Ethnicity and Differential Educational Achievement: In-School Processes

Last Updated on October 27, 2026 by Karl Thompson

Sociologists explain ethnic differences in educational achievement in two broad ways. External factors are things outside the school: home and family life, culture and material deprivation (see ethnicity and education: cultural factors). In-school factors are the processes inside schools, which this post covers. AQA’s exam questions use exactly this split, so you need both.

In-school processes which may explain differential educational achievement by ethnicity include:

• Teacher labelling, which can be both positive and negative (high and low expectations depending on the ethnic group)
• Pupil reactions to teacher labelling, and pupil subcultures
• Setting, streaming and exam tiers, with some minority pupils over-represented in lower sets
• The ethnocentric curriculum, where what is taught in schools marginalises ethnic minorities
• Institutional racism, where racism is built into the policies and routines of the school

Some people might regard racist setting and the ethnocentric curriculum as part of institutional racism. It’s just a matter of how you define it!

The patterns these factors need to explain: Chinese and Indian pupils have the highest GCSE results, most ethnic minority groups now do better than White British pupils, and Black Caribbean, Gypsy/Roma and Irish Traveller pupils do considerably worse. The figures are on the ethnicity and education statistics post.

Teacher labelling

Teacher–pupil relationships may explain some of the differences in educational achievement by ethnicity, and since it is teachers who have the power in school, teacher labelling is something we need to consider. (The concept itself, and the self-fulfilling prophecy, are explained on the labelling theory post.)

There are a number of classic research studies which have found evidence of teacher labelling of ethnic minorities based on ethnic stereotypes…

Cecile Wright: labelling in primary schools

Cecile Wright (1992) studied four inner-city primary schools, observing classrooms and interviewing teachers, parents and children. She found that teachers perceived ethnic minority children differently from white children. Asian children received the least attention and were often left out of classroom discussion, because teachers assumed their English was poor. African Caribbean children were expected to behave badly and received a lot of attention from teachers, nearly all of it negative. See Cecile Wright: racism in multi-ethnic primary schools.

David Gillborn: African Caribbean pupils as a ‘challenge’

David Gillborn (1990) spent two years studying an inner-city comprehensive he called City Road. He found that while most teachers were committed to treating all students fairly, they tended to see African Caribbean pupils’ behaviour as a challenge to their authority when no challenge was intended, and reacted with measures of control. Gillborn called this ‘the myth of an Afro-Caribbean challenge’. Although the teachers rejected racism, their actions were racist in their consequences, because African Caribbean pupils were disciplined more often than others.

Tony Sewell: teachers and black boys

Tony Sewell (1997) is best known for blaming street culture outside school, but he also found that confrontations between black boys and teachers were often sparked by teachers’ handling of them, especially teachers’ ability to ‘shame them up’ in front of their peers. So even Sewell recognised that teachers’ reactions don’t help. See Tony Sewell: explaining black boys’ underachievement.

Paul Connolly: labelling starts early

Paul Connolly studied reception and Year 1 classes in a large inner-city primary school (his book, Racism, Gender Identities and Young Children, was published in 1998). He found that teachers’ tendency to over-discipline African Caribbean boys helped build those boys a reputation for being ‘aggressive’, even at the age of five and six. Asian boys, meanwhile, were often excluded by other boys from playground football and were more likely to face racist abuse when they joined in.

British-Chinese pupils: positive stereotypes

Labels aren’t always negative. Louise Archer and Becky Francis studied British-Chinese pupils, an educationally very successful group (Understanding Minority Ethnic Achievement, 2007). Revisiting that research, Francis, Mau and Archer (2017) found ‘hidden racisms’ even against these high achievers: teachers criticised British-Chinese pupils’ ways of learning even though the pupils did very well. They argue that even positive stereotypes of ‘Chinese success’ still treat these pupils as different and ‘other’.

Do teachers label ethnic minorities today?

Many of the above studies are now more than 30 years old, and they focus mainly on the labelling of black boys. Since then the picture has changed a lot: Black African pupils now score above the national average at GCSE. HOWEVER, Black Caribbean pupils still score well below it, and more recent research suggests expectations still matter. Steve Strand (2012) used a national survey of young people to show that Black Caribbean pupils were less likely than White British pupils to be entered for the higher tier of tests at age 14, even when they had the same prior attainment and family background (see setting and tiering below). So it would be wrong to conclude that teacher labelling no longer plays any role.

Prevent and labelling

Since 2015 schools have had a legal duty, known as the Prevent duty, to help prevent young people being drawn into terrorism. Some researchers and campaign groups argue that this has led teachers to view Muslim pupils’ behaviour with suspicion, which could affect how those pupils feel about school. This debate is covered on are schools institutionally racist?

Pupil subcultures and responses to labelling

Some (now quite dated) participant observation research has found that anti-school subcultures among black boys may be responsible for some of their underachievement. Other research sees subcultures as a response to teacher labelling and racism, so the two factors, teacher labelling and pupils’ collective responses, may work together. (Pupil subcultures in general are covered on the pupil subcultures post.)

