Tag: Ethnicity

Ethnic inequalities in social mobility

Black and Asian Muslim children are less likely to get professional jobs, despite doing better at school, according to an official government report carried out by the Social Mobility Commission. 

This blog post summarizes this recent news article (December 2016) which can be used to highlight the extent of ethnic inequalities in social mobility – it obviously relates to education and ethnicity, but also research methods – showing a nice application of quantitative, positivist comparative methods.

In recent months, the low educational attainment of White British boys has gained significant attention. However, when it comes to the transition from education to employment, this group is less likely to be unemployed and to face social immobility than their female counterparts, black students and young Asian Muslims.”

White boys from poorer backgrounds perform badly throughout the education system and are the worst performers at primary and secondary school, the report said, and disadvantaged young people from white British backgrounds are the least likely to go to University.

Only one in 10 of the poorest go to university, compared to three in 10 for black Caribbean children, five in 10 for Bangladeshis and nearly seven in 10 for Chinese students on the lowest incomes.

Black children, despite starting school with the same level of maths and literacy as other ethnic groups, young black people also have the lowest outcomes in science, maths are the least likely ethnic group to achieve a good degree at university.

But after school, it is young women from Pakistani and Bangladeshi backgrounds that are particularly affected. Despite succeeding throughout education and going to university, they are less likely to find top jobs and are paid less than women from other ethnic minorities, the report concluded.

Alan Milburn, the chair of the commission said: “The British social mobility promise is that hard work will be rewarded. This research suggests that promise is being broken for too many people in our society. Britain is a long way from having a level playing field of opportunity for all, regardless of gender, ethnicity or background.”

The report also showed the role of parents plays a large part in performance at school, as the more they engage, the better their children do, according to the research

Two of the more specific recommendations made by the commission are

  • Schools should avoid setting, particularly at primary level, and government should discourage schools from doing so.
  • Universities should implement widening participation initiatives that are tailored to the issues faced by poor white British students and address worrying drop-out and low achievement rates among black students

Related Posts 

Ethnic minorities face barriers to job opportunities and social mobility (Guardian article from 2014) – so nothing’s changes in the last two years!

Ethnicity and Educational Achievement – The role of Cultural Factors – you might like to consider the extent to which it’s cultural factors which explain these post-education differences?

The C.V. and Racism Experiment (scroll down to 2009) – alternatively – racism in society may have something to do with these differences – this experiment demonstrated how people with ‘ethnic’ sounding names are less likely to get a response from prospective employers when they send them their C.V.s

 

Ethnicity and Crime: Short Answer Exam Questions and Answers

This post contains two examples of possible 4/6 mark ‘outline and explain’ questions which may come up on the AQA’s Crime and Deviance Paper 3.

Outline two structural factors which may explain differences in offending by ethnicity (4)

Two marks for each of two appropriate reasons clearly outlined or one mark for appropriate reasons partially outlined

  • The higher rates of single parent families in African-Caribbean households (1 mark) this might explain the higher levels of crime because absent fathers mean lack of a disciplinary figure and the fact that children from Caribbean households are more likely to join gangs (+1 mark)
  • Blocked opportunities in the education system for African-Caribbean children (1 mark) which means lower educational achievement, and a higher chance of being unemployed, which is correlated with higher levels of economic crime (+1 mark)
  • Institutional racism in the police force (1 mark) higher rates of ethnic minority crime may be a frustrated response against police oppression, as with the London riots (+1 mark)

Outline three ways in which Racism may manifest itself in the criminal justice system (6)

Two marks for each of two appropriate reasons clearly outlined or one mark for appropriate reasons partially outlined. The following would get 1 mark each, you need to add in the +1s

  • The police stop disproportionate amounts of black and Asian people (1 mark)
  • Black suspects are more likely to be sent to jail than white people (1 mark)
  • Ethnic minorities are more likely to have their cases thrown out of court than white people (1 mark)
  • Black and minority officers are under-represented (1 mark)
  • There is a ‘canteen culture’ of Racism in the UK police force (1 mark)
  • The police force fail to take race crimes against ethnic minorities seriously (1 mark)

Related Posts

Ethnicity and Crime: Paul Gilroy’s ‘Anti-Racist Theory’

Below I summarise pp52-3 of Collins’ Sociology AQA A-Level Year 2 Student Book (Chapman, Holborn, Moore and Aiken.) This is their take on what they call ‘Paul Gilroy’s Anti Racist Theory of Crime’ – Interestingly Prof. Gilroy commented on the post saying this is a shallow, oversimplified travesty of what he wrote.

