Ethnic Differnces Inm Achivement - External Factors

Question 1

1. Cultural deprivation

Answer 1

• cultural deprivation theory sees the achievement of some ethnic groups as the result of inadequate socialisation in the home.
• the explanation has three main aspects:
  1. Intellectual and linguistic skills
  2. Attitudes and values
  3. Family structure and parental support

Question 2

Intellectual and linguistic skills

Answer 2

• cultural deprivation theorists see the lack of intellectual and linguistic skills as a major cause of underachievement for many minority children
• they argue that children from low income black families lack intellectual stimulation and enriching experiences - leaves them poorly equipped for school because they have not be able to develop reasoning and problem solving skills
• bereiter and engelman consider the language spoken by low income black families as inadequate for educational success. They see it it’s ungrammatical, disjointed and incapable of expressing abstract ideas
• there has been concern that children who do not speak English at home may be held back educationally however official stats show this is not a major factor e.g 2010 pupils with English as first language were only 3.2 points ahead
• gillborn and mirza (2000) - note Indian pupils do very well despite often not having English as first language

Question 3

Attitudes and values

Answer 3

• cultural deprivation theorists see lack of motivation as a major cause of the failure of many black children. Most children are socialised into the mainstream culture, which instils ambition, competitiveness and willingness to male sacrifices necessary to achieve long term goals. This equips them for success in education
• in contrast, cultural deprivation theorists argue, some black children are socialised into a subculture that instils a fatalistic ‘live for today’ attitude that does not value education and leaves them unequipped for success.

Question 4

Family structure and parental support

Answer 4

• cultural deprivation theorists argue that this failure to socialise children adequately is the result of a dysfunctional family structure. E.g moynihan (1965) argues many black families are headed by a lone mother, their children are deprived of adequate care because she has to struggle financially in the absence of a male breadwinner.
• the fathers absence also means that boys lack an adequate roiled model of male achievement.
• Moynihan sees cultural deprivation as a cycle where inadequately socialised children from unstable families go on to fail at school and become inadequate parents themselves.

Question 5

Family structure and parental support - the new right

Answer 5

• the new right put forward similar explanations - Murray (1984) argues that a high rate of lone parenthood and a lack of positive male role models lead to the underachievement levels of some ethnic minorities.
• scruton (1986) sees the low achievement levels of some ethnic minorities as resulting from a failure to embrace mainstream British culture

Question 6

Family structure and parental support - pryce (1979)

Answer 6

• pryce - also sees family structure as contributing to the underachievement of black Caribbean pupils in Britain. From a comparison of black and Asian pupils, he claims that Asians are higher achievers because their culture is more resistant to racism and gives them a greater sense of self worth. In contrast, he argues, black Caribbean culture is less comprehensive and less resistant to racism. As a result, many black pupils have low self esteem and under achieve.
• pryce argues that the difference is the result of the differing impact on colonialism of the two groups

Question 7

Sewell: fathers, gangs and culture

Answer 7

• Sewell (2009) argues that it is not the absence of fathers as role models that leads to black boys underachieving. Instead, Sewell see the problem as a lack of fatherly nurturing or ‘tough love’ (firm, fair, respectful and non abusive discipline). This results in black boys finding it hard to overcome the emotional and behavioural difficulties of adolescence

Question 8

Sewell - absent fathers

Answer 8

• in the absence of the restraining influence of a nurturing father, street gangs of other fearless boys offer black boys ‘perverse loyalty and love’. These present boys with a media inspired role model of anti school black masculinity, whose ideal as arnot does describes as ‘the ultra tough ghetto superstar, an image constantly reinforces through rap lyrics and MTV videos’

Question 9

Sewell - interviews and barrier to success

Answer 9

• many black boys are subject to powerful antio educational peer group pressure: most of the academically successful black boys that Sewell interviewed felt that the greatest barrier to success was pressure from other boys.
• Speaking ins standard English and doing well at school were often viewed with suspicion by their peers and seen as ‘selling out’ to the white establishment
• as sewell says - ‘the biggest barrier facing black boys is actually black peer pressure. We need to talk about how black students discourage their peers’

Question 10

Sewell and black and aisan students

Answer 10

• Sewell argues that black students do worse than their Asian counterparts because of cultural differences in socialisation and attitudes to education. As he puts it, while one groups is being nurtured by MTV, the other is clocking up the educational hours.
• Sewell concludes that black children - particularly boys - need to have greater expectations placed on them to raise their aspirations
• however, critical race theorist e.g gillborn (2008) argue that is is not peer pressure but institutional racism within the education system itself that produces the failure of large numbers of black boys

Question 11

Asian families

Answer 11

• while many black families have absent fathers, in Sewell view Indian and Chinese pupils benefit from supportive families that have an ‘Asian work ethic’ and place a high value on education
• likewise, Lupton (2004) argues that adult authority in Asian families is similar to the model that operates in schools. She found that respectful behaviour towards adults was expected from children. This had a knock on effect in school, since parents were more likely to be supportive of school behaviour policies

Question 12

White working class families

Answer 12

• white w/c often underachieve and have lower aspirations. E.g, a survey of 16,000 pupils by McCullloch (2014) found that ethnic minority pupils are more likely to aspire to go to uni than British white pupils
• this low level of aspiration and achievement may be the result of a lack of parental support. E.g Lupton studies four mainly w/c schools - 2 predominantly white, one serving a largely Pakistani community and the fourth from a ethnically mixed. Community.

