Mini topic 2: Ethnicity and achievement Flashcards
External and internal factors
What are 3 external factors of ethnicity?
1.material deprivation
2.cultural deprivation: intellectual and language skills, attitudes and values, subculture and family structure.
3.racism in society
Material deprivation
1. who is facing deprivation
2. who is sociologist + what do they say?
-ethnic minority are more likely w.c this causes them to face material deprivation and live in poverty.
palmer = Pakistani and Bangladeshi are the poorest in the uk because of
1.live in areas of high unemployment
2.tradtion = women do not work so there is only 1 income
3.lack of qualifications = difficult to find well paid jobs
racism in society
1. who is facing racism
2. who are 3 sociologist + what do they say?
-poverty ethnic minority are facing is because of racism
- mason= discrimination is a persistent feature in lives of e/m
- rex = shows how this is happening in housing
e/m are forced into substandard accommodation by council - wood et al = found the same with employment. handed in 3 identical CVs but with different name that is associated with ethnic group. found English sounding names were chosen for interview.
cultural deprivation
what are 4 cultural deprivation you could talk about
- sociologist for 1st point + criticism
- sociologist for 2nd point + criticism
- sociologist for 3rd point + criticism
- 2 sociologist + evaluation
intellectual and language skills, attitudes and values and subculture + family structure.
intellectual and language skills - Bereiter and Engelmann - argue that children from black e/m backgrounds lack intellectual stimulation and enriching experiences needed for educational success. As a result, they do not develop reasoning and problem solving skills which is needed in school therefore they underachieve and also many e/m families do not speak English as first language
criticism : Indian children speak English as additional language yet they do very well at school.
attitudes and values- new right:
black students are socialised into subculture values which promote fatalistic live for today attitude which don’t value education. therefore children are not encourage to work hard at school.
criticism: racist assumes black culture and values are inferior to mainstream culture.
subculture- Sewell
- black fathers are not absent but it is there tough love that causes black boys to struggle and overcome emotional difficulties
- turn to music and gang role models and this gives them anti school attitudes and leads them to underachieve
criticism =driver = ethnicity has a positive impact on achievement as Caribbean families provide girls with positive female role models. this is why black girls get better results than black boys.
- cultural deprivation theories also argue that failure to socialise children adequately is because of dysfunctional family structure.
Sewell = found that Asian students do much better in education than black students because of cultural differences in socialisation and attitudes. for e.g Asian are bought up in supportive and close knit families which put high value on education and have Asian work ethic whilst black children are “nurtured by MTV”
Lupton = argues Asian families support schools behaviour policies which are similar to their expectation of their children behaviour.
evaluation: Gillborn argues that is not peer pressure or family influence that causes black boys to underachieve but its institution racism within schools.
What are 4 internal factors for ethnicity and achievement.
1.labelling and teacher racism
2. ethnocentric curriculum
3.assessments
4. access to opportunties
labelling and teacher racism:
2 sociologist + criticism
ethnocentric currciulum
3 sociologist + criticism
assesment
1 sociologist no criticism
access to opportunties
1 sociologist no critcism
- Gillborn and Youdell, Teachers hold racialised expectations Expect black people to present behavioural problems and to challenge their authority Teachers also like to discipline black boys even for the minor offences for which the white students were not disciplined. The pupils react negatively and this creates conflict and students to be kicked out thus missing out on lessons and this causes underachievement.
- Having an ethnocentric curriculum allows some e/m to underachieve as troyna and Williams says British curriculum gives a priority to British culture and English language and ignores European languages, music and literature. Coard adds there is a lack of black literature, history, music and culture. This creates a low self esteem among black students and leads to failure.
criticism : Indian and Chinese children achievement is high yet there is little evidence that ethnocentric curriculum has any affect on achievement
3) gilborn= Ethnic minority pupils underachieve esp when the assessments are based on teachers judgements. Evidence shows 2003, primary school students used to be tested at the start of reception using baseline tests . e/m students did well. Even better than white students
In 2003, the system was replaced with foundation stage profiles
Entirely based on teachers judgements of students and carried out on end of year
Since then ethnic minority students have been underachieving
4) access to opportunties
- tikly - found e/m are more likely to be entered for foundation exams at gcse and placed in to lower sets. this often based on teachers assumption about students rather than the actual ability.
What are 3 policies to help tackle differences in ethnic groups educational achievement?
1.Assimilation (1960s-1970s)
focus on interrogating ethnic minorities children to
mainstream British culture to help improve their underachievement
2.Multicultural education- create a broad curriculum which values all the cultures thus raising the e/m children’s self-esteem and results will improve.
3.Social inclusions- 1990s onwards - monitoring the achievements of e/m and amending the race relation act to make schools legally responsible for promoting equality