Gilroy’s Anti-Racist Theory of Crime 

Gilroy describes a ‘myth of black criminality’ and attributed statistical differences in recorded criminality between ethnic groups as being due to police stereotyping and racist labelling .

Gilroy also argued that crime amongst Black British ethnic groups was a legacy of the struggle against White dominance in former colonies such as Jamaica. When early migrants came to Britain they faced discrimination and hostility, and drew upon the tradition of anticolonial struggle to develop cultures of resistance against White-dominated authorities and police forces.

While Left Realists such as Lea and Young argued that ome criminal acts such as rioting could involve protest against marginalisation, but Paul Gilroy goes much further, seeing most crime by Black ethnic groups as essentially political and as part of the general resistance to White Rule.

Evaluations of Gilroy’s Anti-Racism Theory

This theory is criticised by Lea and Young (1984) on several grounds:

– First generation immigrants were actually very law-abiding citizens and as such did not resist against the colony of Britain and were less likely to pass this anti-colonial stance to their kids.
– Most crime is against other people of the same ethnic group and so cannot be seen as resistance to racism.
– Like critical criminologists, Lea and Young criticise Gilroy for romanticising the criminals as somehow revolutionary.
– Asian crimes rates are similar or lower than whites, which would mean the police were only racist towards blacks, which is unlikely.
– Most crime is reported to police not uncovered by them so it is difficult to suggest racism within the police itself.

Related Posts 

Gilroy draws on the labelling theory crime, among others.

Left Realist Explanations for Ethnic Differences in Crime

Left Realists, Lea and Young suggest that ethnic minorities are disadvantaged in comparison with other groups in society, and this is especially true for young black males who have much higher levels of unemployment. In comparison with their peers from other ethnic groups, they are much less likely to be successful in the labour market and so suffer lower wages and thus higher levels of relative deprivation.

Young ethnic minority males are also more likely to experience marginalisation because they are under-represented at the highest levels of society, in government, political parties and trades unions for example.

 

Lea and young argue it would be surprising if there were not higher crime levels among those groups which experienced higher levels of deprivation and marginalisation.

Evaluating Left Realism

Read through the following two items, you should be able to find at least two reasons why Left Realism may be inadequate to explain the higher rates of offending by Black and Asian people.

Item A: Statistics on ethnicity and relative deprivation

Some ethnic minority groups experience higher levels of poverty than white people. According to the Labour Force Survey 2004/05 20% of White British households are in income poverty compared to 25% of Indian, 30% of Black Caribbean, 45% of Black African, 55% of Pakistani and 65% of Bangladeshi households.

In terms of social class, 42% of White British students are from homes in the top two social classes, compared to 37% of Black Caribbean, 36% of Black African, 29% of Indian, 19% of Pakistani and only 9% of Bangladeshi students.

Item B: The Home Office Affairs Committee 2006-7 Report on young black people and the criminal justice system

This recent report seems to offer broad support for Left Realism, but also suggests there are other factors which need to be taken into account in order to explain variations in patterns of offending by ethnicity…

Data gaps prevent us from building a comprehensive picture of young black people’s overrepresentation in the criminal justice system. However, the evidence we received suggests young black people are overrepresented as suspects for certain crimes such as robbery, drugs offences and—in some areas—firearms offences. Young black people are also more likely to be victims of violent crimes.

Some of our witnesses were concerned that the media distorts perceptions of young black people’s involvement in crime. Research commissioned by this Committee contradicted this view, indicating that most members of the public reject stereotyping as regards young black people’s involvement in crime.

Social exclusion is a key underlying cause of overrepresentation. Eighty per cent of Black African and Black Caribbean communities live in Neighbourhood Renewal Fund areas. Deprivation directly fuels involvement in some types of offence—such as acquisitive crime—and also has an important impact on educational achievement and the profile of the neighbourhood young people will live in. The level of school exclusions appears to be directly related to educational underachievement and both are linked to involvement in the criminal justice system. Witnesses also emphasised factors within black communities which help exacerbate disadvantage and fuel involvement in the criminal justice system.

They drew attention to a lack of father involvement and to other parenting issues. In the perceived absence of alternative routes to success, some young people also actively choose to emulate negative and violent lifestyles popularised in music and film. Criminal justice system factors play an important role in promoting overrepresentation.

