Using Material from Item A and elsewhere, assess sociological explanations of ethnic differences in educational achievement (30) PDF

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Ethnic Differences in Education...

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Using Material from Item A and elsewhere, assess sociological explanations of ethnic differences in educational achievement (30)

There are many explanations of ethnic differences in education achievement that help explain why ‘Chinese and Indian pupils perform better than White, Bangladeshi, Pakistani or Black pupils’ as stated in Item A. These can both be internal or external factors including cultural deprivation, attitudes and values and labelling. There are major differences in levels of educational achievement between pupils of different ethnic minority groups. The 2014 statistics say that Chinese and Indian children achieve the highest out of the rest of the ethnic minority groups and that Irish Traveler and Gypsy Roma children have the worst underachievement levels with 18% and 22% respectively. Even though there are big differences between their achievement, all ethnic groups are improving in terms of exam success over the past decades. One external factor that explains ethnic differences in educational achievement is intellectual and linguistic skills. Cultural deprivation theorists see the lack of intellectual and linguistic skills as a major cause of underachievement for many minority children. Berieter and Engelmann consider the language spoken by lowincome black American families as inadequate for educational success as they see it as ungrammatical and incapable of expressing abstract ideas. There has also been concern that children who do not speak English at home may be held back educationally wise. This factor directly blames the language and culture of the pupil for not achieving highly but not the teachers or educational system. However these views are challenged by Heidi Safia Mirza as they note that Indian pupils do very well despite not having English as their home language. This shows that just because some students primarily speak their home language at home doesn’t mean that they are more likely to fail compared to a British pupil who primarily speaks english at home. Another external factor is the family structure and parental support. Cultural deprivation theorists argue that this failure to socialise children adequately is the result of a dysfunctional family structure. Moynihan argues that because many black families are headed by a lone mother, their children are deprived of adequate care because she must struggle financially in the absence of a male breadwinner. The father's absence also means the boys lack an adult role model of male achievement, this is further supported by the lack of male teachers in primary schools. Moynihan states that deprivation is a cycle where inadequately socialized children from unstable families go on to fail at school and become inadequate parents themselves. However Driver criticises the cultural deprivation theory for ignoring the positive effect of ethnicity on achievement. The black Caribbean family could actually provide girls with positive role models of strong independent women. He argues that this is

why black girls tend to be more successful in education than black boys. This is lazy stereotyping as the figures between white and Afro Carribean single parent families are not that different as there is only a 4% difference. So to then blame the lack of a father figure for the failure of a whole ethnic system is not justified as they can’t blame the whole ethnic group for 23% of the lone families. Furthermore parental involvement is an external factor. Bhatti’s study of Bangladeshi Pakistani and Indian parents showed that parents had a high level of interest in their children's education which was supported by close family and community ties. However Bangladeshi and Pakistani parents lack the cultural capital to be able to assist their children with their homework and may be less familiar with school processes and organisation. Where in contrast Indian and Chinese parents will be able to use their cultural, material and social capital to help their children at home. Most research has focused on black family structures as possible causes of underachievement. However white working class pupils often underachieve and have low aspirations. For example a survey of 16,000 pupils by McCulloch showed ethnic minority pupils are more likely to aspire to go to university than white British pupils. Gillan Evans argues that street culture in white working class areas can be brutal and so young people have to learn how to avoid intimidation and intimidate others. In this context school can become a place where the power games that young people engage in on the street are played out again, bringing disruption and making it harder for pupils to succeed and get good grades. One last external factor is material deprivation. Material deprivation of those physical views that are seen as essential or normal in today's society. Material deprivation explanations educational failure as resulting from factors such as substandard housing and low income. Ethnic minorities are more likely to face these problems. For example, according to Palmer, almost half of all ethnic minority children live in low-income households compared to a quarter of white children and ethnic minorities are almost twice as likely to be unemployed compared with whites. This can make it harder for some ethnic minorities to achieve due to their living situations. For example, poor housing and overcrowding can contribute to underachievement in school. This is because it can be harder to study and focus if you either have to keep moving house or don't have space to revise or do homework. However there are some success stories of children of disadvantaged ethnic groups achieving in the education system such as Tower Hamlets in East London which has lots of poverty and a high percentage of free school meals children from the Bangledeshi community which despite being expected to fail achieved excellent GCSE results. One internal factor that sociologists use to help explain the ethnic differences in achievement is labelling and teacher racism/stereotypes. Gillborn and Youdell found that teachers were quicker to discipline black pupils than others for the same behaviour. Gillborn and Youdell said this is a result of teachers ‘racialised expectations’. They found that teachers expected black pupils to present more

