ethnicity and achievement in schools

• socialisation is the process through which individuals learn the norms of society
• Chinese, asian, and Indian pupils perform above the the national average at GCSE
• black pupils, gypsy Roma, white and Bangladeshi are less likely to continue on to higher education
• some argue that intelligence is inherited; yet IQ tests can be biased as they often test cultural knowledge
• teachers will often label pupils differently based on ethnicity
• gillbourn (1990) said there was a myth of black challenge, where teachers assume e black pupils will be challenging
• ethnocentric curriculum; where the curriculum is arguably tailored to white, middle class culture
• examples of the ethnocentric curriculum; MFL are European, assemblies, school holidays and history lessons do not serve all pupils
• institutionalised racism; where policies and attitudes unintentionally discriminate against ethnic minority groups, leading to low self-esteem and poor educational achievement
• different dialects and accents may lead to differential expectations from teachers
• compensatory education; policies intended to off-set the effects of socio-economic deprivation, which may affect academic achievement
• restricted code from families who do not have English as a first language is not rewarded by the education system
• levels of English proficiency affects success as it doesn't allow pupils to express abstract ideas in written focused subjects
• Beretier and englemann suggested that the language of poorer black families was ungrammatical and disjointed
• arnot (2004) said that the hyper-masculine figure of black boys portrayed in the media creates a negative standard for pupils
• cultural deprivation ignores other internal causes of underachievement such as racism or labelling
• Ballad suggested that asian parents hold higher standards and importance on education, providing greater family support
• Pryce said that afro-carribean families were often turbulent and had less economic stability as families were often run by single parents
• holland suggests failure may be due to a lack of male role models within families
• Flaherty (2004) said that ethnic minority families were more likely to suffer from low employment and low pay, which has negative affects on a holds attendance and aspirations
• 90% of failing schools are located in deprived areas
• language barriers can limit access to jobs
• Swann report (1985) sais that institutionalised racism was the cause for underachievement and there should be a 'multi-cultural' curriculum set up
• Charles Murray said that black pupils were more likely to have a lower IQ, however, the cultural significance of IQ makes its importance negligible
• Swann report also suggested that 50% of educational differences between em was caused by social class
• asian pupils will outperform white pupils, even though they are an ethnic minority as they are often more affluent
• white and Indian households have similar levels of income, yet Indian student will perform 11% better at GCSE
• rex (1996) suggested that wider racial discrimination led social exclusion and worsen poverty, exacerbating material deprivation theory
• noon discovered that workplaces were biased and offered people with English sounding names (Evans) a job over those with the name 'patel', despite the CV's being the same, this shows that lower pay, unemployment and lower aspirations are a result of institutionalised racism
• sivanandan argued that afro-carribean subcultures were used by some right wing groups to justify the idea that they are a burden on society
• trend in educational achievement from the academic year 21/22 (highest to lowest); Chinese (66.1/90), Indian (61.6/90), asian (54.6/90), white (47.8/90), black students (48.6/90),afro-carribean (41.7/90) and white gypsy Roma (21/90) - based on attainment 8 figures
• gillbourn and yodel believe that teachers will often racialise pupil expectations
• asian students are often marginalised by the ethnocentric curriculum, yet they still achieve highly
• black pupils have the highest exclusion rates persistently from each year
• foster said that n]teachers stereotype black pupils , putting them in lower streams and leading to failure by the self fulfilling prophesy
• archers states that there are three main defined pupil identities
• ideal pupil; white, middle class, normal sexuality, and achieves through natural talent and minimal effort
• pathologies pupil; deserving poor, feminine, repressed sexuality and succeed through hard work
• demonised pupils; white or black working class, hyper sexualised, unintelligent, peer led and culturally deprived
• Sewell states that to combat stereotypes, pupils will form wither positive or negative subcultures