There is some evidence to support allegations of direct or indirect discrimination in policing and the youth justice system. However, the perception as well as the reality of discrimination has an impact. Lack of confidence in the criminal justice system may mean some young black people take the law into their own hands or carry weapons in an attempt to distribute justice and ensure their own personal safety.

Ethnicity and Crime: The Role of Cultural Factors

Some Sociologists have suggested that cultural differences, especially differences in family life, may be responsible for underlying differences in offending between ethnic groups.

Single Parent Families are more common among African-Caribbean Families, which may be related to higher rates of crime

In 2007 Almost half the black children in Britain were being raised by single parents. Forty-eight per cent of black Caribbean families had one parent, as did 36 per cent of black African households.

Rates of teenage motherhood are also significantly higher among young black women and despite constituting only 3 per cent of the population aged 15 – 17, they accounted for 9 per cent of all abortions given to women under the age of 18.

The higher rates of single parenthood in Black-Caribbean families may lead to boys from this group being more likely to offend because of the lack of a male role-model to provide guidance and keep them in check.

However, there is a lot of evidence to suggest that British Caribbean single parents are far from isolated, and not even really ‘single’ at all. Research by Geoffrey Driver in the 1980s revealed that Caribbean single mothers are often well-connected to other people in their communities, so not necessarily isolated. Networks existed within neighbours to provide informal help with childcare and school runs. Other research has also found that family connections to brothers and sisters (uncles and aunts) are strong in British Caribbean communities, while Tracey Reynolds (2002) points out that many single Caribbean mothers are in a long term relationship with a man who doesn’t live with them, but visits every day and plays an active role in childcare.

In contrast, Asian families tend to be more stable, which might explain the lower rates of offending within Asian communities.  Marriage is still seen as a key milestone in Brit-Asian life. A UK National Statistics report says the highest proportions of married couples under pension age, with or without children, are in Asian households. Over half of Bangladeshi (54%), Indian (53%) and Pakistani (51%) households contained a married couple, compared with 37% of those headed by a White British person.

However,  there is a dark-side to Asian family life, and that comes in the number of Forced Marriages associated with Asian communities. One report from 2008 suggests that there are up to 3000 third and fourth generation  Asian women who are subjected to forced marriages in the UK. This crime will of course be practically invisible in the official statistics.

The culture of anti-school black masculinity may also be related to higher rates of black criminality

Tony Sewell (1997) observed that Black Caribbean boys may experience considerable pressure by their peers to adopt the norms of an ‘urban’ or ‘street’ subculture. More importance is given to unruly behaviour with teachers and antagonistic behaviour with other students than to high achievement or effort to succeed, particularly at secondary school.

Sewell (2003) argued that “black boys today have real opportunities but they are failing to grasp them. I talk to middle class, black parents who tell me they literally have to fight to keep their boys on task. These are boys from well-resourced homes, they go to the better state schools and yet they are performing below their potential. A black male today faces anti-school peer pressure that dominates our schools. Ask your son about it if you need some enlightenment. A head teacher told me how one student was jumped outside of his school: he was beaten and his attackers took his mobile phone, his trainers, his jacket and his cap. In our inner cities, black male youth culture has moved from a community of safety and brotherhood to one of fear of each other.”

Evaluating the Role of Cultural Factors

There are limitations with cultural explanations of differences in offending

Firstly, these theories might be accused of explaining crimes by drawing on crude stereotypes – there are significant cultural variations within Black and Asian ethnic groups, and official statics only collect very basic stats on ethnicity (literally just recording whether people are Black or Asian) thus there is no real way to evaluate the above theories.

Secondly, it is difficult to separate out cultural from material factors such as unemployment and poverty, which are emphasised by Left Realists.

Thirdly, these theories don’t take into account the fact that underlying differences in crime rates may be a response to blocked opportunities which are in turn caused by structural racism in wider society.

Fourthly, these theories do not consider the fact that that the statistics might be a social construction and exaggerate the true extent of Black and Asian criminality. Critical criminologists, for example, argue that the over-representation of minority groups in the criminal justice system is because they are more likely to be criminalised by agents of social control.

 

White Working Class Underachievement

A recent parliamentary report has found that poor white boys and girls do worse in schools than children in other ethnic groups.

How much worse do poor white children do?

