Category: education

Sociological perspectives on the role and functions of education in society; the significance of in-school processes such as teacher labelling and subcultures for pupil identities; explanations for differences in educational achievement by social class, gender and ethnicity; the impact of education policies of marketization, selection and privatisation, and the globalization of education

Social class and educational achievement statistics

Pupils from the lowest fifth of households by income are twice as likely to fail both English and Maths GCSE.

The United Kingdom government does not routinely collect statistics on the relationship between social class and educational achievement!

Instead, we have to rely on statistics which use ‘proxy-indicators’ to look at the relationship between household income and educational achievement, rather than the relationship between social class and educational achievement.

Two sources we might use to to examine the relationship between social class and educational achievement are:

  • Free School Meal (FSM) achievement rates compare to non FSM achievement rates
  • Data on independent school results compared to government schools results.

Problems with relying on income as a proxy for social class

Both of the above statistics measure income alone, rather than the broader concept of social class.

Household income is related to social class, but income alone does not tell us exactly which social class someone is from. Some parents might work in traditionally ‘working-class’ jobs which could be very well paid, such as the building trades; while other parents might be earning a limited amount of money working part-time in traditionally middle-class jobs – as private music teachers for example.

Also, income does not necessarily tell us about the cultural aspects of class – how well educated parents are or how much social and cultural capital they have, for example.

Thus you must remember that household income indicators are only proxies for social class, they may not show us precisely what a child’s social class background is.

Achievement of free school meals pupils

In 2022 only 29% of Free School Meals (FSM) pupils achieved grade five or above in both English and Maths compared to 57% of non Free School Meal Pupils. This means that non-FSM pupils from higher income households are twice as likely to pass both English and Maths compared to FSM pupils from lower income households.

Similarly, only 26% of FSM pupils are entered for the higher status English Baccalaureate compared to 43% of non-FSM pupils.

Parents in households with a gross annual income of no more than £16190 were entitled to claim for Free School Meals. This means that all children from households with parents on benefits and some children with parents working part time in lower income jobs will be eligible.

22.5% of children were eligible for Free School Meals in 2022, which is just over 1/5th of all students. Thus the blue bar above represents the poorest fifth of children and the red bar represents the richest 4/5ths.

Limitations of Free School Meals statistics

One limitation is that it FSM eligibility is based on gross household income, so it doesn’t tell us about poverty differences within this group based on disposable income. For example, if one household owns their house outright they would have a lot more disposable income than a household with a mortgage.

A further limitation is that you are not getting a detailed comparison, you are only able to compare the achievement of the poorest 20% with the achievement of richest 80%.

It would be better if you could compare more categories, so the poorest fifth, the next poorest fifth and so on. If you did this you would probably see a wider achievement gap between the poorest fifth of children and richest fifth.

Independent School Results Compared to State Schools

Pupils attending independent, fee paying, schools get much better GCSE results than pupils attending normal academies or LEA controlled ‘comprehensive’ schools.

In 2021 more than 60% of GCSEs awarded to pupils attending private schools achieved a grade A, compared to only 30% of GCSEs awarded to pupils attending academies or LEA maintained state schools (approximate figures), and the gap between private and state schools is increasing.

It’s interesting to note that non-selective state schools (or the 150 so state grammar schools) get proportionately more A grades at GCSE than the private schools, but there are very few of these grammar schools)

In order to afford the fees to get your children into an independent school, you have to be comfortably in the top 10% of households, hence comparing the results allows us to explore the relationsip between income and educational achievement at the top of income scale.

There are a few scholarships for pupils from poorer households, but not in significant enough numbers to skew the overall comparison, it’s mainly rich kids attending these private schools.

Top 10 independent schools for A-level results

If we look at the very top, very expensive schools we see that money really does buy you a very good chance of achieving 3 A-levels at A-A*, with the top ten schools and colleges all having a 90% success rate at that level.

Although it will cost your parents a minimum of £15K a year to get you into one of those schools.

One advantage of the above stats is that it’s much more likely that you’re seeing the solidly upper middle class in these schools, rather than this just being about income.

However, this is at the same time a disadvantage as we cannot isolate variables. We can’t be sure the extent to which is is purely wealth and income influencing these results, or cultural capital.

One thing is for sure: it is not just the raw intelligence of the pupils attending these schools, they are being gifted with an enormous educational advantage compared to students sitting A-levels at regular state colleges.

Conclusions

If we use the above data, we can see there is a drastic difference in the achievement rates at the very top and the very bottom of the household income scales.

IF we think household income is a valid indicator of social class, we can also say there are huge social class differences in educational achievement based on the above statistics.

However, we don’t have systematic, annual data on the relationship between the vast majority of middle income households and educational achievement.

The lack of consistent monitoring could be due to our neoliberal government trying to disguise the truth that there is a clear difference in educational outcomes by social class, which in turn is due to social class inequalities in society, which is something neoliberalism is happy to maintain.

Signposting

The relationship between social class and educational achievement is one of the main topics within the sociology of education at A level.

Sources

GOV.UK Key Stage Four Performance 2021-22.

Why do Gypsy, Roma and Traveller Children have such low educational achievement?

Gypsy, Roma and Traveller (GRT) children underachieve significantly compared to students from all other ethnic backgrounds (source for graphic below):

Attainment 8 Results, 2018 data, DFE

The most obvious explanation is to look at their poor attendance rates. Gypsy and Roma and Traveller (GRT) children have much higher absence rates than children from other ethnic groups: 13% and 18.8% respectively.

Absence from School, 2019, DFE.

However, Professor Kalwant Bhopal, from the Center for Research in Race and Education at Birmingham university has conducted research with Gypsy, Roma and Traveller (GRT) children and cites two main reasons for poor attendance and high drop out rates:

  • Firstly they they don’t feel represented in the school curriculum
  • Secondly that they have experienced racism in mainstream schools

Not feeling included in the school curriculum

Parents felt that the curriculum did not adequately represent their unique histories, they felt that they were effectively excluded, and that the curriculum wasn’t really for them.

