ETNICITY INTERNAL FACTORS

Question 1

Tony Sewell (Black boys subcultures)

Answer 1

• He notes that pupils responses to schooling, including racist stereotypes by teachers, can affect their achievement.
• He identifies four such responses.
• Firstly, the rebels; they were the most visible and influential group, but they were only a small minority of black pupils. They were excluded from school, and rejected both the goals and rules of the school and expressed their opposition through peer group membership, conforming to the stereotype of anti-authority ‘black macho lad’.
• The rebels believed in their own superiority based on the idea that black masculinity equates with sexual experience and virility. They were contemptuous of white boys, who they saw as effeminate, and dismissive of conformist black boys.
• Secondly, there was the conformists; they were the largest group, and were keen to succeed, accepted the school’s goals and had friends from different ethnic groups.
• They were no part of a subculture and were anxious to avoid being stereotyped either by their peers or teachers.
• Third, there’s the retreatists they were a tiny minority of isolated individuals, who were disconnected from both school and black subcultures, and were despised by the rebels.
• Lastly, there were the innovators; they were the second largest group, being pro-education and anti-school.
• They valued success, but did not seek the approval of teachers and conformed only as far as schoolwork itself.
• This distanced them from the conformists, and allowed them to remain credible with the rebels, while remaining positive about academic achievement.
• Sewell showed that only a small minority fit the stereotype of the ‘black macho lad’ but neverless teachers tend to see all black boys in this was and this contributed to the underachievement of many boys.

Question 2

Eval (Daria)

Answer 2

• Not a result of subcultures, but wider and institutional racism.
• They were a critical race theorist, who described education as embodying ‘locked-in inequality’: the scale of historical discrimination is so large that there is no longer needs to be any conscious intent to discriminate- the inequality becomes self-perpetuating.

Question 3

Gillborn and Youdell (Racialised expectations)

Answer 3

• They found that teachers were quicker to discipline black pupils than others for the same behaviour.
• They argue that this is the result of teachers’ ‘racialised expectations’.
• They found that teachers expected black pupils to present more discipline problems and misinterpreted their behaviour as threatening or as a challenge to authority.
• When teachers acted on this misperception, the pupils responded negatively and further conflict resulted.
• In turn, black pupils felt teachers underestimated their ability and picked on them.
• They concluded that much of the conflict between white teachers and black pupils stem from the racial stereotypes teachers hold, rather than the pupils’ actual behaviour.
• This may explain higher levels of exclusion from school for black pupils, as well as why black pupils are often placed in lower streams.

Question 4

Eval (Tony Sewell)

Answer 4

• This may actually be a result of the fact that a high proportion of Black African pupils are raised in lone-parent families, and that means they often lack male role models, and therefore discipline, pushing them into gangs and causing a lack of concern for academic achievement.

Question 5

Mary Fuller (Rejecting labels)

Answer 5

• Pupils can respond to labelling in a variety of ways, including rejecting labels as shown with Fuller’s study of a group of black girls in a year 11 London comprehensive school. The girls were untypical because they were high achievers in a school where most black girls were placed in low streams.
• Fuller describes how, instead of accepting negative stereotypes of themselves, the girls channelled their anger about being labelled into the pursuit of educational success.
• However, unlike other successful pupils, they did not seek the approval of teachers, many of whom they regarded as racist.
• Nor did they limit their choice of friends to other academic achievers. Instead, they were friends with other black girls from lower streams. Also unlike other successful pupils, they conformed only as far as schoolwork itself was concerned.
• They worked conscientiously, but gave the appearance of not doing do, and they showed a deliberate lack of concern about school routines. They had a positive attitude to academic success but, rather than seeking the approval of teachers, they preferred to rely on their own efforts and the impartiality of external exams.
• Fullers sees the girls’ behaviour as a way of dealing with the contradictory demands of succeeding at school while remaining friends with black girls in lower streams and avoiding the ridicule of black boys, many of whom were anti-school.
• They were able to maintain a positive self-image by relying on their own efforts rather than accepting the teachers’ negative stereotypes of them.
• This demonstrates that pupil’s may still succeed even when they refuse to conform, and also that negative labelling does not always lead to failure/ the self-fulfilling prophecy.

Question 6

Eval (Heidi)

Answer 6

• Her study of ambitious black girls who faced racism found that, even though much of the girls’ time at school was spent trying to avoid the effects of teachers’ negative attitudes.
• The strategies they employed to do this included being selective about which staff to ask for help; getting on with their own work in lessons without taking part and not choosing certain options so as to avoid teachers with racist attitudes.
• However, although the girls had high self-esteem, these strategies put them at a disadvantage by restricting their opportunities which made them partly unsuccessful.

Question 7

Louise Archer (‘Dominant discourse’/ labelling)

Answer 7

• Teachers often define pupils as having stereotypical ethnic identities.
• Archer states that teachers’ dominant discourse defines ethnic minority pupils’ identities as lacking the favoured identity of the ideal pupil.
• Archer describes how the dominant discourse constructs three types of pupils: the ideal pupil identity
• (a white, middle-class masculinised identity, with a ‘normal’ sexuality- this pupil is seen as achieving in the ‘right’ way, through natural ability and initiative), the pathologized pupil identity
• (an Asian, ‘deserving poor’, feminised identity, either asexual or with an oppressed sexuality- this pupil is seen as a plodding, conformist and culture-bond ‘over-achiever’, a slogger who succeeds through hard work rather than natural ability), and the demonised pupil identity
• (a black or white working-class, hyper-sexualised identity- this pupil is seen as an unintelligent, peer-led, culturally deprived under-achiever).
• For Archer, ethnic minority pupils are likely to be seen as either demonised or pathologized pupil.
• For example, from interviews with teachers and students, she shows how black students are demonised as loud, challenging, excessively sexual and with ‘unaspirational’ home cultures. She also found that teachers stereotyped Asian girls as quiet, passive or docile.

Question 8

Eval (Paul Connolly)

Answer 8

• However, Archer’s been criticised for a lack of intersectionality Connolly notes that there is an ‘interactionist effect’: class and gender interact differently, with ethnicity depending on which ethnic group being looked at.
• (e.g. there is a bigger gap between the achievements of white middle-class and white working-class pupils than there is between black middle-class and black working-class pupils).

Question 9

David Gillborn (Institutional racism, assessment)

Answer 9

• Gilburn argues that the ‘assessment game’ is rigged so as it validate the dominant culture’s superiority.
• If black children succeed as a group, ‘the rules will be changed to re-engineer failure’. For example, in the past, primary schools used ‘baseline assessments’ which tested pupils when they started compulsory schooling.
• However, these were replaced in 2003 by a new way of measuring pupils’ abilities, the foundation stage profile (FSP).
• The result of this change was that, overnight, black pupils now appeared to be doing worse than white pupils.
• For example, in one local authority, where black children in 2000 had been the highest achievers on entry to school (20% above the average), by the 2003 new FSP had black children ranked lower than white children across all six developmental areas that it measured.
• Gillborn explains this reversal as a result of two related institutional factors, the FSP is based entirely on teachers’ judgements whereas baseline assessments often use written tests as well, and a change in timing (the FSP is completed at the end of reception year, whereas baseline assessments were done at the start of primary school).
• Both these factors increase the risk of teachers’ stereotyping affecting the results.

Question 10

Eval (Miriam David)

Answer 10

• The National curriculum is ‘specifically British’, and largely ignores non-European languages, literature and music, which gives British pupils an advantage over ethnic pupils.