Topic 4 : Ethnicity And Education Flashcards
Why do Indian and Chinese students do comparatively better
Value education
Strong work ethic
Pushy parents
‘Work’ the system
Positive behaviour
High aspirations
Themina Basit
British Asian communities - Pakistani and Indian
Value education due to poor education in country of origin - saw free education as a privilege
Even poor families stressed importance of education and managed to provide materials - parents actively helped their children study
Parents expected their children to be successful - social mobility
Wanless report
Black students - particularly boys
More likely to be excluded
Disproportionately in bottom sets (NOT reflecting their ability)
Less likely to be identified as G+T
Which CAGE group have the worst progress
White WC boys do worst in terms of progress
24% of white PP boys achieved 5 A* - C GCSEs
Why?
Low aspirations
Ignored by society
Labelling
Boys - crisis of masculinity
Glamorisation of anti school subcultures
CULTURAL FACTORS
Ethnic group: black Afro-Caribbean British
AO1 : what aspect is at play?
AO2 : HOW/WHY is it impacting this ethnic group?
AO3 : evaluation
AO1 :
- racism in wider society: media/police - labelling and SFP
- sewell - black boys feel pressure by peers to adopt an anti school subculture
- HH - high % of maternal single parent households (NR say this leads to educational underachievement)
AO2 :
Marginalised / alienated - lack of ‘tough love’ for many
- leads them into subcultures and sometimes gangs. Black masculinity - huge pressure from other boys on rejecting academics to gain status
AO3 :
- AIM Higher programme to increase AC WC boys into higher education
- Ofsted now look at progress of PP specifically, and underperforming groups
What cultural factors impact education (ethnicity)
Language
Parental engagement
Socialisation
Family background / structure
Aspirations
Subcultures
Impact of media
Value of education
‘Working the system’
CULTURAL FACTORS
Ethnic group: British Pakistani and Bangladeshi
AO1 : what aspect is at play?
AO2 : HOW/WHY is it impacting this ethnic group?
AO3 : evaluation
AO1 :
- Pakistani parents actively help children study and invest financially
- expect children to be at least as successful as they were
- high expectations and close knit families yet they tend to underperform compared to their Indian peers
AO2 :
- Bangladeshi and Pakistani women more likely engaged in low paid housework
- almost half Bangladeshi and Pakistani workers earned under £7 an hour, compared to 1/4 of white British
- crozier - examined racism among Pakistani and Bangladeshi students : found they experienced racism from school system and pupils. They had anxieties about safety. They feel marginalised by ethnocentric curriculum yet achieved well despite this
AO3 :
- home factors important
- cultural barriers for south Asian girls greater than for boys
- strand : relative poverty explains underachievement at GCSE rather than cultural factors
CULTURAL FACTORS
Ethnic group: Indian / Chinese
AO1 : what aspect is at play?
AO2 : HOW/WHY is it impacting this ethnic group?
AO3 : evaluation
AO1 :
- value education
- strong work ethic
- pushy parents
- work the system
- high aspirations
- close knit families combined with high parental expectations lead to high achieving children
AO2 :
- wright : found that teachers perceived Asian children as a problem that could be excluded from classroom discussion. As teachers ignore Asian pupils, it must be home factors which explain why Asian students do the best in school
- strand : found Indian students complete HW 5 evenings a week
- pryce - Asian resilience against racism and more self worth leading to high achievement
AO3 :
- tiger parenting
- family background helps explain Indian performance in education
- parental aspirations are important
CULTURAL FACTORS
Ethnic group: white British
AO1 : what aspect is at play?
AO2 : HOW/WHY is it impacting this ethnic group?
AO3 : evaluation
AO1 :
- white wc often underachieve and have low aspirations
- lack of parental support
- low aspirations - ignored by society, labelling, boys - crisis of masculinity, glamorisation of anti school SC
AO2 :
- McCulloch - ethnic minority more likely to go to uni than white wc
- lupton - white wc families - low aspirations. Teachers blamed this on lack of parental involvement
- Evans - WWC street culture attracts them away from school
AO3 :
- feel excluded from culture of school as they feel school doesn’t reflect their culture
- class and gender also influence achievement
Cultural deprivation - ethnicity and education
Underachievement is a result of inadequate socialisation
Language spoken by ethnic families inadequate for educational success. AO3 - Indian children do just as well as white middle class students despite not speaking English at home
Black children do not have the attitudes to promote educational achievement - black families instil fatalistic attitudes - black children at a disadvantage when attending school. Because black families are headed by lone parents, children lack an adequate male role model in addition they lack the economical foundation for progression in school
Driver and Ballard - Asian family culture brings educational benefits as their parents have more positive attitudes towards education with higher aspirations for career options.
