Ethnicity and achievement Flashcards
Reasons for differences in achievement between ethnic groups
-Material deprivation
-Parental, student or school factors
-Class, gender, ethnicity
-Recent immigration and ethnic group subcultures
-Cultural capital
Material deprivation and ethnicity (strand)
-Strand:
-Longitudinal study of 15,000 students in England
-Analysed the differences in attainment of various ethnic groups
-The attainment gap due to social class was twice as large as the biggest ethnic gap and six times as large as gender
Parental factors
-Ethnic minority (EM) parents more likely than White British to have positive attitudes towards education
-Pro-school attitudes
-Lupton: argues that adult authority in Asian families is similar to that of school= respectful behaviour
Parental support: Asian families
-Bhatti: Parents were more supportive of children’s education and high levels of interest in their children’s achievement
-Modood: suggests it is typical parental behaviour of all social classes, with W/C Asian families promoting staying on in education
Parental support: Chinese families
-Chinese students perform significantly higher than all other groups
Modood: States parental cultural capital is passed onto children from previous occupations= pushes higher achievement
-Parents invest in children so they look after them in old age, and this investment includes a very good education
Parental support: Black families
-There is a greater support network of extended family and friends in black African families that promote educational achievement
-Sewell: Single parent families have created less parental support for black students (24% of black households are single parent in comparison to 10% of white households)
-The workload placed on mothers means that they cannot dedicate the time to support the education of their children
Student factors
-Ethnic minority (EM) students are more likely to be resilient
-‘Risk factors’ (strand) are more likely in White students, although Black Caribbean students are more likely to be excluded
-Engelmann: language- for some pupils, English may be their second language so understanding class work may be difficult
School factors
-Ethnocentric curriculum:
-The school curriculum reflects the dominant culture which benefits White British students
-Excludes or rejects other groups
-Ball: criticises the ethnocentric curriculum
-Institutional racism
Class factors
-Modood: Class affects White students more than other groups
Gender factors
-White W/C are at the bottom for both genders in achievement
-The gender gap is bigger in Black Caribbean and Bangladeshi students in favour of girls
Recent immigration
-Education is seen as a way out of poverty for recent immigrants
-Strand: A repetition of poor prospects and jobs may ignore the benefits of a constantly failed by education system
Ethnic group subcultures
Archer and Francis: Education is seen as a ‘family project’ for British Chinese students- students appreciated their parents’ high expectations
-Seen in both M/C and W/C families
Cultural capital
-Bourdieu: Chinese and Indian M/C have the highest attainment
-Modood: There are anomalies explained by cultural capital from previous jobs or low employment status due to racism, not ability
How does racism in the classroom explain differences in achievement?
-Teacher racism: teachers had an expectation that Black students will generally present disciplinary problems so they felt ‘control and punishment’ had a bigger priority than ‘academic concerns’
-Effect= most Black students felt they were disadvantaged by their treatment in school= lack of motivation to do well and may be sent out of lesson for their bad behaviour
‘Black masculinity’
-Sewell:
-Many black boys lack a positive male role model which makes them more vulnerable to anti-school peer group pressure so may reject school
-The subculture of Black masculinity provides a ‘comfort zone’ for many Black-Caribbean young men