They also felt suspicious of sex education being included in the curriculum – in their communities, this is something that is done within the family rather than talked about in public.

Finally, simple activities where children are asked to talk about their home lives can make GRT children feel very different very quickly. Asking a child to draw a picture of their home-life, for example can lead to most children drawing pictures of homes and gardens, which is different to what GRT children are going to draw.

In short, it sounds like children are experiencing the curriculum as ‘ethnocentric’!

Being victims of discrimination and racism

Parents and pupils claimed that they had experienced racism from both children and teachers within schools, however, when they reported incidents of racism this tended not to be taken seriously as they were white.

GRT parents were also very sensitive to stereotypes surrounding the GRT community.

Funding Cuts

Funding cuts to Traveller services as a possible barrier to maintaining attendance levels of GRT children.

Changing Times?

Having said all of the above, times are changing. Younger GRT parents are much more pro-school than older parents, and much more likely to work with.

Sources

Cecile Wright: Racism in Multi-Ethnic Primary Schools

This classic ethnographic study suggests that teacher stereotypes and labelling have a negative impact on Asian and Black Caribbean students in primary schools

This classic ethnographic study of four inner city primary schools suggests that the teacher labeling of ethnic minorities leads to them having a more negative experience of school than white children.

The study took place In 1988-1989, and was published in 192. The main research methods included classroom observations and interviews with both school staff (teachers, managers and support staff) and the parents of some students.

The study involved researching almost 1000 students, 57 staff and 38 parents.

Wright’s main conclusion was that although the majority of staff seemed genuinely committed to the ideals of treating students from different ethnic background equally, in practice there was discrimination within the classroom.

This study seems to be great support for the labeling theory of education and suggests that in school factors are one of the main reasons for the underachievement of ethnic minority students.

Asians in Primary Schools

Wright found that Asian students were often excluded from classroom discussions because teachers thought they had a poor grasp of the English language. When teachers did involve Asian students they often used simplistic language.

Asian girls seemed invisible to teachers and they received less attention from teachers than other students. Teachers often showed insensitivity towards their cultural norms such as disapproving when Asian girls wanted to maintain privacy in PE when getting changed.

She cites one example when a teacher was handing out permission letters for a school trip saying to the Asian girls: ‘I suppose we’l have problems with you girls. Is it worth me giving you a letter, because your parents don’t allow you be be away from home overnight’?

Wright concluded that such stereotypical comments from teachers resulted in other students becoming hostile to Asian students and the Asian students becoming isolated.

It also led to the Asian students becoming more ambivalent towards school. For example, when the school introduced a celebration of Asian culture into the curriculum while Asian students did express some pride in having their culture recognized, they also felt concerned that this might lead to more teasing and harassment from white children.

Teachers did, however, expect Asian students to be academically successful.

Black Caribbeans in Primary Schools

Teachers expected Black Caribbean students to be poorly behaved, and they expected that they would have to be punished as a result. Teachers were also insensitive to the fact that many students would have been victims of racism.

Wright cites the example in one class of a student called Marcus who was frequently criticized for shouting out the right answers to questions, while white students were not.

Black Caribbean students received a disproportionate amount of teachers negative attention. Compared to white students whose behaviour was the same they were more likely to be:

  • sent out of the class
  • sent to the head teacher
  • have privileges removed.

Trivializing Ethnic Minority Cultures

Teachers often mispronounced words or names related to minority ethnic groups, causing white students to laugh and embarrassment to ethnic minority children. According to Wright this situation made ‘minority ethnic values and culture appear exotic, novel, unimportant, esoteric or difficult’.

Racism from White Students

Minority ethnic students also experienced racism from other students which made their life even more difficult. White children often refused to play with Asian children and frequently subjected them to name calling and threatening behavior. Both Asian and Black Caribbean children had to suffer intimidation, rejection and occasional physical assault.

Conclusions

Wright does point out that all of the above disadvantaging of ethnic minority students is unintentional. Schools and teachers do appear genuinely committed to the values of equality and celebrating multiculturalism, they’re just very bad at putting these into practice and their actions have the opposite effect!

Wright believes that some Black children are disadvantaged as a result of their negative experiences in primary school, and this holds them back at later stages of their school career.

Evaluation of the study

The study doesn’t explain why Black Caribbean are held back by negative experiences in primary school when this doesn’t seem to affect the later achievement of Asian children as badly.

The study has been critizied for portrayign ethnic minority students as the passive victims of racism. In contrast, studies by Mirza and Mac An Ghail see students as responding much more actively (and in much more diverse ways) to racism in schools.

Maybe obviously, the date! This is from the late 1980s!

Sources

Adapted from Haralambos and Holborn (2013) Sociology Themes and Perspectives, edition 8.

Cecile Wright (1992) Race Relations in the Primary School.

Are schools institutionally racist?

Some education polices such as prevent seem to be racist, and most ethnic minority students would agree!

One sociological explanation for differences in educational achievement by ethnicity is that schools are institutionally racist.

This means that the school system as a whole is racist, or that schools are organised in such a way that children from ethnic minority backgrounds are systematically disadvantaged in education compared to white children.

If schools are institutionally racist then we should find evidence of racism at all levels of school organisation – both in the way that head teachers run schools and the way in which teachers interact with pupils. We might also expect to find evidence of racism in government policies (or lack of them) and regulation.(OFSTED).

What might institutional racism in schools look like?

There are numerous places we might look to investigate whether schools are racist, for example:

  • The curriculum might be ethnocentric – the way some subjects are taught or the way the school year and holidays are organised may make children from some ethnic backgrounds not feel included.
  • We could look at school exclusion policies to see if the rules on behaviour and exclusion are biased against the cultural practices of students from particular ethnic backgrounds.
  • We might look at how effectively schools deal with issues of racism in school – do the victims get effective redress, or is racism just ignored?
  • We could look at teacher stereotypes and labelling, to see if teachers en-mass have different expectations of different ethnic groups and/ or treat pupils differently based on their ethnicity.
  • We can look at banding and streaming, to see if students from minority ethnic backgrounds are over-represented in the lower sets.

