Internal Ethnicity Factors

• Gillborn and Mirza (2000): black children were the highest achievers in primary school (20% above average) yet by the time they got to GCSE they had the worst results (21% below the average).

  Strand’s (2010): had a sample of 530,000 7-11 year olds many black pupils dell behind after starting school. Found black Caribbean boys not on FSM and the more able students made less progress than their white peers.
• Gillborn and Youdell


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

  Racial expectations = teachers expected black pupils to have discipline problems, threatening and challenge authority. When teachers acted on their misperception, the pupils responded negatively.

  Teachers underestimated black people abilities.

  Conflicted stems from racial stereotypes.

  • Black pupils and streaming:
  • Forster (1990): Black pupils are more likely to placed in lower streams. This results in self-fulfilling prophecy of underachievement
• Asian pupils


  Wrights (1992): found that despite schools equal opportunities, teachers held ethnocentric views – affects how they relate to Asian pupils.

  Teachers assumed they have a poor grasp on English and left them out of class discussions.

  Use simplistic and childish language towards them.

  Asian pupils were isolated.

  Teachers disapproved their culture and mispronounced their names.

  Saw Asian as not a threat but a problem that could be ignored.
• Pupil identities


  Archer (2008): the dominant discourse construct 3 pupils identities:

  • The ideal ppl id: white, m/c, masculinised id, normal sexuality. They're seen as achieving in the right way through natural ability.
  • The pathologised ppl id: Asian, “deserving poor”, feminised id, asexual or with an oppressed sexuality. They're seen as a plodding, conformist and culture-bond “over-achiever”, succeeds through hard work rather than natural ability.
  • Demonised ppl id: a black or white, w/c, hyper-sexualised id. They're seen as intelligent, peer-led, culturally deprived underachiever.
• Pupils identities


  In interviews Archer found that black students are loud, challenging, sexual and unaspirational home culture.

  Teachers stereotyped Asian girls as quiet and passive.

  Shain: Asian girls challenge this stereotype by misbehaving and are delt with more severely than other.
• Chinese pupils


  Archer: even minority who perform successfully can be pathologized.

  Successful Chinese students were seen as having achieved in the wrong way.

  They were seen as hard working, conformists rather than natural ability.

  They can never be seen as the ideal pupil.

  Archer and Francis (2007): teachers stereotype Chinese family as tight and close this explains girls passivity.

  Chinese students stereotyped as m/c.

  Archer: the success of ethnic minorities and girls is only seen as over achievement.
• Fuller (1984)


  Studied a group of black girls in year 11 in London.

  Sample untypical as the group were high achievers when most black girls were in lower sets.

  They rejected negative labelling by achieving educational success.

  Unlike successful student they did not seek approval from their teachers as they didn’t want to be alienated by other black pupils in lower sets.

  Labelling dose not lead to failure.

  Can succeed in anti-school subculture, they were also pro-education.
• Mirza (1992): failed strategies for avoiding racism


  Studied ambitious black girls.

  Girls failed to achieve their ambition because their coping strategies restricted their opportunities.

  A lot of the girls time at school was spent to avoid the effects of the teachers negative attitude.

  This included being selective about what teacher to choose to ask for help to avoid teachers with racist attitudes
• Mirza - 3 types of teacher racism


  • The colour blind: believe all pupils are equal but unchallenged racism.
  • The liberal chauvinist: believe black pupils are deprived and have low expectations of them.
  • The overt racism: believe black are inferior and discriminate against them
• Sewell (1998)


  Black pupils had different coping mechanisms to deal with racism:

  • Rebels: influential minority who rejected goals and rules of school, stereotypical ‘black macho lads’.
  • Conformists: accepted the values of the school and was not part of any subculture.
  • Retreatist: small group and was disconnected from both black culture and the school – despised by rebels.
  • Innovators: pro-education but anti-school. Didn't seek approval from the teachers and were able to maintain credibility with the rebels.
• Evaluation of labelling


  Positive: instead of blaming the home background, highlights how teachers stereotype might cause failure.

