Russell Haggar

Site Owner

 

Section Three: Essay "Race", Ethnicity and Educational Achievement

Please note: that I have currently written 7 essays on the Sociology of Education and intent to write a few more in the near future. Note that in each case these essays are far longer than could be written under examination conditions and that although they include points of knowledge , application and evaluation I tend to use separate paragraphs for each of these categories rather than to combine several categories in each paragraph  as in the strongly recommended PEEEL approach whereby each paragraph should included Point; Explanation, Example: Evaluation and Link to following Paragraph.

I hope that you find the information in these essays useful but would strongly recommend that you write your own essays using the PEEEL approach or something very similar to it. Obviously your teachers will advise you as to appropriate essay writing technique.

Race", Ethnicity and Educational Achievement

The February 2023 version of the essay is divided into 7 Parts.  It is now rather long but I hope students will be able to switch between the seven parts of the essay  to extract the information they require.

Part One: Introduction
Part Two: IQ Theory
Part Three: Ethnicity, Social Class, and Material Circumstances
Part Four: Ethnicity and Subculture: Family Life, Language and Youth Culture
Part Five: School Organisation
Part Five B: The interaction of external and internal factors
Part Six: Ethnicity , Social Class and Educational Achievement : Ongoing Controversies 2014-2023
Part Seven: Conclusions

 

 

Part One: Introduction

Click here for Panorama “Let’s talk about race 2021.

Click here for BBC Drama series Small Axe: “Vivid stories of hard=won victories in the face of racism.”

Click here for a PowerPoint on “Race”, Ethnicity and Educational Achievement.

 

Before analysing trends in ethnic educational achievement, it is important to clarify the distinction between the concepts of "race" and ethnicity. In many Sociology textbooks the term "race" appears in inverted commas because sociologists and many others are sceptical as to the validity of the term.  "Racial" differences refer to supposed biological differences between individuals such as differences in skin colour, hair texture or shape of eyes or noses and it has in the past been alleged that these biological differences are correlated with differences in intellectual or cultural characteristics suggesting the cultural and intellectual superiority of the white "race" over all other "races”. However geneticists have shown that real genetic differences between so-called biological "races" are extremely limited such that ,for example, it is entirely possible that if two black persons and one white person are chosen at random there may be more genetic similarities between one of the black persons and the white person than between the two black persons although many geneticists may still argue that the genetic differences which exist between different races are sufficient to make race a meaningful scientific term although they agree very strongly  that ideas of racial superiority have been exposed as sickening but nevertheless dangerous myths . Sociologists therefore aim to investigate ethnic cultural rather than "racial" biological differences in educational achievement.

I have presented a detailed summary of official statistics on ethnic patterns of educational achievement in Part Two of the teaching notes on “Race, Ethnicity and Educational Achievement. In summary the official statistics document patterns of ethnic educational attainment from school readiness at ages 4-5 to access to higher education and degree classification.  For many years and at all educational levels Chinese and Indian students have outperformed students from all other ethnic groups. The White Category contains White Irish students who perform well, White British students who are numerically by far the most significant White category, Gypsy Roma, Travellers of Irish Heritage, and other White students. Within the White category White British students have traditionally outperformed Bangladeshi, Pakistani and Afro-Caribbean students.

However more recent statistics on GCSE attainment indicate that patterns of ethnic educational attainment at GCSE Level have changed significantly. You may click here for data on Ethnicity and attainment at Key Stage 4 in 2018/19- 2021/22.

• Chinese and Indian pupils' attainment levels have continued to improve at a faster rate than those of White British pupils. You may  click here for a summary of research by Louise Archer and Becky Francis  analysing the high attainment levels of Chinese pupils
• Bangladeshi pupils have in recent years overtaken White British pupils.
• Black African pupils have in recent years overtaken White British pupils.  However, there are significant variations in educational attainment within the Black African category.
• Pakistani pupils also now outperform White British pupils on some measures of Key Stage 4 attainment and in terms of their access to university although not to high status universities.
• Although White British pupils still reach higher attainment levels than Black Caribbean pupils this attainment gap has narrowed significantly. Black Caribbean pupils are more likely than White British pupils to gain access to Higher Education. Black Caribbean pupils eligible for FSM are more likely than White British pupils eligible for FSM to gain access to high status universities but in the case of NFSM pupils the reverse is the case.
• Unfortunately, however the attainment levels of Gypsy Roma and Traveller of Irish Heritage pupils are far lower than pupils in all other ethnic groups.

• The statistics also document ethnic educational attainment by gender and free school meal eligibility.
• Females are shown to outperform males in all ethnic groups.
• “Other” pupils” [ i.e., those not claiming free school meals] outperform pupils eligible for free school meals in every ethnic group.
• Upper and middle class students outperform working class student in every ethnic group.
• For all pupils combined the FSM eligibility gap in attainment is greater than the gender gap in attainment but this is not the case for every ethnic group at every educational stage [ see for example, the Key Stage 2 data in Part Two of these teaching notes].
• Also, Free school meal eligibility gaps are considerably higher for White pupils than for pupils in other ethnic groups and sociologists continue to investigate the causes of relatively low educational attainment of free school meal eligible white pupils [ and particularly white boys] by comparison with the educational attainments of free school meal eligible pupils in other ethnic groups.
• It is also very important to consider ethnic differences in achievement at Advanced Level and ethnic patterns of enrolment in Higher Education. Data on these issues is provided in Part Two but you may click here for data on High A Level Grade Attainment and click here and here to access  the data on relationships between ethnicity, gender, free school meal eligibility and access to Higher Education  and access to Higher Education at High Tariff universities
• You may click here for recent data on ethnicity and degree classification. The data refer only to broad ethnic categories and the bracketed percentages refer to the percentages of graduates in each ethnic category who were awarded First Class Degrees : Asian [33.3%]; Black [20.0%]; Mixed[ 35.6%];White[39.4%] ; Other [30.8%].

Several explanations were advanced to explain the relatively poor performance of Black, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Gypsy Roma, and Traveller of Irish Heritage students. However Chinese and Indian students have for many years out-performed White British students and in recent years Bangladeshi students and Black African students have overtaken White British students as have Pakistani students on some measures of Key Stage 4 attainment while Black Caribbean students are beginning to catch up White British students. Therefore, we must now recognise that although Black and Minority Ethnic pupils continue to face some educational disadvantages in the education system, they are beginning to surmount them, and increasing attention has been given to the educational problems faced by White British pupils [and particularly White British working class pupils] within the education system.

Part Two: IQ Theory

It has sometimes been argued that the relatively poor performance of some ethnic minority students can be explained in terms of their lower mainly genetically inherited intelligence but sociologists are generally critical of this view .Thus they point out that. it may be impossible to define exactly what ""Intelligence" is; IQ tests may be culturally biased; they may not measure "Intelligence" but simply the ability to do IQ tests; individuals’ IQ test results depend upon whether they were nervous when taking the test  and on how seriously they have taken the tests ; that even if it could be shown that individual intelligence is to some extent inherited this would not prove that , for example, Asians as an ethnic  group had inherited greater intelligence than Whites as an ethnic group; that IQ test scores depend upon a range of economic, cultural environmental factors and  that  with the current state of knowledge it is not possible to assess the relative importance of heredity and the environment as factors influencing Intelligence.

We may note also that Blacks' IQ test scores have increased relatively quickly in the USA since the introduction of Civil Rights reforms and in South Africa since the ending of Apartheid and that if current trends continue it will not be long before Blacks' IQ scores surpass Whites' IQ scores; that American East Asians currently outscore both American Whites and American Blacks ; and that given the "racial" similarities between Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis it is surely nonsensical to explain differences in educational achievement among these groups in terms of racially inherited differences in IQ. In any case in England Chinese and Indian students have long outperformed White British students at GCSE Level; Bangladeshi pupils have overtaken White British pupils in recent years and the performance gap between Pakistani students and White British students and between Black and White British students are narrowing.

Further information on IQ Theory is provided below.

        The comparison of IQ test scores of members of different ethnic groups has occurred more frequently in the USA than in the UK and in the USA the available data suggest that Americans of Asian origin typically score slightly higher in IQ tests than White Americans who in turn have typically scored 10% -15% higher than Black Americans although the gap between White American and Black American test scores is narrowing.

Supporters of IQ Theory such as Arthur Jensen, Hans Eysenck, Richard Herrnstein, and Charles Murray make the following claims:

1. Intelligence can be clearly defined.
2. Intelligence, once defined, can be measured accurately in IQ tests.
3. Between 40% and 80% of the variation in intelligence between individuals can be explained by genetic factors.
4. Average differences in intelligence between upper, middle and working class people can be explained to a considerable extent by genetic factors although the precise significance of heredity and environment in this respect cannot be known with certainty.
5. Genetic factors help also explain differences in intelligence between ethnic groups although once again the relative importance of genetic and environmental factors cannot be known with certainty.
6. However, in "The Bell Curve" [1994] Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray suggest that it may be reasonable to assume that 60% of the variation in intelligence between Black and White Americans may be explained by genetic factors.

[Charles Murray also developed a theory of the "Underclass" in the USA in the 1980s which he explained the intergenerational persistence of mainly Black and Hispanic poverty partly in terms of the fatalism and lack of ambition of Blacks and Hispanics which he believed to have been caused by their excessive reliance on generous welfare benefits which creates a "culture of dependency" from which they cannot escape. In The Bell Curve Murray and Herrnstein suggest that Black poverty may result also from the lower inherited IQ of black people. and their ideas have been seized upon by the supporters of the "New Right" who argue that since poverty is to be explained  mainly  or at least partly by genetically inherited low IQ , increased government spending on social security and education will be unlikely to solve the problem. However, IQ theory in general and The Bell Curve in particular have also attracted several criticisms]

Many sociologists are critical of  arguments that differences in intelligence can be accurately measured by IQ tests and that differences in IQ test scores between Blacks and Whites  can be explained to a significant extent by  differences between Blacks and Whites in their genetic inheritance of intelligence.

With regard to the limitations of IQ tests sociologists point out that::

1. It is difficult to define what "Intelligence " actually is although Eysenck and Jensen have defined it as "abstract reasoning ability."
2. It is open to question whether so called Intelligence  Tests or IQ tests can accurately  measure current intelligence or the potential to increase one's intelligence in the future. The fact that one can quickly improve one's test scores with a little practice suggests that these tests are unlikely to measure our fundamental intelligence or our potential to develop our intelligence in the future.
3. These tests may be culturally biased in various ways as where they demand knowledge more likely to be available to white [and middle class] respondents
4. Related to the above point such tests may therefore be may be testing knowledge rather than intelligence.
5. Test results are likely to vary according to the conditions surrounding the test. In racist societies the self-confidence of ethnic minority members may have been systematically undermined so that they under-perform in IQ tests much as they have sometimes done in the education system more generally.
6. More straightforwardly the tests results may fail to accurately measure intelligence because some respondents may be nervous, unwell or may not take the test seriously.

Let us now consider the arguments that claims that differences in IQ test scores between Blacks and Whites can be explained to a significant extent by  differences between Blacks and Whites in their genetic inheritance of intelligence.

1. Herrnstein claimed in the late 1960s that between 40% and 80% of the differences in IQ scores between individuals could be explained by inherited differences in intelligence. The relative importance of heredity and environment as determinants of intelligence may be estimated in a variety of ways most notably via the study of separated identical twins reared in different environments such that any observed similarity in IQ tests scores might be explained more reasonably by the similar genetic endowments of the twins than by environmental factors which would be different in the case of each separated twin. However, critics of Herrnstein such as Leon Kamin have pointed out that the separated twins were often reared in similar environments and indeed in different branches of the same family so that the observed similarities in IQ test scores could be explained much more by environmental factors than suggested by Herrnstein. Kamin further claims that a careful analysis of other types of study designed to isolate genetic and environmental influences on IQ test scores suggest that environmental influences are far greater and genetic influences far smaller than is suggested by Herrnstein.
2. In The Bell Curve [1994] Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray do not of course wish to argue that differences in IQ test scores are determined entirely by genetic factors. Thus they state that " the debate about whether and how much genes and environment have to do with ethnic differences remains unresolved" but having made this statement they quickly  re -iterate, [despite the criticisms of Kamin and others]  the original Herrnstein estimates that hereditability explained between 40%  and 80% of individual differences in IQ test scores [and hence, according to them, in intelligence ] so that it might be reasonable to assume that a mid-point figure that of 60%  of  the difference in IQ test scores between Blacks and Whites might be explained by differences in inherited intelligence between Blacks and Whites.
3. When critics claimed that the differences in IQ test scores could be explained by the  higher average socio-economic status [i.e. social class position] of Whites which meant, for example, that Whites, on average,  had more years of schooling than Blacks , Herrnstein and Murray rejected these criticisms on the grounds that  Whites were shown to achieve higher IQ test scores  than Blacks   even when the test scores  of Blacks and Whites in the same social class position were compared.
4. Herrnstein and Murray also rejected all the potential criticisms of IQ tests which I have outlined above.

Not surprisingly The Bell Curve has attracted massive criticisms including the following.

1. It is pointed out [as was mentioned early in the previous Unit] that overall variations between "racial" groups are far smaller than variations between "racial" groups leading many to claim that the concept of "race" has no scientific validity or usefulness or at least that such small differences between races as do exist are highly unlikely to result in differences in intelligence.
2. It is pointed out that no intelligence gene has so far been discovered so that the strength or weakness of genetic influence on intelligence must be a matter of speculation. Acknowledged expert sociologist and geneticist respectively   Christopher Jencks and Steve Jones both state that the relative influences of heredity and environment on intelligence are currently unknown and even probably unknowable.  May it not be just as possible that Black Americans have inherited greater intelligence than White Americans rather than vice versa?
3. It is pointed out that in the USA there has been considerable intermarriage between Black and White individuals so that many "Black" and "White" Americans might more accurately be described as of "Mixed Race."
4. Although  Herrnstein and subsequently Herrnstein and Murray have claimed that because there are differences in IQ test scores between Blacks and Whites in all social classes this indicates a limited environmental effect on intelligence , we may note  that in 1972 Bodmer had pointed out that over two hundred years of prejudice and discrimination in the USA against black people prevents an equalisation of the environment with whites and this undermines the validity of the Herrnstein comparison of  IQ test results because even if it is possible to control for the effects of membership of different social classes it is impossible to control for the adverse effects of racism which is likely to affect blacks in all social classes. It is difficult to see how Jensen and Eysenck could make valid comparisons between black and white people in racist societies because even when they attempted to compare blacks and whites from the same social classes  these groups might have similar incomes  but black people would still be socially disadvantaged as result of the effects of racism. Identical criticisms were made in the USA of Herrnstein and Murray almost immediately after the publication of The Bell Curve.
5. There is considerable evidence that environmental influences on the relative IQ test scores of Blacks and Whites are considerable.