The report uses students who received free school meals (FSM children) as an indicator of poverty:

  • 32% of FSM white British children get five good GSCEs, compared to…
  • 42% of FSM Black Caribbean children
  • 62% of FSM Indian children
  • 77% of FSM Chinese children

The achievement gap between poor white children and rich white children is much larger than the corresponding gap between poor and rich children from other minority groups, and the gap widens as white children get older.

How has educational performance changed over time?

The achievement rates of poor white kids has actually improved signficantly in the last decade – in 2008 only 15% of white pupils on Free School Meals got 5 good GCSEs, which has now doubled – the problem is that pupils from more affluent backgrounds have also improved, meaning the ‘achievement gap’ has stayed the same for white kids – today 65% of better off white children get 5 good GCSEs compared to only 32% of FSM white children, meaning a and achievement gap of 33%.

This trend is different for ethnic minorities – poor minority children have closed the gap on their wealthier counterparts. For Indian and black students the gap between rich and poor is only 15%, and for Chinese students it is 1.4%.

This has led some to conclude that there must be cultural differences influencing the way poor white British children approach their education.

Do Cultural Differences Explain why White Working Class Underachievement?

The cliche is that the children of immigrant parents are put under greater pressure to study, and the Longitudinal Study of Young People in England suggests some supporting evidence for this view:

White working class boys and girls are more likely to have anti-school attitudes than other minority groups, they play truant less, and they spend less time doing homework – an average of 2.54 evenings a week compared to 3.13 for black African and 3.29 for Indian children.

There is less support for the idea that white working class parents and their children lack aspiration – For a start, 57% of British people identify themselves as working class, while it is only the 12.5% on Free School Meals who are doing very badly at school – so it is more a case of there being pockets of underachievement rather than the whole of the working class underachieving.

There is also evidence that working class children, especially young children, have high ambitions.

Schools (and leadership) Can Make a Difference

There are plenty examples of academies which have been set up in deprived areas which have helped local working class kids get good GCSE results.

In 2003 New Labour launched ‘The London Challenge’ to drive up standards, and invested £80 million in leadership, targeting failing schools – about 80% of schools in London now have ‘outstanding leadership’ according to OFSTED and 50% of children in London on Free School Meals get 5 good GCSEs, irrespective of ethnicity.

The problem is that this initiative might not work outside of London – London has a prosperous economy which makes it easier to attract the best leaders and teachers, and also benefits from the positive impact of immigrant families.

The Geographical Aspect to Underachievement 

In 2013 the chief inspector of schools, Michael Wilshaw, identified a geographical shift in educational underachievement – away from big cities and crowded, densely packed neighbourhoods, to deprived coastal towns and rural, less populous parts of the country.

Such towns suffer from fragile, seasonal economies, an inability to attract good staff, a lack of jobs for young people, and scant opportunities for higher education – all of which contributes to a vicious cycle of underachievement, perpetuated further by the ‘brain drain’ – anyone that does get qualifications leaves because there are no opportunities to use them in the local area.

In such areas, simply building swish new academies don’t seem to be enough to improve results – In 2005, the so-called worst performing school in the country, Ramsgate School, was transformed into the new, £30 million Marlowe Academy. SIx years later, it fell into special measures.

Summarised from ‘The Week’, 2nd August 2014. 

 

 

Official Statistics on Educational Achievement in the U.K. – Strengths and Limitations

How useful are official statistics for understanding differences in educational achievement by social class, gender and ethnicity?

How do GCSE results vary by social class, gender and ethnicity?

The data below is taken from either the Department for Education’s document – Key Stage 4 performance 2019 (Revised), or Gov.uk ‘ethnicity facts and figures‘. The later shows data from 2017/18 (at time of writing this), but it is much more accessible than the ‘Key Stage 4 document’.

Firstly – GENDER –  Girls outperformed boys in all headline measures in 2019.

For example 46.6% of girls achieved both English and Maths at grade 5 or above, compared to only 40.0% of boys, and girls are much more likley to be entered for the Ebacc than boys (45.9% compared to 34.3%

Secondly – ETHNICITY – Chinese pupils are the highest achieving group. 75.3% of Chinese pupils achieved a ‘strong pass’ (grade 5 or above) in English and Maths, with Indian pupils being the second highest achieving group, at 62%

Black Caribbean pupils have the lowest achievement of any ‘large’ ethnic minority group, with only 26.9% achieving a grade 5 or above in English and Maths

Gypsy/ Roma and Irish Traveller pupils have the lowest levels of achievement with only 9.95 and 5.3% respectively achieving a strong pass in English and Maths.