Below I summarise some recent research evidence which may suggest that schools are institutionally racist…

Exclusions by Ethnicity

More Gypsy-Roma, Traveller and Black Caribbean students are excluded from school, but this might not necessarily be evidence of racism…

Exclusion rates for Gypsy-Roma and Traveller Children

Gypsy, Roma and Traveller (GRT) children are 5 times more likely to be excluded from school than white children.

I’ve included the temporary exclusion rates below as you can see the difference (you can’t really see the difference with permanent exclusions because the percentages are too small to really show up).

Source: Pupil Exclusions, published January 2020

Exclusion Rates for Black Caribbean Children

The permanent exclusion (2) rates for Black Caribbean and mixed White Black/ Caribbean are two and half times higher than for White children. The respective exclusion rates are:

  • 2.5 children per 10 000 Black Caribbean pupils
  • 2.4 children per 10 000 mixed Black Caribbean and White pupils
  • 1 child per 10 000 White pupils.

Gypsy-Roma children have the highest exclusion rates of all minority groups with 3.9 children per 10 000 pupils being permanently excluded, four times as many exclusions compared to White children.

Whether or not these particular ethnic minority students are being excluded because of institutional racism is open to interpretation, and is something that needs to be investigated further. There is certainly qualitative research evidence (see below) that both groups feel discriminated against in the school system.

Schools punish Black Caribbean Pupils for Hair Styles and ‘Kissing Teeth’

Campaign Group ‘No More Exclusions’ argue that schools with strict exclusion policies are unfairly punishing Black Caribbean pupils for having different cultural norms to pupils from other ethnic backgrounds.

They cite evidence of Caribbean girls having been temporarily excluded for having braids in their hair, while other students have been sanctioned for ‘kissing teeth’, a practice mostly associated with Black students.

https://twitter.com/Muna_Abdi_Phd/status/1183312126917644288?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1183312126917644288&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpublish.twitter.com%2F%3Fquery%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Ftwitter.com%252FMuna_Abdi_Phd%252Fstatus%252F1183312126917644288%26widget%3DTweet

Such exclusions are mainly being given out by Academies with strict ‘zero tolerance rules’ on student behaviour, but according to David Gilborn there is a problem of discrimination when black Caribbean students are being disproportionately sanctioned as a result.

In defense of this policy, Katharine Birbalsingh, head of Michaela Community School in London, which enforces very strict rules on behaviour, argues that we should expect the same standards of behaviour from all students, and that Black students know that ‘kissing teeth’ is rude, and so should be punished for it.

Another problem is that if you dig down deeper into the data and look at the overall statistics on reasons for exclusion by ethnicity we find that White pupils are more likely to be excluded for ‘persistent disruptive behaviour’ and Black students for more the more serious sounding ‘assault against a pupil’ which suggests maybe that schools are being harsher on White pupils, so this may not be sound evidence of Institutional Racism!

Source: The Independent (no date provided, just lots of adverts, but it must be from late 2019 as it links back to a previous article from October 2019. )

Racist Incidents In Schools Are Mainly Dealt with by Fixed Period Exclusions

According to a recent Guardian article (September 2019), Hate Crimes in schools rose 120% between the years 2015 and 2018. There were 1987 hate crimes recorded by the police in 2018, of which 70% were recorded as being racist. This means that approximately 1500 racist incidents occurred in schools which were deemed serious enough to warrant police involvement.

Now this won’t be all hate crimes going on in school. Adult hate crimes only have a 40% reporting rate, and this might be lower for crimes against children given the increased levels of vulnerability, naivety and anxiety .

Schools handed out 4500 fixed term exclusions for racist abuse in 2017/18, but only 13 permanent exclusions.

Source: Permanent and Fixed Period Exclusions, DFE, July 2019.

If the under-reporting rate is similar for children as it is for adults and if most of these racist crimes aren’t ‘very serious’ then it seems that schools are doing a pretty good job at dealing with Racism, even if they are not always involving the police. This certainly seems to be backed up by the case study below…

Case Study 1: How One School Dealt with its problem of racism:

Some pupils do experience racist abuse from other pupils. One example is the case study of eight year old Nai’m, a boy who moved to from Bermuda to Britain with his mother in 2017, who was a victim of at least five racist incidents in a year. (article link from January 2020)/

His mother was contacted by the school when one student, apparently his friend, called him a ‘black midget’. Another pupil told Niam’h that his parents had told him he wasn’t allowed to talk to black or brown people. Niam’h plays football for his local professional club and says a lot of racist name calling occurs on the football field.

Besides Niam’h being a victim staff at the school where this incident happened (The Lawrence Community Trust Primary School) had also overheard racist comments from other students – such as ‘go back to your own country’ being directed at ethnic minority students and discussion about skin colour between students.

The school seems to have taken measures to address this problem with some of the racist attitudes being verbalized by some students by taking the following actions:

  • they seem to have excluded at least one student
  • they encouraged Niam’h to give a special assembly on Bermuda
  • They called in Anthony Walker Charity to deliver a presentation to students on Racism

The A-C Economy

David Gilborn (2002) argues that schools are institutionally racist because teachers interpret banding and streaming policy in a way that disadvantages black pupils.

Gilborn and Youdell (1999) argued that Marketisation policies have created what they call an A-C economy: schools are mainly interested in boosting their A-C rates and so perform a process of educational-triage when they put students into ability groups.

Those who are judged (by teachers) to be able to get a C and above get into the higher sets and are taught properly and pushed to get a C, but some students are labelled as no-hopers and get put in the bottom or bottom sets and written off.

Gilborn and Youdell noted that Black Caribbean children were more likely to be labelled as ‘no-hopers by teachers and were overrepresented in the lower sets, thus this kind of labelling is linked to institutional practice and wider policy thus it is institutional racism.

Racism in Education Policy?

David Giborn has argued that education policies in England and Wales have done little to combat racism over the last several decades. He argues that education policy has never successfully celebrated multiculturalism and that ever since the London Bombings of 2005 there has been an element of anti-Muslim sentiment in the way schools are required to teach British Values.

