Education and Ethnicity – Knowledge Check List

Knowledge checklist

Key concepts – You need to be able to define the following key concepts, explain how they are related to class and educational achievement, and asses their relative importance in explaining ethnic differences in educational achievement

• Social class

• Cultural deprivation

• Material deprivation

• Linguistic deprivation

• The ethnocentric curriculum

• Institutional racism

• The A-C economy

• Pupil subcultures

• Labeling

• The self fulfilling prophecy

Key research studies

• Steve Strand – the Longitudinal study

• Crozier – some Asian parents keep their distance

• David Gilborn – teacher labelling

• Cecile Wright – teacher labelling

• Mac An Ghail – pupil subcultures

• Tony Sewell – pupil subcultures

• Gilborn and Youdell – the A-C economy

Sample short answer questions

• Suggest three home based cultural factors which may account for why Chinese and Indian children outperform other ethnic groups (6)

• Suggest three ways in which the school curriculum may be said to be ethnocentric (6)

• Suggest two criticisms of labeling theory (4)

Sample essay questions

• Briefly examine the relationship between cultural factors and ethnic differences in educational achievement (12)

• Using material from item A and elsewhere, assess the claim that ‘ethnic difference in educational achievement are primarily the result of in-school factors’ (20)