Thirdly – SOCIAL CLASS – Here, instead of social class we need to use the Department for Education’s ‘disadvantaged pupils’ category, which is the closest we’ve got as a proxy for social class, but isn’t quite the same!

The DFE says that “Pupils are defined as disadvantaged if they are known to have been eligible for free school meals in the past six years , if they are recorded as having been looked after for at least one day or if they are recorded as having been adopted from care”.

In 2019, only 24.7% of disadvantages pupils achieved English and Maths GCSE at grade 5 or above, compared to almost 50% of all other pupils, meaning disadvantaged pupils are only half as likely to get both of these two crucial GCSEs.

Some Strengths of Official Statistics on Educational Achievement by Pupil Characteristic 

ONE – Good Validity (as far as it goes) – These data aren’t collected by the schools themselves – so they’re not a complete work of fiction, they are based on external examinations or coursework which is independently verified, so we should be getting a reasonably true representation of actual achievement levels. HOWEVER, we need to be cautious about this.

TWO – Excellent representativeness – We are getting information on practically every pupil in the country, even the ones who fail!

THREE – They allow for easy comparisons by social class, gender and ethnicity. These data allow us to see some pretty interesting trends – As in the table below – the difference between poor Chinese girls and poor white boys stands out a mile… (so you learn straight away that it’s not just poverty that’s responsible for educational underachievement)

FOUR – These are freely available to anyone with an internet connection

FIVE – They allow the government to track educational achievement and develop social policies to target the groups who are the most likely to underachieve – These data show us (once you look at it all together) for example, that the biggest problem of underachievement is with white, FSM boys.

Some Disadvantages of the Department for Education’s Stats on Educational Achievement

ONE – If you look again at the DFE’s Key Stage four statistics, you’ll probably notice that it’s quite bewildering – there are so many different measurements that it obscures the headline data of ‘who achieved those two crucial GCSEs’.

When it comes to the ‘Attainment 8’ or ‘Progress 8’ scores, it is especially unclear what this means to anyone other than a professional teacher – all you get is a number, which means nothing to non professionals.

TWO – changes to the way results are reported mean it’s difficult to make comparisons over time. If you go back to 2015 then the standard was to achieve 5 good GCSEs in any subject, now the government is just focusing on English and Maths, Ebacc entry and attainment 8.

THREE – These stats don’t actually tell us about the relationship between social class background and educational attainment. Rather than recording data using a sociological conception of social class, the government uses the limited definition of Free School Meal eligibility – which is just an indicator of material deprivation rather than social class in its fuller sense. Marxist sociologists would argue that this is ideological – the government simply isn’t interested in measuring the effects of social class on achievement – and if you don’t measure it the problem kind of disappears.

FOUR – and this is almost certainly the biggest limitation – these stats don’t actually tell us anything about ‘WHY THESE VARIATIONS EXIST’ – Of course they allow us to formulate hypotheses – but (at least if we’re being objective’) we don’t get to see why FSM children are twice as likely to do badly in school… we need to do further research to figure this out.

No doubt there are further strengths and limitations, but this is something for you to be going on with at least…

Related Posts 

Official Statistics in Sociology

Assessing the Usefulness of Using Secondary Qualitative Data to Research Education

Ethnicity and Differential Educational Achievement: In School Processes

In school factors include teacher labelling, pupil subcultures, the A-C economy, the ethnocentric curriculum and institutional racism.

In school process 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.
  • Banding and Streaming, with some minority pupils being overrepresented in lower sets.
  • The Ethnocentric Curriculum where what is taught in schools marginalises ethnic minorities.
  • Institutional Racism, where Racism is endemic at the level of policy.

Some people might regard racist banding and streaming and the ethnocentric curriculum as part of Institutional Racism, it’s just a matter of how you define it!

As a general rule Chinese and Indian students achieve the highest in education, and most ethnic minority groups achieve at a similar level to White children, with the exception of Black Caribbean students and Gypsy-Roma students.

This post provides an overview of the statistics on achievement by ethnicity.

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.

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) Found that teachers perceived ethnic minority children differently from white children. Asian children were seen as a problem that could be ignored, receiving the least attention and often being excluded from classroom discussion and rarely asked to answer questions.

Teachers assumed their command of the English language was poor but they were highly disciplined and well motivated. African Caribbean children were expected to behave badly and received considerable attention, nearly always negative. They were seen as aggressive and disruptive. They were often singled out for criticism even in action ignored in other children.

