ethnic differences

• bereiter and engelmann - intellectual and language skills


  - claim that the language of poorer black american families is ungrammatical and disjointed.

  - as a result, their children are unable to express abstract ideas, a major barrier to educational progress
• murray - attitudes, values and family structure


  - argues high rate of lone parenthood and a lack of positive male role models lead to under-achievement of some minority pupils
• moynihan - culture of poverty


  - the absence of a male role model of achievement in black matrifocal lone parent families produce inadequately socialised children who fail at school, become inadequate parents themselves and perpetuate a culture of poverty
• pryce - impact of slavery


  - black caribbean culture is less resistant to racism beacuse of the experience of slavery

  - as a result, many black pupils have low-self esteem and under-achieve
• sewell - asian families


  - argues that chinese and indian pupils benefit from supportive families with an asian work ethic.

  - he contrasts this with black lone-parent families
• sewell - fathers, gang and culture


  - lack of fatherly nurturing leads to black boys underachieving

  - street gangs offer them alternative perverse loyalty and love

  - academically successful black boys felt the greates barrier to success was peer pressure

  - speaking standard english and doing well at school were seen as 'selling out
• luton - white wc pupils


  - studied four mainly wc schools with different ethnic compositions

  - teachers reported poorer levels of behaviour and discipline in the white wc schools, which they linked to lower levels of parental support and the negative attitudes of white wc parents towards education
• evans - white wc pupils


  - argues that street culture in white wc areas can be brutal and is brought into school.

  - result is a strong pressure to reject education
• keddie - victim blaming


  - argues that cultural deprivation is a victim blaming explanation

  - minority ethnic group children are culturally different, not culturally deprived, they under-achieve because schools are ethnocentric - biased in favour of white culture
• ball - cultural exclusion


  - argues that minority ethnic groups parents are at a disadvantage because they are less aware of how to negotiate with the british education system

  - resulting in cultural exclusion rather than cultural deprivation

  - according to gewirtz -> complex school application forms are an example of cultural exclusion practices in some schools
• gillborn and mirza - black pupils


  - found that in one area, black children were the highest achievers on entering primary school (20 points above average), yet by the time it came to GCSE, they had fallen to 21 points below average, suggesting schooling, not background is to blame
• gillborn and youdel - black pupils


  - found teachers had 'racialised expectations' about black pupils and expected more discipline problems and saw their behavior as threatening

  - black pupils were more likely than others to be punished for the same behavior

  - pupils felt that their teachers underestimated their ability and picked on them

  - conclude that conflict between white-teachers abd black pupils stems from the racist stereotypes that teachers have, rather than from the pupils actual behavior which can cause under-achievement as it can leads to high levels of exclusion of black boys and black boys being placed in lower sets or streams
• wright - asian pupils


  - shows evidence on teacher stereotyping

  - found that asian primary school pupils were stereotypes by their teachers and treated differently

  - teachers assumed the children would have poor grasp of english and so they used simplistic language when speaking to them

  - they mispronounced their names

  - they saw them as a problem they could ignore

  - as a result, especially the girls, were marginalised and prevented form participating fully, affecting their self esteem
• connolly - asian pupils


  - found that primary school teachers saw asian pupils as passive and conformist

  - both teachers and pupils saw asian boys are more 'feminine', vulnerable and less able to portect themselves
• sewell - pupil subcultures


  - found that black boys adopted a range of responses to teachers' racist labelling of them as rebellious or anti-school

  - conformists, innovators, retreatists, rebels
• fuller - rejecting negative labels


  - studied group of high-achieving black girls in year 11 of a london comprehensive

  - the girls maintained a positive self-image by rejecting teachers' stereotypes of them

  - they recognized the value of eduction and were dtermined to achieve, but only conformed in teerms of doing their schoolwork, working hard without giving the appearance of doing so

  - didnt seek teachers approval, maintained friendships with black girls in lower streams

  - some way similar to innovators in sewell's study
• mac and ghail - rejecting negative labels


  - study of black and asian a level students at a sixth form college found that they did not necessarily accept teachers' negative labels - eg some girls felt that the all-girls school they had previously attended gave them a greater academic commitment

  - however, mirza found that black girls strategies for dealing with teachers' racism, eg not asking certain staff for help, sometimes restricted their opportunities. even though they didnt accept the labels, they were still disadvantaged as a result
• troyna and williams - ethnocentic curriculum


  - note that it gives priority to white culture and english language
• david - ehtnocentric curriculum


  - argues that the national curriculum is a 'specifically british' curriculum that teaches the culture of the 'host community
• ball - ethnocentric curriculum


  - sees the history curriculum in british schools as recreating a 'mythical age of empire and pas glories, while at the same time ignoring the history of black and asian people
• gillborn - selection and segregation


  - argues that because marketisation gives schools more scope to select pupils, negative stereotypes can influence decisions about admissions.

  - moore and davenport's american research shows how selection procedures (eg using primary school reports to screen out pupils) leads to ethnic segregation
• gillborn - assessment


  - argues that assessment is rigged to validate the dominant white culture's superiority

  - eg basline assessments showing black pupils ahead of whites were replaced in 2003 by the foundation stage profile, which is based on teachers judgments

  - as a result, black pupils appeared to be doing worse than whites
• tikly and strand - access to opportunities


  - whites are over twice as likely as black pupils to be identified as gifted and talented

  - found black girls were more likely to be entered for lower tier exams - often because they had been placed in lower sets due to teachers' expectation, leading to a sfp