• The higher IQ test scores of Northern relative to Southern Blacks in the USA for much of the 20th Century may be explained partly by the greater levels of discrimination faced by Southern Blacks.
• Researchers such as James Flynn have pointed out that IQ test scores are rising on average at the rate of 3% per decade  and that in the USA, for example, Black and White IQ scores have been rising at annual rates of 0.3% and 0.45% respectively which means that in perhaps another 40-50 years Black scores will have overtaken white scores. [James Flynn was interviewed as part of the recent Documentary for Channel 4 by Rageh Omaar: "Race" Science's Last Taboo
• Such rapid increases in IQ scores cannot possibly be explained via genetic evolution which occurs only very gradually but can certainly be linked to environmental factors such as improvements in health, housing, and education.

Most of the above discussion surrounds the analysis of differences in IQ test scores between Black and White Americans. Comparisons of ethnic differences in IQ test scores have rarely been made in the UK but the Swann Committee Report [Education for All 1985] did attempt to investigate the possible strength of environmental influences on IQ test scores and came to the conclusion that ethnic differences in IQ were insignificant once environmental factors were taken account of. Furthermore we now find that students in all ethnic minority groups are more likely than white students to enrol on undergraduate degree courses which hardly suggests that members of ethnic minority groups are on average genetically less intelligent than white people.

Activity 1. Re-read the information on Intelligence, IQ tests and their limitations. To what extent do you accept or reject the conclusions of IQ theory in relation to the educational achievements of different ethnic groups? Give reasons for your answer.

 

Part Three: Ethnicity, Social Class and Material Circumstances

When ethnic minority students do underachieve in education this may be explained partly by social class disadvantages and partly by educational disadvantages related specifically to their ethnicity.

Click here for a table which indicates that there is very significant ethnic variation in eligibility for free school meals.

It follows that because ethnic minority members are disproportionately likely to experience poverty, they are in effect experiencing class disadvantages which are also made more likely because they are more likely than white people to be in the lower sections of the working class partly because of the effects of racial discrimination. Ethnic minority students from poor backgrounds may have poorer diet causing lack of energy, concentration difficulties and illness leading to absence from school. They may be forced to miss school to look after sick siblings if their parents cannot afford to take time off work; they may not have a quiet comfortable study room; they may be forced to take part-time jobs which reduces the time available for study; their parents may be unable to afford books, computers, expensive school trips and private tuition. Poorer students are more likely to live in deprived areas and to attend relatively ineffective State schools which gain relatively poor examination results and moving to more affluent areas with more effective State schools or the choice of successful but expensive Private schools will not be possible for them. Also, the possible financial sacrifices associated with higher education may be especially alarming and this may prevent talented ethnic minority children from poor families from entering Higher Education.

BAME families may be more likely to experience poverty and deprivation for a variety of reasons but it is also the case that BAME pupils eligible for Free School Meals outperform White British Pupils eligible for Free School Meals so that although poverty may well inhibit the educational attainment of many BAME pupils they appear to be able to offset the effects of poverty more effectively than White British pupils although this does not mean that the adverse effects of poverty are insignificant for many BAME pupils. Were it not for their poverty they might do even better.

Click here for variation GCSE results by ethnicity and free school meal eligibility2020/21 {Ethnicity: Facts and Figures]

Click here for Child Poverty and education outcomes by ethnicity [2020] . A detailed ONS article.

Click here for Widening participation in higher education 2022. You may then scroll down to Explore data and files and then to Free School Meals, Gender and Ethnic Group  for detailed data on Progression to HE by age 19 by FSM Status, Gender and Ethnic Group-2020/21. Notice that there are also variations in the patterns of access to HE in general and access to high status HE.

You may also click here and here for direct links to the relevant statistics and  I have copied the relevant diagrams here

 

Progression to HE by age 19 by FSMS tatus, Gender and Ethnic Group-2021

 

Progression to high tariff HE by age 19 by FSM status, Gender and Ethnic Group

 

The Colour of Class: The Educational strategies of the Black Middle Classes: Nicola Rollock, David Gillborn, Carol Vincent, and Stephen J. Ball

The above data indicate that ethnic minority pupils are more likely than white pupils to experience poverty and economic disadvantage and that this impacts adversely on their educational prospects but in The Colour of Class the authors illustrate that upper middle and middle Afro-Caribbean parents may also experience racial prejudice and discrimination in their dealings with the British education system which may impact adversely on the children’s education progress. You may click here for a summary of this study.

 

Part Four: Ethnicity and Subculture: Language, Family Life, Language and Youth Culture

Family Life

Sociologists have also considered how ethnic minority family life might affect educational attainments. Writing in 1979 Ken Pryce argued that Afro-Caribbean students might to some extent be disadvantaged by their family characteristics and later writers have emphasised the large proportion of single parent families among Afro -Caribbeans. Against this it has also been claimed that Afro-Caribbean single parents are often resilient, receive considerable help from [often female ] wider kin and often take their children's' education very seriously and also that even when Afro-Caribbean fathers do not live in the same household as their partner/ children they continue to participate considerably in the upbringing of their child/ children.

Click here and scroll down a little for data on the Ethnic Group of Lone Parents.

Given the size of the White population in the UK it is clear that the vast majority of lone parent families are white. However in percentage terms it is true that lone parenthood is most likely in black families but there is no necessary reason why lone parents, whatever their ethnicity should prove to be less effective parents although they may in some cases be more likely to experience poverty which may impose considerable financial constraints on them and their children.

Click here for a TV discussion and here for a recent Guardian article of the issues around the roles of black fathers.

Click here an article on Black  Families by Tracey Reynolds responding to an article by Tony Sewell

There are several studies [such as Driver and Ballard1981 and Ghazala Bhatti [1999] which suggest that Asian parents [Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi] do see their children's education as very important and both Afro-Caribbean and Asian parents are more successful than white working class parents in encouraging their children to stay on in school after post-compulsory education. You may also click here and here for direct links to the relevant statistics on ethnicity and access to Higher Education.

Further evidence of ethnic minority parental interest in their children's education is shown by telephone poll data reported in the recent 2005 DfES study which reported that based on a telephone survey of approximately  1500 ethnic minority parents or carers that they were more likely than a representative sample of the whole UK population to feel very involved in their children's education and more likely to see parents as mainly responsible for their children's education. In addition 82% of ethnic minority parents/carers were likely to attend parents evenings at every opportunity and 40% stated that they were always confident helping children with homework although the figures were a little lower in the case of Pakistanis[36%], Bangladeshis[34%] and those for whom English was not their first language[34%]. We may note also that in some cases where ethnic minority students have been relatively unsuccessful in education their parents have shown themselves ready to organise special weekend schools in an attempt to raise their achievements again pointing to very high levels of parental interest.

Further information on ethnicity, family life and educational attainment

You may click here for a detailed DFE Report: A Compendium of Evidence on Ethnic  Minority Resilience to the Effects of Deprivation on Attainment . Pages 17-25 of this Report contain useful information on possible reasons for ethnic differences in attainment among pupils eligible for free school meals.

In this Report the authors summarise some of the available research studies which aim to assess the relative importance of school factors, and parental and student attitudes as determinants of the trends in ethnicity, free school meal eligibility and student attainments.  Detailed evidence is provided to suggest that ethnic differences in parental and pupil attitudes help to explain ethnic differences in pupil attainment.

• They note that Professor Steven Strand has found that parental attitudes and behaviours were significantly related to pupils' educational attainments at age 16. Thus "on average Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Indian and Mixed Heritage parents were more likely than White British Parents to have higher educational aspirations, to have paid for private tuition, to know where their children were when out, to have greater involvement with their children's school, were less likely to quarrel with their child and were less likely to be single." According to Professor Strand these factors helped to explain the attainment gap between White working class pupils and ethnic minority pupils of similar socio-economic status.
• However, Professor Strand notes that although Black parents shared many of these characteristics with other Ethnic Minority parents their children were less likely to do well in school and Professor Strand attributes this tentatively to some combination of low teacher expectations, racism within schools and peer group effects.
• Professor Strand's conclusions are supported by research from Demie and Lewis based [ 2011] on interviews and focus groups with school leaders, class teachers, teaching assistants, governors, parents, and pupils in 14 schools in one London LEA. Thus, they note that head teachers and class teachers perceived white working class parents as having low educational aspirations for their children perhaps because they were more likely to be young, because they had little belief in the value of school and because they lived in areas of high unemployment which generated a culture where "pupils felt it not necessary to worry about doing well in school." Consequently, this led to a range of problems including pupil absence, lateness, willingness of parents to tolerate poor behaviour and parental failure to take up opportunities for parental involvement in family improvement and parenting skills and after school clubs. By contrast working class ethnic minority parents were perceived as more interested and involved in their children's education. However, notice that this conclusion is about teachers' perceptions of white working class parents which may or may not be accurate.
• Professor Strand also investigated pupils 'attitudes and risk factors. Here he found that ethnic minority/free school meal pupils scored higher than White British/ free school meals pupils on aspiration, future planning, attitudes to school, academic self-concept and time spent completing homework and that White British/free school meal pupils had higher risk factors in terms of SEN eligibility, truancy, absence, and problems leading to the involvement of the police and social services agencies.
• The Report's authors conclude that available evidence suggests that differences in attainment related to ethnicity and free school meal eligibility are more dependent upon parents' and pupils' attitudes and values than on school-based factors.
• However, the Report states also that further research on the effects of aspirations is necessary as is indicated in the following long quotation. "It is frequently asserted that ethnic minority parents have high aspirations for their children while white working class parents do not. However, research evidence on the place of educational aspirations as a factor explaining differences in attainment is inconclusive. Educational aspiration is difficult to measure and to disentangle from lack of awareness of opportunities to which pupils and their parents can aspire. Further research is needed on whether it is low aspiration which leads to underachievement of white working class pupils or other barriers such as knowledge of opportunities or lack of resources to promote literacy."
• These are very important conclusions which are often referenced in other reports and, for what it is worth, I would recommend highly that students  click here for this detailed DFE Report: A Compendium of Evidence on Ethnic  Minority Resilience to the Effects of Deprivation on Attainment and read pages 17-25 which  contain useful information on possible reasons for ethnic differences in attainment among pupils eligible for free school meals. It won’t take long!!
• It should be remembered that theories based around the alleged cultural deprivation of working class students and their families have a long history in Sociology and that they have been subjected to several significant criticisms. Further information on these theories can be found here and more detailed information can be found here.
• Bourdieu’s theories suggest that some working class students underachieve not because they and their families are in some respects lacking in "aspiration" or because they lack the cultural, social and economic capital necessary to translate their aspirations into effective strategies to improve their educational attainment levels.

• . Also, very importantly some sociologists have argued that in any case the concept of "aspiration" requires further analysis in that if many working class students aspire to traditional working class jobs located within their own working class communities rather than to usually relatively short range upward social mobility into not necessarily fulfilling routine lower middle class jobs this should not be defined simply as a "lack of aspiration".

Click here and here for a thought provoking articles by Garth Stahl on the nature of white working class aspiration and click here for an article by Prof. Tony Sewell and  click here for further comments from Garth Stahl. The differing emphases of these articles may generate useful discussion.

Language

It has been argued that ethnic minority students may face a range of linguistic disadvantages which undermine their educational prospects. They  may be disadvantaged because in some Asian households English is not the first Language and some Afro Caribbean origin people may speak and write in Creole or Patois which are non- standard English dialects, the use of which may inhibit their understanding of more formal English.  However there is considerable dispute as to the importance of language and several studies such as those of Driver and Ballard [1981] and the Swann Report [1985] suggested that initial language difficulties had mostly been overcome by the age of 16 while the Policy Studies Institute Fourth National Survey of Ethnic Minorities (Modood et al 1997)  suggested that it was mainly older ethnic minority people who often did have significant language difficulties.

The issue of language has also be linked with the issue of so-called negative self-images among ethnic minority students. It has been suggested that if West Indian origin students consistently speak and write in Creole and this is consistently graded as incorrect by teachers, this could result in these students generating a negative self-image which would restrict their overall progress although of course this is not the only process which could generate negative self-images. Attempts have been made to assess the self-image of ethnic minority students using so -called "doll studies" where students are shown black and white dolls and asked which they prefer and the relative preference of ethnic minority children for white dolls is taken as evidence suggesting that some ethnic minority students do indeed have a "negative self-image". However, and not surprisingly, several critics have warned against drawing too clear conclusions from these studies: many ethnic minority children clearly have very positive self-images which are encouraged by ethnic minority parents.

Recent research published by the DfES in 2005 suggested that although language difficulties may affect some ethnic minority pupils quite significantly in the early stages of their education, the adverse effects of language disadvantage declines significantly by the age of 15-16 and. indeed in 2016=17 students for whom English is a second language on average performed slightly better at GCSE level than other students for whom English is a first language. This trend has continued in recent years.

Important addition [1] February 2023

Significant research is currently being conducted by Ian Cushing on the various ways in which the educational progress of Black pupils may be being undermined because linguistic competence is being assessed more in terms of breadth of vocabulary and conventional grammatical competence than in terms of the vibrancy and originality of Black pupils’ use of language.   Click here for a Guardian on issue of verbal deficiency which reports that:

A survey of 1,300 primary and secondary school teachers across the UK found that more than 60% saw increasing incidents of underdeveloped vocabulary among pupils of all ages, leading to lower self-esteem, negative behaviour and in some cases greater difficulties in making friends.