David Gilborn: African-Caribbean children as a threat

David Gilborn (1990) Found that while the vast majority of teachers tried to treat all students fairly, they tended to see African-Caribbean children as a threat when no threat was intended and reacted accordingly with measures of control. Despite the fact that teachers rejected racism their ethnocentric perceptions meant that their actions were racist in consequence.

African-Caribbean children experienced more conflict in relationships with pupils, were more subjected to the schools detention system and were denied any legitimate voice of complaint.

Tony Sewell: Teachers threatened by Black masculinities

Tony Sewell (Black Masulinities and Schooling, 1996): Sewell was primarily interested in the experiences of black boys in education and he found that some black students were disciplined excessively by teachers who felt threatened by these students’ masculinity, sexuality and physical prowess because they had been socialised into racist attitudes. He also found that the boys in the study found that their culture received little or no positive recognition in the school.

NB: Tony Sewell ultimately holds black boys themselves responsible for their underachievement: it is their negative attitudes to schools that are mostly to blame in his opinion, but he does at least recognise that negative teacher labelling doesn’t help!

Connolly: Stereotyping of Asian students

Connolly (1998) found that teachers generally had (stereotypical) high expectations that South Asian British boys would perform well in school and if they were deviant they interpreted this behaviour as immature rather than deliberately disruptive. They were thus not punished to the extent that Black British boys were.

Connolly also found that while Asian girls were generally successful in the education system, teachers tended to overlook them in class discussions because they held stereotypical assumptions about them being passive and reluctant to discuss issues relating to family life and gender roles specifically.

Do teachers label ethnic minorities today?

Many of the above research studies are now 30 years old and focus on labelling of black-boys. There is much less evidence that teachers negatively label black boys today. Moreover black African boys to better than white boys in school and black Caribbean boys have been closing the gap, so it’s unlikely that teacher labelling can play a role in explaining differential educational achievement.

PREVENT policy and labelling

Since 2015 PREVENT policy has required teachers to monitor extremist behaviour in schools to prevent students becoming terrorists. There is some evidence that teachers have labelled the behaviour of Muslim children as indicating they are being radicalised into extremist views.

For example in one case a Muslim child was referred to authorities because he asked how to make a bomb in a physics class, whereas the same treatment didn’t happen to white children. If a child is passed onto authorities for invasive questioning about radicalisation it could have a negative impact on their attitude towards school.

Also PREVENT doesn’t specify that Muslim children should be targeted (rather than say White extremists) but it is Muslims who make up the majority of referrals under PREVENT, suggesting racist labelling is occurring.

However, statistically this kind of labelling probably doesn’t affect the achievement of Muslim students who are mainly of Pakistanis and Bangladeshi origin, as overall the achievement of both these groups has been improving.

Chinese students labelled as hyper-achievers

Chinese students may well be disadvantaged by teachers labelling them as hyper-achievers (3).

Either they are perceived by teachers as valuing education, spurred on by pushy parents, which puts added pressure on them to perform, or teachers think they work too hard, meaning they are unlikely to be pushed while some of them may need just that. Either way the ‘hyper-achiever’ label given to Chinese students may not benefit them!

Pupil Subcultures

Some (now quite dated) participant observation research has found that anti-school subcultures among black boys may be responsible for their historic underachievement .

Some of the research below sees the emergence of subcultures as a response to teacher labelling and so the two factors: teacher labelling and collective pupil responses may work together.

Tony Sewell: A culture of anti-school black masculinity

Tony Sewell (1997) observes that Black Caribbean boys may experience considerable pressure by their peers to adopt the norms of an ‘urban’ or ‘street’ subculture. More importance is given to unruly behaviour with teachers and antagonistic behaviour with other students than to high achievement or effort to succeed, particularly at secondary school.

According to Sewell, among many black boys, academic success is associated with femininity and success may mark them out for bullying from their peers whereas academic failure is seen as a badge of honour.

Fordham and Ogbu (1986) further argue that notions of ‘acting White’ or ‘acting Black’ become identified in opposition to one another. Hence because acting White includes doing well at school, acting Black necessarily implies not doing well in school.

Mac an Ghail: Young, Gifted and Black

Mac an Ghail (1998) Young, Gifted and Black – Mac an Ghail was a teacher in two inner city colleges. He looked at three subcultures – the Asian Warriors, the African- Caribbean Rasta Heads and the Black Sisters. He used mainly participant observation both in the school and through befriending the students and socialising with them outside of the school.

