Internal factors (ethnicity)

Question 1

How does the Labelling theory (including teacher racism) relate to ethnic differences in achievement?

(-) Labelling theory is deterministic

Answer 1

• teachers have racialised expectations
• Gillborn - teachers are more likely to negatively label black students
• Gillborn and Youdell - teachers discipline blacks quicker even for the same behaviour as others
• could lead to self-fulfilling prophecy (teachers have low expectations, don’t show effort, black students realise + don’t try too)
• could lead to streaming - black students more likely to be in lower streams (Youdell)

Question 2

How does institutional racism relate to ethnic differences in achievement?

(-) institutional racism doesn’t explain why some ethnic minorities such as asian pupils overachieve, if polices + attitudes are discriminative, how are they able to do better than white British pupils?

Answer 2

• policies and attitudes discriminate against ethnic minority groups
• Gillborn - marketisation in schools lets schools choose pupils, may enable negative stereotypes about ethnic minorities to influence whether they are picked.

could affect the opportunity that is given to ethnic minority’s, may have to go to worse schools giving them worse grades

Question 3

How does the school’s curriculum relate to ethnic differences in educational achievement?

(-) Mirza found that black girls had positive self-esteem and high aspirations

Answer 3

• school curriculum is seen as ethnocentric (fits the mainstream culture of middle-class whites rather than ethnic minorities)
• history taught in schools ignores black and asian groups + glorifies mainstream white history (e.g power of the british empire), this can lower a black or asian child’s self esteem and lead to their educational failure (lack of confidence can lead to lack of effort etc)