Ethnicity on achievement Flashcards
Patterns of underachievement
-South asian and chinese more likely to over achieve-get higher gcses, go onto a levels and go into university
-Black carribean, traveller and Pakinstani/Bangladeshis are more likely to significantly underachieve.
Material explanations
1 in 3 black pupils live in poverty compared to 1 in 5 white pupils, South Asian and Chinese pupils are more likely to be upper and middle class and less likely to recieve school meals
-Some minority groups are more likely to live in poverty-poor quality housing, deprived areas with low income which acts as a barrier to education causing underachievement
-Lack of space/overcrowding makes it hard to study, low income makes it hard to buy things to advance education, poor diet-cumulative barrier creating a disadvantage in education
c: we need to also look at internal processes such as stereotyping to explain differences in education
Parental interest and encouragement
-Bhatti-South asian families are more close knit and have high expectations for their children-encourage them to have high ambitions and may put pressure on them to remain in education and to achieve highly resulting in higher achievement-greater importance on the value of educations-more motivated and disciplined students who have higher aspirations
-Black carribean parents are seen to be less interested and encouraging-less likely to emphasise the value of education or encourage their children to have high ambitions-may be due to high rates of lone parenthood and low income-mothers work long hours and cannot show encouragement in their childrens education-may encourage them to leave school at 16 and enter employment due to the need of immediate income-material and other barriers lead to an apparent lack of interest and thus lower aspirations and achievements.
Driver and bollard-black carribean parents show less encouragement and anti school attitudes
What did Bhatti find about south asian parents
-Very interested in their childrens education, have high ambitions for them-teach the value of qualifications and encourage their children to have high aspirations, go onto higher university etc.
Teacher racism
-Research by Green, Wright and Glibourn and Yodell has shown that teachers have subconcious prejudice, they are more likely to treat black carribean pupils unfavourably and hold negative stereotypes of them as deviant, underachievers and ‘slow learners’
-They are more likely to discipline black pupils and treat them unfavourably, unfairly picked on or punished creating high levels of conflict between teachers and black pupils which may give them a negative experience of education and lead to anti school attitudes as they feel unfairly treated by teachers and are denied status
-Tony Sewell found that black pupils are more likely to form anti school subcultures in response to this negative labelling and thus underachieve
-In contrast South Asian and Chinese pupils are more likely to be labelled as ideal pupils and over achieveing and are treated favourably by teachers
C: Not all pupils conform-Fuller-some black girls responded to labelling by trying hard and over-achieving to prove them wrong-don’t all respond in the same way-not all labelling leads to underachievement
who found teachers are subconciously racist and treat black pupils unfairly.
Green, wright, gilbourne and yodell
How does racist teacher labelling lead to underachievement
-Black carribean pupils-internalise the negative stereotype and conform to it
-May develop anti school attitudes through conflict w teachers and join anti school subcultures-also a means of gaining status and getting back at the school-Sewell
-More likely to be excluded and put into lower bands