PREVENT policy certainly seems to have been interpreted in way that is discriminatory against Muslims. 95% of pupils referred under PREVENT are Muslim despite the fact that there have been more problems with racism and extremism from White people following Brexit.

Schools DO NOT have to report Racist Incidents

Schools are not required to report cases of bullying or racial abuse to their Local Education Authorities, only to their governing bodies. Some LEAs insist that governing bodies send them the data but some do not, meaning we have incomplete data on racial incidents in schools.

This implies that the Tory government (this no-reporting requirement was introduced in 2010) isn’t interested in even knowing whether racism in schools is a problem or not.

The available data (1) shows us that 60 000 racial incidents were reported in the five years between 2016-2020 but that information had to be collected through a Freedom of Information Request and will not included all of the racist incidents in schools during that period.

Student Perception of Racism in Schools

70% of Black students report having experienced racism in school, according to a YMCA poll of 550 students in 2020 (3)

The report is depressing reading with Black students reporting being called racial names such as ‘monkey’ and being criticised because of having untidy ‘Afro’ hairstyles.

The report also noted a resigned acceptance of the fact that schools were just institutionally racist.

Gypsy, Roma and Traveller children feel excluded from mainstream education

Professor Kalwant Bhopal has conducted research with GRT children and found that they don’t feel represented in the school curriculum: parents believed that their histories were not adequately represented, and were uncomfortable with sex education being done in school, as this was something usually done within the family in their culture. In short, it sounds as if they are experiencing the mainstream school curriculum as being ethnocentric.

Parents and pupils also claimed that they had experienced racism from both children and teachers within schools, however, when they reported incidents of racism this tended not to be taken seriously as they were white.

Conclusion: Are schools ‘institutionally racist’?

There is a considerable amount of evidence suggesting that institutional racism does exist in schools today, starting with some overtly discrimantory policies such as PREVENT and the failure of government to even collect data on racist incidents.

The strongest evidence lies in student perceptions of racism, with over 70% of Black British students feeling as if they are discriminated against in education.

Signposting

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

Institutional Racism is one ‘in-school factor’ covered in more depth in this post: In school factors and institutional racism.

Other in-school factors include teacher labelling and pupil subcultures, neither of which are necessarily indicators of racism existing in school at an institutional level!

To return to the homepage – revisesociology.com

Sources, find out more

The Extent of Material Deprivation in the UK

2019 statistics show a decline in the number of households in material deprivation

Material deprivation* refers to the inability to afford basic resources and services such as sufficient food and heating.

To put it more simply, all of those who suffer material deprivation in the UK  exist in a state of relative poverty, and some may exist in a state of absolute poverty.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) recent publication: Living Standards, Poverty and Inequality in the UK: 2019 is a good source informing us about the extent of material deprivation in the UK today. 

The Institute for Fiscal Studies says that “families are classified as materially deprived if they feel they cannot afford a certain number of items or activities, with greater weight assigned to items that most families already have.”

According to the IFS, between 8-15% of households are suffering from material deprivation, depending on what threshold you use. (If you want to know how the thresholds are worked, out click on the link above!).

In order to figure out how many households are suffering material deprivation, households are asked whether they can afford a number of items, such as the ones below. The more items a family can’t afford, and the higher up the list they appear in the chart below, the more likely a family is to be classified as ‘materially deprived’.

You can see that there is a downward trend in material deprivation between 2010-11 (careful, the chart above is over a longer time scale!)

Related concepts

The above study focuses on the trends in material deprivation as well as trends in both absolute and relative poverty. All three indicators are different ways of measuring poverty.

Related Posts 

Evaluating the Extent of Material Deprivation in the UK

The effects of material deprivation on education

Something Extra…

*A fuller definition of material deprivation is provided by the The OECD which defines Material deprivation as ‘the inability for individuals or households to afford those consumption goods and activities that are typical in a society at a given point in time, irrespective of people’s preferences with respect to these items.’ It’s work noting at this point that this is a relative rather than an absolute measurement of poverty.

Historical Material

I wrote this back in 2015, it’s my old version that I didn’t want to delete! It shows you some different, historical definitions/ measurement of material deprivation

The government’s material deprivation rate measures the proportion of the population that cannot afford at least four of the following items:

  1. To pay their rent, mortgage, utility bills or loan repayments,
  2. To keep their home adequately warm,
  3. To face unexpected financial expenses,
  4. To eat meat or protein regularly,
  5. To go on holiday for a week once a year,
  6. A television set,
  7. A washing machine,
  8. A car,
  9. A telephone.

As can be seen from the statistics below, the number of people suffering from ‘severe’ material deprivation has remained stable in recent years, but the numbers of people struggling to pay for holidays and meet emergency expenses has increased. Percentage of population unable to afford items, UK 2005-2011

How does Educational Achievement Vary by Ethnicity?

a look at how GCSE, A-level and degree results vary by ethnic group in England and Wales.

Educational achievement varies considerably by ethnicity and level of achievement.

At GCSE White, Black-African and Pakistani children have similar rates of achievement, Chinese and Indian students ‘overachieve’ and there is slight underachievement for Pakistani and Black Caribbean students.

Black and Asian students are more likely to stay on in Further Education than White students, but Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Black African and Caribbean students are much less likely to get 3 A grades at A-level compared to White students, while Chinese and Indian students are more likely.

White students are more likely to get first class degrees than even Chinese and Indian students.

The Department for Education makes it very easy to access statistics on educational achievement. Below I summarise some of the recent trends in educational achievement in England and Wales by ethnicity and offer some commentary on what I think needs explaining, and some thoughts on the limitations of these statistics.

The latest data available are for the 2021 exam results (this post updated January 2023).

Average attainment 8 Score by Ethnic group 2021

Attainment 8 scores measure how far pupils have progressed in their eight major government approved GCSE subjects over five years of secondary schooling compared to the average progress of all pupils.

The higher the attainment 8 score the more a pupil has progressed compared the average pupil.

