For example, there is data to show that they are far more likely to be permanently excluded from than other ethnicities. One argument that refutes the statement being assessed is the marxist belief of material deprivation. This means ethnic minorities with less money are at more of a disadvantage than others and so they are not able to make the most of their educational opportunities. They believe the most important factor to consider in educational achievement is wealth. Ethnic minorities are in there first generation of wealth and Marxist believe they primarily underachieve due to their class.
For example Black, Pakistani and Bangladeshi students do worst compared to Indians and Chinese who do best. White students are very close to the average but this is because they are the great majority of the school population .Among black and working class students, girls do better than boys, and among Asians boys do better than girls. Working class black girls do better than working class white girls. Many sociologists argue that ethnic differences in achievement can best be explained by looking at factors inside the school and outside the school. As Item A suggests ‘Afro-Caribbean boys were often expected to behave badly and they received a disproportionate amount of negative teacher attention’ that teachers have lower expectations of black boys.
Assess sociological explanations for ethnic differences in achievement. (20 Marks) There are many reasons for ethnic differences in achievement, it’s been found that Indian and Asian pupils achieve higher than White, African-Caribbean, and Black, Pakistani and Bangladeshi pupils. One possible cause of ethnic differences in education is labeling, sociologist Gillborn found that teachers would label and therefore discipline black pupils quicker than other pupils which would do the same things and this would create a self fulfilling prophecy of the teachers thinking that black pupils would misbehave and do poorly and the pupils would accept that and with the extra lack of teacher help and increased discipline would therefore fail. Gillborn and Youdell think that this is because teachers label black pupils as being more likely to cause problems and rebel, with the teachers labeling the black pupils like this it makes them feel picked on and that the teachers underestimated them. Another result of the negative labeling of black pupils is the higher exclusion rate and the higher chances of black pupils to be put in sets below their actual abilities, which can only lead those black pupils to underachieve.
Black-White Achievement gap The difference between various demographic groups of students is commonly referred to as the “achievement gap.” Throughout the United States, an achievement gap between whites and black continue to persist at all levels of schooling, from elementary school to any higher education. Many of the reasons and solutions for minority underperformance remain uncertain. Parental involvement, family background, desegregation of schools, cultural capital and other factors produce a moderate decline in the achievement gap. However, more than half of the gap remains unexplained. Our society remain with a long history of racism, segregation and low expectations for African American children, and the public education system has not sufficiently responded to resolve this situation.
Fundamentally, one factor which contributes to the ethnic differences within the school place is due to the labeling theory. This is when a particular definition is attached to a student such as ‘smart’ or ‘stupid’ this often leads to a self-fulfilling prophecy as the student begins to believe the label they have been branded as and therefore begins to act upon it. Some sociologists have focused on how black pupils are labeled negatively which has a direct impact on their education. Gillborn & Youdell (2000) found that black pupils were more likely to receive discipline from their teacher although fellow classmates may have been acting in a similar way. This leads to further problems as conflict begins to emerge between teachers and pupils as black pupils are seen as anti-authority due to the misinterpretation of behaviour black boys especially, are labelled negatively leading exclusions which affect their educational attainment as missing lessons means that their knowledge is being limited.
According to the Hoover Institution, “In 2004-5, the funding distribution among federal, state, and local sources was 9 percent, 48 percent, and 43 percent, respectively” (Stanford). The disparity in public school funding comes from the 43 percent represented by the local funding. Local funding comes from property taxes, which means the schools in rich areas have a greater funding pool than the schools in poor areas. This isn’t fair to the students. Just because you were born in a poor neighborhood, you must now attend a school with inadequate funding.
This achievement gap is present before children even start school. Through slavery and legal segregation, today’s racialized social hierarchy, and personal views of educators, racial discrimination has become the basis for today’s black-white achievement gap in education. According to the Department of Education, the achievement gap refers to the observed disparity on a number of educational measures between the performance of groups of students, especially groups defined by race and ethnicity. It is measured by standardized tests required by the No Child Left Behind Act, GPA’s, high school dropout rates, and college completion and drop-out rates (ED.gov). The No Child Left Behind act was put in place by George W. Bush in 2001.
The questionnaires asked questions about reading and TV viewing habits. The conclusion was that those that read complex fiction and watched documentaries for example developed a greater vocabulary and knowledge, thus doing better in school. However, working class parents often can’t support their children in the same way due to material deprivation, and therefore their children are more culturally deprived, this clearly shows that cultural factors are a main cause for social class differences in educational achievement. Use of language between different social classes is also under cultural deprivation and can cause educational achievement differences. Bernstein distinguishes between two speech codes that he associates with two social classes, one being the restricted code, which he commonly associates with the working class where they use one word answers or hand gestures to communicate.
Assess the view that differences in educational achievement between ethnic groups are primarily the result of discrimination in schools [20] In terms of educational achievement, there is evidence of inequalities among different ethnic groups. For example, Whites and Asians on average do better than Blacks. Some would say that this is primarily the result of discrimination in schools, an internal factor. However this is not the case as it is due to external factors such as the influence of home and family background and wider society. On the one hand it could be said that it is down to discrimination in schools that there is evidence of ethnic differences in educational achievement.
Allowing them obtain better paying job opportunities. Create more jobs with better benefits for low income families as well as a way to get a better education. As stated by Arloc (2005), in figure 1 below, exams done to the Census shows that the U.S public benefits system helps to reduce the poverty in nearly half of Americans. Some of these children may not develop well-mannered vocabulary due to the majority of their parents having difficulty speaking proper English. In a poor socioeconomic group, students are more likely to drop out of school; this happens since the environment around them does not allow them to achieve an academic goal or have parents who support them.