What he found was that the African Caribbean community experienced the world in very different ways to white people – namely because of institutional racism in the college and he argued that any anti-school attitudes were reactions against this racism. He mainly blamed the school rather than the students for this.

Mirza: Black Girls’ Responses to Teacher Labelling

Mirza (992) found that teachers had stereotypically low expectations of black girls and thus didn’t push them too hard in lessons and entered them for lower tier exams.

The black girls Mirza studied did value education and wanted to work hard and do well, but they responded negatively to their teacher’s negative labelling by outwardly appearing to not care about school and care more about appearance.

This ultimately meant they were less likely to ask for help in lessons, less likely to get it and thus this reaction harmed their achievement.

Banding and Streaming

The organisation of teacher learning at the level of school may disadvantaged some ethnic minority groups.

Steve Strand (2012) Used data from the Longitudinal Study of Young People in England (LSYPE) and found that African Caribbean pupils did worse than their white peers in education even when we control for socio-economic disadvantage and cultural factors in the family.

Strand suggested that the higher exclusion rates of Black Caribbean students could explain some of the difference, as could the fact that they were more likely to have SEN statements, but this still didn’t explain all of the difference.

He noted that Black Caribbean students were less likely to be put into higher sets/ bands/ streams than their white peers and less likely to be entered for higher tier exams, and it is teachers who make decisions about banding and streaming and so ultimately teacher labelling is to blame here.

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 the case of the curriculum in English schools an ethnocentric curriculum would have a focus on White British culture and less of a focus on Black and Asian cultures.

Historically the Swann Report (1985) criticised the curriculum for being ethnocentric. Historical examples of the ethnocentric curriculum include:

  • British history being taught from the European point of view, possibly even putting a postive 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 White 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 schools have made progress towards making their curriculums more multicultural.

One example of this is the requirement by OFSTED that schools actively promote cultural diversity, and one visible manifestation of this is Black History Month.

Having said this some relatively recent research by Tikly et al (2006) studied 30 comprehensive schools and found that Asian students felt relatively invisible in the Curriculum.

Institutional Racism

Below is a summary of some of the evidence that suggests schools may be institutionally racist. For a more in-dept look at the issue please see this post: Are Schools Institutionally Racist?

When we step back and take a look at the statistics we find that Black Caribbean students are:

  • two and a half times more likely to be permanently excluded than White children.
  • more like to be identified with behavioural related special needs
  • less likely to be identified as gifted and talented
  • more likely to be put into lower sets.

Taken together these statistics may raise our suspicions about whether schools are institutionally racist, and there have been some sociologists who have argued that they are.

Exclusion Rates by Ethnicity

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 and 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.

But in order to find out whether these statistics reflect institutional racism we would need to look more at the specific cases to see if there is differential treatment leading up to the exclusions for different ethnic groups.

Racism in Banding and Streaming

Gilborn and Youdell (1999) analysed statistics on banding and streaming by ethnicity. They found that Black-Caribbean students were less likely to be put in higher sets even if they had the ability to be there.

This meant Black-African children were disproportionately represented in lower sets in relation to their ability, which meant they weren’t pushed as hard and were not entered for higher tiered exam papers which ultimately meant lower GCSE results.

Experiences of Racism among pupils

Crozier (2004) found that Pakistani pupils ‘keep to themselves’ in school because they feel excluded by their white peers and marginalized by the school practices. Pakistani and Bangladeshi pupils had experienced the following – Anxieties about their safety; Racist abuse was a lived experience of their schooling; Careers advisors at school believed South Asian girls were bound by tradition and it was a waste of time advising them; Not being allowed off during Ramadan; Not feeling that assemblies were relevant.

More recently, surveys conducted by Human Rights Watch found that 60% of Muslim students feel alienated by the way PREVENT polices are implemented in schools. They felt as if they couldn’t freely discuss politics or religion in classes because PREVENT was being interpreted through and Islamophobic lens.

Institutional Racism in University Entry?

Tariq Modood (2005) says – If we look at the best universities Whites are more likely to get an offer than other identical candidates. For example, while a White student has a 75% chance of receiving an invitation to study, a Pakistani candidate, identical in every way, has only a 57% chance of an offer.

This post explores the concept of institutional racism in schools in more depth.

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 in explaining differential educational achievement by ethnicity.

Related posts are linked above in this post and via the education page.

