Education and ethnicity

Home Factors

Language differences

• 60's and 70's many ethnic minority kids struggled at school as they were born abroad
• less of an issue now - Indian, Bangladeshi and Chinese highest achieving now - English as second factor not important

Family Life

• Tony Sewell - lack of male role models at home may lead to reduced aspirations for black boys
• black girls work harder as may have to raise families alone
• Archer(2003) - Pakistani + Bangladeshi boys saw education as means of becoming breadwinner - supporting relatives at home and in Asia
• Pilkington(1997) - families of imigrant origin more likely to persuade children to stay on at school until 16

material factors

• UK unemployment for Black & Asian = twice whites
• total family income likely to be lower in Bangladeshi & Pakistani household as women 3x more likely to be housewives
• mother headed black families may struggle on single income
• low income makes harder to fund extras that promote educational success
• smaller attainment gap between FSM and non-FSM students for ethnic minority groups than for whites - suggests they find way of offsetting finanical difficulties

Innate ability

• Hans Eysenck(1971) - American blacks had lower intelligience than whites. Challenged as black students from disadvantaged background compared to whites.

ethnocentric curriculum

• school courses and curriculum that reflect the dominant culture and ignore others
• Bernard Coard(1971) criticised absence of black literature, history, and music in British curriculum - lack of positive images of black people in text books - reduced engagement of non-white students

Evaluation

• after Coard's research school curriculums became multicultural
• schools have community cohesion and inclusion policies
• full time faith schools where culture of particular groups is central focus

overt racism

• some students avoid school due to fear of racism. parents send kids to worse schools in familiar areas
• Gillborn(1990) - racist name calling and attacks by whites on Asian students common. May have increased since London bombings(2005)

institutional racism

• schools organise field trips or exams to coincide with religious festivals
• Gillborn and Youdell(2000) - disproportionate number black students entered foundation GCSE's - decision based on teacher judgements = stereotyping
• OFSTED tracks exclusions and academic results of each school's ethnic minority students 
• pressure on teachers to obtain best possible grades from all students

David Gillborn(1990)

• black caribbean boys reprimanded more than Asians and whites for same offenses. Detention for behaviour viewed as challenge to authority
• many formed subcultures opposed to school and eventually expelled
• most teachers not intentionally racist but treated blacks differently through desire to maintain authority over group seen as difficult.
• convincing, by a white sociologist, documents observations over 2 years, interviewed staff and students + quantifyable data from detetion books. 2008-2009 black students 3x more likely to be excluded.

Tony Sewell

• teachers at 2 comprehensives blamed black boys culture and home life for poor student-staff relationships rather than considering themselves responsible
• black teachers eager to repress black youth culture
• black headmaster frequently excluded black students for Caribbean hairstyles
• many black students were , in fact, rebels.
• doesn't exclusively blame teachers
• as black sociologist conducted much of research around black friends

• several minority groups, noteably Chinese do better academically than whites
• girls outperform boys in all ethnic groups
• large variations in attainment in Asian & black categories
• Black Carribean boys achieve poorly but gap between them and white boys narrowed recently
• ethnic minority students more likely to retake exams than whites
• ethnic minority students more likely than whites to enrol in degree level courses, but at lower status universities, gaining fewer 1st class and 2nd upper degrees

percentage boys/girls different ethnic background 5+A*-C GCSE grades, including English and maths 2010-11(DCFS and DFE publications)

• White - boys 54.6%, girls 61.5%, both 58%
• Indian - boys 70.5%, girls 78.6%, both 74.4%
• Pakistania - boys 48.9%, girls 56.7%, both 52.6%
• Bangladeshi - boys 56.7%, girls 62.7%, both 59.7%
• Black Caribbean - boys 42.3%, girls 54.8%, both 48.6%
• Black African - boys 52.2%, girls 63.2%, both 57.9%
• Chinese - boys 73.6%, girls 83.6%, both 78.5%
• All students - 54.6%, girls 61.9%, both 58.2%