Ethnicity and Differential Achievement

The Role of Religion

Complete the exercise, drop into Word and print.

authority black Citizenship esteem ethnocentric exclusions expected racism representativeness stereotypical teachers
Teachers
The Commission for Racial Equality found in 1985 that pupils were four times more likely to be suspended or excluded that white children.
In 1992, 8 per cent of were of Afro Caribbean’s despite the fact that they make up less than 2 per cent of the school population.
In 1997 Afro Caribbean pupils were 4.2 times more likely than white pupils to be excluded, and by 1998 this figure had risen to 4.5 times.
They blamed insensitive who did not understand cultural difference especially Rastafarianism. These conclusions were backed up by Wright in 1992 who showed that primary school teachers Afro Caribbean boys to be badly behaved.
Gilborn in 1990 drew similar conclusions in his study of inner city comprehensives in the Midlands. He identified the myth of the Afro Caribbean threat to the of the school.
Wright in 1988 itemised evidence of racist and culturally clumsy comments made by teachers in the staff rooms of the schools she studied. Such negative teacher perceptions were given as reasons for low self and poor performance by some ethnic minority groups.

Pupils
The Black Child Report 1997 based on interviews of 374 secondary school black children showed they experienced high levels of within school. 22 per cent reported experiencing racism from a teacher in the previous month, and 15 per cent reported experiencing racism from other pupils. 38 per cent expressed the desire to attend a "Black only" school.

A study by Bhatti (1999) showed that many ethnic minority students believed that their teachers held negative and views about them.
Questions have been raised about the of such studies and some have seen them as more of a sign of pupil hostility towards the school system

The Curriculum
It has been claimed by Coard and others that the nature of the curriculum in the UK leads to low self esteem and therefore underachievement amongst black students. There have however been a recent attempt by the Commission for Racial Equality (2000) to remedy this by advising government to include a multicultural component to personal and social education and to the new National Curriculum subject .