Tony Sewell: four responses to schooling

Sewell (1997) found that black boys responded to school in four different ways: conformists, innovators, rebels and retreatists. Only a small minority, the rebels, adopted the anti-school ‘hyper-masculine’ identity, although they were the most visible group. The details are on the Tony Sewell post.

Máirtín Mac an Ghaill: Young, Gifted and Black

Mac an Ghaill (1988), Young, Gifted and Black: Student-Teacher Relations in the Schooling of Black Youth, used mainly participant observation, both in school and by getting to know students and socialising with them outside school. He studied three groups: the Asian Warriors, the African Caribbean Rasta Heads and the Black Sisters.

He found that African Caribbean and Asian students experienced school very differently from white students, mainly because of racism within the school and college, and he argued that their anti-school attitudes were reactions against this racism. He mainly blamed the institutions rather than the students.

(Mac an Ghaill’s later study of masculinities, The Making of Men, is covered on the pupil subcultures post.)

Heidi Safia Mirza: black girls’ responses to labelling

Heidi Safia Mirza (1992), Young, Female and Black, studied 62 young African Caribbean women, aged 15 to 19, in two south London comprehensives. She found that black girls did relatively well at school, and she rejected the idea that negative labels had damaged their self-esteem. The girls valued education and wanted to succeed, but their strategies for coping with racist or unhelpful teachers, such as avoiding them and not asking for help, could hold them back. See Heidi Safia Mirza: Young, Female and Black.

Setting, streaming and tiering

The way schools organise teaching and learning may disadvantage some ethnic minority groups.

David Gillborn and Deborah Youdell found that schools under pressure to improve their headline GCSE results practised ‘educational triage’: they concentrated effort on pupils judged able to get a C grade, and wrote off others. Black pupils were more likely to be judged as having less ability and placed in lower groups. In one of their schools, only 2 Black pupils (5.6% of Black pupils) were in the top ability band, compared with 99 white pupils (33.2%). Their study is covered in full on Gillborn and Youdell: rationing education, and setting in general on setting and streaming.

Steve Strand (2012) used data from the Longitudinal Study of Young People in England (LSYPE) and found that Black Caribbean pupils were systematically under-represented in entry to the higher tiers of the national maths and science tests at age 14. This gap remained after controlling for prior attainment, social class and a wide range of pupil, family, school and neighbourhood factors. Because the top results needed higher-tier entry, and teachers decide which tier pupils enter, Strand argued that tier entry offers ‘a window on teacher expectation effects’.

The ethnocentric curriculum

The ethnocentric curriculum is where the range and content of subjects taught in schools as part of the formal curriculum are biased towards the majority ethnic group and marginalise minority ethnic groups. In English schools, an ethnocentric curriculum would focus on White British culture and pay less attention to Black and Asian cultures.

Bernard Coard’s book How the West Indian Child is Made Educationally Sub-normal in the British School System (1971) was one of the first to make this argument. Coard argued that low teacher expectations, and a school system that offered West Indian children no positive image of themselves, lowered their motivation and their achievement. Later, the Swann Report (1985), Education for All, argued that the curriculum needed to reflect Britain’s ethnic diversity. Historical examples of the ethnocentric curriculum include:

• British history being taught from the European point of view, possibly even putting a positive spin on colonialism
• White European languages such as French being taught as the main language subjects, rather than Asian or African languages
• Symbolic annihilation of Black and Asian people through their under-representation in textbooks
• Assemblies having a Christian focus, as well as the school holidays (Easter and Christmas)

However, the above examples are historic and you need to ask yourself whether the curriculum today is actually ethnocentric. A much higher proportion of pupils today are Black and Asian, and many schools have made their curriculum more multicultural; one visible example is Black History Month.

The debate is still live. In 2022 the footballer Troy Deeney launched a campaign to make the teaching of Black, Asian and minority ethnic history compulsory in schools in England. A YouGov survey of teachers commissioned for his campaign found that only 12% said they had the right resources and expertise to teach more diverse topics.

Supporters argue that a more diverse curriculum would help minority ethnic pupils feel included and get more out of school. Others question how much the curriculum explains achievement, given that most minority ethnic groups already outperform White British pupils at GCSE, or worry that making it compulsory could create resentment rather than understanding. In an essay, this is a useful contemporary example for evaluating the ethnocentric curriculum.

Can schools reduce these gaps? One piece of evidence that in-school factors can be changed comes from the government’s Aiming High project in the 2000s, which used whole-school approaches to raise the achievement of African Caribbean pupils. An independent evaluation led by Leon Tikly (2006) found that the share of 14-year-old Black Caribbean boys in the project schools reaching the expected level (level 5) rose by 13% in maths and 12% in English, above the average for those schools.

