Ethnicity and Educational Achievement - Internal Factors

Question 1

Institutional racism

Answer 1

institution or organisations discriminate against people based on their backgrounds, race, cultural etc. Refers to discrimination that is built into the way organisations such as schools work.

Question 2

Labelling and teacher racism - Gillborn and Youdell

Answer 2

teachers hold racialised expectations - they expect black students to present behavioral problems and misinterpret their behaviour as challenging their authority. therefore teachers are more likely to discipline black boys even for minor offences for which white students were not disciplined. the pupils react negatively to this which leads to further conflict.

Question 3

Labelling and teacher racism - Wright

Answer 3

studied multi-ethnic primary school through observations of interactions of teachers and students. she found out that teachers hold ethnocentric views - see British culture and English language skills, express disapproval of their customs and mispronounce their names. this marginalises Asian students - (excluded from class discussions etc)

Question 4

Labelling and teacher racism - Wright

Answer 4

Interviewed teachers and yr 10 students in 2 comprehensive schools in the 1980’s. she found out that teachers had racialised expectation. i.e they expected Afro-Caribbean students to be troublemakers. this lead students to form anti-school subcultures.

Question 5

Labelling and teacher racism - Foster

Answer 5

found that teacher’s stereotypes of black students as badly behaved could result in them being placed in lower sets which can lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy of underachievement.

Question 6

Labelling and teacher racism - Osler

Answer 6

black pupils are the most likely group to be permanently excluded from schools, but also face unofficial exclusions such as being sent out of class (seclusion). this reduces their opportunities to learn.

Question 7

Labelling and teacher racism - evaluation

Answer 7

the theory is deterministic as it assumes that just because students are labelled, they will accept the label. however, Mac an Ghail’s study shows that students can reject the labels. the sample in Wright’s theory is too small to be representative

Question 8

Pupil identities - Archer

Answer 8

argues that teachers dominant discourse (way of seeing something) excludes e/m students from the image of the ideal pupil. these teacher attitudes create three different types of pupil identities:

Question 9

Pupil identities - 1

Answer 9

the ideal pupil - white, middle class, masculinised identity, these pupils are seen as achieving as a result of natural ability.

Question 10

Pupil identities -2

Answer 10

the pathologised pupil - Asian, deserving poor, feminised identity, asexual or with an oppressed sexuality, these pupils are seen as conformist and culture - bound achiever who has to work hard to succeed.

Question 11

Pupil identities - 3

Answer 11

the demonised pupil - black or white, working class, hyper sexualised identity, these pupils are seen as unintelligent, per-led, culturally deprived underachievers.

Question 12

Pupil identities - Evaluation

Answer 12

e/m pupils, even those who are high achievers, are seen as either pathologised or demonised pupils. Archer calls this negative positive stereotyping.

Question 13

Pupil subcultures - Mirza

Answer 13

studied the strategies adapted by ambitious black girls for avoiding racism - racist teachers restricted the aspirations of black female students through subject and career choices they suggested. student’s tried to avoid teachers negative attitudes by not choosing subject that were taught by racist teachers and by not asking for help. thus the girls underachieved

Question 14

Pupil subcultures - Sewell

Answer 14

teachers had a stereotypical view of black machismo - expect black boys to be rebellious and anti-school. boys responded in 4 ways:
- rebels=opposed school rules and goals - often excluded, formed anti-school subcultures
-conformists=respected schools rules and aimed for success
-retreatists=isolated from school and the rebels
-innovators=pro-education but anti-school
however, even the conformists faced teacher labelling as well as bullying from their peers.

Question 15

Pupil subcultures - Fuller

Answer 15

studied yr 11 high achieving black girls from London in comprehensive school. she found out that black girls rejected negative labels applied to them and turned angry at being labelled into pursuit of educational success, but the girls didn’t conform by seeking the approval of teachers and were friend with low achieving girls. this shows that the self-fulfilling prophecy doesn’t always happen.

