Differential Educational Achievement 3.Ethnicity

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Differential Educational Achievement 3.Ethnicity

• It is not a simple case of ethnic minorities not
  doing well at school.
•  
• There are many variations between and within
  ethnic groups

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Differential Educational Achievement 3.
Ethnicity

• Britain is said to be a multicultural society
  but what does this mean?
• Modern Britain is made up of many different
  ethnic groups i.e. groups with shared traditions
  and history making them distinct from other
  groups.
• Statistics suggest that not all ethnic groups do
  equally well in education.

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Differential Educational Achievement 3.
Ethnicity
Modhood et al 1997

• In a study by the Policy Studies Institute in
  1997 Modhood et al found the following patterns
  in educational achievement
• Chinese, African Asians and Indian groups were
  more qualified than whites.
• Ethnic minorities were more likely to stay on in
  education after 16 than whites

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Differential Educational Achievement 3.
Ethnicity
Modhood et al 1997

• Bangladeshi and Pakistani women were the least
  well qualified of all female groups and
  Bangladeshi, Pakistani and Afro-Caribbean men
  were the least well qualified of all male ethnic
  groups.
• Afro-Caribbean boys are more likely to be
  excluded from school and placed in lower streams
  than any other ethnic groups.
• It is important to remember that these are
  average statistics and therefore individual
  students can go against the trend of their
  respective ethnic groupings

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Differential Educational Achievement 3.
Ethnicity
Inside School factors Coard 1971

• Coard found evidence of low self esteem
• amongst ethnic minorities.
• He believed that schools made ethnic
• minorities feel inferior in every way.
• Black people and their achievements are ignored
  in the curriculum, white is associated with
  good and black with evil.
• This all led to low self esteem for ethnic
  minorities.
• However this study is over 30years old and other
  researchers have argued that things have much
  improved.

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Differential Educational Achievement 3.
Ethnicity
Inside School factors

• Commission For Racial Equality 1988
• In a study at a school they called Jayleigh the
  CRE found that teacher assessment meant that
  white pupils were entered for a greater number of
  GCSEs than Asian students.
• Also, more Asian students were placed in lower
  sets throughout their school careers.However this
  study is over 30years old and other researchers
  have argued that things have much improved.

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Differential Educational Achievement 3.
Ethnicity
Inside School factors

• Gillborn 1990
• Gillborn found that labelling played a
  significant part in the performance of different
  minority groups.
• Teachers had different expectations of different
  ethnic groups and particularly saw black males as
  more trouble

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Differential Educational Achievement 3.
Ethnicity
Inside School factors

• Gillborn 1990
• they were the ones more likely to challenge
  authority and consequently more likely to be
  thrown out of lessons and ultimately excluded
  from school.
• Gillborn called this the myth of the black
  challenge and the labelling led to a
  self-fulfilling prophecy.
• However this study is 20 years old and other
  researchers have argued that things have much
  improved.

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Differential Educational Achievement 3.
Ethnicity
Inside School factors

• Wright 1992
• Wright found evidence of institutional racism in
  the policies and attitudes of education.
• Even though teachers in her study were committed
  to equal opportunities they gave less attention
  to Asian girls
• (particularly in class discussions where wrong
  assumptions were made about their English not
  being good enough)
• and punished Afro-Caribbean boys more and sent
  them out of class.

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Differential Educational Achievement 3.
Ethnicity
Inside School factors

• Mason 1995
• Mason says that education is not racist but it
  is ethnocentric
• (i.e. showing an ignorance and disregard for
  other cultures)
• consequently non white cultures are not promoted
  despite the modern emphasis on multi-culturalism

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Differential Educational Achievement 3.
Ethnicity
Inside School factors

• Mirza 1992
• Mirza found that negative labelling did not
  necessarily lead to low self esteem for ethnic
  minority students.
• She found that black girls had positive self
  images and high aspirations.
• Some teachers were well meaning but paradoxically
  held back black girls by over compensating for
  them and not pushing them enough.

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Differential Educational Achievement 3.
Ethnicity
Inside School factors

• Mac An Ghaill 1992
• Mac An Ghaill studied 25 Afro-Caribbean and Asian
  A level students and found that all had
  experienced some problems due to racism in school
  but had adopted survival strategies to deal
  with them.
• They avoided teachers with particular
  reputations, kept their heads down in some
  lessons and confided in other teachers whom they
  trusted. The most successful students were the
  ones who learnt to steer themselves through these
  obstacles.

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Differential Educational Achievement 3.
Ethnicity
Outside School factors

• Swann Report 1985
• This report found that social and economic
  factors were the most important explanations for
  some ethnic minority groups failing in education.
• Levels of poverty, standards of housing and
  parental involvement were far more important than
  any IQ differences.

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Differential Educational Achievement 3.
Ethnicity
Outside School factors

• Driver and Ballard (1981)- Language
• Found that Asian children whose first language
  was not English were as good at English as their
  class mates by the age of 16.
• Labelling theorists have argued that accent
  rather than language has influenced teacher
  expectations and lead to negative labeling.
• Also European languages are seen as superior to
  non European languages, French and German are
  given a higher status than Chinese or Gujarati.

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Differential Educational Achievement 3.
Ethnicity
Outside School factors

• Cultural Deprivation
• As with social class, cultural deprivation (the
  idea that working class and ethnic minorities are
  deprived of the values needed for school success)
  has been cited as a reason for the failure of
  some ethnic minorities.
• However, Pryce attacked this in 1979 and stated
  that many Afro-Caribbean parents did take a large
  interest in their childrens education and sent
  them to extra schooling sessions on Saturday
  mornings

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Differential Educational Achievement 3.
Ethnicity
Outside School factors

• Smith And Tomlinson 1989
• argue that class background of pupils was more
  important than ethnicity in explaining poor
  academic success.
• Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Afro-Caribbean groups
  are more likely to be in lower social class
  positions
• whereas Chinese, African Asian and Indian groups
  are more likely to be in higher social class
  positions.

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Differential Educational Achievement 3.
Ethnicity
Outside School factors

• Driver Ballard 1981 - Family Life
• suggest that the tight knit extended families and
  high parental expectations amongst Asian
  communities are significant factors in academic
  success.
• Lupton 2004 agrees and says that the respectful
  nature of Asian parent-child relationship helps
  in the pupil-teacher role
• Others point to the high percentage of single
  families in Afro-Caribbean families and the
  resulting material deprivation as being
  significant.

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Differential Educational Achievement 3.
Ethnicity
Outside School factors

• Conclusion
• Mac An Ghaill says that we need to move away from
  mono-causal explanations and look at the
  inter-relationship of class, gender and
  ethnicity.
• Gillborn and Gipps 1996 argue that terms such as
  white black Asian etc prevent a real
  understanding of the differences. Such terms are
  social creations and are no longer useful.
• Many English people would see their culture as
  very different from Polish people yet could be
  lumped together under the banner whites.
• Similarly the terms Black or Asian cover a
  whole host of groups with different culture,
  language identity etc.
• Post Modernists take this further and suggest
  that society is so diverse it is impossible to
  explain educational attainment in terms of such
  categories as class, gender, ethnicity etc.
• Generalisations do more harm than good
• We need to make more of an attempt to understand
  the complex nature of culture and identity in
  modern society