As you can see from the results below there is considerable variation in progress by GCSE by ethnicity:

In the 2021 exam year the average score for all ethnic groups together was 50.9/90. It’s no surprise to find this is very close to the ‘White British group as White British children still make up the vast majority of school children.

To my mind the headline figures from the above statistics are as follows:

  • White, Pakistani and Black African children have results very close to the national average of 50.9. All of these figures are quite close together and so nothing really needs explaining for these broad groups.
  • Chinese children achieve 19% higher than the national average
  • Indian children 11% higher
  • Bangladeshi children achieved 5% higher.
  • Black Caribbean children underachieve by about 6% points
  • Irish Traveller and Gypsy Roma children have the worst underachievement levels with 30% (18% in 2018) and 22% respectively.

So what needs explaining from the above is why Chinese and Indian children do so well, and why Black Caribbean children underachieve, and why Irish traveler and Gypsy Roma children do so badly.

In terms of impact of research it’s probably worth focusing on Chinese, Indian and Black Caribbean children because there are many more of these than of the last two ethnic groups.

A final point to note about these statistics is that it doesn’t seem useful to lump together ‘Black’ and Asian’ students because there are SIGNIFICANT differences in the achievement rates within these groups.

Educational Achievement (attainment 8) by Free School Meals and Ethnicity

Free School Meals pupils represent approximately the poorest sixth of pupils by household income.

We can see from the above that poverty has a negative impact on the educational attainment of pupils from all ethnic backgrounds but that it has more of an impact on some ethnic groups than others.

If we just focus on the achievement of pupils in receipt of free school meals (FSM pupils) we find that:

  • White pupils have the lowest achievement rates with a score of just 36.1
  • Black and Asian FSM pupils have broadly similar attainment 8 scores with scores of 44 and 48 respectively
  • Chinese FSM pupils have the highest attainment 8 scores, with a score of 68.5, which is very close to non FSM pupil scores.

The two main questions arising from the above statistics are:

  • Why does poverty not affect poor Chinese children children as much as children from other ethnic backgrounds (the FSM and non FSM results are very similar for Chinese children?
  • Why are poor white kids impacted the most? The difference between FSM and non-FSM achievement is largest for white children?

Statistics on Participation in Further Education

This demonstrates a long standing trend – that ethnic minorities (Black and Asian) students are more likely to carry on into further education compared to white students. This should mean that you’ll see a higher proportion of white kids starting work based apprenticeships.

NB – making comparisons to the overall population is a bit misleading as the age profile for ethnic minorities tends to be younger.

Students achieving at least 3 As at A-level

The overall average is 12.9%.

These are quite interesting.

  • Huge ‘over-achievement’ by Chinese kids – 22.5%
  • Indian kids do slightly better than average at 15%
  • Signficant underachievement for Pakistani and Bangladeshi kids – around 7%
  • Terrible underachievement for Black African and Caribbean kids at 5.6% and 3.5% respectively.
  • The source notes that the Irish Traveler population is only 7 people, so one can’t generalize, still, at least it busts a few stereotypes!

These stats show something of an exaggeration of what we saw at GCSE.

I put these stats in the ‘interesting but not that useful’ category – I’d rather see the percentages for high grades or A-C grades to make these a bit more representative.

Degree results by ethnicity

Surprisingly, we see white students gaining significant ground on ethnic minority students with 30.9% of white students gaining a first class degree (*).

Black students in comparison come crashing down to just 14% of first class degrees.

These kind of differences – from similar GCSE results for Black and White students to such different A-level and degree results need further investigation.

(1)The education statistics above form part of the government’s Ethnicity Facts and Figures series, you can check out a wider range of statistical evidence on ethnicity and life chances by clicking here. (As always, remember to be critical of the limitations of these statistics!).

(*) 30% does seem rather high, but a lot of those first class degrees are probably down to grade inflation, which in turn is probably down to the fact that students are now paying £30 K for yer for their degrees.

Ethnicity and Differential Achievement: Key Questions

Based on the above statistics the following questions stand out…

  1. At GCSE why do Chinese and Indian Students have such high achievement
  2. At CGSE why do Gyspy/ Roma and Traveller children have such low achievement?
  3. Why ethnic minority FSM children do better than white FSM children?
  4. Why are ethnic minorities more likely to stay on in Further Education?
  5. Why do so few Ethnic Minority students get 3 As at A-level compared to white kids?
  6. Why are white kids more likely to get first class degrees than ethnic minorities?

Signposting and related posts

This material serves as an introduction to differential educational achievement by ethnicity which is part of the education module within A-level sociology.

To return to the homepage – revisesociology.com

Explaining the Gender Gap in Education

Changes in women’s employment, family life, ambitions, socialisation and the impact of feminism all explain the gender gap in education

Girls outperform boys in most subjects at every level of education: from primary school to degree level. There are five main social factors external to the school which explain why girls outperform boys in education:

  • changes in women’s employment
  • changes in the family
  • changing girls’ ambitions
  • the impact of feminism
  • differential socialisation of boys and girls.

This post explores these five social factors analysing the impact they may have on girls in education, and then goes on to look at personal level factors.

Changes in women’s employment

The number of men and women in paid work is now virtually the same. The employment rate for women is 72.3% and for men it is 79% (2).

This represents a significant change since the early 1970s when the employment rate for men was over 90% and for women it was under 60%.  

Over the last 50 years there has been a growing service sector where women are increasingly likely to be employed over men and employers increasingly seek women for higher managerial roles because they generally have better communication skills than men. This means women now have greater opportunity than men in the world of work which makes education more relevant to them than in the 1970s when there was a relative lack of opportunity for women compared to men.

Conversely, there is now less opportunity for men. The decline in manufacturing has led to a decline in traditional working-class men’s factory based jobs. Boys like the lads studied by Paul Willis would have intended to go into these jobs. Now these jobs have gone, many working-class boys perceive themselves as having no future.

A review of the literature by Bertocchi and Bozzano (2019) found that the improvement in female educational achievement from the 1980s to the 2000s can be explained by the increasing post-school expectations for females and the increasing probability that women could go into high-income occupations relative to men.

