Wright who did a study of racism in multi-racial primary schools further supports this. She found considerable discrimination in the classroom, Asian children were largely excluded from group discussions and Asian girls seemed invisible to the teachers. She also found that Asian pupils were isolated from other pupils who picked up on teachers comments made to the Asians. As well as Asian children African Caribbean children were expected to have bad behaviour along with disapproval, punishment and teacher insentivity to the experience of racism. Wright concludes that some black children are relatively disadvantaged in primary schools. She argues that the earliest years of education provide the foundations of emotional, intellectual and social development and that these early disadvantages might well hold back the children in later stages of education. This therefore shows that the underachievement of some ethnic minority pupils is the result of factors and processes within the school.
Mirza, who did a study called ‘young, female and black’, further supports Wright. Mirza did a study of 198 young women and men including 62 black women aged 15-19, they all attended two comprehensive schools in London. She concluded that it was not the affects of labelling as such that held the girls back, nor was it the culture of the girls. Instead, they were held back by the well-meaning but misguided behaviour of most of the teachers. However much the girls rejected the beliefs of teachers they were in no position in the power hierarchy to challenge any negative outcomes that came from the way the teachers interpreted the girl’s behaviour. So, according to Mirza it was the attitude of the teachers that caused underachievement of some ethnic minority pupils within the school.
However some sociologists believe that in school factors are not the only affected factor for underachievement of some ethnic minority pupils, they believe that out school factors also affect this. The out school factors range from cultural backgrounds to language differences.
Driver and Ballard support the viewpoint that language is the affecting factor, which influences the underachievement of some ethnic minority pupils. Their study found that by the age of 16 Asian children were competent in English as their white classmates. However the sociologists have been criticized because language is also judged in terms of the degree of fluency and this can be done through interviews, which maybe biased.
Pilkington further supports Driver and Ballard who argues that cultural explanations should be treated with caution. Deprivation and racism are also important factors that shape culture and these need to be tackled rather than simply blaming parents. Hence Pilkington believed that family life was the influential factor for underachievement of ethnic minority pupils.
This study is still further supported by Jones who sees social class as the reason for underachievement of some ethnic minority pupils. Jones’s analysis of the labour force survey found that class does make a difference to the likelihood on staying on in education after 16. For example, 47% of ethnic minority children aged 16-19 from unskilled backgrounds were in full time education compared to 69% from professional backgrounds. However, although class accounts for some of the inequality in education of ethnic groups it may not take account of all. Some sociologists have suggested that racism is also an important factor in causing inequality.
On the other hand some sociologists believe that genetic make up is the main reason for underachievement of some ethnic minority pupils.
Jenson and Eysenck support this viewpoint. They both argue that blacks have genetically inherited levels of intelligence, which are lower than those of white people. However environmental factors are also influential, for example blacks tend to live in poverty, which may lead to unemployment, racism and discrimination.
However, other factors also need to be considered for the underachievement of some ethnic minority pupils, for example, exclusion, figures from the department of education in 1992 showed that Afro-Caribbean’s made up 8.1% of all permanent exclusions even when they were only 2% of the school population. Reasons for this were seen to be racism as teachers saw their behaviours as aggressive and disruptive whereas in reality they may have misbehaved as a response to racism and poverty at home. This could have been one influential factor as to why some ethnic minority pupils underachieved.
Most of the studies have found that overall ethnic minorities tend to do less well than other members of the population. However, there are various ethnic minority groups, and this assumption hides the variations between and within the ethnic groups. This issue is also linked to gender and social class, therefore, cannot be seen in isolation.
Current trends show that ethnic minority groups are doing well and improving therefore due to ethnic minority having broad meaning generalisations cannot be made.
In conclusion, all the factors considered for differential educational attainment in ethnic minority groups, cannot be seen in isolation, rather a number of factors can work together to produce low levels of attainment, found in some ethnic minority groups.
