ethnic differences in achievement

• ethnic differences in achievement (external)

  • cultural deprivation

  language

  attitudes and values

  family structures and parental support

  sewell:fathers, gangs and culture

  asians families

  white working class families

  compensatory education

  • material deprivation and class
  • racism in wider society
• ethnic differences in achievement (internal)


  • labelling and teacher racism

  black pupils and discipline and streaming

  asian pupils

  • pupil identities

  chinese pupils

  • pupil responses and subcultures

  rejecting negative labels

  failed strategies for avoiding racism

  the variety of boys' responses

  evaluation of labelling and pupil responses

  • institutional racism

  critical race theory

  locked in inequality

  marketisation and segregation

  the ethnocentric curriculum

  assessment

  access to opportunities

  the new IQism

  black boys underachievement

  indian and chinese pupil
• evidence of ethnic differences in achievement 


  • white and asian pupils do better than black pupils
  • indians do better than pakistanis and bangladeshis
  • among all groups other than gypsy/roma, girls do better than boys
  • with each ethnic group m/c does better than w/c
  • white pupils are close to the national average ( their the largest group) however w/c white pupils perform lower than any other ethnic groups
• external - cultural deprivation 


  some minority ethnic group children underachieve due to their own deficiencies as a result of inadequate socialisation by their parents

  effecting their - language, attitudes and values, family structure and parental support
• language 


  language spoken by low income black american families is inadequate for educational success( ungrammatical and disjointed)

  critics -

  • their speech is perfectly logical
  • this is 'anti-black linguistic racism' - white mainstream english dominates the education system
  • misunderstanding - children who don't speak english at home may be held back educationally ( they performed slightly better)
  • teachers had low expectation, stereotypes and institutional racism
• attitudes and values 


  • some minority ethnic group children are socialised into subculture that instils a fatalistic attitude that does not value education and leaves them unequipped for success
  • minority ethnic group pupil have high aspiration and more likely to aspire to highly-paid jobs
  • gap was large between minority group girls and white girls
  • racism is the major barrier not low aspiration
• family structure and parental support and criticism 


  • black parents have lone mothers, struggle financially and boys lack adequate role model of male achievement
  • critic - ignores positive effects. black caribbean family, far from being dysfunctional, provides girls with positive role models of string independent women
• sewell:fathers, gang and culture 


  • its not absence fathers but lack of fatherly nurturing or 'tough love' resulting in boys unable to overcome emotional and behavioural difficulties of adolescence
  • other fatherless boys as street gangs offer 'perverse loyalty and love' , inspiring anti-school black masculinity to not 'sell out' to the white establishment
  • critics - ignores institutional racism
• asian families 


  • indians and chinese place a high value on education
  • adult authority is similar to the model that operates in schools
• white working-class families 


  • often underachieve and lower aspiration
  • lack of parental support
  • teachers reported poorer levels of behaviour and discipline in white w/c schools ( fewer free school meals) - teachers blamed lack of parental support and negative attitude patents had towards education
  • minority ethnic group parents see education as " a way up in society
  • street culture can be brutal and pupil learn how to withstand intimidation, bringing disruption in schools and making it hard for ppil to succeed
• compensatory education 


  • tackle cultural deprivation
  • increasing participation of minority ethnic groups in higher education by use of learning mentors to fix pupil low aspirations
• criticism of cultural deprivation theory 


  • minority ethnic group children are culturally different not derived - schools are ethnocentric
  • cause is not low aspirations but teachers racist stereotypes
  • education institutionally racist to produce underachievement for minority ethnic group students by decisions about entry to higher tier exams
  • ignores the intersectionality of ethnicity with class and gender
  • its politically useful by deflecting attention from the real cause of underachievement like poverty and racism
  • material is the main cause of underachievement not cultural deprivation
• material deprivation and class 


  • almost half of all minority ethnic children live in low-income households
  • twice as likely to be unemployed as white people
  • households are 3 times as likely to be homeless
  • almost half of bangladeshi and pakistani workers earn under £7 per hour
  • minority ethnic groups are more likely to be engaged in shift work, bangladeshi and pakistani women are more likely to be engaged in low-paid homeworking
• reasons for minority ethnic group at greater risk of material deprivation that result to unemployment 


  • live in economically depressed areas with high unemployment and low wage rates
  • tradition of purdah in some muslim households, women cant work outside the home
  • lack of language skills , foreign qualifications not being recognised. affect more recently arrived groups (refugees)
  • asylum seekers may not allowed to take work
  • racial discrimination in the labour and housing market
• racism in wider society 


  • minorities are more likely to be forced into substandard accommodation than white people of the same class
  • 1 in 16 minority applications were offered an interview against 1 in 9 white application
  • minority ethnic groups ate more likely to fae unemployment and low pay, negative effect on their children's educational prospects
• labelling and teacher racism 


  • black children were highest achievers on entry to primary school but by GCSE they had the worst results
  • black caribbean boys are not entitled to free school meals
  • black and asian pupils are far from the 'ideal pupil'
• black pupils and discipline 


  • teachers are quicker to discipline black pupils than other for the same behaviour
  • racialised expectations - expect black pupils to present more discipline problems and misinterpreted their behaviour as threatening
  • when teachers act on this misperception, pupils respond negatively
  • black pupils are more likely to suffer from unrecorded unofficial exclusion and internal exclusions . more likely to be placed in pupil referral units (excludes them from mainstream curriculum
• asian pupils 


