Cultural Factors

• Cultural factors which may explain why Chinese and Indian children do well in school and why Black Caribbean Children and White children do not do so well include:

  Parental control and expectation, and the value parents place on education.

  Single parent families, and the absence of a male role model (for boys)

  Peer group pressure and an anti-school ‘street’ culture

  Language barriers

  Student aspirations to go on to higher education.
• Parental Expectations - Strand’s (2007)’s analysis of data from the 2004 Longitudinal Study of Young People found that Indian students:

  are the ethnic group most likely to complete homework five evenings a week and the group where parents are most likely to say they always know where their child is when they are out.
• Parental Expectation - Francis and Archer (2007)

  Francis and Archer (2007) found that a high value is placed on education by Chinese parents, coupled with a strong cultural tradition of respect for one’s elders. High educational aspiration transmits from parents to children, and students derive positive self-esteem from constructing themselves as good students.
• Single Parent Households - Abbott


  The New Right argues that the high proportion of lone parents fail to ‘provide a home environment conducive to learning’. There have also been concerns about the development of ‘gangsta’ culture with the absence of positive Black male role models at home as well as in schools (Abbott, 2002).
• The culture of anti-school black masculinity - Sewell

  Tony Sewell (1997) observes that Black Caribbean boys may experience considerable pressure by their peers to adopt the norms of an ‘urban’ or ‘street’ subculture. More importance is given to unruly behaviour with teachers and antagonistic behaviour with other students than to high achievement or effort to succeed.

  However Sewell as been criticised for blaming Black Caribbean children for their own failure, rather than taking into account possible racism within the education system itself.
• Acting white and acting black - Fordham and Ogbu (1986)


  further argue that part of an anti-school black masculinity was what they called ‘acting black’ and ‘acting white’. Notions of ‘acting White’ or ‘acting Black’ become identified in opposition to one another. Hence because acting White includes doing well at school, acting Black necessarily implies not doing well in school.
• Language barriers - Crozier

  Crozier (2004) found that Pakistani and Bangladeshi parents ‘kept their distance’ from their children’s schools because they trusted the professionals to do their jobs; they lacked confidence in use of English and there were no translators.
• Educational Aspirations - White children have lower educational aspirations than most ethnic minorities.

  Research by Connor et al (2004) found that year 13 students from all ethnic minority groups had stronger aspirations to go onto higher education than white children, with the aspiration being strongest for Black African children.
• The Immigrant Paradigm 


  Ogbu (1978) developed the theory that first generation immigrants are enthusiastic about education, seeing it as a real opportunity to help their children progress in a new country, whereas this enthusiasm wears off for second and especially third generations.

  This can go some some way to explaining why Black-Africans overachieve compared to whites while Black-Caribbeans underachieve.
• South Asian women go to university despite cultural pressures

  Bagguley and Hussain (2007)  found that aspirations to higher education for Pakistani and Bangladeshi women were often complicated by cultural pressures. Many had to negotiate decisions around marriage & expectations of their parents.

  Many consequently studied at a local university in order to placate their parents’ concerns about morality, being in the company of men and their family honour. vs Indian students currently at university appeared to have had the option of leaving home.
• How important are cultural factors in educational achievement?

  While there are statistical correlations between factors such as parental control and pupil aspirations and educational achievement by ethnicity, it is important to remember that these are just overall averages and that there are variations within each ethnic group.

  In other words, be careful not to fall into the stereotype trap of thinking that all Chinese parents or all white children are the same.