discipline problems and misinterpreted the behaviour as threatening or as a challenge to authority. When teachers acted on this misconception the pupils responded negatively and this resulted in further conflict. Furthermore black pupils felt teachers underestimated their ability and picked on them unfairly. Gillborn and Youdell Concluded that much of the conflict between white teachers and black pupils stemmed from the racial stereotypes teachers hold rather than the pupils' actual behaviour. This may explain the high level of exclusion from school of black boys as nearly 40% of black boys are permanently excluded according to DFE, SFR 29/2013. Jenny Bourne found that schools tend to see black boys as a threat and label them negatively which eventually leads to exclusion. This means they underachieve and affect their achievement as only one in five excluded pupils achieved five GCSEs. Furthermore Archer identified three different types of pupils such as the Ideal pupil identity who is a white middle class identity with a normal sexuality, the pathologised pupil identity, an Asian feminised identity either an asexual or with an oppressed sexuality who succeeds due to hard work rather than natural ability and finally the demonised pupil identity a black or white working class hypersexualised identity who is seeing as unintelligent and an underachiever. Archer ethnic minority pupils Are likely to be seeing as either demonised or pathologised pupils. For example from interviews with teachers and students she shows how black students are demonised as loud, challenging and with ‘unaspirational’ home cultures. This can negatively affect pupils' achievement as if they feel stereotyped they may eventually conform to that view which further supports the self-fulfilling prophecy. Cecile Wright Study on multi-ethnic primary schools showed that Asian pupil's can also be the victims of teachers labelling. She found that despite the schools preaching about equal opportunities teachers held ethnocentric views. This affected how they related to Asian pupils. For example, they assume they would have a poor grasp of English and therefore leave them out of class discussions or use simplistic, childish language when speaking to them. This resulted in Asian people feeling isolated when teachers mispronounce their names or expressed disapproval of their customs and culture. Teachers saw them not as a threat, unlike black pupils, as a problem they could ignore. This led to Asian pupils, especially the girls, marginalised which prevented them from participating fully and therefore disadvantaged them as a result. Yet this labelling might not be a conscious but unconscious bias. However over the last few decades some may argue that teacher racism and stereotyping has decreased as the vast majority of teachers are not racist. Moreover people have the ability to reject labels for example Mary Fuller Who studied a group of black girls in Year 11 of a London Comprehensive School. Fuller describes how instead of accepting negative stereotypes of themselves the girls channelled their anger about being labelled into working hard. Unlike other successful pupil's they did not seek the approval of teachers many of whom they regarded as racist nor did they

limit their choice of friends to other academic achievers and instead there were friends with other black girls from lower streams. The girls had a positive attitude to academics and rather than seeking the approval of teachers they preferred to rely on their own efforts and the importance of external exams. This study proves that negative labelling does not always lead to failure as these girls were able to reject the labels placed on them and remained determined to succeed. Another internal factor is the Ethnocentric curriculum. The term ethnocentric describes an attitude or policy that gives priority to the culture and viewpoint of one particular ethnic group while disregarding others. The ethnocentric curriculum that reflects the culture of one ethnic group is usually the dominant culture. Many sociologists see the ethnocentric curriculum as a prime example of institutional racism because it builds a racial bias into the everyday workings of the school. For example, Ball criticises the national curriculum for ignoring ethnic diversity and promoting an attitude of ‘little englandism’.This is shown in the history curriculum which focuses on mainly white achievements while ignoring the history of Black and Asian people. This could be counteracted by ‘Black History Month’ which focuses on Black artists and writers however this can just be seen as just a token gesture. This could lead to some ethnic minorities feeling excluded and like they don’t belong which could unmotivate them and in return bring down their grades. In conclusion, it’s a combination of internal and external factors that are important as not all pupils just have internal or external factors that may affect their achievement in the education system. Additionally, Gillan Evans noted that when looking at educational outcomes of students ethnicity cannot be considered in isolation as social class and gender also needs to be taken into account. Research has proven that social class has five times the impact of any other factor on educational achievement and furthermore girls as a whole are achieving higher grades than boys....