Access new opportunities, New IQism Ethnicity, gender class

• Gifted and talented programme


  Created with the aim of meeting the needs of more able pupils in inner city schools
• Whites are over twice as likely as black Caribbean to be identified as gifted and talented and five times more likely than black Africans
• Exam tiers


  Blacks were more likely than whites to be entered for lower tier GCSE exams, often because black pupils were placed in lower sets
• There is a white-black achievement gap in maths and science tests at age 14, due to black pupils being systematically underrepresented in entry to higher tier exams
• The new IQism


  Teachers and policy makers making false assumptions about the nature of pupils' ability and potential, and using old-style intelligence tests to allocate pupils to different streams and entry
• Gillborn concludes that the education system is institutionally racist, with minority groups routinely disadvantaged
• Sewell's view on black boy underachievement


  Racism has not disappeared from schools but is not powerful enough to prevent individuals from succeeding; the focus should be on external factors like boys' attitudes to school, peer group, and lack of father figure
• The overachievement of Indian and Chinese pupils


  Suggests the education system is not institutionally racist, as these 'model minorities' have taken advantage of the opportunities offered
• The image of Indian and Chinese as hard-working model minorities performs an ideological function, making the system appear fair and meritocratic, and justifying the failure of other minorities
• To fully understand the relationship between ethnicity and achievement, we need to look at how ethnicity interacts with gender and class
• Teachers saw black boys as disruptive and underachievers, controlling them by pushing them more and channelling their energies into sport, while Asian boys were seen as passive conformists, keen and academic
• There is a bigger gap between the achievements of white middle-class and white working-class pupils than there is between black middle-class and black working-class pupils