Cultural Deprivation

• Cultural deprivation

  A lack of the 'right' culture required to succeed i.e. white middle class norms and values.
• 1. Intellectual development and linguistic skills:

  Cultural deprivation theorists see a lack of intellectual and linguistic skills as a cause of underachievement for students from ethnic minority backgrounds.

  Bereiter and Englemann argue the speech spoken in the homes of low income black American households is inadequate for educational success. Other theorists say the same about low income black households in the UK as well.

  Furthermore, some students will not hear spoken English at home, therefore language barriers may hold these pupils back.
• Analysis to Intellectual development and linguistic skills:

  • Statistics show that on average, children who's first language is not English perform slightly better (47.2 points) than those who's first language is English (46.5) (attainment 8 scores)
  • Critics argue that the student's language isn't the problem, but instead how the school system devalues 'black' dialects of language. There is a 'speech hierarchy' which systematically devalues black speech, so language is not an external factor, but more of an internal factor.
• 2. Attitudes and values

  Cultural deprivation theorists argue that black Caribbean pupils are socialised into a subculture that instils fatalistic attitudes, depriving them of a value that is needed to succeed in education.

  In contrast, Indian and Chinese students are often socialised to place lots of value onto education, and with values such as respect of authority.
• Analysis to Attitudes and Values:

  These arguments are very deterministic, assuming every household within an ethnic group has the exact same norms and values as each other, ignoring free will.

  Nell Keddie states that cultural deprivation theory is victim blaming.
• 3. Family structure

  Moynihan believed the family structure can explain the underachievement of many black Caribbean pupils, as many are often raised in lone parent households.

  He states the boys in these households lack a male role model and seek older male validation from gangs which are 'anti-school'. Sewell agrees with this sentiment, adding that they lack 'fatherly tough love' so fall for the perverse loyalty that can be found in gangs.

  Pryce says that Asian families socialise their children to be more 'resistant to racism', whereas black students are less resistant, so underachieve.
• Analysis to Family structure:

  • Pryce's explanation is problematic due to it's victim-blaming nature, and how it insinuates the oppressed groups should learn how to put up with racism, as opposed to how the oppressors should stop being racist.
  • Driver states that Moynihan and Sewell ignore the positive benefits of lone parent families of giving young girls an independent role model to look up to, which suggests why black girls tend to out perform black boys statistically.
• General Weakness 😭:

  • critics highlight that students from ethnic minority backgrounds aren't culturally deprived, but just culturally different. The education system simply favours white culture, putting white students at an advantage.
  • Research carried out by Gillborn and Mirza found that black children were the highest achievers on entry to primary school, but by GCSEs they had the lowest scores. This suggests their underachievement is likely to do with internal factors like institutional racism and labelling.