Assess the contribution of functionalism to our understanding of society
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Using the information from the items and elsewhere, asses the view that it is schools themselves that are the cause of differences in achievement amongst ethnic groups
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Introduction
Using the information from the items and elsewhere, asses the view that it is schools themselves that are the cause of differences in achievement amongst ethnic groups Both factors in school and outside school affect ethnic achievement such as, the curriculum, material and cultural factors, labelling and racism in school; all of these affect ethnic minorities' achievement within school. These allegations that schools themselves are the cause of differences in achievement amongst ethnic groups are supported by all 3 items; item A suggests that the teachers expectations of ethnic minorities can have a huge effect in issues such as placement in streamed classes, this point is supported by the report made by Ofsted in 1999, they concluded that in schools emphasize tight setting, some groups learning English, as an additional language are likely to be placed disproportionately in low sets, especially in English. Item A also suggests that the introduction of tiered GCSE papers has added an additional disadvantage to ethnic minorities as in Gillborn and Youdell (1999) study has shown that black children are markedly less likely to be entered for higher tier examinations, which is preventing them to reach the higher grades they may achieve. ...read more.
Middle
Another factor that supports the view of it's the schools themselves to blame for the cause of difference in achievement in ethnic groups, is labelling and racism in school. Teachers tend to label boys of afro-Caribbean origin as 'unruly' and 'disrespectful' which is supported by Gillborn's study in 1990, he found that afro-Caribbean pupils were more likely to get given detentions than any other pupils; this may be linked by the way teachers perceived their manner and behaviour which could be simply just how they speak and they only challenge teachers authority when they feel they are being unfairly punished for something they feel they can't help or haven't done, by doing this the pupil is fulfilling their label that was placed by the teacher. These claims are supported by studies such as Tony Sewell (1996) and Jasper (2002) which both suggest that teacher are fearful of black boys but, Jasper goes further and claims that teachers offers black boys a different style of teaching which is less conducive to learning than the others. In 1992 after Wright completed some studies she found that teachers displayed some overt racism. ...read more.
Conclusion
Haque and Ball (2001) study found that the level of the mother's education also had an effect on educational attainment. Another factor could be the language barrier because although Afro-Caribbean's do speak English they have different dialects which would affect their standard of school work and their communication with the teachers. The last Factor is cultural capital, where the parents would not be able to get their child into the best school as they do not have the characteristics of a middle class white person and that they are not used to the English education system, this would effect the student as they would attend a school that they couldn't help the black student fulfil their full potential due to bad staff and lack of facilities. In conclusion, from looking at all the points made I believe that school is to blame for the differences in ethnic groups attainment although there are good points to go against this, schools are not helping to their full potential which could help ethnic students a great deal as bad attainment is the result of bad communication between student, parent, and teacher and the lack of equality in a classroom. Elizabeth Knights Ethnicity essay 6th December 2007 ...read more.
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