The ethnocentric curriculum and Assessment

• Ethnocentric curriculum


  A curriculum that reflects the culture of one ethnic group – usually the dominant culture
• The ethnocentric curriculum is a prime example of institutional racism because it builds a racial bias into the everyday workings of schools and colleges
• Areas of the ethnocentric curriculum


  • Language
  • Literature
  • Music
• There is meagre provision for teaching Asian languages as compared with European languages in the national curriculum
• The national curriculum is a specifically British curriculum that largely ignores non-European languages
• Issues with the history curriculum


  • Ignores ethnic diversity
  • Promotes an attitude of little Englandism
  • Tries to re-create a mythical age of empire, glories
  • Ignores the history of black and Asian people
• The central curriculum may produce under achievement


  The image of black people's inferiority undermines black children's self-esteem, and leads to their failure
• Assessment game


  Rigged to validate the dominant group's superiority
• If black people succeed as a group, the rules will be changed to re-engineer their failure
• Baseline assessments


  Tested pupils when they started compulsory schooling
• Foundation stage profile (FSP)


  New way of measuring people's ability, replaced baseline assessments in 2003
• As a result of the FSP, black pupils now appeared to be doing worse than white pupils
• Factors that increase the risk of teacher stereotypes affecting results


  • FSP is based entirely on teachers' judgement
  • FSP is completed at the end of reception year, whereas baselines were done at the start of primary school
• Where some weighting was given to tasks assessed by teachers rather than by written exams, the gap between ethnic groups widened