Ethnicity and Achievement- External Flashcards
Explain and evaluate Cultural deprivation – intellectual and language skills
Bereiter and Engelmann argue that children from black e/m backgrounds lack intellectual stimulation and enriching experiences needed for educational success. As a result they do not develop reasoning and problem solving skills. Similarly, they use the restricted code when speaking which holds them back. Many e/m families also do not speak English as their first language.
Evaluation - This can be criticised as many Indian British children speak English as an additional language, yet do very well at school.
Explain and evaluate Cultural deprivation – attitudes and values
New Right argue that black e/m children are socialised into subcultural values which promote fatalistic, live for today, attitudes which don’t value education. These children are therefore not encouraged to work hard at school which holds back their progress.
For example, Scruton argues that some e/m fail to integrate into the mainstream British culture which causes their children’s underachievement.
Evaluation - racist as they assume black culture and values are inferior and different to the mainstream culture, when in fact many black families support and encourage hard work.
Explain and evaluate Cultural deprivation – family structure
Moynihan (New Right) argues many black e/m children are being brought up in lone parent families where they are deprived of adequate care bc the mother has to struggle financially in the absence of a male role model.
Murray adds to this by arguing the lack of positive male role models in black lone parent families causes underachievement of those children, especially boys.
They also see this deprivation as a cycle where poorly socialised children grow up and become inadequate parents themselves so the process is repeated for their children.
Evaluation - They can be criticised for ignoring the white nuclear families who fail to socialise their children properly.
Sewell argues that Asian students do much better in education than black students because they are brought up in supportive and close-knit families which put high value on education and have an Asian work ethic.
Lumpton argues that Asian families support the school’s behaviour policies which are similar to their expectations of children’s behaviour.
McCulloch argues that white w/c families have low aspirations for their children who do not encourage their children to pursue education so they underachieve.
Lumpton compared 4 schools (2 white, 1 Pakistani, 1 mixed) and she found that the white school had fewer children on FSM, but their behaviour at school was worse. This shows that achievement is affected by parental attitudes to education.
Evans argues that white w/c areas are tough and this translates into bad behaviour at school and then they underachieve.
Sewell argues that black fathers are not absent, but it is the black fathers’ ‘tough love’ that causes black boys to struggle to overcome emotional difficulties .
They then turn to music and gangs for male role models. These give them anti-school attitudes and lead them to underachieve.
Therefore, the biggest cause of black boys’ underachievement is peer pressure.
He compares this to Asian boys who do much better in education.
What are the criticisms of cultural deprivation?
Driver argues that ethnicity can have a positive effect on achievement, e.g. Caribbean families provide girls with positive female role models. This is why black girls get better results than black boys.
Lawrence – argues that black boys underachieve because of racism at school.
Keddie – e/m are culturally different and underachieve because schools are ethnocentric – they see e/m culture as inferior. This could be solved with anti-racist and multi-cultural education.
Compensatory education – is a policy to help e/m do better at school, e.g. Operation Head Start was targeted at African American children in the USA to help them do better.
Explain material deprivation
e/m are more likely to be w/c which then causes them to face material deprivation and live in poverty, e.g. low income and substandard housing.
Palmer argues e/m such as Pakistani and Bangladeshi tend to be among the poorest in the UK.
This is because they live in areas in high unemployment, their traditional attitudes which mean that women tend not to work so there is only one income to support the family, lack of English language skills and qualifications not being recognised by employers so they find it difficult to find well paid jobs.
Explain racism in wider society
The poverty e/m experience is caused by racism in society.
Mason argues that discrimination is a persistent feature of the lives of e/m in the UK.
Rex shows how this happens in housing where e/m are forced into substandard accommodation by councils.
Wood et al found the same in employment. He sent three identical job applications for the same job, each application having a fictitious name associated with a particular ethic group. He found that applicants with an English sounding name were more likely to be invited for interviews.