Pekkarinen (2012) theorised that the widening gap between females and males in education is due to the relative effort-costs of education in relation to returns. Since the 1980s females have been seeing increasing returns on their investment in education as they have greater and greater access to better jobs, while boys have been experiencing reducing returns relative to girls.

There are a lack of high status higher vocational courses and qualifications in England and Wales, which would be more appealing to boys compared to degrees (boys are much more likely to do vocational courses). Only 4% of over 25 year olds in England hold a higher vocational qualification compared to Germany where it is over 20%!

Changes in the family

Changes in family life and structure over the past 50 years mean it is much more normal for women to start a career in their 20s and maintain that career through their adult lives.

People get married much later in life, in their mid to late 30s rather than in their 20s, and dual earner households are now the norm, both of which normalise women having careers.

Divorce Rates (and just relationship breakdowns) are also high as a rates of single parent households (most of which are headed by women), both of which would encourage women to work as in both situations it is desirable to have your own income.

However, the increasing independence of women has led to a more uncertain role for men in British society, leaving many men feeling vulnerable and unsure of their identity in society – suffering from a crisis of masculinity.

These changes may feed back into education, encouraging women and discouraging men.

Girls’ changing ambitions

Sue Sharpe did a classic piece of research in the 1970s, repeated in the 1990s in which she interviewed young girls about their ambitions. In the 1970s their priorities were to get married and have a family, but by the 1990s their priorities were to get a career and have a family later on in life.

The impact of feminism

Feminism has campaigned for equal rights and opportunities for women in education, the workplace and wider society more generally. Feminist sociologists argue that many of the above changes have been brought about by their attempts to highlight gender inequalities in society and their efforts to encourage the government, schools and teachers to actually combat patriarchy and provide genuine equality of opportunity which has led to raising the expectations and self-esteem of girls.

Differential socialisation

Fiona Norman in 1988 Found that most parents think the appropriate socialisation for a girl is to handle her very gently, and to encourage her in relatively passive, quiet activities. Parents are also more likely to read with girls than with boys. Gender stereotypes held by parents also mean that ‘typical boys’ need more time to run around and play and ‘let off steam’, and parents are more likely to be dismissive if their boys are in trouble at school often seeing this as just them being ‘typical boys’. These gender stereotypes and differences in gender socialisation disadvantage boys and advantage girls in education.

Aucejo and James (2016) conducted a study which found that verbal skills were more important than maths skills in gaining a place at university, and females have significantly better verbal skills than males.

Personal level Factors

A summary of some recent research on differential achievement by gender by Cavaglia et al (1) found that a range of individual and personal level factors contribute to the gender gap in education, many of which will work in conjunction with the social level factors above.

Terrier (2020) found that teacher bias plays a role in why girls do better than boys in education.

According to the OECD (2015), the most important reasons for the gender gap are students’ attitudes towards learning, their behaviour in school, their use of leisure time, and their self-confidence.

A review of the literature by Buchmann et al. (2008) found that males are more likely than females to experience reading disabilities, antisocial behaviour, attention deficit disorders, dyslexia, and speech difficulties.

There is also evidence that adolescent girls score higher in tests measuring non-cognitive skills such as attentiveness, organisational skills, and self-discipline.

Bertrand and Pan (2013) found that boys behavioural problems stem from their home backgrounds: boys’ behaviour is more strongly influenced by their parents than the behaviour of girls.

One counter to this lies in research from Lundberg (2017) – boys and girls react to home and school problems in different ways: boys are more likely to develop behavioural problems, girls to develop anxiety and depression, but this doesn’t explain the gender gap alone. Possibly the differential reaction in school does: schools are more likely to react negatively to boys behaving badly than girls being quiet!

Boys are more likely than girls to fail their GCSE English by getting lower than a grade C/4 and Machin et al. (2020) found that even marginally failing to get a good grade drastically reduces the chances of a student staying on into further and higher education and increases their chances of becoming NEET.

The main set of exams, GCSEs, which have a huge impact on future educational pathways are sat at 16, when boys are going through puberty, this probably puts them at a disadvantage to girls who go through puberty earlier.

Differences in innate ability do not explain the gender gap

A literature review by Spelke (2005) found that sex differences in cognitive abilities do not explain the gender gap in education. While girls do have intrinsically slightly higher cognitive abilities, they are not significant enough alone to make them more adept at schoolwork than boys.

Limitations of external factors in explaining the gender gap in education

The decline of manufacturing and crisis of masculinity only affects working class boys, possibly explaining their achievement relative to girls, but middle class girls outperform middle class boys too, who are less likely to associate masculinity with factory work.

McDowell conducted research on the aspirations of white working-class youth. He researched a sample of males with low educational achievement living in Sheffield and Cambridge aged 15 and followed them from school to work. The findings Criticise the notion of a crisis of masculinity leading to aggressive male identities These lads had traditional laddish identities but were not aggressive or put off by ‘feminized work’ They are best described as reliable workers making the most of limited opportunities available to them.

Willis in 1977 argued that the Lads formed a counter school culture and rejected education even when they had secure jobs they could just walk into, meaning there are other causes of male underachievement besides the crisis of masculinity.

It is difficult to measure the impact of Feminism: changes in the job market that lead to improved opportunities for women may be due to other technological and cultural changes.

The socialisation girls does not explain why they started to overtake boys in the late 1980s: if anything gender socialisation has become more gender neutral in recent years.

Concepts and research studies to remember
  • Crisis of Masculinity
  • Gender socialisation
  • Gender stereotyping
  • Research studies to remember
  • Kat Banyard – research into gender stereotyping in the family
  • Sue Sharpe – the aspirations of girls.
Sources

(1) Chiara Cavaglia, Stephen Machin, Sandra McNally, and Jenifer Ruiz-Valenzuela (2020) Gender, achievement, and subject choice in English education

(2) House of Commons Research Briefing (March 2023) Women and the UK Economy.

Signposting and Related Posts

This post covers one of the main topics within the sociology of education, for A-level Sociology.