Question 13

What did Luton find in her study of the 4 schools

Answer 13

• she found that teachers reported poorer levels of behaviour and discipline in the white w/c school- despite the fact they had fewer children on FSM.
  Teachers blamed this on lower levels of parental support and the negative attitude that white w/c parents had towards education
• in contrast, ethnic minority parents were more likely to see education as ‘a way up in society’

Question 14

White working class families - evans

Answer 14

• evans (2006) - argues that street culture in white w/c areas can be brutal and so young people have to learn how to withstand 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 hard for pupils to succeed.

Question 15

Compensatory education

Answer 15

• the main policy that has been adopted to tackle cultural deprivation is compensatory education. E.g the aim of operation headstart in the USA was to compensate children for the cultural deficit that are said to suffer because of deprived backgrounds

Question 16

Criticisms of cultural deprivation theory - driver (1977)

Answer 16

• driver (1977) criticises cultural deprivation theory for ignoring the positive effects of ethnicity on achievement. He shows that the black Caribbean family, far from being dysfunctional, provides girls with positive role models of strong independent women
• driver argues that this is why black girls tend to be more successful in education than black boys

Question 17

Criticisms of cultural deprivation theory - Lawrence (1982)

Answer 17

• challenges pryces view that black pupils fail because their culture is weak and they lack self esteem. He argues that that black pupils underachieve not because of low self esteem, but because of racism

Question 18

Criticisms of cultural deprivation - keddie

Answer 18

• sees cultural deprivation as a victim blaming explanation. She argues that ethnic minority children are culturally different, not culturally deprived - they underachieve because schools are ethnocentric: biased in favour of white culture and against minorities
• these critics oppose compensatory education because they see it as an attempt to impose the dominant white culture on children who already have a coherent culture of their own

Question 19

What is a multicultural education?

Answer 19

• a policy that recognises and values minority cultures and includes them in the curriculum

Question 20

What is anti racist education?

Answer 20

• a policy that challenges the prejudice and discrimination that exists in schools and wider society

Question 21

2. Material deprivation and class

Answer 21

• means lack of those physical necessities that are seen as essential or normal for life in todays society. In general, w/c people are more likely to face poverty and material deprivation.
• material deprivation explanations see educational failure resulting from factors such as substandard housing and low incomes

Question 22

Problems ethnic minorities face - palmer (2012)

Answer 22

Ethnic minorities are more likely to face problems such as according to palmer (2012)
- almost half of all ethnic minority children live in low income household, as against a quarter of white children
- ethnic minorities are almost twice as likely to be unemployed compared whith whites
- ethnic minority households are three times as likely to be homeless
- almost half of Bangladeshi and Pakistani workers earned under £7 per hour, compared with only a quarter of white British workers
- in addition, ethnic minority workers are more likely to be engaged in short work, and Bangladeshi and Pakistani women are more likely than others to be engaged in low paid home working

Question 23

Reasons as to why ethnic minorities may be at greater risk of material deprivation

Answer 23

• this results from unemployment, low pay and overcrowding:
• many live in economically depressed areas with high unemployment and low wage rate
• cultural factors such as the tradition of purdah in some Muslim households, which prevents woken from working outside the home
• a lack of language skills, and foreign qualifications not being recognised by uk employers,
• asylum seekers may not be allowed to take work
• racial discrimination in the labour market and house market
• such inequalities are reflected in the proportion of children from different ethnic groups who are eligible for free school meals. The material deprivation explanation argues that such class differences explain why Pakistani tend to do worse than Indian and white pupils

Question 24

Indian pupils and material deprivation

Answer 24

• Indian pupils - whose achieving generally about average - are likely to be from better off backgrounds e.g their ethnic group os most likely to attended private schools - as twice the rate of whites and five times that of blacks

Question 25

Does class override ethnicity?

Answer 25

• Indian and Chinese pupils who are materially deprived still do better then most. E.g, 2011, 86% of Chinese girls who received FSM achieved five to more higher grades at GCSE, compared with only 65% of emote girls who were not receiving FSM
• this suggest that material deprivation and social class factors do not completely override the influence of ethnicity e.g modood (2004) found that, while children from low income families generally did less well, the effects of low income were much less for ethnic groups that for white pupils

Question 26

3. Racism in wider societ

Answer 26

• sociologists argue that poverty is itself the product of another factor - racism
• mason (2000) puts it, ‘discrimination is continuing and persistent feature of the experience of Britain’s citizens of minority ethnic origin’
• Rex (1986) shoes how racial discrimination leads to social exclusion and how this worsens the poverty faced by ethnic minorities. In housing, for instance discrimination means that minorities are more likely to be forced unto substandard accommodation that white people of the same class

Question 27

Racism in wider society - employment

Answer 27

• in employment, there is evidence of direct and deliberate dissemination. E.g, wood et al (2010) sent three closely matched job applicants to each of almost 1,000 job vacancies. One the applicants us using names associated with different ethnic groups. For each Job, one appeared to come from a white person and two from members of minority groups. Wood et al found that only 1 in 16 ‘ethnic minority’ applicants were offered an interview, as against 1 in 9 ‘white’ applicants
• this helps to explain why members of ethnic minorities are more likely to face unemployment an low pay, and this in turn has a negative effect on their children’s educational prospects