When looking at the mandatory test scores of minority inner city students, specifically African American students, they are significantly lower than White American suburban students, hence the achievement gap. When the achievement gap is mentioned most people automatically think of the difference in grades, standardized-test scores, dropout rates, and college-completion rates between White Americans vs. African American students, but it goes much deeper than that. When determining the gap one must look at many other factors other than race, such as the child's economic status, where they live and the schools they attend, as well as how much parental involvement there is. When the achievement gap is mentioned the instant thought of White vs. Black students comes to mind. Black students scoring lower than White students, but this can be looked at from many different angles.
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.
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.
Also, even with post modern society placing more emphasis on multi culturalism, the differences in achievement still remain. Supporting this, Richard Hatcher found that within school governing bodies there were no formal channels of communication between ethnic minority parents and school governors. As a result, minority pupils’ needs are continually disregarded not because of individual racism but because of racism that is built into the institution. Thus, with both the curriculum and institution being racist, differences in achievement
African Americans have the power to succeed in the classroom on their own determination. Not only do they succeed in the classroom, but it also helps them learn acceptance and tolerance for people different from themselves which will play a role in higher education and the workplace. In today’s society African Americans are employed and owners in diverse careers. Before the Civil Rights Act of 1964, there were only certain jobs that African Americans were allowed to work. Many Caucasian Americans believed a completely fallacious myth
In my opinion I think that people especially kids have become to comfortable using the word, most kids have no filter and feel that it is okay to use the word not realizing that some people, especially black people still find the word offensive. In the 60 Minutes segment, the only black kid in a class of all white students found himself feeling uncomfortable in class while his teacher repeated the word nigger during class. Author David Bradley believes that white people do not have the right to use the word nigger that being able to use the word nigger means you have to be able to accept everything that goes with it. He says that all the good stuff that goes along with being able to use the word is “having the awareness that your people have overcome centuries of oppression”. When the interviewer says that the word is hurtful Bradley replies by saying, “the word is not hurtful but how it is used and the person who is saying it is hurtful”.
There are a certain aspects of Gillborn report that I believe to be questionable. Such as what is his reasoning behind simply excluding certain minority groups in his explanation of educational attainment differences due to race. Gillborn compares the educational of white British with the lowest performing race group of black Caribbean’s students which indicates a huge difference leading to white supremacy in the educational attainment level however Gillborn does not include the likes of Chinese, Pakistani and Indian students that tend to reach higher levels of education than their white British counterparts. His lack of inclusion could lead to misinterpretations of these findings. Indian and Chinese ethnic groups outperform all ethnic groups in student populations (Hill 2009).
The education the children receive is usually based off of their class as well, so it would be usual for a middle-class white child to attend a decent school that will teach him/her what is right and how to succeed. On the other hand, it would be typical for a low class African American or Hispanic to attend a poorly functioning school that only tries to get them through the year without getting in too many fights or failing. An example of how society in general can influence a juvenile comes from the film “Boyz ‘N the Hood”, which streamed in 1991 and was directed by
The Achievement Gap Between African American and White Students The low achievement of African-Americans in school is a reflection of a number of constant problems not only in the education system but in the society as a whole. Despite the fact that the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) test results showed that black students have made great progress when improving their performance in the subjects of reading and mathematics, a gap still separates them from their white peers. For example, there was a special examination completed by the National Center for Education Statistics in 2009 and 2011 that showed that black students trailed behind their white peers by an average of more than 20 test-score points on the NAEP math and reading assessments at 4th and 8th grades, a difference of about two grade levels. These gaps persisted even though the score differentials between black and white students narrowed between 1992 and 2007 in 4th grade math and reading and 8th grade math (NCES, 2009, 2011). Among the reasons for this problem is the issue of poverty, a very poor distribution of tax money for education, and some cultural conflicts.