Evaluating the role of External Factors in Explaining the Gender Gap in Education

Explaining the Gender Gap in Education – The Role of Internal Factors

To return to the homepage – revisesociology.com

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

The Gender Gap in Education

In 2022 girls still tend to do better than boys in GCSE, A-levels, BTECs and are much more likely to go to university.

The gender gap in education refers to the fact that girls get better GCSE and A level results than boys in practically every subject, and women are much more likely to go to university than men.

The rest of this post provides more specific statistics on the relationship between gender and educational achievement at different levels focussing mainly on data from 2022.

GCSE results by gender, 2022 

The 2022 GCSE results show a 5.7% gender gap, with 52.5% of girls and 46.8% of boys achieving grade 5 and above in GCSE Maths and English (1)

The gender gap at GCSE has reduced slightly since 2019, when the gap was 6.6%, the last comparable year since that was the last time students were assessed by examination rather than teacher awarded grades during the two covid years when there were no exams.

Interestingly the gender gap increased to 9.2% points in favour of girls in 2020, the first year of teacher awarded grades, before narrowing again in 2021. This suggests to possible evidence of teachers stereotyping girls favourably compared to boys by increasing their grades relatively more, but unfortunately this theory remains a theory and is difficult to prove!

The GCSE gender gap varies by subject

There is considerable variation in the gender gap at GCSE by subject in 2022 (2)

  • Maths is the only subject where there is no gender gap – with 65% of both males and females achieved grade 5 and above.
  • The gap is small in double science, at only 3.6% points
  • It slightly larger in geography and history, with gap being 5.6 and 6.4% points respectively.
  • One of the largest gender gaps is in English with the achievement gap being 13%.

The gender gap has reduced slightly for some subjects in recent years. For example, in 2019 16% more girls than boys got ‘good’ grades in English.

However in maths, girls have closed the gap on boys. In 2019 boys actually outperformed girls in maths by 0.5%.

Ebacc Entries by Gender

Girls are 9.9% points more likely to be entered for the Ebacc compared to boys.

in 2022 43.8% of girls were entered for the Ebacc compared to only 33.9% of boys. The gap has narrowed since 2019 but only very slightly.

Students must be studying the more traditional classic academic GCSE subjects including English and English Literature, Maths, the sciences, Geography or History and a language and achieved a grade 5 or above in all of them to attain the Ebacc qualification.

The fact that girls are more likely to be entered than boys reflects the fact that a higher proportion of girls are doing mainly classic, academic GCSEs compared to boys, which are widely regarded as more difficult and are correlated with higher achievement in further and higher education.

A-Level Results by Gender

At A-level, there is only a 3.9% point gap in the A*-C achievement rate between girls and boys.

In 2022 83.9% of exam entries by girls achieved grades A*-C compared to 80% of boys.

The gender gap for A-A* grades is slightly less with 36.9% of girls compared to 34.7% of boys achieving A-A* in their exam entries.

HOWEVER, boys are much less likely to do A-levels than girls (3)

  • 423 355 A-level certificates were awarded to females in 2022.
  • 353 270 A level certificates were awarded to males in 2022.

As with GCSEs there is considerable variation in the gender achievement gap at A-level by subject. For example:

  • In Maths 79.9% of females achieved grades A*-C compared to 77.6% of boys
  • In Psychology 82.2% of females achieved grades A*-C compared to only 71.3% of boys.
  • In Sociology (the fifth largest subject by exam entry at A-level in 2022) 83.6% of females achieved grades A*-C compared to 77.4% of males.

The Education Policy Institute (4) has produced this wonderful infographic where you can explore the relationship between subject entry and achievement at A-level by Gender:

It shows us that subjects such as Maths and Economics have similar male-female attainment levels, and boys do better than girls in Further Maths, Chemistry, French, Spanish, German, performing arts and music at A-level.

Although relatively few boys take languages at A-level and the numbers of boys taking performing arts is especially small.

BTEC entries and results by gender

The numbers of males and females sitting BTECs are similar, with just under 60 000 entries for both males and females in 2022.

There are (unsurprisingly?) some fairly stereotypical trends in subject choice. Health and Social Care is dominated by females while Sport and IT are dominated by males.

In terms of BTEC results, there is a similar pattern as there is for GCSEs and A-levels with girls generally being more likely to get higher grades than boys (5).

For example in the BTEC National Certificate for Business, 21.4% of females achieved a distinction star compared to only 15% for boys. In Health and Social Care and Sport, more than twice the amount of females achieved a Distinction star compared to boys in 2022.

University Entries by Gender

43% of 18 year old females entered university through UCAS in 2022 compared to only 32% of males (6)

There has been a significant increase in the number of females applying and being accepted to universities in recent years. There has been an increase in the number of both males and females applying to university, but the rate of increase has been twice as rapid for females since 1994.

Between 1994 to 2022 there was a 140% increase in the number females applying to university, but only a 77% increase in the number of males.

Between 2010 to 2022 the increases for females and males were plus 19% and plus 11% respectively.

The Gender Gap in Education: Conclusions

There remains a persistent gender gap at every level of education with girls doing better than boys on average at GCSE, A-level and BTEC and being much more likely to go to university.

There are, however, a few subjects at A-level where boys outperform girls, most noticeably in terms of numbers Chemistry, and in terms of status, Further Maths, but these are very much exceptions to the historical trend of girls doing better than boys.

Where university entry statistics are concerned, the gender gap is even widening in favour of females!

Signposting

This material is mainly relevant to the education topic within A-level sociology and serves to establish the fact that there is still a discernible achievement gap by gender in education, which can be explained by gender differences in society and by differential gendered experiences of education within school.

Sources

(1) Gov.uk (accessed January 2023) Equalities Insights from the 2022 GCSE results.

(2) Joint Council for Qualifications (accessed January 2023) GCSE Results 2022.

(3) OFQUAL 2022 A-level results analysis, accessed January 2023

(4) The Education Policy Institute: Analysis Level 3 Results Day, 2022.

(5) Pearsons (2022) BTEC Nationals Results 2022.

(6) House of Commons Research Briefing (2023) Higher Education Numbers.

