Asses the Pattern Between Education Achievement and Ethnicity?

731 Words3 Pages
There is a strong pattern between educational achievement and ethnicity, and many sociologists believe this is to do with two factors. Internal factors and external factors. Both factors play their part in the educational achievement of a pupil however ethnicity is very difficult to measure as both internal factors and external factors should be considered. Many sociologists believe Internal Factors play a major part as racism within the school, from pupils and teachers, can severely affect educational achievement. The main on being labelling and teacher racism. An example of labelling can be if a student labels a student as 'bright' they are more likely to stick to this label and achieve higher grades. However this also means that teachers may label students due to their ethnic background without considering their actual level of cleverness. For example black students do not fit the ideal pupil silhouette and may therefore be labelled as a 'troublemaker leading them to not do as well as white pupils. Cecile Wright (1992) found that Asian pupils are also a target of labelling by teachers. Teachers may speak down to them assuming that they cannot speak the English language as well as white pupils. Because of this they are more likely to be left out of class discussions and will therefore feel isolated. Asian students are seen as a "problem they can ignore". She found that this leads teachers to have ethnocentric views about these students. Gillborn and Youdell also back up this view with black pupils, showing that teachers tend to view black students as having behavioural problems, even if they are the best behaved in the class. This can lead the teacher to leave them out of class discussions and essentionally try to avoid them, and Gillborn and Youdell believe this is due to racial stereotypes. A study by Heidi Mirza (1992) identified three types of teacher racism
Open Document