However, Ian Cushing argues that measuring linguistic competence in terms of a word gap  underestimates the linguistic competence of Afro-Caribbean children and more broadly that when black relative educational underachievement is explained in terms of the existence of a linguistic deficit this deflects attention from what he sees as the far more significant effects of structural racial inequality on educational attainment. You may click here for a recent video lecture by Ian Cushing in which he describes in some detail the inadequacies of linguistic deficit models as explanations of ethnic educational inequality. In so doing he also references some of the studies which are covered in Advanced Level Sociology textbooks.

Click here for a recent article by Ian Cushing in The Conversation in which he discusses these issues

Important addition [2] February 2023

The work of Dr April-Baker Bell similarly focuses upon the vibrancy of Black American language and hence to encourage and support students in the use of their own language.

New Sources with thanks to Fran Nantongwe

 

Click here for important current thinking on language and ethnicity from Dr April Baker-Bell

Click here for a Webinar presentation by Dr Baker Bell

Click here for information about Dr April-Baker Bell’s new book Linguistic Justice Black Language, Literacy, Identity and Pedagogy

 

Important addition [3] February 2023

Click here and then on Key stage 4 performance 2022 and then on the Attainment by first language status link for the most recent information on differences in educational attainment at Key Stage 4 between pupils for whom English is and is not their first language. The Report concludes that.

“In 2018/19, 2020/21 and 2021/22 pupils with English as an additional language (EAL) have had slightly better attainment than pupils with English as their first language (Non EAL) across all the headline measures.”

Click here  for a table illustrating the higher attainments at GCSE level of students for whom English is an additional language.

Click here for Widening participation in higher education 2020/21. Scroll down to Explore data and files and then to the First Language link. Alternatively, you may click here for a direct link to the relevant data. On Progression to Higher Education the report concludes:

A majority of pupils with a first language other than English progress to HE by age 19. 59.2% of pupils with a first language other than English progressed to HE by age 19 by 2020/21 compared to 41.6% of pupils with English as a first language. The progression rates have increased by 8.4 percentage points and 9.4 percentage points respectively since 2009/10.

However in a detailed recent article entitled The Educational Achievement of Black African Children in England[2021] Feyisa Demie notes the great linguistic diversity of Black African students for whom English is an additional language and that GCSE attainments of African students vary considerably  depending upon the African language spoken at home.   Thus, Feyisa Demie’s data [see pp 9-11 of his article]  which refer to an Inner London Local Authority show that in 2019 100% of African students who spoke the Ga language  at home gained 5 or more GCSE Grades A*-C including English and Mathematics but only 40% if students speaking the Krio Language at home  did so. Also, among White students for whom English is an additional language, language diversity is also considerable. Thus, even if students for whom English is an additional language are on average doing well this certainly does not apply to all linguistic subgroupings.

Youth Culture

There has been a veritable parade since the end of the Second World War of mainly White youth subcultures differentiated according to their tastes in fashion and music but also, to some extent, according to the attitudes and values of their members. Discussion of the appearance, behaviour and attitudes of successive waves of Teddy Boys, Mods, Rockers, Hippies, Punks and Goths has often pre-occupied certain sections of the mass media and that section of the Sociology profession specialising in the analysis of "youth subcultures." Furthermore, sociologists specialising in educational issues have explained the  relative educational underachievement of white working class boys not necessarily in terms of their subcultural styles, but at least partly in terms of the development of an anti-school pupil subculture which is thought to arise partly out of the general condition of working class life   but also as a response to processes such as streaming, banding and setting operative in the schools themselves.

More recently, while relatively little attention has been given to the youth subcultures which may among Chinese, Indian, Bangladeshi and Pakistani pupils, it has been argued that certain aspects of youth subculture operative among Afro-Caribbean boys may help to explain their relative educational under -achievement. Perhaps the best known study of Afro- Caribbean youth subculture in the UK has been provided by Tony Sewell in "Black Masculinities and Schooling" [1997], which is based upon an investigation of Afro-Caribbean boys in a boys only 11-16 comprehensive school. Sewell distinguishes between four main responses among Afro-Caribbean boy to education which he terms conformity, innovation, retreatism and rebellion.

Thus 41% of the Afro-Caribbean pupils in the sample are described as "Conformists" who accept school rules and regulations and are ambitious for educational success; 35% are "Innovators" who are also ambitious for educational success but they are critical of school rules and regulations and distance themselves from both teachers and conformist teachers because they wish to be educationally successful but on their own terms; there are a small proportion [6%] of "Retreatists" [often pupils who have been defined as educationally subnormal]   who aim simply to keep a low profile and stay out of trouble  but unfortunately are nevertheless unlikely to be successful; and finally Sewell describes 18% of the pupils as "Rebels" who identify closely with Black Macho street culture as portrayed especially in certain sections of the mass media and music industries, lack ambition and are likely to behave in confrontational ways which teachers believe   reduce the prospects for effective class teaching and may represent a blatant challenge to teacher authority.

It is important to note that only 18% of these boys are classified as rebels in comparison with the 76% who are keen for educational success although admittedly 35% of the pupils pursue success in a way that some teachers might regard as "unorthodox" . In relation to the "Rebels" it is possible that in some cases these boys’ youthful self-confidence may provoke negative over-reactions by teachers who may have misinterpreted their behaviour as confrontational and threatening.  Also, if these boys do show anger within the school environment, such anger may be understandable given their experiences of racism and blocked opportunities in the wider society and of what they perceive to be discriminatory setting procedures and excessive rates of school exclusion relative to boys in other ethnic groups [especially white boys] who can be just as disruptive but are less likely to be excluded.

Tony Sewell's study has been criticised in some quarters for its alleged excessive emphasis on rebellious youth subculture as an explanation of relative educational achievement among Afro-Caribbean origin boys. However, although he does indeed focus on the rebelliousness of some Afro-Caribbean origin boys Tony Sewell does also describe the teacher racism [sometimes unintended] and generally poor teaching which the pupils receive in many but not all classes as well as the extent to which teacher-pupil confrontations arise partly as a result of rebellious pupil behaviour but also partly as a result of teachers' misinterpretation of this behaviour. Other analysts do, however focus more than Tony Sewell on the impact of poverty and/or of school organisation and less than Tony Sewell on aspects of Afro-Caribbean youth culture.

Click here  for a recent article by Tony Sewell and click here for a profile of Tony Sewell.

 

Tony Sewell was appointed Chairperson of The Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities {CRED} which published its Report March 2021. The Report is very wide ranging and I shall only summarise here its main conclusions on the education of Ethnic minority students

• The Report emphasised that ethnic minority students are making good educational progress and that only Black Caribbean, Gypsy Roma and Traveller of Irish Heritage pupils are performing worse than White pupils. {It should be noted, however, that although Black African pupils are on average performing well, some subgroups within the Black African category are less successful than others.]
• It did not deny the existence of institutional racism in the UK but argued that the term should be used with much more care than was currently the case [according to the authors of the Report]. The authors argue that the relatively poor performance of some ethnic minority students can be explained not just in in terms of their ethnicity but also in terms of their social class background, their gender and their geographical location so that to emphasise only the pupils’ ethnicity would be misguided.
• The authors also argue that because, on average, students in several ethnic minority groups have higher levels of attainment than White British students it means that racial discrimination is unlikely to be a very significant factor affecting educational achievement and that the fact that Black African students out- perform Black Afro-Caribbean students points to an absence of anti-Black racism.
• To explain ethnic differences in educational attainment the CRED suggested that ethnic differences ibn educational attainment can to some extent be explained in terms of the Immigrant Paradigm.
• This suggests that whereas white working class students may carry a legacy of several generations of educational underachievement and that the same may apply to Black Caribbean students whose families may have migrated to the UK in the 1950s Black African families may have arrived in the UK more recently and have retained their optimism as to the prospects of educational success. Also, Black African and Indian origin adults may be well educated and have held professional jobs in their country of origin which are more likely to foster beliefs in the possibility of upward social mobility. It is further suggested that Pakistani and Bangladeshi families are more likely than White working class families to be able to draw on community resources to promote educational success.
• It must be emphasised that this line of argument has been seriously called into question on the grounds that negative stereotypes of Afro-Caribbean culture have regularly been used to explain Afro-Caribbean underachievement in a way which marginalises the impact of material disadvantage and racism within schools and the wider society that many sociologists see as key factors in Afro-Caribbean underachievement.
• Having questioned the extent of institutional racism in general CRED also questioned its extent in the school system and while it recognises the higher rates of pupil exclusion of Black Caribbean pupils it denies that this can be explained in terms of institutional racism’
• The Report also downplays the significance of negative labelling as a factor inhibiting educational attainment. This flies in the face of a great deal of sociological research and recent reports for the IFS by Diane Reay  and by  Heidi Mirza And Ross Warwick    certainly reiterate the continued significance of negative labelling.
• The Report emphasised that it was very important for ethnic minority histories and cultures to be represented positively within UK school and college curricula, but it also courted controversy because of its claims that students might face dangers of indoctrination by teachers sympathetic to the arguments of critical race theorists.
• The Report also attracted criticism because of its treatment of the history of slavery and minor amendments were made in the Report to address these criticisms. For this and further criticisms of the Report from the Guardian click here   and for a defence of the Report by Kemi Badenoch click here   and here for a more detailed statement of her views.

Ethnicity and Culture:  Conclusions

With regard to family life  it is noted that a large proportion of Afro Caribbean families are headed by lone mothers and that this might in principle affect their children’s educational prospects adversely although there are several studies which point to the resilience of Afro-Caribbean lone parent families and to the fact that non-resident fathers may nevertheless participate substantially in the upbringing of their children.

With regard to ethnic minority family life in general there were several studies from the 1980s to the early 2o00s which indicated that if anything Asian and Black parents on average took their children’s education very seriously and ethnic minority educational achievement levels now exceed white British educational achievement levels in all ethnic categories apart from the Black Afro-Caribbean , Gypsy Roma and Traveller of Irish Heritage categories.

From around 2014 attention began to focus especially on the relative educational underachievement of white working class pupils [i.e. those eligible for free school meals]  and it was suggested that  minority parents and pupils were if anything more likely than white British parents and pupils to  prioritise educational achievement although the difficulties of measuring and comparing aspirations and expectations with any certainty were recognised .

Many Asian, African and White children may have English as an additional language [EAL] but there is clear evidence that although these children may be at a disadvantage when they enter school by the age of 16 they are on average outperforming pupils whose main language is English and they are also more likely to gain access to Higher Education. However as noted above in the case of African pupils some linguistic subgroups within the broad ethnic categories mat continue to experience difficulties. Also it is argued that Afro-Caribbean pupils in the UK Black American pupils  may face difficulties because their specific dialects are undervalued in school setting as is indicated in the work of Ian Cushing [UK] and April Baker-Bell [USA].. 

The issue of Afro-Caribbean youth culture is considered to be a significant factor affecting educational achievement by Tony Sewell, but other sociologists claim that he has overstated its importance and underestimated the importance of material poverty and institutionalised racism within schools as factors affecting educational achievement.

Part Five: Ethnicity and School Organisation

Racism and Perceptions of Racism

Following the election of Barack Obama as President of the USA it was suggested that the USA might be evolving into a post=racial society in which the need for positive discrimination in favour of ethnic minorities would decline and government policies would become colour blind or race neutral. Such views are indeed accepted by many Americans [mostly White Republicans]  but other Americans believe that  believe that racial prejudice are still widespread. Also in the UK it is suggested that the extent of racism has declined in recent years and that such racism as does exist is now more subtle and covert. You may  click here for recent data from Ipsos Mori indicating that the UK is now generally perceived as a less racist society but unsurprisingly perceptions of racism run high among young Black people as indicated   here in the Young and Black Report produced by the YMCA.  Click here for Panorama “Let’s talk about race [2021] which draws similar conclusions.

Personal, Structural and Institutional Racism

There are many studies which suggest that the academic attainments ethnic minority students are adversely affected by the racism which they experience within the UK education system and in the wider society , but it then becomes important to distinguish between the racism which may derive from the consciously racist attitudes and behaviour of individual teachers and the institutional racism which may arise out of the organisation of individual schools and/or from the organisation of the UK education system as a whole. Of course, there are disputes as to the extent to which individual and institutional racism exist within schools.

As has already been noted Chinese, Indian, Bangladeshi, and Black African students have for some time outperformed White British students and there is some evidence also that in most recent years Pakistani students also are beginning to overtake White British pupils. These trends are taken to suggest the relative absence of racism within schools while the fact that Black African students are performing well is taken to show that the slower progress of Afro-Caribbean students must be explained in terms of cultural factors rather than anti-Black racism.

However, these views are also contested. It is argued that Chinese and  Indian pupils especially  might be positively evaluated  within schools as “model minorities”  while at the same time Afro-Caribbean and indeed white working class pupils  might be especially likely to be evaluated negatively and in their 2007 study Archer Becky Francis  and Louise argued that even Chinese pupils were negatively evaluated  relative to white middle class pupils  who were deemed to approximate most closely  to teachers’ notion of “the ideal pupil. Also, very unfortunately Afro-Caribbean and white working class pupils certainly were negatively evaluated. New link needed on 2007 study Chinese pupils

Louise Archer reiterates this point  in a recent[2008]  detailed academic study Louise Archer suggesting  that "the normalised "ideal pupil" emerges as the dominant male, White, middle class Western subject. " Although Advanced Level Sociology students need not familiarise themselves with the details of this highly technical article they may scroll down to page 13 of the article and a table illustrating this conclusion which may provoke some class discussion

Negative evaluation by British teachers of Afro-Caribbean culture is confirmed in the recent study [2023[ by Derron Wallace. However, excellent studies as these are, they are also small scale studies and so cannot be assumed to be representative of the entire UK education system.

