ethnicity

• external factor

  lack of intellectual and linguistic skills

  • ethnic pupils are poorly equipped for school and exams - undeveloped vocabulary, struggles with problem solving
  • they speak with a restricted code - causing them to struggle when the elaborate code is used in school
  • Bereteir + Englemann - language spoken by black people is ungrammatical and inadequate for the classroom
  • teachers underestimate pupils with english as a second language: excludes from learning 
  • critic - Gillborne + Mirza found indians are successful despite english being their second language 
• internal factor

  learning ethnocentric curriculum 

  • curriculum favouring british culture and history, ignoring other cultures
  • for example: schools offering european languages like spanish, french, german, but not Asian languages
  • Coard concluded that ethnic minorities are inferior, this causes black people’s self-esteem to reduce + academic failure
  • critic - stone - highlights that black people don’t face lower self-esteem which devalues Coard’s ideas: less accurate and reliable
• external factor

  family structure / support

  • Moynihan - found that black matrifocal families deprive their children of adequate socialisation 
  • black children can’t be socialised by a successful father figure 
  • Sewell - they look up to support from gangs - black pupils are influenced by their peer groups and street culture, leading to a cyclical structure of underachievement 
  • critic - black pupils achieve 20% above average in primary, but are 21% below average at GCSE stage - suggests black pupils aren’t influenced by peers and that it is due to internal factors such as teacher racism
• internal factors

  pupil responses and subcultures

  • Sewell - found 4 of responses by black pupils to teacher racism: rebels, conformists, innovators, retreatists - rebels rejected goals and rules of school, innovators valued success but not teacher approval
  • shows that attainment depends on internal factors - as it varies on how they respond to racism within school 
  • critic - Mason - discrimination is a continuing and persistant feature of the experience of British citizens and being from a minority ethnic orgin - inevitable, devalues arguments
• external factor

  attitude and values

  • Sugarmen + Haymen - ethnic minority students have a fatalistic attitude = not studying and leaving exam results to fate -> underachievement
  • leads students to being likely to fall into delinquency and ‘street culture’, are less ambitious due to their lack of interest
  • critic - McCulloh - found that ethnic minority students were more likely to aspire to go to Uni, showing that not all students have a fatalistic attitude - ethnic parents see education as a ‘way up in society’
• internal factor 

  pupil responses / subculture 

  • Fuller’s study of black girls responses to negative labelling - they rejected them, and tried hard in school without seeking teacher validation and can still go on to succeed
  • proves that pupil’s responses to negative labelling don’t always lead to a self fulfilling prophecy 
  • critic - the girl’s in his study would take measures to avoid teacher racism, leading to avoiding certain subjects with racist teachers - limits their achievements and career goals
• labelling

  Cicourel + Kitsuse (1963)

  • Studied secondary, American educational counsellors
  • controlled who went onto higher education - selection of courses were less about ability but more about ethnicity