badly behaved
Black children put in lower streams
How do Gillborn and Youdell argue that labelling and teacher racism affect attainment?
Teachers hold racialised expectations and are quicker to dicipline black students as they expect them to misbehave. The students react negatively which creates conflict
What did Foster find about black pupils and streaming?
Black students are more likely to be placed in low ability groups which creates a self-fufilling prophecy
How do pupil identities affect attainment?
Archer: Teachers give students identities (ideal, demonised, pathological)
Ethnic minorities less likely to be labelled as ideal
What are the 3 types of student identities identifyed by Archer?
Given by teachers
Ideal: White, middle class and masculine that acheive through natural ability
Pathological: Culture-bound Asian overacheivers who suceed through hard work
Demonised: Working class, hyper-sexualised and seen as unintelligent
What is the ideal student identity?
White, middle class and masculine that acheive through natural ability
What is the pathological student identitiy?
Culture-bound Asian overacheivers who suceed through hard work
What is the demonised pupil identity?
Working class, hyper-sexualised and seen as unintelligent
How do pupil responses and subcultures affect attainment?
Fuller found black girls can reject their negative labels
They can be selective over which teachers they interact with based on attitudes
What was Fuller’s study how black girls reject negative labells?
They didn’t seek the approval of teachers or limit their friend groups
They gave the appearance they didn’t care but really studied hard
‘good underneath’
What three main types of teacher racism were identifyed by Mirza?
Colour blind: Teachers who believe all pupils are equal but do not challenge the racism of others.
The liberal chauvinists: Teachers who see black students as culturally deprived and have low expectations of them.
Overt racists: Teachers who think that black students are inferior and actively discriminate against them.
Who identifyed the responses of boys to teacher racism?
Sewell
What are the male responses to teacher racism?
Conformists
Retreatists
Rebels
Innovators
What is the conformist response to teacher racism?
They are not part of a subculture and are anxious to avoid being stereotyped
What is the retreatist response to teacher racism?
Minority of iscolated students who are disconnected from school
What is the rebel response to teacher racism?
Rejected the values of school and thought they were superior
What is the innovator response to teacher racism?
They valued sucess so conformed with schoolwork but distanced themselves and maintained rapport with the rebels
Who argued that ethnic differences in acheivement were due to institutional racism?
Troyna and Williams
What is institutional racism?
Discrimination in the ways schools and colleges operate
What is critical race theory?
The idea that racism is an ingrained feature of society and not the result of intentional actions
What is locked-in inequality?
Roithmayr thought the scale of historical discrimination is so vast that there is not a conscious effort to discriminate. It’s so deeply rooted that it’s inevitable
How does marketisation and segregation lead to indtitutional racism?
Moore and Davenport show there are ethnic selecting producers to discriminate against minority students. School reports were used to screen out children with language difficulties and procedures favoured white pupils
How is the national curriculum ethnocentric and how is this institutional racism?
More emphasis on British and Western values.
Troyna and Williams: Less teachers specialising in Asian languages
History ignores ethnic diversity and glorifys the UK history
This undermines the self-esteem of ethnic minorities and makes them identify with school less
How is instional racism shown through assessment?
If black children start to improve, the rules are changed to induce failure. When the FSP was introduced, black children suddenly started to do worse.
