Booklet 4: External factors (Ethnicity)

• What are the three main aspects of cultural deprivation?

  • Intellectual and linguistic skills
  • Attitudes and Values
  • Family structure and parental support
• Intellectual and linguistic skills

  Cultural deprivation theorist see the lack of intellectual and linguistic skills as a major cause of underachievement for many minority children.

  They argue that children that come form a low income black families lack intellectuals stimulation and enriching experiences.This leaves them poorly equipped for school as they haven't been able to develop their reasoning and problem solving skills.
• Intellectual and linguistic skills

  Engleman (1966) states the language spoken by low income black American families as not suitable for education success.They view it as

  • ungrammatical
  • disjointed
  • incapable of expressing abstract ideas

  More likely use restricted code
• Intellectual and linguistic skills

  Those who don't speak English at home may be held back educationally. For example in 2010 pupils with English as their first language were only 3.2 point ahead of those without English as their first language

  Gillborn and Mirza (2000) noted that Indian pupils do well despite often not having English as their home language.
• What is ethnicity ?

  Lawson and Garrod defined ethnic groups as 'people who share common history, customs and identity as well language and religion is some instances and who see themselves as a distinct unit
• Ethnicity and educational achievement

  BAME- black, Asian, Minority ethnic groups

  Evidence on achievement and underachievement among BAME groups

  Chinese and Indian pupils have higher level of attainment than any there ethnic groups and make the most progress in schools.They are more likely to achieve five or more GCSE grades and get better AS/A-levels results compared to white British ethnic majority

  Black Caribbean, Pakistani, Bangladeshi and the small amount of Gypsy/Roma have lower levels of academic attainment and most individuals from these backgrounds tend to do less well