ethnicity and education Flashcards
Charles Murray 1984
Argues that a high rate of lone parent households and a lack of positive male role models may lead to underachievement of some ethnic minorities.
Tony Sewell
Argues that the absence of fathers as role models leads to Black Boys underachieving. Also argues that material deprivation, cultural deprivation and poverty account for the underachievement of Black boys.
Gillborn 2008
Argues that it is not peer pressure but institutional racism within the education system itself which accounts for the failure of large numbers of Black boys in education. He argues that whilst the vast majority of teachers tried to teach all students fairly, they tended to see African Caribbean children as a threat when no threat was intended. Despite the fact that teachers rejected racism, their ethnocentric perceptions meant their actions were racist in consequence.
They underrated the abilities of Black Children, regulating them to low-ability groups, a restricted curriculum and entry for lower level exams.
Basil Bernstein- speech codes and ethnic minority students
Two different types of speech codes: elaborated and restricted. He found that whilst white children were using the elaborated code with teachers, often ethnic minorities were restricted to using the restricted code. This would lead to a decrease in educational achievement of some ethnic minorities as they were left not understanding content- such as in English where the elaborated code is vital.
Gillborn and Youdell
Points out that Black Caribbean children are overrepresented in the lower sets and get written off because they have little hope of achieving above Cs.
Archer and Francis
Argue that cultural factors are crucial in the explanation of British-Chinese students. They argue that Chinese boys are still committed to education when engaging in laddish behaviour.
Parents of British-Chinese students take a strong role in developing their children’s educational success. They continually spoke to their children about their future education and invested time and money into their children’s education. These parents were critical of white British parents who were seen as allowing failure to develop. Found that the parents of Chinese pupils placed an exceptionally high value on education contributing to their children doing increasingly well.
Cecile Wright
Found that teachers perceived ethnic minority students differently from white students. Asian children were often given the least amount of attention while African Caribbean children received the most negative attention as they were expected to behave badly.
Connoly
Found that teachers had stereotypically high expectations that South Asian boys and girls would do well in school. When they were deviant, teachers interpreted this behaviour as immature rather than deliberately disruptive (how they would interpret other children)
Foster
Found that Black pupils were in lower sets because of their perceived behaviour rather than academic ability. Black pupils were more likely to be placed in lower streams due to teacher labelling and racism
Margaret Fuller- negative labelling of Black Girls
Found that there could sometimes be a positive reaction to negative labelling. The group of Black girls in her study managed to use their rejection by the school to motivate them to be successful and they were able to overcome the barriers put in their path to achieve high grades.
Tikly et al (2006)- ethnocentric curriculum
Black African and Caribbean students are excluded from learning about their own heritage.
Ball- ethnocentric curriculum
Believes that there is an ethnocentric curriculum in the form of “Little Englandism” which focuses on the triumphs of the British Empire.
AimHigher scheme
Ran from 2004 to 2011 to widen participation in higher education of ethnic minorities and other disadvantaged pupils.
Chinese students are the highest achieving students with _ getting 5’s or above in Maths or English?
75%
Black Caribbean pupils are the lowest achieving pupils with only _ achieving 5s or above in maths and english
26.9%