Individual, Structural and Institutional Racism: Definitions

Click here for an article from the Conversation by Professor Vini Lander

If due to his /her ethnicity and individual suffers verbal or physical attack this would be an act of individual racism. However if members of ethnic minority groups on average have poorer education and employment prospects, are less healthy and are discriminated against in the legal system then the structures of society are operating against their interests and they may be said to be subject to structural racism. experiencing structural racism. If a particular institution repeatedly operates to the disadvantage of ethnic minority groups that institution may be said to be institutionally racist.

In her study Race and Society [2017], Tina G. Patel points out that the term “Institutional Racism” originated in the 1967 work of Stokely Carmichael [later Kwame Touré] and Charles Hamilton in 1967where they stated that “ ...When in…Birmingham Alabama . 500 black babies die each year because of the lack of proper food, clothing shelter and proper medical facilities and thousands are destroyed or maimed physically, emotionally and intellectually because of conditions of poverty and discrimination in the black community, that is a function of institutional racism.”

However in his recent article Professor Vini Lander notes a distinction between structural racism and institutional racism and notes that while structural racism  applies to the effects of the interconnected practices of a range of social institutions a specific application of the concept of institutional racism was provided in the Macpherson Report into the Murder of Stephen Lawrence which found the Metropolitan Police Force o to be guilty of Institutionalised Racism and in so doing provided a more specific definition of the term as -:

The collective failure of an organisation to provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture or ethnic origin which can be seen or detected in processes; attitudes and behaviour which amount to discrimination through unwitting prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness and racist stereotyping which disadvantages minority ethnic people." However it should be noted that accusations of institutional racism within the UK police force continue to this day.

Professor Lander notes further that “Institutional and structural racism work hand in glove. Institutional racism relates to, for example, the institutions of education, criminal justice, and health. Examples of institutional racism can include: actions (or inaction) within organisations such as the Home Office and the Windrush Scandal; a school’s hair policy; institutional processes such as stop and search, which discriminate against certain groups. Structural racism refers to wider political and social disadvantages within society, such as higher rates of poverty for Black and Pakistani groups or high rates of death from COVID-19 among people of colour.”

In his recent book “Racism: a very short introduction” Professor Ali Rattansi suggests that another useful distinction may be made between institutional racism and institutional racialisation so that rather than attempting to determine whether particular institutions are or are not institutionally racist we should consider the extent to which institutions are institutionally racialised.

Racism Within Schools: Individual or Institutional

It is difficult to assess the true extent to which teachers hold racist views and, if they do, the extent to which such views are carried over into classroom practice. However the effects of schools themselves on the educational achievements of ethnic minority members has been researched in several relatively small scale studies which [although they may not be entirely representative] do point to the existence of some conscious and considerable unconscious racism but suggest also that it is difficult to generalise about students' actual responses to negative labelling .

One of the first people to focus on the role of the British education system in the generation of West Indian underachievement was Bernard Coard. In his study How the West Indian child is made educationally subnormal in the British school system: the scandal of the Black child in schools in Britain [1971] he argued that the British education system made Black children feel inferior in several ways several of which pointed to the existence of Institutional Racism:

1. They are told that their accent and language are inferior.
2. White is associated with good and black with bad.
3. White culture is celebrated while Black culture is ignored.
4. Pupil racism is widespread.
5. Black pupils are adversely affected by labelling, streaming and self-fulfilling prophecies.

Bernard Coard succeeded in articulating very powerfully the concerns of the Black community and other writers have provided strong support for  his general conclusions in their much more detailed studies by, for example,   E. Brittan, Cecile Wright  and Heidi Mirza. D. Gillborn and D Youdell. The continuing importance the work of Bernard Coard has recently been illustrated by the re-publication, updating and further discussion of his work in Tell It Like It Is: How our schools fail Black children {edited by Brian Richardson  2005] .

Click here and here before two Guardian articles by Bernard Coard which were written published to coincide with the republication of his book

Then the situation described by Bernard Coard has been movingly portrayed in episode one of the Axe series of dramas screened by the BBC. You may click here to watch the drama which is part of the Small Axe series and  click here  and here  for two Guardian articles about it. Also click here for a Guardian article about a group of people subjected to this discrimination in the 60s and 70s who are now campaigning for compensation.

You may Click here  for two students discussing the current relevance of Bernard Coard’s work.

Finally, you may  click here  to see that Bernard Coard has subsequently had an eventful life.

 

In Cecile Wright's research in primary schools [1992] it is suggested that teachers often failed to involve Asian pupils sufficiently in class discussion because of an inaccurate assumption that these students had poor language skills and that they also undervalued Asian culture in some respects. However, teachers also had higher expectations of Asian origin than of Afro-Caribbean origin pupils.

Heidi Mirza's 1992 study of black and white secondary school pupils aged 15-19 suggested that although there was evidence of teacher racism and negative labelling this did not undermine the self-esteem of the pupils. There were also many white teachers who genuinely wanted to help their black students, but this help was sometimes misguided and the students actually received more effective help from black teachers. In some cases although the pupils were keen to do well, Mirza believed that they were held back because of poor relationships even with well-meaning white teachers

Heidi Mirza: Young, Female and Black [1992] Some additional detail

Heidi Mirza's study is located in two South London Comprehensive schools: one a coeducational Catholic School and the other a single sex Church of England school It focuses especially on 62 black girls aged 13-19 and as will be seen the religious dimensions of these schools had important implications for the conclusions of the study. Among the key conclusions are the following.

• There was no evidence that the young black women ion the study had negative self-images as a result of being black. So much for doll studies!
• There was also no evidence that the activities of teachers undermined the  self -esteem of the black students.
• However it was highly likely that the activities of the teachers did undermine the black students' educational prospects in various ways as will be indicated below
• Heidi Mirza argues that the teachers in the study could reasonably be classified into 5 groups: "the overt racists [33%" "the Christians" [ note the religious character of the school];" the crusaders[2%]"; "the liberal chauvinists[25%]]" and the black teachers [4 teachers in total]. By implication about 40% of the teachers were Christians or unclassifiable.
• Heidi Mirza gives several examples of grossly racist attitudes and behaviour among teachers in the study. In the words of one History teacher "African history is so boring...the discussion of slavery is monotonous in school teaching...it has no bearing on anything."
• The "Christians" are presented as an essentially well -meaning group who believed that broadly speaking the schools treated all pupils equally irrespective of their ethnicity so that the specifically anti-racist policies supported by the then ILEA were actually likely to promote ethnic tensions where none previously existed. Heidi Mirza suggests that this meant that the real incidence of racism within the schools remained unaddressed with negative consequences for the prospects of ethnic minority pupils.
• The "liberal chauvinists" are presented as believing that they had the best interests of the black pupils at heart but as in reality making inaccurate assumptions about the attitudes and values of the black community. In particular these teachers often argued that black pupils, encouraged by their parents, actually had unrealistic, over-ambitious expectations which it was the teachers' duty to curtail in order to prevent subsequent disappointment. Clearly this apparently well-meaning approach was likely to undermine ambitions which were both high and realistic.
• There were a small number of "crusaders" who believed that school practices were infused with racism and that the anti-racist policies of the then ILEA should be strongly supported. These teachers were generally unpopular with the other teachers and unfortunately their anti-racist teaching initiatives were often seen by the black pupils as unrealistic and impractical.

Finally, there were a small number of black teachers who did not support radical initiatives but aimed to help black pupils as much as they could in practical ways within the existing school environments. The black pupils felt that these black teachers were supportive but not positively biased toward black rather than white pupils. Heidi Mirza concludes "On the whole the black teachers were more in tune with the needs of their black female pupils offering a more positive solution to the education of the black child.".

Mac An Ghaill [1992] investigated the experiences of Afro-Caribbean and Asian origin students in Further Education. All the students were conscious of racism in UK society generally but disagreed about the extent of racism in the education system. Students did not necessarily allow racism and negative labelling to affect them adversely. Instead, they adopted various survival strategies to improve their prospects: "survival through accommodation, making friendships with helpful teachers and keeping out of trouble."

Institutional Racism: Some Further Discussion

Click here for Race and Racism in English Secondary Schools:  Dr Reni- Joseph Salisbury for The Runnymede Trust 2020

It has been argued Institutional Racism may be said to exist in some  individual schools and within the UK education system as a whole as a result of the following characteristics,

• Rules designed to promote equality of opportunity may not be fully applied.
• School selection policies which have been introduced as a result of the quasi-marketisation of education may restrict the entry of some ethnic minority pupils to well subscribed effective schools and increase their segregation in less successful schools.
• Setting and banding systems may operate to the disadvantage of some ethnic minority pupils.
• School curricula may not fully reflect the cultures and interests of ethnic minority pupils.
• Afro- Caribbean pupils are especially likely to be excluded from school either temporarily or permanently.
• Ethnic minority members are under-represented within the teaching profession and especially at the higher levels of the profession.
• Increasing concerns have been raised that the adultification of some ethnic minority pupils has created special problems for them.
• The Issue of Police in Schools

 

Let us now consider these possible categories of Institutional Racism in Education in more detail.

• Rules designed to promote equality of opportunity may not be fully applied.

 

Click here for Race and Racism in English Secondary Schools:  Dr Reni- Joseph Salisbury for The Runnymede Trust 2020  pp17-20

The Runnymede Trust notes the following issues.

1. There is evidence of considerable interpersonal racism within schools which may involve both verbal and physical abuse, but it is argued that in many schools policies for dealing with this are inadequate.
2. In many cases although schools have frameworks for dealing with racist incidents, responsibility in practice often devolves to individual teachers who may have insufficient training for the task. Click here for an article on the inconsistencies of school policies.
3. Policies which appear to be “race neutral” may in fact discriminate against black pupils as in the case of school hair policies which may rely upon discriminatory value judgements of what is and what is not “neat and tidy”. Click here for a Guardian article on schools’ discriminatory hair policies
4. There are concerns that current Prevent policies operating in schools may discriminate against Muslim pupils.
5. There concerns that in some cases the recent attention given to the relatively low attainment levels of white working class pupils has resulted in the introduction of school policies which have distracted attention from the educational difficulties experienced by some ethnic minority pupils.

Click here for an article on the Myth of a post-racial society by Prof. Kalwant Bhopal and Click here for information about her book White Privilege : the myth of a post-racial society

For several items from the Guardian on racism with schools Click here and here and here and here  and here.

 Click here and here  for proposed reforms

 

• The Quasi- Marketisation of State Education

It has also been argued the State policies involving the quasi-marketisation of education introduced by Conservative governments [1979-97] and extended by Labour and Coalition and Conservative Governments thereafter  have actually benefited middle parents and their children disproportionately since it is these middle class parents who are much more likely to be able to use their cultural, economic and social capital to secure entry  to oversubscribed effective state schools  thereby indirectly reducing the educational opportunities of more disadvantaged pupils. Insofar as ethnic minority families are disproportionately likely to be working class and to experience varying degrees of racial prejudice they may find it especially difficult to secure entry for their children to effective schools although it is also the case that  schools may be especially keen to attract Chinese pupils from all social classes since even Chinese pupils eligible for free school meals are highly likely to gain good examination results while  Indian students also are more successful than white British students . Bangladeshi students in recent years have overtaken White British students in GCSE attainment and the attainment gap between White British students and Pakistani students has narrowed appreciably in recent years The attainment gap between White British and Black Caribbean students has also narrowed but remains more substantial.

These issues are described in detail in a study by S. Gerwirtz, S. Ball and R. Bowe entitled Markets, Choice and Equity in Education [1995] and you should consult your textbooks to familiarise yourselves with the details of this very useful study which is relevant to several aspects of the Sociology of Education.

• Setting and Banding

In a significant study of two London Comprehensive schools, Gillborn and Youdell [2000] argued that ethnic minority students were disadvantaged in several respects. There were few cases of open teacher racism and many teachers were committed to helping ethnic minority students but the authors argued that the relative failure of Afro-Caribbean students  could be explained by the facts that when all students were tested on entry to the schools , black students were more likely to be consigned  to lower sets and to remain there for the rest of their school careers, especially because if they had remained in lower sets in Years 8 and9 they would not have worked in sufficient depth for them to access the higher level worked covered in the top sets in years 10 and 11. Consequently  among other things this meant that they were most likely to be entered for lower tier GCSE examinations. Then, due to a system of educational triage, teachers concentrated their attention firstly on borderline cases who might gain 5 A*-C GCSEs, secondly on high achievers and only minimally on students [who were often black] who were considered unlikely to gain A*-C passes. Negative teacher expectations therefore had affected the achievement of Black students.

However in  Uncertain Masculinities: Youth, Ethnicity and Class[2000] Sue Sharpe and Mike O'Donnell argued on the basis of a study of 4 London Secondary schools that earlier studies pointing to the existence and adverse consequences of negative labelling may now be rather outdated as head teachers and  classroom teachers have increasingly devised and implemented schools equal opportunities policies which have reduced significantly the likelihood of discrimination against pupils. Yet in April 2005 several educationalists writing in The Guardian submitted "Letters to the PM" assessing the effectiveness or otherwise of Labour's Education Policies between 1997-2005. In his contribution Professor David Gillborn focussed on  Ethnicity and Education and suggested that most of the criticisms made over the last 30 years of the UK education system's approach to the education of ethnic minority groups were still valid , that the increased use of setting in recent years was if anything making matters worse for many ethnic minority pupils and that many schools were still failing to implement equal opportunities policies effectively.    Click here for  Professor David Gillborn's 2005 letter to the Guardian.

More recent research by Professor Steve Strand supports this conclusion. Professor Strand's article is entitled The White British-Black Caribbean Achievement Gap: Tests, Tiers and Teacher Expectations and was published in the British Educational Research Journal [ Feb 2012] Here is a brief summary of the conclusions taken from the BERJ website.