Lupton - Asian families promote respect for elders which helps their attitudes towards authority figures
AO3:
Driver - CD theory ignores the positive effects of ethnicity on educational achievement.
EG black family structure can show a strong independent woman as a role model explaining why black girls achieve better than black males.
Keddie - families are culturally different not deprived, they under achieve due to ethnocentric bias schools not their family.
Material deprivation - ethnicity and education
Educational failure results from ethnic minorities not having the adequate materials for achievement
Flaherty - Pakistanis and Bangladeshis were three times more likely to be amongst the poorest of the population, more likely to engage in low paid word and twice as likely to be in low skilled low paid work
SWANN report - social class has a 50% effect on educational achievement
AO3: Gillborn and Mirza - social class factors do not disregard the effects of culture as, even when social class has been accounted for, ethnic differences in achievement still exist
Racism - ethnicity and education
Racism in wider society
John Rex - racial discrimination worsens poverty which leads to poor educational performance
EG - housing = minorities are more likely to be in poor accommodation
- employment = ethnic minorities face extensive discrimination
This in turn leads to poor educational prospects.
External factors for ethnicity and education
Cultural deprivation
Material deprivation
Racism
Achievement in education in ethnicity - internal factors
Labelling and teacher racism
Pupil responses and subcultures
Ethnocentric curriculum
Institutional racism
Selection and segregation
Wright and Connelly
Teachers label :
Asian girls - conformist and quiet
Afro-Caribbean - troublemakers and low ability
Impact of labelling on black students
Black students often in lower sets, marginalised and have negative experiences and relationships
This treatment leads to further disruption as students fall behind
How has marketisation disadvantaged BME groups?
Schools have more control to select students and through labelling BME are disadvantaged - ethnic discrimination
Labelling and racism in interview stages
BME parents lack knowledge of system
Catchment issues - affordability
Ethnicity and internal factors - labelling and teacher racism
Gilborn and Youdell - teachers were quicker to discipline black pupils than others for the same behaviour
‘Radicalised expectations’ - teachers expected black students to present more discipline negatively and misinterpreting behaviour as a challenge to authority
When teachers acted on this misinterpretation, the pupils responded negatively and further conflict resulted. Black students felt teachers picked on them and underestimated their ability
Ethnicity and internal factors - pupil responses and subcultures
Research shows that pupils respond to labelling in a variety of different ways.
Mary Fuller- study on a group of black girls. The girls did not accept their negative labels - they channelled their energy into educational success. This study highlights how negative labelling does not always lead to failure.
Tony Sewell - examines the responses black pupils adopt to cope with racism. He found teachers had a stereotype - sees all black boys as rebellious, anti authority and anti-school.
Sewell identifies four ways in which the boys respond to racist stereotyping;
The Rebels; Often excluded from school, rejected goals and rules of school, black ‘Macho Lads’. The rebels believed in their own superiority and saw white boys as effeminate.
The Conformists; Keen to succeed, accepted school goals/values. Friends from ethnic groups. Not part of subculture, anxious to avoid being sterotyped.
The Retreatists; Isolated individuals, disconnected from school and black subcultures, they were despised by the rebels.
The Innovators; Pro-education/anti-school (liked education but hated the way school was). They conformed only as much as was needed to work.
Evaluation of labelling and pupil responses
Rather than blaming the child’s home background, as cultural deprivation theory does, labelling theory shows how teachers stereotypes can be a cause of failure
Does not consider other factors then just in the classroom. Racism in wider society needs to be addressed. Educational policies and the influence of family and media also plays a part.
Not all students that are labelled become an SFP and fail. Mary Fuller’s study some students reject their label
Ethnicity and internal factors - ethnocentric curriculum
Tronya and Williams - the British curriculum gives priority to white culture and English language. It teaches subjects like British history, British literature and European languages.
Ethnicity and internal factors - institutional racism
Discrimination is built into the way institutions, such as schools, operate - The ethnocentric curriculum is an example of this
Schools give low priority to race issues and fail to deal with pupil’s racist behaviour
Ethnicity and internal factors - selection and segregation
David Gillborn (1997) - government policy of marketisation has given greater scope for schools to select pupils and put ethnic minority students at a disadvantage
This is because selection gives more opportunity for negative stereotypes to influence school admission.
