AQA Sociology Chapter 2 Topic 3 - Ethnic Differences in Achievement

Internal factors (2) institutional racism

·         Troyna and Williams argue we need to go beyond teacher racism and view how schools and colleges routinely discriminate against ethnic minorities.

·         Individual racism = results from prejudice views of individual teachers and others.

·         Institutional racism = discrimination built into the way institutions operate.

·         Critical race theory = sees racism as ingrained feature of society.

-        Carmichael and Hamilton = institutional racism less overt, more subtle, less identifiable & originates in operation of established and respected forces in society.

-        Roithmayr = institutional racism is ‘locked-in inequality’ (scale of historical discrimination so large that conscious need to discriminate no longer needed – inequality becomes self-perpetrating).

-        Gillborn = ‘locked-in inequality’ in education: ethnic inequality deep rooted & large so inevitable feature of education.

·         Marketisation and segregation =

-        Gillborn = Marketisation gives schools more power to select pupils and allows stereotypes to influence.

-        Moore and Davenport = American research shows how selection procedures leads to ethnic segregation, with minority pupils failing to get into better secondary schools due to discrimination. Primary school reports used to screen out pupils with speaking difficulties and the application process was harder for non-English speaking parents to understand.

-        Commission for Racial Equality = racism in school admissions procedures means ethnic minority pupils more likely to attend unpopular schools due to: reports from primary schools that stereotype minority pupils, racist bias in interviews for school places.

·         The ethnocentric curriculum= curriculum that reflects the culture of one ethnic group. Builds racial bias…