A recent analysis of the Longitudinal Study of Young People in England (LSYPE) indicates a White British–Black Caribbean achievement gap at age 14 which cannot be accounted for by socio-economic variables or a wide range of contextual factors. This article uses the LSYPE to analyse patterns of entry to the different tiers of national mathematics and science tests at age 14. Each tier gives access to a limited range of outcomes with the highest test outcomes achievable only if students are entered by their teachers to the higher tiers. The results indicate that Black Caribbean students are systematically under-represented in entry to the higher tiers relative to their White British peers. This gap persists after controls for prior attainment, socio-economic variables and a wide range of pupil, family, school and neighbourhood factors. Differential entry to test tiers provides a window on teacher expectation effects which may contribute to the achievement gap.

You may click here for a similarly critical assessment of tiering by Jo-Anne Baird published in the Conversation in 2014.

Criticism of tiered GCSE examinations has continues as is indicated in this 2022 article based on  a study of Welsh and Northern Irish pupils  which indicates the allocation of pupils to tiers may be affected by teachers’ unconscious biases  which may result in discrimination against girls and against Black Caribbean pupils as is shown in the following extracts .

“The use of tiering has reduced over the last decade because of concerns about equity issues. Grade restrictions on foundation and intermediate tiers mean that students’ attainments are capped, with repercussions for their future trajectories.[1] Tiering also leads to inequalities in the curriculum – the foundation tier offers a restricted curriculum which limits students’ learning.[2] The other issue is how decisions are made about which students should be entered into which tier. This is a difficult task, and one which can be impacted by unconscious bias. Previous research conducted in England indicated that girls were disproportionately entered into the intermediate tier for mathematics because teachers’ perceived girls to be more anxious about their performance than boys and would struggle with the pressure of the higher paper.[3] Similar trends have been identified in relation to ethnicity, with Black Caribbean students less likely to be entered into higher tiers, even when prior attainment and other factors are accounted for.[4]”

The research also found that although the majority of pupils approved of tiering, pupils taking foundation level courses, or a mixture of foundation and higher tier courses were more likely to feel that the system was unfair, and these students were likely to be demotivated by the system. “One typical response from a student taking foundation tier was: "I feel as if I am not as equal as everyone else as if I’m dumb and soon begin feeling depressed, many of my friends are doing higher tier and when I am around them I can’t help but feel stupid." STUDENT TAKING FOUNDATION TIER.

It should be noted, however, that since 2016 schools have been evaluated in terms of the percentages of pupils achieving grades 9=4 in English and Mathematics but also in terms of the schools Attainment 8 and Progress 8 statistics which are dependent upon the attainment levels of all Key Stage 4 pupils, not just those gaining GCSE Grades 9-4. In principle this should reduce the motivation of schools to engage in the kind of educational triage which was prevalent prior to the introduction of the new evaluation criteria and in a recent article from ffteducationdatalab some evidence I provided that the new system has benefited lower attaining pupils. What’s Progress * good for? Lower attaining pupils

 

• The Ethnocentric Curriculum

Click here for a useful tutor2u video on The Ethnocentric Curriculum by Craig Gelling

Click here for Race and Racism in English Secondary Schools:  Dr Reni- Joseph Salisbury for The Runnymede Trust 2020 pp10-14.

 

The histories, cultures and interests of ethnic minority pupils are in principle most likely to be addressed in subjects such as History, Geography, Religious Studies, English, Music, and Sociology and also in PSHE and Citizenship courses as well, occasionally in form periods and assemblies. Specific historical issues will also be addressed in Black History Month, and it has been suggested also that it should be possible to emphasise the contributions of ethnic minority mathematicians and scientists in Mathematics and Science courses.

However, it has for many years been argued that UK school and college curricula are in several respects ethnocentric: that is: a wide range of issues are considered in ways which marginalise the roles and interests of ethnic minority groups and prioritise and celebrate the roles and interests of the white British ethnic group. Insofar as ethnic minority pupils are in several subjects assessed in terms of a culture which is not their own, they are automatically put at a disadvantage.

It is argued also that even when ethnic minority cultures are represented with the curriculum, inadequate attempts are made within schools to challenge the racism which many ethnic minority pupils experience daily. Thus, according to critics, school curricula are often tokenistic but insufficiently anti-racist.  Furthermore, it has been argued or many years that Afro-Caribbean pupils have been disadvantaged because Received Pronunciation English has been accorded far higher status within the school curriculum than Afro-Caribbean variants of English.

It has also been claimed that although recent UK Governments have emphasised their desire to inculcate a  sense of greater social solidarity and although the UK Government’s statement on  “Fundamental British “ emphasises the importance of mutual tolerance and respect, in reality   ethnic minority  groups members are being pressurised to integrate into  a traditional British [and White} way of life with insufficient respect for cultural difference and insufficient recognition  of the levels of prejudice and discrimination  that ethnic minority groups might face. Also. some aspects of the Prevent Strategy have attracted criticism from spokespersons for the Muslim community and others on the grounds that it is targeted excessively on the Muslim Community and as such encourages Islamophobia. [A little more information on Fundamental British Values and the Prevent Strategy can be found here .]

It is suggested that teachers have greater flexibility to teach aspects of ethnic minority culture in primary schools and in years 8 and 9 of secondary schools but that they are more likely to be constrained by the demands of GCSE specifications in years 10 and 11. Specifically it is noted that in GCSE English Literature  specifications core texts written by ethnic minority writers are either completely absent or much underrepresented although ethnic minority authors are represented to some extent in Poetry anthologies. . Also in GCSE History there are optional models which focus to some extent on the importance of ethnic minorities within British History but as is indicated in this Guardian article  relatively few schools actually offer these modules for their students. It may be that the situation is similar in the case of GCSE Geography where there are optional modules on Development but not all schools offer these modules. Also, unfortunately, there is no module on the Sociology of Development in the GCSE Sociology Specifications

Questions have also been raised as to the perspectives which have been adopted in the teaching of ethnic minority issues. On the one hand it might be argued that as a result of the development of Enlightenment thinking  in the C17th and C18^th centuries the evolution of UK society [ and Western European societies in general] has been characterised by the emergence of liberal democracy and the development of modern technology  which were exported to the countries of the former British Empire and enabled them to flourish once they became independent countries within the British Commonwealth  all of which might well create the impression that the white ethic group is superior in some ways to other ethnic groups.

However, it can also be noted that the Enlightenment prioritised White European interests [ especially those of the rich] ; that Britain was heavily involved in the slave trade ; that British imperialism and subsequent economic dominance over former colonies has resulted in the economic exploitation of indigenous ethnic groups and  undermined their  prospects of future prosperity ;  and that these ethnic  groups deserve great credit for their successful struggles to secure their independence.

Teachers ideally seek to evaluate each of these perspectives with great care but Controversy rages. The recent Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities Report [2021] found evidence of some very fair balanced teaching but also feared that some politically motivated teachers were using Critical Race Theory and the notion of White Privilege to explain ethnic inequalities in a biased, non- objective and hence illegal manner. Conversely many academics see considerable value in Critical Race Theory, deny that the theory is being used unobjectively and argue that the ethnocentricity of the UK curriculum has still not been effectively challenged and that what is necessary is the decolonisation of the curriculum.

Click here for a Guardian article on controversy around the Education Select Committee Report of 2021 and see below for a quotation from the UK Government’s response to the Report of the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities.

“It is also important that government and the public sector act impartially in using language and discussing contentious concepts around race. This means being willing to reinforce commonly shared values such as opposition to racism, but avoiding promoting explicitly political or partisan views in a way that might suggest bias in areas of genuine debate. So, for example, while schools and universities will rightly wish to teach students about current race debates and may even refer to controversial terms like ‘white privilege’, they should do so in a way which fully acknowledges disagreements over the use of such terms and the ideas they reflect. They should also give room for competing views to be heard. In government and the wider public sector, we will seek to adopt language that clarifies and enhances understanding of these complex issues and fosters a constructive dialogue between people but makes clear that debate is healthy. We acknowledge that while the vast majority of people share a positive commitment to ending racism, it is perfectly legitimate to hold different opinions about what this means in practice. “

Also click here for the thoughts of Conservative Minister Kemi Badenoch on Critical Race Theory and the decolonisation of the curriculum. “It does not need to be decolonised”.

However there is considerable support for change to school and university curricula and it is widely claimed that these curricula should indeed be decolonised. As is indicated in the following sources.

 Click here for the BBC on the university curriculum.

Click here and here for alternative views of  the decolonising the curriculum movement.

Click here for Professor K. Bhambra on Decolonising Modern Social Theory.

Click here The Moral Maze on decolonising the curriculum.

• School Exclusions

It has been apparent for many years that there have been significant ethnic differences in rates of school exclusion. The focus of attention has often been upon the higher rates of exclusion among Afro- Caribbean pupils [ especially Afro-Caribbean boys]  but it has been noted more recently that rates of school exclusion are even higher among Gypsy Roma and Traveller of Irish Heritage pupils

Click here and here for data on ethnicity and school exclusions and here for a Guardian article on exclusion rates, ethnicity and gender.

It has been argued by some sociologists and from within the teaching profession itself that such exclusions derive primarily from youth subcultural factors promoting disruptive pupil behaviour other sociologists have argued that many schools themselves must take part of the blame for this relatively high rate of school exclusion. These arguments were summarised in a Government Report  entitled Exclusion of Black Pupils” Getting It. Getting it Right” t [2006] . The Report is now rather dated but it does nevertheless address in some detail the possible factors responsible for the high rate of school exclusion of Afro-Caribbean boys.

In summary the report suggests that there are possible factors external to the schools themselves which help to explain the disproportionate misbehaviour of Afro-Caribbean boys.

1. They may have developed rebellious attitudes towards white British society because of its long history of racism and the current patterns of inequality and inequality of opportunity which they believe to be indicative of continuing racial prejudice and racial discrimination within contemporary British society.
2. There may be certain factors within Afro-Caribbean youth culture which encourage Afro-Caribbean boys to adopt aggressive, confrontational attitudes as a means of confirming their masculinity and getting "respect" which in turn are likely to draw them into conflict with teachers aiming to establish classroom discipline as a means of teaching effectively.
3. This aggressive, "macho" variation of masculinity to which Afro-Caribbean teenage boys aspire is very heavily influenced by mainstream mass media presentations of black masculinity and is more likely to be adopted given the relative absence of black fathers from black single parent households.
4. The fact that Afro-Caribbean boys are more likely to be excluded for violent conduct than are other excluded pupils strengthens the conclusion that it is external factors which are mainly responsible for their exclusion.

However the Report emphasises under the heading of Factors internal to the schools that the schools themselves may be partly responsible for the ethnic differences in rates of permanent school exclusion. Again, in summary:

1. Afro-Caribbean boys may be treated unfairly throughout their school careers as suggested, for example, in the studies mentioned above such that the actual incident leading to exclusion may itself arise from long term discriminatory procedures operative in the schools themselves.
2. Schools and teachers are themselves heavily influenced by media stereotypes of young black men as potentially confrontational and violent and may therefore respond to Afro-Caribbean misdemeanours in ways which themselves increase the possibility of confrontation.
3. It is claimed that the assumed presence of a subculture of aggressive, macho masculinity among Afro-Caribbean boys is largely a myth and that insofar as a specifically Afro-Caribbean youth subculture does exist schools should be able to integrate it positively into everyday school activity without recourse to confrontation and exclusion.
4. It is argued that the fact that Afro-Caribbean boys are more likely to be excluded for violent behaviour arises partly as a result of the acceptance by teachers of inaccurate stereotypes of Afro-Caribbeans which makes it more likely that given  actions are more likely to be defined as violent when undertaken by Afro-Caribbean pupils than when undertaken by pupils of other ethnic groups.
5. A range of white youth subcultures also exists. For example, in the report it is pointed out that Goths, by contrast, are perceived as "strange" but not threatening and that Goth -type behaviour is therefore less likely to result in confrontations with teachers. However other white pupils certainly can be very disruptive and this would tend to support the view that the higher rate of school exclusion of Afro-Caribbean pupils is to be explained at least partly by discriminatory treatment within the schools themselves.

You may Click here  and scroll down a little for recent detailed data on ethnic differences in rates of permanent and temporary school exclusion  and  here for a  Guardian article on exclusion rates, ethnicity and gender which points to the increasing rate of school exclusion of Afro Caribbean females

You may Click here for important research on ethnicity and school exclusions by Professor David Gillborn and colleagues [2018]

The Timpson Review on School Exclusion was published in May 2019 and its main conclusions were reiterated in the Report of the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities {CRED} [2021]. Thus, the CRED quotes statistics from the Timpson Report to the effect that rates of both temporary and permanent school exclusion are relatively high for pupils from these ethnic groups: Gypsy Roma, Traveller of Irish Heritage, Black Caribbean and Mixed White and Black Caribbean. However the CRED reiterates the Timpson Review conclusions that rates of school exclusion depend upon a range of factors other than race such as “poverty, SEN, unsafe family environments and poor mental health” and that if these factors are controlled for, ethnic differences in rates of school exclusion are much reduced. Thus

“That is to say that other factors associated with exclusion partially explain the higher rates of exclusion for some groups. This includes Black Caribbean children, who the new analysis suggests are around 1.7 times more likely to be permanently excluded compared to White British children. This compares to a raw rate of permanent exclusion (before the data is adjusted) of 3 times higher. Similarly, children who are Mixed White and Black Caribbean are around 1.6 times more likely to be permanently excluded, which is lower than the unadjusted data that shows they are permanently excluded 2.5 times the rate than their White British peers.”

And

“Taking Timpson’s findings into consideration, as well as what we heard from communities and education practitioners across the country, the Commission believes the causes for ethnic disparities in the rates of exclusions and suspensions are complex and multifaceted and cannot be reduced to structural racism and individual teacher bias. Data shows, for example, exclusion rates are a much bigger challenge for Black Caribbean pupils than Black African pupils: in 2018/19 Black Caribbean pupils had a permanent exclusion rate of 25 in 10,000, compared 7 in 10,000 for Black African pupils.”

It should be noted, however, that these conclusions are very much at odds with the findings of other sociological research. Thus,  criticism of the Timpson Review can be found here  while the above mentioned research of David Gillborn and colleagues points to the continued existence of institutional racism as a factor causing ethnic differences in rates of school exclusion. In the future I hope to provide more detailed information in on the report of the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities.

