Ethnicity and Educational Achievement - Internal Factors Flashcards
Institutional racism
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.
Labelling and teacher racism - Gillborn and Youdell
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.
Labelling and teacher racism - Wright
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)
Labelling and teacher racism - Wright
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.
Labelling and teacher racism - Foster
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.
Labelling and teacher racism - Osler
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.
Labelling and teacher racism - evaluation
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
Pupil identities - Archer
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:
Pupil identities - 1
the ideal pupil - white, middle class, masculinised identity, these pupils are seen as achieving as a result of natural ability.
Pupil identities -2
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.
Pupil identities - 3
the demonised pupil - black or white, working class, hyper sexualised identity, these pupils are seen as unintelligent, per-led, culturally deprived underachievers.
Pupil identities - Evaluation
e/m pupils, even those who are high achievers, are seen as either pathologised or demonised pupils. Archer calls this negative positive stereotyping.
Pupil subcultures - Mirza
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
Pupil subcultures - Sewell
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.
Pupil subcultures - Fuller
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.
Pupil subcultures- Mac an Ghail
studied Asian and black a level students and found that students can reject the negative labels applied to them by teachers.
Ethnocentric Curriculum
ethnocentric - regarding your culture as superior to all the others
curriculum - things learnt at school through subjetcs
Ethnocentric Curriculum - Troyna and Williams
British curriculum gives priority to British culture and english language, it ignores non-european langauges, music, literature etc
Ethnocentric Curriculum - Coard
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
Ethnocentric Curriculum - evaluation
indian and chinese students achievement is high so there is little evidence that ethnocentric curriculum has any effect on achievement
Assessment - Gillborn
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.
Access to opportunities - Gillborn
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
Access to opportunities - Tikly
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
Institutional racism - Gillborn *
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.
Marketisation, selection and segregation - Gillborn
marketisation of education has allowed schools to select studnets. this puts ethnic minorities at a disadvantage as negative stereotypes can affect admission decisions
Marketisation, selection and segregation - Moore and Davenport
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
Marketisation, selection and segregation - evaluation
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.
Policies to tackle the differences in ethnic groups
educational achievement - Assimilation
1960 - 1970’s - the focus was an integrating e/m children into the mainstream british culture to help improve their achievement
Policies to tackle the differences in ethnic groups
educational achievement - Multicultural education
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
Policies to tackle the differences in ethnic groups
educational achievement - social inclusion
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.
