Differential Achievement Essay

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Differential achievement a) The hidden curriculum is a set of norms and values that are set out alongside the official curriculum, which provide secondary socialisation for the pupils in a school. b) One reason why teaches may treat pupils from ethnic minorities differently is because they stereotype them as being more badly behaved: e.g. Afro Caribbean boys. Another reason could be that the teacher is either uncertain or institutionally racist toward ethnic minorities, and would treat children from them differently to white children. c) One way in which ethnic minority children may respond to negative labelling is by a self fulfilling prophecy; if the teacher perceives them to be badly behaved, and then they may start acing that way. Another way they could react is to do the opposite of a self fulfilling prophecy, and go out of their way to try and achieve and behave well to prove their teacher wrong and to prove themselves. Finally, children of ethnic minorities could also become disheartened and depressed by such negative feedback form their teachers, and behave accordingly which will affect both their achievement and attitudes towards school, peers and other adults. d) One way in which schools can be seen as institutionally racist is that the schools curriculum can be seen as ethnocentric in aspects such as school assemblies, school holiday times and aspects of the curriculum such as languages, history and world religions. Another way is that within the classroom, students can be labelled negatively by teachers based solely on appearances and in some cases their ethnic group. This leads to a self fulfilling prophecy of failure and low self-esteem from pupils, especially in Afro-Caribbean boys. These points suggest that pupils from certain ethnic minority groups are alienated from school and this leads to educational failure due to the
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