ethnicity and achievement

• attainment 8

  White, Pakistani and Black African children have results very close to the national average of 50.9

  Chinese children achieve 19% higher than the national average

  Indian children 11% higher

  Bangladeshi children 5% higher

  Black Caribbean children underachieve by about 6%

  Irish Traveller and Gypsy Roma children have the worst underachievement levels with 30% (18% in 2018) and 22% respectively
• Attainment 8 by FSM

  white pupils have the lowest achievement rates with a score of 36.1

  Black and Asian FSM pupils have broadly similar attainment 8 scores with scores of 44 and 48 respectively

  Chinese FSM pupils have the highest attainment 8 scores, with a score of 68.5, very close to non FSM pupil scores
• Indian and Chinese students have the lowest rates of absence and exclusion

  Gypsy/Roma and Irish Traveller have the highest rate of absence, while Gypsy/Roma, Mixed white/black Caribbean and Irish Traveller students have the highest rates of permanent exclusions
• language - Bereiter and Engelmann

  consider language spoken by low income black American families as inadequate for social success

  consider in ungrammatical, discounted and incapable of expressing abstract ideas
• AAVE - African American Vernacular English

  distinct and consistent grammatical rules - many sociologists won't consider this as Bernstein's restricted code, capable of context free speech

  any penalisation in education is either due to institutional racism or middle class habitus

  Black African and Black Caribbean students may both use AAVE but have different levels of attainment
• Language

  English is not the first language for the majority of pupils in over 1 of 9 schools, pupils with EAL have lower levels of attainment on starting school

  The Swann Report (1985) majority of pupils language doesn't affect attainment

  DFES (2005) impact of languages declines as children get older

  DFES (2013) pupils with EAL outperformed native speakers in the EBacc

  parents may not understand teachers, not go to parents evening, may be bullied, fall behind as they have to understand english
• material deprivation

  lack of physical necessities that are seen as essential or normal for life

  Guy Palmer (2012) almost half of all ethnic minority children live in low income households against a quarter of white children, ethnic minorities are almost twice as likely to be unemployed than white people and three times more likely to be homeless, almost half of Bangladeshi and Pakistani workers earned under £7 per hour only a quarter of white british workers
• material deprivation

  Indian and Chinese pupils who are materially deprived still do better than most, 2011 86% of Chinese girls with FSM achieve 5 or more higher grade GCSEs compared to 65% of white girls who didn't have FSM - material deprivation and social class factors don't completely override influence of ethnicity

  some ethnic minority groups face problems - poor quality housing, higher level of unemployment etc may affect achievement levels in schools
• how might family life impact educational attainment

  structure of family - lone parent households may have less time to help their children in schoolwork

  attitudes to education

  parents education level
• Sewell (1997)


  late 1990s, 57% of Black Caribbean families were lone parent compared to 25% of white families

  many black boys then lack a father figure for discipline, young black men are drawn into a subculture of black masculinity - emphasises violence and offers peer support to make up for rejection from fathers and racism from wider society, conflicts with school and the anti educational peer pressure leads to lower attainment

  "the biggest barrier facing black boys is actually black peer pressure"
• Sewell evaluation

  Gillborn criticise Sewell for 'victim blaming' - should consider the institutional racism in school instead

  Sewell suggested only 18% of black boys would adopt the hyper-masculine subculture, a minority

  outdated research - fewer Black Caribbean children are brought up in lone parent households now

  stereotyping black culture into one homogenous type

  doesn't take into account class inequality or wider racism with suggestions that Black Caribbean underachievement can be fixed with stricter discipline in schools
• cultural deprivation theories evaluation

  Driver - ignores positive impacts of ethnicity in attainment, the Black Caribbean family provides girls with strong female role models, why black girls achieve more highly than black boys

  Keddie - victim blaming, it is the ethnocentric nature of schools that lead to underachievement

  compensatory education programs impose the dominant white culture on children who already have a culture of their own - they say we should instead aim for multicultural and anti racist education, ignores impacts of class, gender, material and in school factors
• Daniel Moynihan (1965)


  many black families are headed by a lone mother

  their children are deprived of adequate care as the mother has to struggle financially in the absence of a male breadwinner

  father's absence means boys lack an adequate role model of male achievement

  sees cultural deprivation as a cycle where inadequately socialised children from unstable families go on to fail at school and become inadequate parents themselves
• Roger Scruton (1986)

  sees the low achievement levels of some ethnic minorities as resulting from a failure to embrace mainstream British culture
• Ken Pryce (1979)

  family structure contributing to the underachievement of Black Caribbean pupils in Britain

  claims that Asians are higher achievers as their culture is more resistant to racism and gives them a greater sense of self-worth

  argues black Caribbean culture is less cohesive and less resistant to racism - many black pupils have low self esteem and underachieve

  difference is the result of the differing impact of colonialism:

  experience of slavery, lost of language, religion and entire family system

  Asian family structures, languages and religion not destroyed by colonial rule
• Ruth Lupton (2004)

  adult authority in Asian families is similar to the model that operates in schools

  she found that respectful behaviour towards adults was expected from children - had a knock on effect in school, parents were more more likely to supportive of school behaviour policies
• Ruth Lupton (2004)

  studied 4 mainly working class schools - 2 predominately white, 1 serving a largely Pakistani community and the fourth drawing pupils from an ethnically mixed community

  teachers reported poorer levels of behaviour and discipline in the working class schools - fewer children on FSM, teachers blamed it on lower levels of parental support and the negative attitude that white working class parent had towards education, ethnic minority parents were more likely to see education as 'a way up in society'
• Gillian Evans (2006)

  street culture in white working class areas can be brutal and so young people have to learn how to withstand intimidation others

  school can become a place where the power games that young people engage in on the street are played out - brings disruption, makes it hard for pupils to succeed
• stats

  40% of black people in UK live in social housing

  45% of black children in the UK liv in poverty compared to 25% of white children

  black children face self-fulfilling prophecy due to labelling

  black African children do better at GCSEs compared to white children - not marked by teachers, unbiased

  4% chance of black pupils getting 3A's or more at A-Level, more likely to get excluded than getting 3As
• stats

  top universities are less likely to pick a black student than a white student even if the get the same grades - discrimination barrier, unconscious bias

  Oxford is institutionally racist

  0 people out of 161 from high level judiciary system are black

  0 people out of 133 from military leaders are black

  0 people out of top newspaper/media are black