Sources

(1) The Swann Report (1985) – Education For All.

(2) GOV UK (Accessed January 2023) Permanent Exclusions.

(3) Francis et Al (2010) The Construction of British-Chinese Educational Success

Some material in this post was adapted from Chapman et al (2015) Sociology: AQA A-Level Year 1 and AS.

Material Deprivation and Differences in Educational Achievement by Ethnicity

Poor Asian and Black-African children do better that poor white children, but poor Pakistani and Black-Caribbean students do worse.

It is possible that differences in educational achievement by ethnicity are caused by differences in the levels of material deprivation experienced by different ethnic groups.

However, while this theory is worth investigating it turns out that there isn’t much of a correlation between the two. For example, poor Chinese children do much better than poor White children at GCSE!

Material deprivation and educational achievement

Students from lower Socio-Economic Backgrounds are more likely to come from households with lower income, and thus more likely to suffer from material deprivation, lacking the resources which allow them to do well in school.

Material Deprivation can prevent a child gaining a good education because parents are less able to meet the Hidden costs of education such as finding money for school trips and home resources such as computers. Material Deprivation also means a family is more likely to live in a deprived area with worse schools. Lack of money impacts negatively on family dynamics, especially parental involvement in education, and have the effect of lowering educational aspirations.

Differences in material deprivation between Ethnic Groups

In terms of both household wealth and income, White and Indian households are the wealthiest, followed by Chinese Britons, with Black, Pakistani and Bangladeshis all having lower rates of wealth and income and thus higher rates of material deprivation.

Ethnic differences in household wealth

The approximate net median household wealth for different ethnic groups in 2016-2018 was:

  • White and Indian – £300 000
  • Pakistani households median wealth stands at nearer £250 000.
  • Black Caribbean – £80 000
  • Chinese – £70 000
  • Bangladeshi – £60 000
  • Black-African £40 000.

Inequalities by Ethnicity and Income

White and Indian households are four times as likely to be in the top 40% of income earners compared to Pakistani and Bangladeshi households…

  • White and Indian – 42% and 41%
  • Chinese 34%
  • Black – 20%
  • Bangladeshi – 10%
  • Pakistani – 10%

Does material deprivation explain differential educational achievement by ethnicity?

If we look back at the statistics on educational achievement by ethnicity we find that differences in wealth and income CANNOT explain differential educational achievement by ethnicity at GCSE:

  • Indian and White children have similar levels of wealth and income but Indian children beat White children at GCSE by 11%
  • Chinese children are poorer than both Indian and White children but Chinese kids get the best GCSE results of all.
  • Black African, Bangladeshi and Pakistani children are poorer than white children and yet get better exam results.
  • Black Caribbean children have relatively high household wealth, yet poor income and underachieve slightly compared to white children.

There is more of a correlation between material deprivation and achievement at further education level:

  • The higher rates of poverty among ethnic minorities might explain the higher take up rate of FE – this is a free opportunity still.
  • Differences in income may also explain why White, Indian and Chinese children are more likely to get three As at A-level: this could be because relatively higher income means they are better schools or able to afford higher tuition.
  • Conversely, lower incomes for Pakistani, Black and Bangladeshi students correlates with their being less likely to achieve three As.

Poor ethnic minority children generally do better than poor white children

Some recent analysis of the 2021 educational achievement statistics by Steve Strand shows that social class differences do not explain all of the variation in achievement by ethnic group.

Pupils from most ethnic minority groups achieve better results than their white peers when we take into account social class differences between ethnic groups, as the table below shows:

Of particular note are the following:

  • Indian and Other Asian (which will include Chinese) do exceptionally well when we factor in their class background.
  • Black African pupils do better than average, but Black Caribbean pupils do worse than average
  • Pakistani children do worse than average.

Conclusions: material deprivation doesn’t explain differences by ethnicity…

The above analysis shows that there is no correlation between educational achievement, ethnicity and material deprivation at GCSE, and so here we will need to examine home based cultural factors and in-school factors to explain these differences.

There is more of a correlation at Further and Higher Education, but even here the correlation isn’t perfect and so there is more going on that just wealth and income differences at work in explaining differential educational achievement by ethnicity.

Signposting

This material is usually taught as part of the education module within A-level Sociology.

Sources

(1) GOV.UK (2021) Ethnic, socio-economic and sex inequalities in educational achievement at age 16, by Professor Steve Strand.

Ethnicity Facts and Figures (accessed May 2023)