Sociology - ethnicity and attainment - external

• Reclam


  When a person is treated unequally because of their race or ethnicity
• Pygmalion effect


  Rosenthal and Jacobson - where someone's high expectations improve one's behaviour
• Marketisation


  Trend in education policy from the 1980s - schools were encouraged to compete against each other and act like private businesses rather than institutions under the control of the local government
• Ethnocentric


  Viewing society from the perspective of one's own culture
• Cultural capital


  Bourdieu - the social assets of a person that promote social mobility in a stratified society
• Cultural deprivation


  Where a person has inferior norms, values and skills and knowledge typically associated with the working class
• How cultural deprivation leads to differences in attainment between different ethnic groups - family, attitudes and values
• Moynihan (1965): 'Because many black families are headed by a lone mother, their children are deprived of adequate care because the mother may struggle financially in the absence of the male breadwinner. He views cultural deprivation as a cycle whereby inadequately socialised children from unstable families go on to fail at school and become inadequate parents themselves.'
• Pryce (1979): 'Compared black Caribbean pupils and Asian pupils. He claimed that Asian pupils are higher achievers because their culture is more resistant to racism and gives them a greater sense of self-worth. On the other hand, black Caribbean culture is less cohesive and less resistant to racism, as a result, many black pupils have low self-esteem and underachieve.'
• Sewell (2010): 'The problem isn't the absence of the father for black boys that leads to underachievement - it's a lack of 'tough love' and adequate discipline. Street gangs of other fatherless boys 'perverse loyalty and love' who present boys with a media-inspired role model of anti-school black masculinity. He concludes that, black boys need to have greater expectations placed on them, as to them, speaking in standard English and doing well at school is viewed with suspicion and is seen as 'selling out' to the white establishment.'
• Gillborn argues that it isn't peer pressure, but institutional racism within the education system itself that systematically produces the failure of large numbers of black boys.
• Cultural deprivation theorists argue that many children from low-income black families lack intellectual stimulation and enriching experiences, leaving them poorly equipped for school with a lack of reasoning and problem-solving skills.
• Bereiter and Engelmann see the language spoken by low-income black American families as inadequate for educational success - ungrammatical, disjointed and incapable of expressing abstract ideas.
• The Swann report showed that language isn't a major factor in underachievement as in 2010, pupils with English as their first language were only 2.3 points ahead of those without.
• Mason (2000) stated that 'discriminating is a continuing and persistent feature of the experience of Britain's citizens of minority ethnic origin'.
• Rex (1986) shows how racial discrimination leads to social exclusion and that this worsens poverty for ethnic minorities - such as in housing, ethnic minorities are more likely to be forced into substandard housing than white people of the same class.
• Noon (1993) sent matching CVs from two individuals with the same experience to 100 of the top UK companies, enquiring about future employment. The only difference between the CVs was that one was sent from 'Evans' and the other from 'Patel. The replies from the companies in terms of number and helpfulness were more encouraging for the 'white' applicant.
• Seeing as this was conducted in the 90s, arguably it can be seen to be outdated and therefore it lacks temporal validity.
• White working-class boys and girls are more likely to develop an anti-school subculture than other minority groups. They play truant less and spend less time doing homework. An average of 2.54 evenings a week compared to 3.13 for black African and 3.29 for Indian children.