You might like to discuss the following two items with your teachers.

 

• Ethnic minority members are under-represented within the teaching profession and especially at the higher levels of the profession

1. Click here for ethnic minority teachers.
2. Click here for Race and Racism in English Secondary Schools: Dr Reni- Joseph Salisbury for The Runnymede Trust 2020 pp 5-10.

 

• Police in Schools

1. Click here for Race and Racism in English Secondary Schools: Dr Reni- Joseph Salisbury for The Runnymede Trust 2020 pp14=17.
2. Click here and here and here and here and here for police in UK schools.
3. Click here  for a Runnymede Trust Report on policing in schools.
4. Click here for a BBC item on policing in schools which links to the issue of Adultification.

 

This concludes Part Five on School Organisation

Part 5B: Interaction of external and internal factors

Ethnicity and Educational Achievement: The Interaction of External and Internal l Factors.

There are significant ethnic, gender and social class differences in educational achievement which are explained by various external factors and internal factors but also by the  interaction of external factors and internal factors. However,  when we consider these factors, it is difficult to assess the relative importance ethnicity, gender and social class in that in the case of ethnic educational achievement some advantages and disadvantages may for example derive solely from ethnicity whereas others may derive from a combination of ethnicity-related factors, gender -related factors and class- related factors.

In the case of external factors there are studies based around the concept of cultural deprivation and the concepts of economic, social and cultural capital which have been applied mainly to white pupils. However, the concept of cultural deprivation is subject to important criticisms, and we cannot assume that the cultural circumstances of white and  ethnic minority students are identical. In the case of internal factors, we must consider the importance of labelling theory and the importance of the School Curriculum.

Material Circumstances

The educational attainments of ethnic minority students who are working class may be restricted due to adverse material circumstances which mean they may be more often ill and therefore absent from school and more likely to be  to be tired at school. They  may not have a quiet room for study or  a home computer which means that they are unable to complete homework effectively. Such factors  mean that these working class students are more likely to be allocated to low streams which may have further adverse consequences for their progress. However, when social class is measured [unsatisfactorily]  by free school meal eligibility differences in achievement between students  eligible and ineligible for free school meals are greatest for White British students although students of other ethnic groups are at some disadvantage.

Family Structures

 

Sociologists have also considered how ethnic minority family life might affect educational attainments. Writing in 1979 Ken Pryce argued that Afro-Caribbean students might to some extent be disadvantaged by their family characteristics and later writers have emphasised the substantial proportion of single parent families among Afro -Caribbeans. Against this it has also been claimed that Afro-Caribbean single parents are often resilient, receive considerable help from [often female ] wider kin and often take their children's' education very seriously and also that even when Afro-Caribbean fathers do not live in the same household as their partner/ children they continue to participate considerably in the upbringing of their child/ children.

It is true that lone parenthood is most likely in Black families but there is no necessary reason why lone parents, whatever their ethnicity should prove to be less effective parents although they may in some cases be more likely to experience poverty which may impose considerable financial constraints on them and their children.

More recently Professor Steven Strand has found that parental attitudes and behaviours were significantly related to pupils' educational attainments at age 16. Thus "on average Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Indian and Mixed Heritage parents were more likely than White British Parents to have higher educational aspirations, to have paid for private tuition, to know where their children were when out, to have greater involvement with their children's school, were less likely to quarrel with their child and were less likely to be single." According to Professor Strand these factors helped to explain the attainment gap between White working class pupils and ethnic minority pupils of similar socio-economic status.

However, Professor Strand notes that although Black parents shared many of these characteristics with other Ethnic Minority parents their children were less likely to do well in school and Professor Strand attributes this tentatively to some combination of low teacher expectations, racism within schools and peer group effects.

 

Cultural Factors: General

The early subcultural theories of Hyman, Sugarman, and Douglas focused on the educational achievements of white students and suggested that, in comparison to middle class parents,  working class parents gave less attention to their children's education because they were subject to fatalism, a strong present time orientation and an unwillingness to defer gratification all of which meant that they were unlikely to plan for their own or their children's longer term futures. Insofar as these theories are accurate, they may inhibit working class educational progress which may mean that they are more likely to be allocated to low streams with further adverse consequences for their education.

However ,  later theorists have called these ideas into question claiming that any “fatalistic” attitudes are realistic responses to the facts of economic disadvantage;  that nowadays social class differences in attitudes to education are more limited and that social class differences in educational achievement can be better explained in terms of social class differences in the possession of cultural. economic and social capital as suggested by Bourdieu. , Bourdieu also  focused his attention on white students, but it is claimed that his theories are also applicable to some extent to students of different ethnicities. However, we should not automatically assume that the conclusions of any of these theories  apply equally  to students of different ethnicities.

Culture and School Choice

There are substantial variations in the examination results achieved by different comprehensive schools,  and it has been shown that  middle class parents are able to use their greater resources of cultural, social, and economic capital to secure entry for their children to more successful schools whereas this is less likely for working class pupils. Children in the more successful schools may be exposed  to a more optimistic school culture  which may encourage both pupils and parents to   believe that educational success is possible. The culture of the successful school is likely to reinforce an achievement- oriented middle class culture  but it may also increase the ambitions of working class pupils and their parents. Entrance to a less successful school may have the reverse effects. Thus cultural, social, and economic capital affect school choice but school choice may also influence cultural attitudes and values.

Bourdieu emphasised that middle class pupils were more likely to possess the kinds of cultural , social, and economic capital that enable them to choose more effective schools for their children which increase the possibility of educational success. Bourdieu had little to say about gender, ethnicity and educational achievement  but it may well be that limitations of economic. social and cultural capital restrict adversely affect decisions on school choice of some  ethnic minority  parents , especially those from a working class background although schools may be especially keen to enrol Chinese and Indian students given their high rates of educational attainment.

Cultural Capital and Labelling Processes.

It may well be that limitations of economic. social and cultural capital  inhibit the progress of some ethnic pupils irrespective of the schools which they attend. The effects of adverse material circumstances have already been noted but some ethnic minority pupils may be disadvantaged also because school curricula are delivered using forms of cultural capital that they do not possess  and it is possible that teachers interpret the possession of socially determined cultural capital  as evidence of biologically determined higher intelligence which increases the likelihood that working class pupils will be negatively but inaccurately labelled and consigned to lower sets and streams for invalid reasons.

However, Chinese, and Indian students perform particularly well,  and the results of Black African, Bangladeshi, and Pakistani students have improved significantly in recent years. This might suggest that the issue of limited capitals applies especially to Afro-Caribbean families, to white working class families, and to Gypsy Roma and Irish Traveller families. However, in The Colour of Class ] by N. Rollock, D. Gillborn. C. Vincent and S. Ball  2015]  evidence is presented to the effect that even when Afro-Caribbean parents do have high levels of economic, social, and cultural capital teachers do not necessarily recognise this.

Language

Basil Bernstein argued that working class and middle class pupils were likely to operate with restricted and elaborated language codes respectively  and middle class students' possession of the elaborated code may mean that they can more easily understand school text books and follow teachers' language which is also more likely to use the elaborated code. Bernstein's theories have been called into question by other theorists such as William Labov who argued that it was perfectly possible to express complex arguments in streetwise language,  but it is argued nevertheless that language issues might inhibit the educational progress of some ethnic minority pupils and white working class pupils.

In general , pupils for whom English is an additional language outperform  native English speakers, but some ethnic minority students do have language difficulties which impede their progress and may mean that they are allocated to low streams despite having considerable academic potential. Teachers may judge them adversely because of their ungrammatical  use of non -standard English and  limited vocabulary and impose compensatory language policies designed to increase vocabulary and improve grammatical competence which are well-meaning but according to some linguistic theorists [such as Ian Cushing] undermine the students’ own linguistic creativity.

Youth Culture

Aspects of youth culture may also be important. Some teenagers of all ethnicities may participate in youth cultures which may impede pupil progress and it has been argued that this is particularly likely to apply to White working class and Afro-Caribbean pupils. For example, Tony Sewell  argued that a sizeable proportion of these pupils could be regarded as rebellious while Louise Archer pointed to the existence of a “Nike” youth culture adopted by many Black and white teenagers  which predisposed them to dismiss the relevance of school work to their lives. Again, rebellious  and dismissive attitudes  would adversely affect pupils’ educational achievement and increase  the risk of allocation to low streams  or, in some cases, the risk of school exclusion. This would be especially likely if teachers over-reacted negatively to students fairly mild misbehaviour while teacher -overaction might well intensify the students’ commitment to their own youth cultures.  Vicious circles seem to be highly likely. Other pupils, conversely, might adopt a more pro-school culture which enables them also to espouse youth cultures but in a milder form which does not impinge adversely on their school work but enables them to avoid criticism from their more rebellious peers. { Back in the day I had a school friend who was a talented member of the school orchestra but very much enjoyed playing pop music on his cello]

School Curriculum

The histories, cultures and interests of ethnic minority pupils are in principle most likely to be addressed in subjects such as History, Geography, Religious Studies, English, Music, and Sociology and in PSHE and Citizenship courses as well as , occasionally in form periods and assemblies. Specific historical issues will also be addressed in Black History Month, and it has been suggested also that it should be possible to emphasise the contributions of ethnic minority mathematicians and scientists in Mathematics and Science courses.

However, it has for many years been argued that UK school and college curricula are in several respects ethnocentric: that is: a wide range of issues are considered in ways which marginalise the roles and interests of ethnic minority groups and prioritise and celebrate the roles and interests of the white British ethnic group. Insofar as ethnic minority pupils are in several subjects assessed in terms of a culture which is not their own, they are automatically put at a disadvantage.

It is argued also that even when ethnic minority cultures are represented with the curriculum, inadequate attempts are made within schools to challenge the racism which many ethnic minority pupils experience daily. Thus, according to critics, school curricula are often tokenistic but insufficiently anti-racist. Furthermore, it has been argued for many years that Afro-Caribbean pupils have been disadvantaged because Received Pronunciation English has been accorded far higher status within the school curriculum than Afro-Caribbean variants of English.

There is some controversy surrounding the extent of bias in the School Curriculum. The recent Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities Report [2021] found evidence of some very fair balanced teaching but also feared that some politically motivated teachers were using Critical Race Theory and the notion of White Privilege to explain ethnic inequalities in a biased, non- objective and hence illegal manner. Conversely many academics see considerable value in Critical Race Theory, deny that the theory is being used unobjectively and argue that the ethnocentricity of the UK curriculum has still not been challenged effectively and that what is necessary is the decolonisation of the curriculum.

Click here for a Guardian article on controversy around the Education Select Committee Report of 2021 and see below for a quotation from the UK Government’s response to the Report of the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities. However, the Report has not been without its critics.

“It is also important that government and the public sector act impartially in using language and discussing contentious concepts around race. This means being willing to reinforce commonly shared values such as opposition to racism, but avoiding promoting explicitly political or partisan views in a way that might suggest bias in areas of genuine debate. So, for example, while schools and universities will rightly wish to teach students about current race debates and may even refer to controversial terms like ‘white privilege’, they should do so in a way which fully acknowledges disagreements over the use of such terms and the ideas they reflect. They should also give room for competing views to be heard. In government and the wider public sector, we will seek to adopt language that clarifies and enhances understanding of these complex issues and fosters a constructive dialogue between people but makes clear that debate is healthy. We acknowledge that while most people share a positive commitment to ending racism, it is perfectly legitimate to hold different opinions about what this means in practice. “

Also click here for the thoughts of Conservative Minister Kemi Badenoch on Critical Race Theory and the decolonisation of the curriculum. “It does not need to be decolonised.”

However, notwithstanding these controversies, it does seem to be highly likely that if ethnic minority students feel that the school curriculum does not adequately represent their histories and their interests , this could serve to alienate them from the formal educational system  and to increase their commitments to their own youth cultures at the expense of their educational progress.

In some cases, teachers might label working class students negatively based on their dress, appearance, demeanour, or behaviour none of which necessarily reflect their academic potential. Working class parents may not be able to afford new school uniforms on  a regular basis; working class parents may find it difficult to interact with middle class teachers; and their possibly  boisterous behaviour is not necessarily evidence of lack of intelligence.

Negative Labelling can reinforce Cultural Disadvantage

It is also the case that if pupils are negatively labelled in school this may help to exacerbate already existing social class differences in cultural circumstances Thus ,  White working class ,Afro-Caribbean, Gypsy Roma and Irish Traveller children are especially unlikely to pass 11+ examinations [where these exist] and most likely to be placed in lower streams in comprehensive schools. This may demoralise some parents  and discourage them from prioritising  their children’s education  which may undermine their progress still further. However , other parents may question the validity of negative school reports and respond to them by paying for private tuition [ if they can afford it] or enrolling their children in Saturday schools which have been set up to counter the apparent educational disadvantages faced by Black pupils in the mainstream education system.

 

 

Part Six: Ethnicity, Social Class, and Educational Achievement: Ongoing Controversies 2014-2023

 Click here  for House of Commons Education Select Committee Report 2014-15

Click here for a detailed paper by Professor Steve Strand {Ethnicity, deprivation, and educational achievement at age 16 in England: trends over time. [2015]

Click here for a detailed DFE Report: A Compendium of Evidence on Ethnic Minority Resilience to the Effects of Deprivation on Attainment. [2015]

Click here for the report of the Commission on Race and Ethnic Inequalities March 2021

Click here   for House of Commons Education Select Committee Report June 2021

See also  this publication by Diane Reay for the Institute for Fiscal Studies August 2022

See also IFS Report by Heidi Mirza and Ross Warwick.  November 2022

The IFS also produced podcasts on Educational Inequalities and Racial and Ethnic Inequalities [including ethnic educational inequalities ] related to these reports.

The above mentioned reports and published between 2014 and 2023 contain hundreds of pages of data and analysis and it will be very difficult for students to find the time to incorporate more than  a few snippets of this information into essays written under examination conditions. However, I hope that with the help of their teachers they will be able to make some use of the following summary of recent trends and analysis.

