External Factors, Ethnic Differences in Achievement

External Factors, Ethnic Differences in Achievement

1. Ethnic group

   • People who share the same heritage, culture, identity, often including the same language and religion. Who see themselves as a distinct group

2. Cultural Deprivation

   • Intellectual and linguistic Skills
     • Bereiter and Englemann
       • Language spoken by low-income Black families is inadequate for educational success, it is ungrammatical, disjointed and incapable of abstract ideas
     • The Swann Report
       • Found language was not a major factor in underachivement
     • Bowker
       • lack of standard English is a major barrier to progress in education and intergration into wider society
   • Attitudes and Values
     • Lack of motivation is a major cause of failure of many black students
     • They are not socialised into into the mainstream culture that instils ambition, competition and sacrifices
     • Many black students are socialised into fatalism and immediate gratifacation
   • Family Structure and Parental Support
     • Theorists argue that failure to socialise children adequately is a result of dysfunctional family structures
     • How does family structure explain differences in EM achievement?
       • Pryce
         • Asians are higher achievers because they are more resistant to racism and it gives them a greater sense of self worth
         • Black Caribbean pupils have a less cohesive culture than Asian pupils and are less resistant to racism, As a result they have low sef esteem and under
   • Female Headed Single Parent Families
     • Murray
       • High rate of lone parenthood and lack of positive male role models lead to under achievement of some minorities
     • Flew
       • Ethnic differences in achievement stem from cultural differences outside of the education system, not discrimination within it
   • Asian Families
     • Khan
       • Asian families are stress ridden, bound by tradition and with a controlling attitude towards children, especially girls
     • Driver and Bollard
       • Asian family structures bring educational benefits, Asian parents have more positive attitudes toward education, have higher asperations for children.
   • Criticisms
     • Keddie
       • CD theory is a victim blaming theory. EM students are culturally different, not deprived, they underachieve as schools are ethnocenntric
     • Compensatory Education
       • Tries to impose the dominant white culture on students who already have their own coherent culture

3. Material Deprivation

   • Flaherty
     • Pakistanis and Bangladeshis are 3x more likely than whites to be in the poorest 1/5 of the population
     • Unemployment is 3x higher in Africans, Bangladeshis and Pakistanis than for whites
     • Bangladeshi and Pakistani women are more likely to be home workers sometimes for as little as £1.50 per hour
   • Swann Report
     • Social class accounted for 50% of the difference in educational achievement between ethnic groups
     • We must take class differences into account when comparing EM educational achievement or we may over estimate the impact of cultural factors

4. Racism in Wider Society

   • Rex
     • shows how racial discrimination leads to social exclusion
     • In housing for instance the minorities are more likely to be forced into substandard accomodation than white people of the same class