Internal factors _ ethnicity Flashcards
labelling and teacher racism
What do studies show about teachers’ perceptions of black and Asian pupils?
Teachers often see black and Asian pupils as far from the ‘ideal pupil’. Black pupils are seen as disruptive and aggressive, while Asians are viewed as passive.
How do negative labels affect ethnic minority pupils?
Negative labels lead to different treatment by male teachers, disadvantaging ethnic minority pupils and potentially resulting in their failure through the self-fulfilling prophecy.
What did Gillborn and Youdell find regarding discipline of black pupils?
They found that teachers were quicker to discipline black pupils than others for the same behavior.
What do Gillborn and Youdell argue about teachers’ expectations?
They argue that teachers have ‘racialised expectations’ and misinterpret black pupils’ behavior as threatening or challenging. When teachers acted on this misperception, the pupils responded negatively and further conflicted results. In turn, black pupils felt teachers underestimated their ability and picked on them.
They conclude that much of the conflict between white teachers and black pupils stems from the racial stereotypes teachers hold, rather than the pupils’ actual behaviour.
What is the impact of negative labeling on black boys in schools?
As Jenny Bourne found, schools tend to see black boys as a threat and to label them negatively, leading eventually to exclusion. Exclusions affect achievement: only one in five excluded pupils achieves five GCSES.
What does Olser say about exclusions faced by black pupils?
According to Olser, in addition to higher rates of official exclusions, black pupils appear more likely to suffer from unrecorded unofficial exclusions and from ‘internal exclusions’ where they are sent out of class. They are also more likely to be placed in pupil referral units (PRUs) that exclude them from access to the mainstream curriculum .
Pupil identities
How does Louis Archer describe the dominant discourse on ethnic minority pupils?
Teachers often define pupils as having stereotypical ethnic identities. According to Louis Archer, teacher’s dominant discourse defines ethnic minority pupils’ identities as lacking the favoured identity of the ideal pupil.
What are the three different pupil identities described by Archer?
Archer describes how the dominant discourse constructs three different pupil identities:
- Ideal pupil identity: white, middle-class, masculine.
- Pathologised pupil identity: Asian, feminised, seen as over-achiever.
- Demonised pupil identity: black or white, working-class, hyper-sexualised.
Archer
How are black students often stereotyped by teachers?
They are demonised as loud, challenging, excessively sexual, and from ‘unaspirational’ home cultures.
What did Archer find about stereotypes of Asian girls?
Teachers stereotype Asian girls as quiet, passive, or docile, and as Shain notes they face harsher consequences when they misbehave.
Rejecting negative labels
What was the focus of Mary Fuller’s study on black girls?
The study focused on how a group of high-achieving black girls rejected negative labels and pursued educational success.
How did the girls in Fuller’s study respond to negative stereotypes?
They channeled their anger into educational success without seeking approval from teachers, whom they regarded as racist.
What are the two important points highlighted by Fuller’s study?
- Pupils can succeed without conforming. 2. Negative labeling does not always lead to failure.
What does the term ‘ethnocentric’ refer to in education?
It describes an attitude or policy that prioritizes the culture and viewpoint of one particular ethnic group over others. Many sociologists see the ethnocentric curriculum as a prime example of institutional racism because it builds a racial bias into the everyday workings of schools.
What are some examples of the ethnocentric curriculum?
- Language: limited teaching of Asian languages- Miriam David describes the national Curriculum as a ‘specifically British’ curriculum that largely ignores non-european languages, literature and music.
- Ball criticises the National Curriculum for ignoring ethnic diversity and for promoting an attitude of ‘little englandism’. For example, the history curriculum tries to recreate a ‘mythical age of empire and past glories’, and the history of black and asian people.
How does the ethnocentric curriculum affect black children’s self-esteem?
Coard explains how the ethnocentric curriculum may produce underachievement. For example, in history the British may be presented as bringing civilisation to the ‘primitive’ peoples they colonised. He argues that the image of black people as inferior undermines black children’s self-esteem and leads to their failure.
What is a critique of the ethnocentric curriculum’s impact?
However it is not clear what impact the ethnocentric curriculum has . For example, while it may ignore Asian culture, Indian and Chinese pupil’s achievement is above the national average. Similarly, Maureen Stone argues that black children do not in fact suffer from low self-esteem.
What is Gillborn’s response to the idea of model minorities?
The ‘overachievement’ by ‘model minorities’ is a critic of the idea that the education system is institutionally racist. Indian and Chinese students perform better than the white majority.Gillbron responds by arguing that the image of Indians and Chinese as hardworking ‘model minorities’ performs an ideological function. It conceals the fact that the education system is institutionally racist:
- It justifies the failure of other minorities, such as blacks-that they fail because they are unable or unwilling to make the effort, due to their ‘unaspirational’ home culture.