Underachievement in Education by White Working Class Children 2014-15

• In 2014-15 the Education Select Committee investigated the relative educational underachievement of White working class pupils. The Committee decided for pragmatic reasons that social class membership would be approximated by eligibility or nob eligibility for Free School; Meals [FSM]. They found that in all ethnic groups FSM -eligible pupils performed worse than non-FSM eligible pupils and that White FSM eligible pupils were the worst performing ethnic group and that in every ethnic group boys performed worse than girls.
• Sociologists have long recognised the existence of significant social class inequalities in educational attainment and have sought to explain these inequalities in terms of some combination of partly genetically inherited social class differences in intelligence, working class material and cultural disadvantages and organisational factors in the schools themselves involving streaming, banding, and setting which might result in positive and negative labelling processes. It should be noted that many sociologists are critical of theories based upon social class differences in inherited intelligence and on theories focussing on the alleged cultural deprivation of working class parents and their children while often preferring to emphasise that working class parents and children may not be lacking in aspiration but that they may lack the cultural, social and economic capital necessary  to translate their positive aspirations into successful strategies to improve educational attainment. The eminent sociologists who were called as witnesses to the Committee broadly accepted this analysis of relative working class educational underachievement.
• In producing their report, the Select Committee took oral and written evidence from many contributors including eminent sociologists including David Gillborn, Gillian Evans, Becky Francis, Diane Reay, and others, from Government Minister David Laws, from OFSTED. from the journalist Owen Jones, from teachers’ unions, and from a variety of think tanks including the JRF and the IPPR.
• The Report concludes that all the factors covered within the Sociology of Education are relevant to the explanation of relative working class underachievement but that there are disputes as to their relative importance. The report points to disputes as to the significance or otherwise of limited working class parental and pupil aspirations as factors inhibiting working class educational achievement. While some witnesses claimed that working class parental and pupil aspirations were indeed limited others denied that this was the case while yet others argued that working class pupils might well have positive aspirations these generally high aspirations did not involve specific aspirations for educational success. Others claimed that even if working class parental and pupil aspirations were high their actual expectations of achieving their initial aspirations declined during their school careers as they noted that few of their working class peers were educationally successful.
• Many sociologists are critical of theories of cultural deprivation as explanations of relative working class underachievement. Early in the Report Professor David Gillborn “warned us of the dangers of using some kind of “deficit” interpretation of white FSM performance “and stated that
• [...] “it is easy to fall into a kind of deficit analysis: an assumption that, if a group is underachieving, there must be a problem with the group, whereas we have an awful lot of research showing that schools tend to treat different groups in systematically different ways.34 [...] the debates about poverty get lost amid a wider question of whether white people are suffering because of multiculturalism, which I think is hugely dangerous.”
• Other sociologists attending the Committee hearings tended to argue that while working class parents and pupils might well have positive aspirations the parents lack the economic, cultural, and social capital to translate their aspirations into effective help. Thus, Gillian Evans argued that some working class parents lacked the parental skills to prepare their children effectively for school; Diane Reay argued that schools were essentially middle class institutions which many working class pupils experienced as alien; and Becky Francis argued that middle class parents were more adept at choosing effective schools for their children.
• Although the Report does provide very detailed information on the achievements by ethnicity of pupils eligible for free school meals it provides only limited information as to the possible causes in ethnic variation and calls for further research into this question.

Important additional work on the attainments of FSM eligible pupils was published soon after the Select Committee Report was completed.

You may click here for a detailed paper by Professor Steve Strand {Ethnicity, deprivation and educational achievement at age 16 in England ;trends over time .}. In this paper Professor Strand provides a clear comprehensive graphical description of relevant trends as well as detailed analysis. The charts and tables on pp40-50 provide an excellent description of trends relating ethnicity, free school meal eligibility, gender and educational attainment at GCSE level up to 2013l

You may click here for a detailed DFE Report: A Compendium of Evidence on Ethnic  Minority Resilience to the Effects of Deprivation on Attainment . Pages 17-25 of this Report contain useful information on possible reasons for ethnic differences in attainment among pupils eligible for free school meals.

 

In the latter Report the authors summarise some of the available research studies which aim to assess the relative importance of school factors, and parental and student attitudes as determinants of the trends in ethnicity, free school meal eligibility and student attainments.  Detailed evidence is provided to suggest that ethnic differences in parental and pupil attitudes help to explain ethnic differences in pupil attainment.

• They note that Professor Steven Strand has found that parental attitudes and behaviours were significantly related to pupils' educational attainments at age 16. Thus "on average Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Indian and Mixed Heritage parents were more likely than White British Parents to have higher educational aspirations, to have paid for private tuition, to know where their children were when out, to have greater involvement with their children's school, were less likely to quarrel with their child and were less likely to be single." According to Professor Strand these factors helped to explain the attainment gap between White working class pupils and ethnic minority pupils of similar socio-economic status.
• However, Professor Strand notes that although Black parents shared many of these characteristics with other Ethnic Minority parents their children were less likely to do well in school and Professor Strand attributes this tentatively to some combination of low teacher expectations, racism within schools and peer group effects.
• Professor Strand's conclusions are supported by research from Demie and Lewis based [ 2011] on interviews and focus groups with school leaders, class teachers, teaching assistants, governors, parents, and pupils in 14 schools in one London LEA. Thus, they note that head teachers and class teachers perceived white working class parents as having low educational aspirations for their children perhaps because they were more likely to be young, because they had little belief in the value of school and because they lived in areas of high unemployment which generated a culture where "pupils felt it not necessary to worry about doing well in school." Consequently, this led to a range of problems including pupil absence, lateness, willingness of parents to tolerate poor behaviour and parental failure to take up opportunities for parental involvement in family improvement and parenting skills and after school clubs. By contrast working class ethnic minority parents were perceived as more interested and involved in their children's education. However, notice that this conclusion is about teachers' perceptions of white working class parents which may or may not be accurate.
• Professor Strand also investigated pupils 'attitudes and risk factors. Here he found that ethnic minority/free school meal pupils scored higher than White British/ free school meals pupils on aspiration, future planning, attitudes to school, academic self-concept and time spent completing homework and that White British/free school meal pupils had higher risk factors in terms of SEN eligibility, truancy, absence, and problems leading to the involvement of the police and social services agencies.
• The Report's authors conclude that available evidence suggests that differences in attainment related to ethnicity and free school meal eligibility are more dependent upon parents' and pupils' attitudes and values than on school-based factors.
• However, the Report states also that further research on the effects of aspirations is necessary as is indicated in the following long quotation. "It is frequently asserted that ethnic minority parents have high aspirations for their children while white working class parents do not. However, research evidence on the place of educational aspirations as a factor explaining differences in attainment is inconclusive. Educational aspiration is difficult to measure and to disentangle from lack of awareness of opportunities to which pupils and their parents can aspire. Further research is needed on whether it is low aspiration which leads to underachievement of white working class pupils or other barriers such as knowledge of opportunities or lack of resources to promote literacy."
• These are very important conclusions which are often referenced in other reports and, for what it is worth, I would recommend highly that students  click here for this detailed DFE Report: A Compendium of Evidence on Ethnic  Minority Resilience to the Effects of Deprivation on Attainment and read pages 17-25 which  contain useful information on possible reasons for ethnic differences in attainment among pupils eligible for free school meals. It won’t take long!!
• It should be remembered that theories based around the alleged cultural deprivation of working class students and their families have a long history in Sociology and that they have been subjected to several significant criticisms. Further information on these theories can be found here and more detailed information can be found here.
• Bourdieu’s theories suggest that  some  working class students  underachieve not because they and their families are in some respects lacking in "aspiration" or because they lack the cultural, social and economic capital necessary to translate their aspirations into effective strategies to improve their educational attainment levels .

• . Also, very importantly some sociologists have argued that in any case the concept of "aspiration" requires further analysis in that if many working class students aspire to traditional working class jobs located within their own working class communities rather than to usually relatively short range upward social mobility into not necessarily fulfilling routine lower middle class jobs this should not be defined simply as a "lack of aspiration".
• Click here and here for a thought provoking articles by Garth Stahl on the nature of white working class aspiration and click here for an article by Prof. Tony Sewell and  click here for further comments from Garth Stahl. The differing emphases of these articles may generate useful discussion.

Controversies as to the overall extent of ethnic inequality continued unabated and in the aftermath of worldwide Black Lives Matter protests the UK Government announced the setting up of the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities which reported in March 2021 while the Education Select Committee was in the process of completing another report on the relative educational underachievement of white working class pupils which it published in September 2021. Both of these reports were produced in a changing political  climate in which Government  Minister Kemi Badenoch  criticised the increased prominence given especially by exponents of critical race theory and  to the notion of white privilege as a key factor generating ethnic inequality and the then Head of the Policy Unit Munira Mirza, who was responsible for the setting up of the Commission on Race and Ethnic Inequality, was known to doubt the existence of institutional racism. You may also Click here for a 2020 speech by Kemi Badenoch in which she outlines the UK Government perspective on Institutional racism , critical race theory and Black Lives Matter  .Consequently, both reports were to some considerable extent mired in political as well as sociological controversy.

Further Information on Critical Race Theory

Click here for a podcast on Critical Race Theory by Dr Paul Warmington

In The first section of this podcast Dr Paul Warmington provides a clear concise summary of Critical Race Theory. He focuses on the following key components each of which are explained in some detail: “Race” as a social construct; the ubiquity of racism in the structures of society ; the limitations of reformist race relations policy; intersectionality;  Interest convergence; closing racial issues; post racial societies and colour blindness. Further information can be found via the following links.

Click here and here for explanations of Critical Race Theory in the USA from the BBC and from ABC News and here  for another USA item.

Click here for a podcast on Critical Race Theory by David Gillborn and a Primer on Critical Race Theory by Nicola Rollock and David Gillborn

Click here For a BBC Sounds item on White Privilege and Schools

Click here for a White Privilege Test [The Anti-Racist Educator Edition]

Click here for Panorama “Let’s talk about race 2021.

 

The Report of the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities {CRED} was published in March 2021. It did not deny the existence of institutional racism in the UK but argued that the term should be used with much more care than was currently the case [according to the authors of the Report]. The Report also emphasised that ethnic minority students are making good educational progress and that only Black Caribbean, Gypsy Roma and Traveller of Irish Heritage pupils are performing worse than White pupils [but although Black African pupils as a category are performing well, some subgroups within the Black African category are less successful than others.]

• To explain ethnic differences in educational attainment the CRED suggested that ethnic differences ibn educational attainment can to some extent be explained in terms of the Immigrant Paradigm.
• This suggests that whereas white working class students may carry a legacy of several generations of educational underachievement and that the same may apply to Black Caribbean students whose families may have migrated to the UK in the 1950s Black African families may have arrived in the UK more recently and have retained their optimism as to the prospects of educational success. Also, Black African and Indian origin adults may be well educated and have held professional jobs in their country of origin which are more likely to foster beliefs in the possibility of upward social mobility. It is further suggested that Pakistani and Bangladeshi families are more likely than White working class families to be able to draw on community resources to promote educational success.
• Having questioned the extent of institutional racism in general it also questioned its extent in the school system and while it recognises the higher rates of pupil exclusion of Black Caribbean pupils it denies that this can be explained in terms of institutional racism’.
• The Report also downplays the significance of negative labelling as a factor inhibiting educational attainment. This flies in the face of a great deal of sociological research and recent reports for the IFS by Diane Reay  and by  Heidi Mirza And Ross Warwick    certainly reiterate the continued significance of negative labelling.
• The Report emphasised that it was very important for ethnic minority histories and cultures to be represented positively within UK school and college curricula, but it also courted controversy because of its claims that students might face dangers of indoctrination by teachers sympathetic to the arguments of critical race theorists.

The Report also attracted criticism because of its treatment of the history of slavery as a result of which minor amendments were made of the Report. For this and further criticisms of the Report  from the Guardian click here   and for a defence of the Report by Kemi Badenoch click here   and here for a more detailed statement of her views.

You may click here and here   for BBC coverage of the CRED Report which summarises the key findings and differing opinions about the Report and  Click here for An article from The Conversation.

Click here   for Inclusive Britain: government response to the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities. [March 2022]

Click here for Guardian coverage of a UN Report which is very critical of the state of UK race relations. The article also covers the Government response to the UN Report. Guess what it is!

 

The forgotten: how white working -class pupils have been let down, and how to change it.

Click here for parliamentlive.tv coverage of Select Committee Report on White Working Class pupils.

Click here and especially here [Lee Eliot Major, Diane Reay, Mathew Goodwin, Becky Francis] and  especially here [Tony Sewell, Steve Strand]  for parliamentlive.tv coverage of Select Committee Report on White Working Class pupils

In the  second report   some of the main points made were as follows.