Institutional racism

Below is a summary of some of the evidence that suggests schools may be institutionally racist. For a more in-depth look at the issue, see are schools institutionally racist?

When we step back and look at the statistics, we find that Black Caribbean pupils are:

• more likely to be permanently excluded than White British pupils
• more likely to be identified as having special educational needs: in Strand’s (2007) analysis of a national survey, Black Caribbean pupils were the group most likely to have identified needs (14%)
• more likely to be put into lower sets and lower exam tiers (see above)

Taken together, these statistics may raise our suspicions about whether schools are institutionally racist, and some sociologists, such as David Gillborn, have argued that they are.

Exclusion rates by ethnicity

Ethnic group	Permanent exclusions per 100 pupils
Gypsy/Roma	0.43
Irish Traveller	0.35
Mixed White and Black Caribbean	0.24
Black Caribbean	0.18
White British	0.13
All pupils	0.11

State-funded schools in England, 2022/23. Source: Ethnicity facts and figures, Permanent exclusions, published 11 December 2024. Rates for small groups are based on small numbers and are less reliable.

Gypsy/Roma and Irish Traveller pupils have the highest permanent exclusion rates, and the DfE’s figures for 2024/25 show the same. Mixed White and Black Caribbean pupils are excluded at almost twice the rate of White British pupils, and Black Caribbean pupils at about 1.4 times the rate, a smaller gap than the ‘two and a half times’ often quoted from older data.

But to find out whether these statistics reflect institutional racism, we would need to look at specific cases to see whether pupils from different ethnic groups were treated differently in the lead-up to their exclusions. For more on exclusions, see why do some children get excluded from school?

Racism in setting and streaming

Gillborn and Youdell’s research (above) found that Black pupils were more likely to be placed in lower sets than their ability justified. This meant they weren’t pushed as hard and were more likely to be entered for lower-tier exam papers, which capped the grades they could get. Because this came from the way schools responded to league-table pressure, rather than from individual prejudice, Gillborn argues that it is institutional racism.

Institutional racism in university entry?

Shiner and Modood (2002) analysed university admissions data and found that at the older universities, some ethnic minority applicants, Pakistani applicants in particular, were less likely to receive offers than similar White applicants. However, a 2005 reanalysis by the Higher Education Funding Council for England found that most of this gap was a result of the statistical model used, and that only a much smaller disadvantage remained for Pakistani applicants. This is a good example of how the same data can support different conclusions.

Sociology of Education Revision Bundle

If you like this sort of thing, then you might like my sociology of education revision notes bundle, written by Karl Thompson, who taught A-level sociology for eighteen years and spent twelve as an AQA examiner, marking all three papers on the current specification.

Signposting and related posts

This material is relevant to the sociology of education option, usually taught in the first year of A-level Sociology.

In-school factors are usually considered alongside home-based cultural factors and material deprivation in explaining differential educational achievement by ethnicity.

Please click here to return to the homepage – ReviseSociology.com

Sources

• Coard, B. (1971) How the West Indian Child is Made Educationally Sub-normal in the British School System.
• Connolly, P. (1998) Racism, Gender Identities and Young Children. London: Routledge.
• Francis, B., Mau, A. and Archer, L. (2017) ‘The construction of British Chinese educational success’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 43(14), 2331–2345.
• Archer, L. and Francis, B. (2007) Understanding Minority Ethnic Achievement. London: Routledge.
• Gillborn, D. (1990) ‘Race’, Ethnicity and Education: Teaching and Learning in Multi-Ethnic Schools.
• Gillborn, D. and Youdell, D. (2000) Rationing Education. Buckingham: Open University Press.
• Higher Education Funding Council for England (2005) Higher education admissions: assessment of bias.
• Mac an Ghaill, M. (1988) Young, Gifted and Black. Milton Keynes: Open University Press.
• Mirza, H. S. (1992) Young, Female and Black. London: Routledge.
• Sewell, T. (1997) Black Masculinities and Schooling. Stoke-on-Trent: Trentham Books.
• Shiner, M. and Modood, T. (2002) ‘Help or hindrance? Higher education and the route to ethnic equality’, British Journal of Sociology of Education, 23(2), 209–232.
• Strand, S. (2007) Minority ethnic pupils in the Longitudinal Study of Young People in England, DCSF Research Report RR002.
• Strand, S. (2012) ‘The White British–Black Caribbean achievement gap: tests, tiers and teacher expectations’, British Educational Research Journal, 38(1), 75–101.
• Swann Report (1985) Education for All.
• Tikly, L. et al. (2006) Evaluation of Aiming High: African Caribbean Achievement Project. DfES.
• Wright, C. (1992) Race Relations in the Primary School.
• Channel 4 News (23 February 2022) ‘Troy Deeney calls for mandatory teaching of Black, Asian and minority ethnic history’.
• Ethnicity facts and figures (2024) Permanent exclusions, 2022 to 2023.