TOPIC 3 - ETHNIC DIFFERENCES IN ACHIEVEMENT

• 1. cultural deprivation - underachievement of ethnic groups as a result of inadequate socialisation in the home
• CULTURAL DEPRIVATION - Intellectual and linguistic skills: Is a major cause of underachievement for many minority children, leaving them poorly equipped for school. Engelman considered the language spoken by low income black American families as inadequate for educational success
• Sewell: Fathers, gangs and culture - SEWELL argues the lack of fatherly nurturing leads to black boys finding it hard to overcome emotional and behavioural difficulties.
• Asian families: Indian and Chinese pupils benefit from supportive families that have an 'asian work ethic'
• White working class families: McCulloch conducted a study of 16 thousand pupils and found that ethnic minority pupils are more likely to aspire to go to uni then white British pupils.
• White working class pupils:

  • Low achievement may be due to the lack of parental support - Lupton found teachers reported poorer levels of behaviour in white working class schools
• Compensatory education: to tackle cultural deprivation
• Multicultural education - a policy that recognises and values minority cultures and includes them in the curriculum
• Anti-racist education - a policy that changes the prejudice and discrimination
• Black pupils and discipline:

  Gillborn and Youdell found that teachers were quicker to discipline black pupils over the same behaviour - a result of 'racialised expectations'
• Black pupils and discipline:

  • Bourne - schools tend to see black boys as a threat and label them negatively leading to exclusion, which affects educational achievement