• As in the earlier Education Select Committee Report the limitations of free school meal eligibility as a proxy measure for working class membership were recognised but nevertheless for pragmatic reasons FSM eligibility was adopted as a measure of working class membership.
• Relatively early in the Report [pp14-17] there are criticisms of the allegedly making influences of critical race theory  and specifically of the notion  that disadvantaged White pupils  might suffer because politically motivated teachers might deploy arguments associated with critical race theory that disadvantaged white pupils nevertheless enjoyed white privilege which is not available to ethnic minority pupils  all of which might further undermine the self-images and hence the future educational prospects of the disadvantaged white pupils. Consequently, it was essential for governments to emphasise the legal responsibilities of teachers to discuss controversial issues without political bias.
• However, the composition of all Select Committees reflects the party composition of the House of Commons as a whole and Opposition Members of the Education Select Committee published their own Minority Report which rejected the Full Select Committee comments on critical race theory and white privilege. Similar criticisms were widely made not least because the multiple causes of relative educational underachievement have been recognised for decades and long before the existence of critical race theory and because the accusations of this kind of political bias among teachers was considered to be unjustified. Click here for Kim Johnson’s critical assessment of the Report. [Ms Johnson is a Labour member of the committee.
• It was noted that there are significant variations among different ethnic groups in eligibility for free school meals as is indicated in the following data which refer to Key Stage 4 data for English State Schools

	2015/16	2016/17	2017/18	2018/19	2019/20	2020/21	2021/22
Any other ethnic group	23.1	22.4	20.8	23.6	26.2	31.7	34.7
Asian - Any other Asian background	12.0	11.7	10.9	12.7	14.4	18.1	19.9
Asian - Bangladeshi	23.6	22.2	19.1	20.7	21.9	27.4	29.3
Asian - Chinese	6.7	6.4	5.9	6.8	7.6	9.2	7.8
Asian - Indian	6.1	5.6	4.8	5.3	5.8	7.2	7.5
Asian - Pakistani	18.9	17.9	15.6	17.0	18.5	22.5	24.3
Black - Any other Black background	25.2	23.6	21.1	24.4	27.4	32.8	35.6
Black - Black African	24.0	22.1	19.8	22.5	25.3	30.5	32.5
Black - Black Caribbean	26.9	25.8	24.9	28.5	32.0	37.6	40.5
Mixed - Any other Mixed background	18.8	18.0	16.9	18.9	20.8	24.6	26.3
Mixed - White and Asian	15.4	15.0	13.6	15.1	16.5	19.3	20.5
Mixed - White and Black African	22.7	21.6	19.8	22.7	25.4	30.2	32.7
Mixed - White and Black Caribbean	28.1	27.7	26.7	30.1	33.4	38.8	41.5
Unclassified	16.6	15.9	15.1	16.5	18.8	22.7	25.1
White - Any other White background	8.7	7.8	6.8	8.0	9.5	12.9	15.1
White - Gypsy/Roma	31.7	31.0	30.4	33.5	36.9	47.2	51.9
White - Irish	14.4	14.0	13.1	14.8	16.5	18.6	20.5
White - Traveller of Irish heritage	62.5	61.8	57.6	57.8	60.2	63.5	63.3
White - White British	13.5	13.4	13.0	14.9	16.8	20.0	21.6

 

• Once again it was noted that FSM-eligible pupils in all ethnic groups were academically less successful than “Other pupils” who were not claiming free school meals but that the Free School Meal Eligibility gap was greatest for White pupils of whom the vast majority are white British Pupils. Detailed data are provided in the report and this is illustrated also in data from the Ethnicity Facts and Figures series
• The Chairman of the Committee Nick Halfon suggested that relatively low educational achievement could not be explained by poverty because the relationship between poverty [as measured by free school meal eligibility and educational achievement varied considerably as between different ethnic groups.  However expert witnesses explained clearly why relationships between poverty and educational achievement vary by ethnicity. {See below]
• The Key factors helping to explain relative educational underachievement are listed in the Report as follows.

1.“Persistent and multigenerational disadvantage

2. Placed-based factors, including regional economics and underinvestment
3. Family experience of education
4. A lack of social capital (for example the absence of community organisations and youth groups)
5. Disengagement from the curriculum
6. A failure to address low participation in higher education”.

• The Report emphasises that FSM -eligible pupils in other ethnic groups may also be adversely affected by these factors but that there are reasons to believe that these factors may disadvantage White-FSM pupils particularly adversely.
• In their evidence to the Committee, both Lee Eliot Major and Diane Reay emphasised the importance of factors 1, 2 and 3 listed above. They note that many of the parents and grandparents of white working class pupils had also experienced schooling as a demoralising process leading to limited educational qualifications if any and that consequently their educational aspirations and expectations for their children might well be limited. Contrastingly Chinese, Indian. Black African, Bangladeshi, and Pakistani grandparents and parents were more likely to have been downwardly mobile from professional employment in their country of origin and therefore more likely to have retained positive aspirations and expectations whish are transmitted to their children.
• Professor Steve Strand [who had also assisted The Commission on Race and Ethnic Disadvantage] referred again to the importance of the “Immigrant Paradigm” in his witness statement to the Education Select Committee. In this view whereas white working class students may carry a legacy of several generations of educational underachievement and that the same may apply to Black Caribbean students whose families may have migrated to the UK in the 1950s Black African families may have arrived in the UK more recently and have retained their optimism as to the prospects of educational success. Also, Black African and Indian origin adults may be well educated and have held professional jobs in their country of origin which are more likely to foster beliefs in the possibility of upward social mobility. It is further suggested that Pakistani and Bangladeshi families are more likely than White working class families to be able to draw on community resources to promote educational success.
• However, “As Sammy Wright, a Social Mobility Commissioner, said care should be taken not to imply that “working-class parents do not care about their kid’s futures”. Instead, evidence suggests that some disadvantaged White parents are disillusioned with education or value achievements outside of formal education. Sometimes this is due to their own experiences in school. It is important that families receive the support that they need, through effective parental engagement strategies. Thus it is not being implied that working class parents and pupils are culturally deprived but rather that through no fault of their own, they may lack the cultural, economic capital and social capital to translate their high aspirations into effective educational strategies. Hence
• The Report provides several examples of positive school initiatives in this respect, but it does also note this contribution which points to the effects of negative teacher labelling on the educational attainments of working class pupils.” As Dr Tammy Campbell has found in her research, teacher expectations of a pupil’s ability can affect their attainment, and in some cases pupils from low income backgrounds are “less likely to be judged favourably … by their teachers”. Low expectations are damaging for all pupils, and all pupils deserve a stretching education.”
• In the Sociology of Education negative labelling is seen to be a very significant factor which adversely affects the educational attainment of working class and /or some ethnic minority pupils but it does seem to receive rather limited coverage in the Select Committee Report. Contrastingly students might like to read pages 14=17 of this publication by Diane Reay for the Institute for Fiscal Studies which gives much more attention to the issue of negative labelling . Also  while in general ethnic minority pupils have been making considerable educational progress they are also subject to negative labelling processes of various kinds which have been well documented in the Sociology of Education literature  and in the IFS Report by Heidi Mirza And Ross Warwick.
• Regarding place-based factors it is noted that ethnic minority pupils both eligible and ineligible for free school meals are more likely to live in London where GCSE and GCE Advanced Level results are better than in other parts of the country. Based on these examination results London schools are now considered to be of better quality than in other parts of the country but the reasons for this are uncertain. It may be because of the specific educational reforms introduced in London or to a considerable extent because London schools are more likely to contain larger proportions of well -motivated ethnic minority students. The IFS Report [H. Mirza and R. Warwick 2022] Racial and Ethnic Inequalities [including ethnic educational inequalities pp 34-49 ]  has a detailed discussion of this point
• It was pointed out also thar white working class families were disproportionately likely to live in traditional industrial areas of the North and Midlands which had been adversely affected by processes of deindustrialisation which had impacted adversely on employment prospects for both adults and school leavers in ways which may have reduced incentives to prioritise educational attainment. Similar issues arose in several coastal towns.
• Also schools in these areas face significant recruitment and retention problems which are likely to affect school quality adversely .
• Government education policies were analysed in considerable detail and several criticisms and proposals for improvement were made.
• Thus in relation to government education policies in general the report states “ The Department have not provided us with any convincing evidence that their reforms have closed the gap for disadvantaged White pupils. We believe that this is muddled thinking from the Department, particularly in the context of the number of pupils who are still leaving education every year without a pass in English and Maths GCSE (a key benchmark for progression to further education and employment).”
• It was noted that in some cases poor families are unable to make best use of education, health and social security resources which are available and that a more effective nationwide system of family hubs providing easier access to the resources available would help families in difficulties. There was also a need to promote adult education schemes which would enable parents to support their children’s education more effectively. Youth clubs and other youth organisations could also help to promote a more positive outlook among disadvantaged young people. In this respect the Report might possibly be seen as harking back to David Cameron’s “Big Society” initiative
• Eligibility criteria for the pupil premium might be reorganised to reflect the duration as well as the current extent of pupil poverty and measures should be taken to ensure that headteachers did not feel compelled to shift pupil premium financial resources to meet financial shortfalls in other areas of school budgets.
• The current national education funding formula did not target sufficient funds to schools which were in real need of them.
• There should be more effective recruiting schemes and financial incentives to encourage teachers to work in schools in relatively deprived areas.
• The catch up funds provided to compensate for the adverse educational consequences of the COVID 19 pandemic were inadequate which affected disadvantaged pupils particularly adversely.
• School curricula should be modified to accord greater status to technical and vocational subjects which might improve both the motivation and career prospects of disadvantaged pupils. However, the Committee did emphasise that in making this recommendation it had no wish to create a two tier curriculum in which academic subjects were accorded higher status than technical and vocational subjects. It noted also that it was essential for government economic policies to improve job opportunities in poor regions, a plea which has been made at intervals for the last hundred years.
• The Report calls into question the effectiveness of the Opportunity Areas Programme as a means of promoting social mobility. This reiterates criticisms which the Committee had already raised in 2019.
• The Report refers to a recent report from the Education Policy Institute which suggested that free schools have not necessarily been set up in the areas where they are most necessary and calls for a more effective location policy in the future. [Critics have in any case argued that for a variety of reasons the Free Schools Programme is itself misguided.

Media Coverage of the Report

Click here for BBC; Click here for the Guardian ; Click here for a critical assessment by David Gillborn; Click here for The Conversation   and here for Garth Stahl 2015  and Click here for the Government response to the report

 

Part Seven: Conclusions

The concept of "Race" and notions of racial superiority and inferiority have been rejected widely as scientifically invalid. Sociologists have accepted the conclusions and, having also noted the limitations of IQ theories have concentrated their attention on the sociological explanation of ethnic differences in educational achievement distinguishing between three main types of theory:

1. theories emphasising variations in cultural attitudes and values among different ethnic groups.
2. theories emphasising variations in the patterns of material advantage and material disadvantage experienced by different ethnic groups
3. theories emphasising organisational processes and pupil-teacher interactions in the schools themselves which may operate to the relative advantage of some ethnic group pupils and to the disadvantage of others.

It was suggested in the 1960s and 1970s that white working class relative educational underachievement could to some extent be explained in terms of the so-called "cultural deprivation" of many white working class families and similar general arguments have been applied also to some ethnic minority families. Furthermore, it has been suggested that some ethnic minority pupils might face additional culture disadvantages because English was not their first language, because of the high incidence of lone parenthood among Afro-Caribbean families and because of problems associated with the rebellious youth culture among some Afro-Caribbean origin boys.

However the severe general limitations of these theories based upon cultural deprivation were soon recognised as it came to be argued that most parents from all social classes and ethnic backgrounds were ambitious for their children and specifically that ethnic minority pupils for whom English was a second language overcame language difficulties by the time they were 15-16, that lone parents often provided a supportive environment for their children; that rebellious Afro-Caribbean youth culture applied only to a minority of Afro-Caribbean origin pupils and that  such rebellion might often arise from perceptions of social injustice in general and unfair school processes in particular; and that in any case all ethnic cultures could be shown to promote educational achievement in several respects. Nevertheless, it could still be recognised that poverty could promote pessimism, depression and possible despair which could in some cases lead to the kind of fatalism and lack of ambition emphasised in theories of cultural deprivation.

Many  sociologists have come to argue that ethnic minority underachievement where it exists may be explained in terms of theories emphasising actual financial disadvantage, negative responses to financial disadvantage, the difficulties which some ethnic minority parents may experience in translating their ambitions for their children into meaningful practical assistance, and the ongoing adverse  effects of school organisational processes which continue to disadvantage some ethnic minority pupils but not others.

In recent years as there have been increasing concerns about the relatively slow rates of educational improvement of White British students and particularly of White British students eligible for free school meals it has been widely argued that some White British working class students and their families may be lacking in aspiration relative to their Ethnic Minority peers. A recent DfE Report did quote some studies which were supportive of this view but also concluded that it was in reality difficult to distinguish between the importance of actual differences in aspirations and limitations of levels of cultural , social and economic capital differences which may limit the capacities of White British working class parents to translate their positive aspirations for their children into meaningful help. Even the most detailed academic reports on this topic point to the need for further research.

Issues for Further Study It is very important to analyse the possible interconnections between the internal factors and external factors affecting ethnic differences in educational achievement. It is widely believed nowadays that external factors are far more important than internal factors as influences on social class differences in educational achievement. Discuss with your teachers whether this is also likely to be the case in relation to ethnic differences in educational achievement

 

Update 2023

The two Education Select Committee reports of 2015 and 2021  and the Report of the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities [CRED]of 2021  reiterate most of the concerns relating to class, ethnicity and educational achievement which have been addressed by sociologists over the last 60-70 years. The Reports also make several criticisms of government education policies and suggestions as to how such policies might be improved. However, several criticisms of the reports have been made.

• It is suggested that although the CRED Report does not deny the existence of institutional racism it gives insufficient emphasis to institutional racism as a cause of ethnic educational disadvantage.
• It is argued in both the second Education Select Committee Report and in the CRED report that because Black African pupils perform well, the relative educational underachievement of Afro-Caribbean students cannot be explained in terms of within -school racism. This is widely regarded by sociologists as a flawed argument because it is perfectly possible that Afro-Caribbean culture may be inaccurately and negatively evaluated by teachers.
• In these reports far less attention is given to the possibly adverse consequences of setting and banding than is the case in much of the sociological literature including the recent surveys by Diane Reay and Heidi Mirza and Ross Warwick.
• The second Education Select Committee report and the CRED report argue that teachers may be positively biased in support of Critical Race Theory and that they may use the concept of White Privilege in ways which undermine white working class pupils hence worsening their educational prospect. Critics have said that white working class educational achievement existed as a serious issue within the UK long before anyone had heard of Critical Race Theory and White Privilege and far more convincing explanations are available.
• It has been argued that both the second Education Select Committee Report and the CRED Report reflect the ideological position of the current Conservative Government in ways which undermine the validity of the reports. However, Government spokespersons claim that the conclusions of the reports derive from a careful consideration of available evidence and that it is the ideological biases of the critics which must be recognised and guarded against
• Controversy continues. What do you think?

 

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