  • asian pupil are also victims of teacher labelling
  • british culture and standard english were superior
  • teachers assume asian pupils have poor grasp of english and left them out of class discussion or used simplistic language when speaking to them
  • felt isolated when teachers expressed disapproval of their customs or mispronounced their names
  • saw them as problems they could ignore
• pupil identities - Archer 3 different pupil identities 


  • ideal pupil - white, m/c, masculinised identity and hetero sexuality. achieve in the right way, through natural ability and initative
  • pathologised pupil - asian, deserving poor, feminised identity, asecual or with an opressed sexuality. plodding, conformist and culture bound 'over achiever', a slogger who succeeds through hard work
  • demonised pupil - white or black w/c, hyper sexualised identity. stereotypically as an unintelligent, peer-led, culturally deprived under-achiever
• chinese pupils

  • chinese students were simultaneously praised and viewed negatively by their teachers
  • seen as having achieved success in the wrong way , hardworking, passive conformism rather than natural individual ability
  • stereotype chinese families as 'tight' and 'close'
  • wrongly stereotype their chinese students as middle class
  • pupils will only be seen as 'over achievement' - since teachers see proper achievement as the natural preserve of the privileged , white, m/c ideal pupil
• Fuller and Mac an Ghaill: rejecting negative labels 


  • black girls in year 11 comprehensive school were high achievers
  • channelled their anger about being labelled into pursuit of educational success , don't seek approval of teachers nor limit choices of friends and friends with other black girls from lower stream and avoided the ridicule of black boys
  • worked conscientiously but appeared of not doing so
• Mirza: failed strategies for avoiding racism - 3 types of teachers racism

  • the colour blind - pupil are equal but in practice allow racism to go unchallenged
  • liberal chauvinists - black pupils are culturally deprived and have low expectations of them
  • overt racists - black pupils are inferior and actively discriminate against them

  girls tried to avoid teachers negative attitude by being selective about which staff to ask help for , getting on with their own work without taking part and not choosing certain options to avoid racist teachers
• sewell:the 4 variety of boys' responses 


  • the rebels - most visible and influential group, small minority of black pupil. often excluded. reject goals and rules from school. black masculinity=sexual experience and virility.
  • conformists - largest group, keen to succeed, accept school goals and had friends from different ethnic groups, not part of a subculture
  • retreatists - tiny minority, disconnected from school and black cultures, despised by the rebels
  • innovators- second largest group , pro education but anti school. maintain credibility with the rebels while achieving in school
• critical race theory and locked-in inequality - founders of the black panther party

  • racism is an ingrained feature of society
  • involved intentional action of individual and institutional racism
  • historical discrimination is so large theres no need to be any conscious intent to discriminate historical discrimination is so large theres no need to be any conscious intent to discriminate and is a inevitable feature of the education system
• marketisation and segregation 


  • marketisation allow negative stereotype to influence decisions about school admissions
  • the application process was difficult for non-english speaking parents to understand
  • reports from primary schools that stereotype minority pupils
  • racist bias in interviews for school places
  • lack of information and application forms in minority languages
  • minority ethnic group parents are often unaware of how the waiting list system works and the importance of deadlines
• the ethnocentric curriculum and examples

  • attitudes or policy that gives priority to the culture and view point of one particular ethnic groups and disregards others
  • national curriculum as a 'specifically british' curriculum ignores non-European languages, literature and music
  • the national curriculum ignores ethnic diversity and promotes attitude of 'little englandism'

  the british is presented as superior undermining black children's self-esteem
• assessment 


  the assessment game is rigged so it validate the dominant cultures superiority

  if black children succeed as a group ' the rules will be changed to re-engineer failure'

  • FSP is based on teachers judgments, whereas baseline assessments often used written tests as well
  • FSP is completed at the end of reception year where baseline assessments were done at the start of primary schools

  these increase teachers stereotyping to affect the results
• access to opportunities

  • the gifted and talented programme created to meet needs of more able pupils in inner city schools - white pupils are more likely to be identified as gifted than ethnic minority groups
  • exam tiers - in 30 schools in the 'aiming high' initiative to raise black caribbean pupils achievement, black pupils were more likely to be entered for lower tier in GCSE than white pupils
• The 'new IQism'


  • teachers place students in sets by the basis of prior attainment, disciplinary concerns and perceptions of their attitude
  • teachers and policymakers make false assumptions about pupils ability
  • they see potential as a fixed quality and easy measured
  • secondary schools are increasingly using IQ tests to allocate pupils to different streams on entry
• black boys underachievement

  • Gillborn- institutional racism is the main course (assessment and setting)
  • sewell reject this - racism is not powerful enough to prevent individuals from succeeding , (focus on external factors such as boys anti-school attitudes, peer group and nurturing roles of the father)
• 'model minorities': indian and chinese pupils achievement - how is the education system institutionally racist 


  • makes the system appear fair and meritocratic - they succeeded because of the effort
  • makes it appear other minority groups are unwilling to make the effort needed to succeed due to their 'unaspirational' home culture
  • ignores 'model minorities' still suffer racism in school