1. Ethnicity and Education

3. Social Class
‘Culture of resistance’
Racism of teachers and pupils
Negative self image and poor motivation
Language differences
Deprived social conditions
Low teacher expectations, labelling, stereotyping, and the self- fulfilling prophecy
Ethnocentric school curriculum leading to culture clash
Family Life
Lack of cultural capital

4. The Swann Report (1985) Education for all
The report found significant differences in average levels of educational success between groups from different ethnic backgrounds
African-Caribbean families fared the worst (though it had improved from 10 years before)
Asian children did as well as white children despite the fact that on average they were poorer

5. Jones (1993)
Found that young people from all minority backgrounds were more likely than white British children to continue into full time education from 16. Only 37% of white British children stayed between 88-90, compared to 43% of West Indian backgrounds 50% South Asians and 77% of Chinese
Could this be because of discrimination when looking for work?

6. Race into higher education (2010)
This report found that the proportion of students from minority ethnic groups in UK higher education rose from 8.3% in to 16% by
But there are differences between minority groups, British Indians, mixed ethnic groups and black British Africans were best represented.
British Bangladeshi and Pakistani students were under represented

7. Social class and material factors
The statistics support the idea that poorer backgrounds have a negative impact
Indian and African-Asian children are more likely to come from business and professional m/c family backgrounds
However this is not in itself an adequate explanation, as there are differences between ethnic groups from the same social class backgrounds.

8. Language and family life
For some households, English is not the main language.
DfES (2005) found that where English is an additional language, there was lower attainment.
Caribbean English is a different form of English, so it could be penalised in the classroom.
Some ethnic groups traditionally enjoy more parental support than others – Asian families vs African Caribbean (lone) families, although they saw their children’s education as mainly the parents’ responsibility

9. Racism
A ‘culture of resistance’ refers to the suggestion that racism in society as a whole may lead to low self-esteem among black pupils and a hostility to schooling and the low-paid unskilled work it prepares them for. Hall, has discussed this from a Marxist point of view
How could labelling and self-fulfilling prophecy have an effect here?

10. racism
Wright researched four inner city primary schools and found that African-Caribbean pupils were often expected to be and labelled as troublemakers. This means that teachers may act quicker to halt issues.
They are often punished not for any particular offence but because they have the ‘wrong attitude’

11. Institutional racism
This is different from individual racism as it refers to discrimination that is built into the way that institutions such as schools and colleges operate.
Hatcher (1996) found that school governing bodies gave low priority to race issues and failed to deal with pupils’ racist behaviour.

12. The ethnocentric school curriculum
Many schools have multicultural education, and try to include minority groups with the curriculum. Despite this, many aspects of school life and the curriculum remain ethnocentric
School subjects and the hidden curriculum tend to concentrate on white British society and culture.
E. g. white is good black is evil, history is white and European
The cultural capital can be applied here