ethnic differences

• CD - Intellectual and Linguistic Skills:

  • Children from low-income black families lack intellectual stimulation and enriching experiences

  Bereiter and Engalmann – the language spoken by low income black American families is inadequate for success. It is ungrammatical, disjointed and unable to express abstract ideas
• CD - Attitudes and Values:

  • Causes of failure for black students is a lack of motivation
  • Black children are socialised into fatalistic, ‘live for today’ attitudes that do not value education and this leaves them unequipped for success
• CD - Family Structure:

  Moynihan – black families are headed by lone mothers which means the children are deprived of adequate care because she struggles financially. Boys also lack a male role model. This creates a cycle where the children fail and become inadequate parents themselves
• CD - Family Structure:

  Pryce – Asians are more resistant to racism which gives them a greater sense of self-worth. Black Caribbean culture is less cohesive and less resistant to racism. As a result, they have low self-esteem and underachieve
• CD - Family Structure:

  Sewell – lack of fatherly nurturing or ‘tough love’ results in black boys finding it difficult to overcome the emotional and behavioural difficulties of adulthood

  They turn to street gangs with other fatherless boys who offer ‘perverse loyalty and love’. Boys face anti-educational peer group pressure as doing well was suspicious and seen as ‘selling out’ to the white establishment
• CD - Family Structure:

  Asian Families:

  • Indian and Chinese students have supportive families with an ‘Asian work ethic’. Their families also place a high value on education

  White Working Class Families:

  • Low levels of aspirations and achievement were as a result of the lack of parental support. Ethnic minority parents on the other hand saw education as ‘a way up in society’
• CD - Criticisms:

  • Ignore the positive part of ethnicity. For example, the strong role models of independence for young black females in families headed by lone mothers
  • Lawrence – black boys underachieve because of racism and not low self-esteem
  • Keddie – this is a victim blaming explanation. Ethnic minorities are culturally different not deprived
• Material Deprivation:

  Palmer:

  • Almost half of ethnic minorities live in low income households compared to only a quarter of white children
  • Ethnic minorities are twice as likely to be unemployed compared to white people
  • Ethnic minorities are more likely to engage in shift work
• Material Deprivation:

  Reasons why they are at greater risk of material deprivation:

  • Many live in economically depressed areas with high unemployment
  • Cultural factors may prevent some Muslim women from working outside the home
  • Asylum seekers may not be allowed to take work
• Racism in Wider Society:

  Poverty is a product of racism. Rex – racial discrimination can lead to social exclusion which worsens poverty for ethnic minorities

  • E.g. housing – discrimination means minorities are more likely to be forced into substandard accommodation than whites of the same class
• Racism in Wider Society:

  Wood et al – sent three similar job applications to 1000 vacancies each with names associated with different ethnic groups. He found that:

  • 1 in 16 ethnic minorities were offered interviews compared to 1 in 9 white applicants
• Labelling - Black Pupils:

  Gillborn and Youdell – teachers were quicker to discipline black pupils than others for the same behaviour due to their racialised expectations (see behaviour as threatening)
• Labelling - Black Pupils:

  Osler – black pupils are more likely to appear in unrecorded unofficial exclusions
• Labelling - Black Pupils:

  Foster – teacher’s stereotypes result in black pupils being placed into lower streams which can produce a self-fulfilling prophecy of underachievement
• Labelling - Asian Pupils:

  • Wright – Asian pupils are also labelled. Teachers held ethnocentric views which affected how they interacted with students. They may use childish or simplistic language with them.
  • Teachers saw them as a problem they could ignore and in turn this left Asian’s (especially girls) feeling marginalised
• Pupil Identities

  Archer – three types of identities:

  • Ideal – white, middle class, achieving through natural ability (‘the right way’)
  • Pathologised – Asian, ‘deserving poor’, conformist, overachiever, works for success
  • Demonised – white or black, working class, unintelligent, peer-led, underachiever

  Chinese students were seen as having achieved success the wrong way, through hard work rather than natural ability. They can therefore never adopt the ‘ideal’ pupil identity
• Pupil Responses - Rejection of Labels:

  Fuller:

  Studied year 11 class girls in a London comprehensive school who were high achievers but placed in low streams. She found that they didn’t hold the values of the school (such as teacher approval) and relied on their own efforts and impartiality of external exams
• Pupil Responses:

  Racist teachers discouraged black pupils through the advice they gave. Three types of racist teachers:

  • Colour-blind – believe in equality but racism goes unchallenged
  • Liberal chauvinist – believe black pupils are culturally deprived
  • Overt racism – actively discriminate

  She found that most of the girls’ time was spent trying to avoid certain teachers and being selective about who they asked for help. This meant they were restricting their opportunities and underachieving
• Pupil Responses - Variety of Responses:

  Sewell:

  • Rebels – rejected goals and rules of school, conform to the black macho lad identity
  • Conformists – keen to succeed, accept school’s goals
  • Retreatists – disconnected from school and subcultures
  • Innovators – anti-school but pro education, valued success but not teacher approval
• Evaluation of Labelling and Pupil Responses:

  • Stereotypes may be individual teacher prejudices rather as a way the whole education system operates
  • We cannot assume that once a pupil is labelled they automatically fall victim to the self-fulfilling prophecy and fail
• Institutional Racism - Critical Race Theory:

  Racism is an ingrained feature of society

  • Roithmayr – locked-in inequality is the idea that institutional racism is of such a large historical scale that there is no longer conscious intent to discriminate
  • Gillborn – racism is so deep rooted it has become inevitable
• Institutional Racism - Marketisation and Segregation:

  • Gillborn – schools can be more selective with their students and so negative stereotypes can influence their decisions on admissions
  • Moore and Davenport – discrimination means that ethnic minorities fail to get into the better secondary schools. Primary school report screen out pupils with language difficulties
• Institutional Racism - Ethnocentric Curriculum:

  A curriculum that reflect the culture of one ethnic group. Examples include:

  • Language, literature, music – Troyna and Williams – lack of teaching of Asian languages
  • History – national curriculum ignores ethnic diversity and promotes ‘little Englandism’
• Institutional Racism - Assessment:

  • Gillborn – assessment game is rigged to validate dominant culture superiority
  • Primary schools used to use baseline assessment but this was then replaced with the Foundation School Profile (FSP) which was based on teacher judgement. This means that stereotypes could affect choices and results
• Institutional Racism - Access to Opportunity:

  • Whites students were more likely to be selected for Gifted and Talented programmes
  • Black students were more likely to be entered for lower exams
• Institutional Racism - New IQ’ism:

  Gillborn:

  • Teachers make false assumptions on pupil’s ‘abilities’ or ‘potential’ which they see as a fixed quality that can be measured to allocate them to streams ets. Schools used old style IQ tests
  • Gillborn believes you cannot measure potential as tests show what a person can do now not what they’ll be able to do in the future
• Criticisms of Gillborn:

  • Sewell – external factors are more important. Racism isn’t powerful enough to prevent success
  • Chinese and Indian students do better than the white majority. (Gillborn argues they perform an ideological function to conceal institutional racism, making the system appear meritocratic)
• CD - Intellectual and Linguistic Skills

  Mirza - Indian students still do well despite English being their second language
• CD - Asian Families

  Lupton - adult authority in Asian families is similar to school. Respectful behaviour towards adults was expected from children which had a knock in effect in school, as parents were likely to support school behaviour policies