Sociology of Education Teaching Resources

Teaching resources for A-level sociology!

I’ve just released some extensive revision workbooks and Power Points for sale as part of my sociology teaching resources subscription package, available for only £9.99 a month!

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is sociology-teaching-resources-724x1024.png

This teaching resource bundle contains work books and Power Points covering eight lessons on the Perspectives on the Sociology of Education

Resources in April’s bundle include

  1. An introduction to the sociology of education  
  2. The Functionalist perspective on education
  3. The Marxist perspective on education
  4. Neo-Marxism/ Paul Willis’ Learning to Labour
  5. The Neoliberal and New Right perspective on education
  6. The Postmodern view of education
  7. Consolidation Education Assessment Lesson – focussing on exam technique for the different types of question
  8. Exploring education, surveillance and social control.

Resources in the bundle include:

  • 1 introductory workbook and one much larger workbook on Perspectives on Education.  
  • 3 Power Points covering most of the above lessons (not for riots or the corporate crime research lesson.
  • Eight lesson plans covering all of the above lessons.
  • Various supplementary hand-outs for some of the above lessons as necessary.
  • I’m also throwing in some of my revision resources from the Education revision bundle, as they are useful for lesson 7.

Fully modifiable resources

Every teacher likes to make resources their own by adding some things in and cutting other things out – and you can do this with both the work pack and the PowerPoints because I’m selling them in Word and PPT, rather than as PDFs, so you can modify them!

NB – I have had to remove most the pictures I use personally, for copyright reasons, but I’m sure you can find your own to fit in. It’s obvious where I’ve taken them out!

More resources to come…

I’m making resources available every month as part of this teacher resource subscription package. The schedule of release of resources is as below:

  • March – June 2020 – Education Resources
  • July – September 2020 – Research Methods, including methods applied to education 
  • October – December 2020 – Families and Households
  • January – April 2021 – Global Development 
  • May – August 2021 – Crime and Deviance 
  • September – October 2021 – Theory and Methods 
  • November 2021 – January 2022 – Revision Material
  • February 2022 – Intro material. 

Please note this is a change to the original schedule of release, which I’ve changed due to the recent exam cancellations!

How do teachers teach ‘British Values’?

most schools repackage British Values and teach them through what they are already teaching, very few use them to get students to think critically about what citizenship means!

Schools in England and Wales have been required by the to teach British Values since 2015.

Initially the introduction of these to the National Curriculum may seem to offer support for the Functionalist view of education, which holds that one of the functions of education is to promote Value Consensus.

HOWEVER, this may be a simplistic understanding according to some recent research outlined below. It is possible that schools and teachers present British Values as being very traditional (all about The Queen and Fish and Chips), which may alienate some pupils who have not been brought up with such traditions. In other words, the way British Values are taught in some schools may not be an appropriate way of realising value consensus in our complex, multi cultural society.

Recent research on how teachers teach British Values

Professor Carol Vincent – of the UCl Institute Of Education has carried out some recent research on how schools and teachers interpret ‘our’ so called ‘fundamental British values’. Her research is based on 56 interviews almost 49 observations and 9 case study schools, a mix of both primary and secondary.

Why do schools have to teach them?

The requirement to teach ‘Fundamental British Values’ seems to have come about because of concerns over social cohesion and ideas of ‘Britishness’ in general, and as a response to the Trojan Horse scandal of 2014 in particular, when there was an alleged co-ordinated attempt to impose a conservative islamist agenda onto several schools in Birmingham.

The requirement to teach British Values is closely related to the government’s counter terrorism strategy and broader Prevent agenda.

Despite it being a requirement, there is very little government guidance on how, exactly, teachers should go about teaching ‘British Values, so how do teachers understand this responsibility and how do they go about promoting British values in practice.

Where the teachers supportive?

Teachers were generally supportive of the values, but they didn’t like the word ‘tolerance’ as this suggested a begrudging way of putting up with each other, rather than a celebration of diversity and mutual respect. Some teachers were much more cynical about the requirement to promote them.

How did they fit it in?

The majority of schools embedded in what they were already teaching, but some schools (not the majority) used PSHE and Religious Education lessons and assemblies to address them more explicitly.

How did schools teach British Values?

Some schools used stereotypes to represent Britain using symbols and stereotypes , such as the Royal Family, one school re-enacted the marriage of Prince Harry, even though support for monarchy is not one of the Fundamental British Values.

Vincent cites the example of one commercial resource, a poster aimed at young children which has examples of British foods, music, and festivals, with the food being ‘traditional’ British food – Roast Dinner, Fish and chips, strawberries, Trooping of the colour.

Vincent found that in one school they used the Queens Birthday as an opportunity to promote the values – the organised a whole school lunch and got students to make mugs and sing different songs to celebrate the event.

Some teachers found teaching British Values problematic

Representing Britishness through symbols as those above can lead to a monocultural representations, a kind of ‘nation freezing’ – leading to the idea that Britishness is fixed.

It can also have an exclusionary effect – what if you’re from a family who doesn’t eat Cottage Pie

One teacher maybe hit the nail on the head and said that such an approach is ‘Reductionist and Crass’.

NB they way these values are taught is inspected by OFSTED. The Chief inspector has actually said ‘it’s not about The Queen’.

Repackaging Fundamental British Values

The majority approach to teaching was repackage the values into things the schools had already been doing – democracy = school council, rule of law because they have school rules etc.

However, this doesn’t open up discussion of British Values, so no deeper understanding of what these values mean.

Dangerous conversations

A lot of teachers expressed anxiety about not knowing how to deal with controversial issues if they came up in discussion around the values

The top two areas of concern were migration and Brexit – teachers found having to deal with these issues demanding and anxiety inducing. They were also worried about their own impartiality, and what to do about xenophobia – so rather than discuss the issues , they tended to talk to the students about them, not giving them space to respond.

How to teach them more effectively?

Vincent suggests that we need to give Mmore status for citizenship education, more space and time to allow students to discuss the meaning of citizenship and British Values and more training for teachers on how to discuss difficult issues.

Find out More!

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