Ethnicity & Education: School Factors (AQA GCSE Sociology)

Type of school, labelling and teacher expectations

Type of school attended

• Research suggests the type of school attended is the main factor in explaining differences in educational attainment as:

  • the quality of teaching, resources available, and equal opportunities policies within the school can influence achievement

  • minority ethnic students who attend good schools do as well as white students in these schools

Labelling and teacher expectations

• Some sociologists argue that some teachers have stereotyped views and expectations of students based on their ethnic origin, social class and gender

  • Teachers may have higher expectations of Chinese and Indian students as they are considered to be capable and hard-working

  • Asian girls are seen as quiet and passive

  • Teachers may have low expectations of Black Caribbean students, with boys being more disruptive

    • Teachers expect less so these students do not receive as much encouragement as other students

• Teachers' labels may lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy which affects students' educational achievements

Institutional racism

• Some sociologists argue that we need to look at how schools and colleges routinely and unconsciously discriminate against ethnic minorities

• Institutional racism occurs when an organisation inadvertently fails to provide an appropriate service to people because of their ethnic origin, culture or colour

• Some examples of institutional racism include:

  • the relatively high rate of fixed-term exclusion of students from Black Caribbean backgrounds

  • expectations about clothing and hairstyles that don't take into account some minority cultures' norms and values

• These are aspects of school life that may affect the achievements of some ethnic minorities

The ethnocentric curriculum

• One view is that the National Curriculum delivered in schools is ethnocentric (biased towards white European culture)

• Many sociologists see the ethnocentric curriculum as a prime example of institutional racism because it builds a racial bias into the everyday workings of schools and colleges

• Examples of the ethnocentric curriculum include:

  • languages, literature, art, music and history

    • the National Curriculum ignores non-European languages, literature art and music

    • the history curriculum tries to create a 'mythical age of empire and past glories' while ignoring the history of black and Asian people

    • books that present stereotypical images of some minority groups or ignore them altogether

• The ethnocentric curriculum may lead to underachievement as ethnic minority students may feel undervalued, alienated and inferior, which undermines their self-esteem