Ethnicity and achievment - internal Flashcards
Define internal factors and list them
Internal factors are those factors within schools which influence the educational achievement of pupils. They include: Labelling and teacher racism Pupil identities Pupil subcultures Ethnocentric curriculum Assessment Access to opportunities Institutional racism Marketisation, selection and segregation practices
Explain and evaluate labelling and teacher racism
Gillborn and Youdell – teachers hold racialised expectations – expect black students to have behavioural problems + misinterpret their behaviour as challenging to authority, so teachers = more likely to discipline black boys even for minor offences. Pupils react negatively to this which leads to further conflict.
Wright – studied multi-ethnic primary school through observations of interactions of teachers + students. Found teachers held ethnocentric views – see British culture and English language as superior. Led to label of Asian pupils as lacking English language skills, expressing disapproval of their customs + mispronounce their names. This marginalised Asian students, e.g. excluded them from class discussions.
Wright – interviewed teachers + Year 10 students in 2 comprehensive schools in the 1980s. Found that teachers had racialised expectations, i.e. expected Afro-Caribbean students to be troublemakers. Led students to form anti-school subcultures.
Foster – found teacher’s stereotypes of black students as badly behaved could result in them being placed in lower sets which can lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy of underachievement.
Osler - black pupils = most likely group to be permanently excluded from schools, but also face unofficial exclusions (Seclusion). This reduces opportunities to learn.
Evaluation – the theory is deterministic as assumes just bc students are labelled, they will accept the label. However, Mac an Ghaill’s study shows the students can reject the labels.
Sample in Wright’s study is too small to be representative.
Explain Pupil identities
Archer – argues that teachers’ dominant discourse (way of seeing something) excludes e/m students from the image of the ideal pupil. These teacher attitudes create three different types of pupil identities:
The ideal pupil – white, middle class, masculinised identity, these pupils are seen as achieving as a result of natural ability.
The pathologised pupil – Asian, deserving poor, feminised identity, asexual or with an oppressed sexuality, these pupils are seen as conformist and culture-bound achiever who has to work hard to succeed.
The demonised pupil – back or white, working class, hyper sexualised identity, these pupils are seen as unintelligent, per-led, culturally deprived underachievers.
e/m pupils, even those who are high achieving, are seen as either pathologised or demonised pupils. Archer calls this negative positive stereotyping.
Explain Pupil Subcultures
Mirza – studied the strategies adopted by ambitious black girls for avoiding racism - racist teachers restricted the aspirations of black female students through the subject and career choices they suggested. Students tried to avoid teachers’ negative attitudes by choosing subjects not taught by racist teachers and by not asking for help. Thus the girls underachieved.
Sewell – teachers had a stereotypical view of black machismo – expect black boys to be rebellious and anti-school. Boys responded in 4 ways: rebels – opposed to school rules and goals, often excluded, formed anti-school subcultures, conformists – respected school rules, aimed for success, retreatists – isolated from school and the rebels, innovators – pro-education, but anti-school. However, even the conformists faced teacher labelling as well as bullying from their peers.
Fuller – studied year 11 high achieving black girls in a London comprehensive school. She found that black girls rejected negative labels applied to them and turned anger at being labelled into pursuit of educational success, but the girls didn’t conform by seeking the approval of teachers and were friends with low achieving girls. This shows that the self-fulfilling prophecy doesn’t always happen.
Mac an Ghaill – studied Asian and black A Level students and found that students can reject the negative labels applied to them by teachers
Explain Ethnocentric curriculum
Ethnocentric – means regarding your culture as superior to all others. Curriculum – things learnt at school through subjects.
Troyna and Williams – British curriculum gives priority to British culture and English language, it ignores non-European languages, music and literature.
Coard – there is a lack of black literature, history, music and role models in the curriculum, e.g. History teaches that the British civilised the ‘primitive’ people they colonised – this may create low self-esteem among black students and lead to failure. Also, the association of the word ‘black’ with negative connotations may affect the self-esteem of Afro-Caribbean students.
Evaluation - Indian and Chinese students’ achievement is high so there is little evidence that the ethnocentric curriculum has any effect on achievement.
Explain Assessment
Gillborn – argues that e/m pupils underachieve especially when the assessments are based on teacher’s judgements, not on externally marked tests.
For example, prior to 2003, primary school students used to be tested at the very start of the Reception year using the baseline tests. At the time, e/m students did well, even better than white students.
However, in 2003 the system was replaced with foundation stage profiles, these are entirely based on teacher’s judgement of students and are carried out at the end of the year. Since this system was introduced, e/m students have been underachieving.
This shows that teachers’ stereotyping of pupils affects the results.
Explain Access to opportunities
Gillborn – the Gifted and Talented programme was created to meet the needs of more able students in inner city areas, but Gillborn argues it still discriminates against e/m. This is because it is based on teachers’ judgements and white students are more likely to be placed on the G&T register than white students.
Tikly – found that e/m pupils are more likely to be entered for foundation tier exams at GCSE and placed into lower sets. This is often based on teachers’ assumptions about students’ behaviour rather than their actual ability.
Gillborn calls these false assumptions about pupils’ ‘potential’ the new IQism.
Explain institutional racism
Institutional racism – refers to discrimination that is built into the way organisations such as schools work. The Critical race theory sees the education system as institutionally racist.
Gillborn – refers to institutional racism as locked-in inequality – whereby the scale of discrimination is so large that there is no longer any conscious intent to discriminate as discrimination is fully built into the way schools operate.
For example, the abilities of Afro-Caribbean students are underestimated and they are directed into lower level qualifications, e.g. foundation tiers in GCSEs or into BTECs. This means these students can’t get more than C grades and therefore can’t study A Levels. These decisions are made by teachers and could be based on stereotypes.
Explain and evaluate marketisation, selection and segregation
Gillborn – marketisation of education has allowed schools to select students. This puts ethnic minorities at a disadvantage as negative stereotypes can affect admission decisions.
Moore and Davenport – minority pupils fail to get into better schools because these school use primary school reports to ‘screen out’ ‘problem’ students. Also, Non-English speaking parents may not understand the application process. That puts ethnic minority students at a disadvantage.
Evaluation - It is possible that parents send their children to schools where most of the other students are of the same ethnic background as a way of protecting their children from racism. This then causes ethnic segregation between schools.
What are the Policies to tackle the differences in ethnic groups’ educational achievement
Assimilation – 1960s and 70s – the focus was on integrating ethnic minority children into the mainstream British culture to help improve their achievement.
Multicultural education – 1980s and 90s – the idea was to create a broad curriculum which would value all cultures thus raising the ethnic minority children’s self-esteem and thus their results would improve. This policy has been criticised for including stereotypical aspects of different cultures (‘saris, samosas and steel bands’), but failing to tackle institutional racism in education.
Social inclusion – 1990s onwards – monitoring the achievements of ethnic minority pupils and amending the Race Relation Act to make schools legally responsible for promoting equality.
