Ethnicity

• Bereiter & Engelmann


  Consider the language spoken by low-income black American families as inadequate for educational success.

  They see it as ungrammatical, disjointed and incapable of expressing abstract ideas.
• Moynihan

  Argues that many black families are headed by a lone mother. These children are deprived of adequate care as the mother struggles financially with the absence of a male breadwinner.

  Sons lack adequate male role model.

  Views cultural deprivation as a cycle where inadequately socialised children will fail at school & become inadequate parents.
• Murray


  High rate of lone parenthood & lack of male role models leads to underachievement of some minorities.
• Pryce

  Views family structure as contributing to the underachievement of black caribbean students.

  Loss of culture and the curriculum lead to weak self esteem of these students, leading to underachievemen.
• Lawrence

  Challenges Pryce’s view that black students fail due to weak culture & self-esteem but due to racism.
• Driver

  Criticises cultural deprivation theory for ignoring positive effects of ethnicity on achievement. Argues black Caribbean families provide girls with strong female role models, explaining why black girls tend to be more successful in education than black boys.
• Sewell


  ‘Asian work ethic’

  Indian and Chinese families place higher value in education
• Arnot

  In the absence of a nurturing father, black boys seek other fatherless boys.

  Street gangs offer them a model of anti-school black masculinity.
• Lupton 


  Studied 4 mainly w/c schools.

  2 were predominantly white.

  1 served a largely Pakistani community.

  1 drew pupils from an ethically mixed community.

  Found teachers reported poorer levels of behaviour and discipline in the white w/c schools. Teachers blamed this on lower levels of parenting support and the negative attitude of the parents towards education.

  Ethnic minority parents more likely to see education as a ‘way up in society.’
• McCulloch

  Found that ethnic minority pupils are more likely to aspire to go to university than white British pupils.
• Palmer

  Almost 1/2 of all ethnic minority children live in low income households against 1/4 of white children.

  Ethnic minorities are almost twice as likely to be unemployed compared to whites.

  Ethnic minority households are around 3x more likely to be homeless.

  Almost 1/2 of Bangladeshi and Pakistani workers earned under £7 per hour, compared with only 1/4 of white British workers.
• Reasons why ethnic minorities may be at greater risk of material deprivation

  Many live in economically depressed areas with high unemployment & low wage rates.

  Cultural factors such as the tradition of purdah which prevents women from working outside the home.

  Language barriers.

  Foreign qualifications not being recognised by uk employers.

  Asylum seekers not being allowed to take work.

  Racial discrimination in the Labour and housing markets.
• Rex

  Shows how racial discrimination leads to social exclusion and how this worsens the poverty faced by ethnic minorities.
• Wood et al


  Sent 3 closely matched job applications to almost 1,000 job vacancies. He used names associated with different ethnic groups.

  Found only 1 in 16 ethnic minority applicants were offered an interview, compared to 1 in 9 white applicants.
• Gillborn & Youdell


  Teachers quicker to discipline black pupils than others for the same behaviour.

  Teachers expected more discipline problems from black students.
• Bourne


  Schools tend to see black boys as a threat and label them negatively leading to higher levels of exclusion. Only 1 in 5 excluded students achieve 5 GCSEs.
• Osler


  Black pupils more likely to suffer from unrecorded, unofficial exclusions.

  Black pupils more likely to be placed in pupil referral units, excluding them from mainstream curriculum.
• Foster


  Teacher stereotypes of black pupils as badly behaved could result in them being placed in lower sets than other pupils if similar ability. Could result in self-fulfilling prophecy.
• Wright


  Study of multi-ethnic primary school found that Asians can also be victims of labelling.

  Teachers held Eurocentric views and assumed Asian pupils had a lower grasp of the English language.

  Teachers mispronounced names and disapproved of customs.
• Archer

  Teachers dominant discourse constructs 3 different pupil identities:

  Ideal pupil identity - white, m/c, masculine identity achieving through natural ability and initiative.

  Pathologised pupil identity - Asian, ‘deserving poor’ feminised identity, oppressed sexuality, conformist, culture bound overachiever, hard worker.

  Demonised pupil identity - black or white w/c, hyper sexualised identity, unintelligent, peer led, culturally deprived, under achiever.
• Fuller


  Studied a group of black girls in Y11 of a London comprehensive school. The girls were high achievers despite the school mostly placing black girls in low streams. Instead of accepting the negative labels they were given, they rejected them, leading to self-refuting prophecy.
• Ghaill

  Study of black and Asian ALevel students showed that labelling doesn’t inevitability lead to self fulfilling prophecy. Students don’t always accept their label. How they respond can depend on factors such as ethnic group, gender and nature of their former schools.
• Mirza


  Identifies 3 types of teacher racism:

  The colour blind - believe all students are equal but leave racism unchallenged.

  The liberal chauvinist - believe black pupils are culturally deprived and have low expectations of them.

  The overt racists - believe black pupils are inferior and actively discriminate against them.
• Tronya & Williams 


  Argue that to explain ethnic differences in achievement, we need to go beyond simply studying teacher racism. We must also look at how schools and colleges routinely and unconsciously discriminate against ethnic minorities. They therefore make a distinction between individual racism and institutional racism.
• Ball


  Criticises the National Curriculum for ignoring ethnic diversity and for promoting an attitude of ‘little Englandism’.
• Coard

  Explains how the ethnocentric curriculum may produce underachievement.

  Eg in history the British have been presented as bringing civilisation to the ‘primitive‘ people they colonised. Argues this image of ethnic minorities undermines their self esteem.
• David

  Describes the national curriculum as a specifically British curriculum that largely ignores non European languages, literature and music.
• Moore & Davenport 


  Show how selection procedures lead to ethnic segregation, with minority pupils failing to get into better secondary schools due to discrimination.
• Gillborn 


  Foundation stage profile (FSP) is based entirely on teacher judgements, whereas baseline assessments often use written tests as well. Increases the risk of stereotypes affecting results.

  White pupils are 2x more likely to be identified as gifted compared to black Caribbeans, and 5x more likely than black Africans.