Question 16

Pupil subcultures- Mac an Ghail

Answer 16

studied Asian and black a level students and found that students can reject the negative labels applied to them by teachers.

Question 17

Ethnocentric Curriculum

Answer 17

ethnocentric - regarding your culture as superior to all the others
curriculum - things learnt at school through subjetcs

Question 18

Ethnocentric Curriculum - Troyna and Williams

Answer 18

British curriculum gives priority to British culture and english language, it ignores non-european langauges, music, literature etc

Question 19

Ethnocentric Curriculum - Coard

Answer 19

there is a lack of black literature, history, music and role models in the curriculum e.g history teaches that the british civilised the ‘primitive’ people they colonised - this may create low self-esteem amoung black students and lead to failure. also, the association of the word ‘black’ with negative connotations may affect the self-esteem of afro-caribbean students

Question 20

Ethnocentric Curriculum - evaluation

Answer 20

indian and chinese students achievement is high so there is little evidence that ethnocentric curriculum has any effect on achievement

Question 21

Assessment - Gillborn

Answer 21

argues that e/m students underachieve especially when the assessments are based on teacher judgments, not externally marked tests.
E.g: 2003 - primary school students used to be tested at the start of the reception year using the baseline tests. at the time e/m students did well, even better than white students
however, in 2003 the system was replaced with foundation stage profiles, these are entirely based on teachers judgement of students and are carried out at the end of the year. since this system has been introduced e/m students have been underachieving.
this shows that tecahers stereotyping of pupils affects the results - they make them more harshly.

Question 22

Access to opportunities - Gillborn

Answer 22

the gifted and talented programme was created to meet the needs of more able students in inner city areas, but Gillborn argues that it still discriminates against e/m. This is because it is based on teachers judgments and white students are more liekly to be placed on the G and T register than e/m. black students not seen as MATS - restricts their opportunities

Question 23

Access to opportunities - Tikly

Answer 23

found that e/m pupils are more likely to be entered for foundation tier exams at GCSE and placed into lower sets. this is often based on the teachers assumption about the students behaviour rather than their actual ability.
Gillborn call these false assumptions about pupils ‘potential’ the new IQism

Question 24

Institutional racism - Gillborn *

Answer 24

refers to institutional racism as locked- in equality - whereby the scale of discrimination is so large that there is no longer any conscious intent to discriminate as discrimination is fully built into the way schools operate.

Question 25

Marketisation, selection and segregation - Gillborn

Answer 25

marketisation of education has allowed schools to select studnets. this puts ethnic minorities at a disadvantage as negative stereotypes can affect admission decisions

Question 26

Marketisation, selection and segregation - Moore and Davenport

Answer 26

minority pupils fail to get into better schools because these schools use primary school reports to screen out problem students. also non-english speaking parents may not understand the application process. this puts e/m students at a disadvantage

Question 27

Marketisation, selection and segregation - evaluation

Answer 27

it is possible that parents send their children to schools where most of the other students are of the same ethnic background as a way of protecting their child form racism. this then causes ethnic segregation between schools.

Question 28

Policies to tackle the differences in ethnic groups

educational achievement - Assimilation

Answer 28

1960 - 1970’s - the focus was an integrating e/m children into the mainstream british culture to help improve their achievement

Question 29

Policies to tackle the differences in ethnic groups

educational achievement - Multicultural education

Answer 29

1980-1990’s - the idea was to create a board curriculum which would value all cultures thus raising the e/m children’s self-esteem and thus their results would improve. this policy has been criticised for including stereotypical aspects of different cultures but failing to tackle institutional racism in education

Question 30

Policies to tackle the differences in ethnic groups

educational achievement - social inclusion

Answer 30

1990-2000’s -monitoring the achievements of e/m pupils and amending the Race Relation Act 2000 to make schools legally responsible form promoting equally. schools have to punish/sanction those responsible for doing it.