  Negatives:

  • Danger you wont see racism that is in the education system.
  • Gillborn and Youdell: argues that marketisation leads to large numbers of black and w/c being placed in lower streams.
  • Not all students fail when labelled negatively.
• International racism


  Troyna and Williams 1986:

  • Look at how school and colleges routinely and unconsciously discriminate against ethnic minorities e.g. black students are placed into foundation tiers meaning they can only achieve a ‘c’ – unlikely to progress to A-levels.
  • Individual racism: results from the prejudiced views of individual teachers and others.
  • Institutional racism: discrimination built into the way institutions such as school and colleges operate.
• Critical racism theory

  See racism as an ingrained feature in society.

  Involves both individual and institutional racism.
• Locked in inequality

  Roithmayr (2003): see institutional racism as locked inequality. The scale of historical discrimination is so large that there is no conscious intent to discriminate – inequalities become self-perpetuating.

  Gillborn (2008): he sees ethnic inequality so deep rooted in society that it is now a feature of the education system. Critical race theorist see education system as institutional racist.
• Marketisation and segregation


  Gillborn (1997): as marketisation gives school more scope to select pupils, allowing negative stereotypes to influence decisions about school admissions.

  Supported by Moor and Davenports American researchers: shows how selection procedures left to ethnic segregation and ethnic minorities failing to get better school due to discrimination.

  Found primary schools reports were used to screen out pupils with language difficulties.

  Application process were difficult for non-English speakers to understand – advantaged white minorities.
• Marketisation and segregation


  Selection leads to an ethnically stratified education system. Racial Equality (1993): based in Britain noted that racism in school admissions procedures means that ethnic minorities are more likely to end up in unpopular schools.

  Because of the following reasons:

  • Racist bias in interviews for school places.
  • Lack of info and applications in minority language.
  • Ethnic minorities are often unaware of the wating list system and important of deadlines.
• The ethnocentric curriculum


  Curriculum taught in school is racially biased against ethnic groups.

  David (1993): described the national curriculum as ‘specifically British’ ignores non-European language, literature and music.

  History Ball (1994): criticises the national curriculum for ignoring ethnic diversity and promoting attitudes of the ‘little Englandism’ – ignoring the history of black and Asian people.
• The ethnocentric curriculum


  Coard (1971-2005): explains how ethnocentric curriculum may produce underachievement.

  In history British could be presented as bringing civilisation by colonising.

  This creates an image of black people as inferior and undermines black children self esteem and lead to failure.

  Not clear how much ethnocentric curriculum effect ethnic minorities – as Asian achievement is above the national average.

  Stone (1981): argues that black children do not suffer from low self-esteem
• Assessment


  Gillborn (2008): the assessment game is rigged to validate the dominate culture superiority.

  If black pupils succeed, ‘the rules will be changed to re-engineer failure’.

  E.g. in the past primary schools used baseline assessments but this was replaced in 2003 by the Foundation Stage Profile. This meant black pupils were doing worse than white pupils as it was based on teacher judgement and was completed at the end of reception.

  Gillborn: these factors increase risk of teachers stereotyping affecting results.
• Access and opportunities


  Gillborn: noted that white are 2x more likely to be seen as gifted and talented compare to black Caribbeans and 5x more likely compared to African black students.

  Tikly et al (2006): found in 30 schools in the ‘aiming high’ initiative to raise black Caribbean people achievement, black students were more likely to be in low tier GCSE exams and can only get a C.
• New 'IQ ism'


  Teachers and Policy makers make false assumptions about the nature of pupils ability or potential.

  Potential is seen as fixed and can be measured through old style IQ tests or psychometric tests, however Gillborn suggests that these test only test what is currently known or learnt not what could be.

  These tests are skewed to dominant culture