The idea of an ethnocentric curriculum within schools describes an attitude that gives priority to the culture and view point of one particular ethnic group while disregarding others. This is seen within schools in Britain as Miriam David(1993) see’s the National Curriculum as ‘specifically british’ that teaches the culture of the ‘host community’ whilst ignoring other ethnicities cultures and languages. Bernard Coard(2005) helps to explain how the ethnocentric curriculum may produce underachievement as the image of black people as inferior undermines black children’s self-esteem, leading to their failure.
However some such as Troyna and Williams argue that teacher racism is not the only explanation of ethnic differences in education as institutional racism plays a large part. Institutional racism is discrimination that is built into institutions such as schools. Troyna and Williams see the lack of Asian languages being taught as racism as it is an example of racial bias within schools. Hatcher (1996) found that they gave love priority to race issuers and failed to deal with racial discrimination within schools.
Marketisation has given schools greater ability to choose students like ‘pick n mix’ and select the most desirable pupils. Gillborn (1997) argues that this has led to ethnic minorities being at a disadvantage as the negative stereotypes of many minorities influences decisions about school admissions. This view of marketisation being unbeneficial to ethnic minorities is supported by Donald Moore and Susan Davenport (1990) as they found that selection procedures lead to ethnic segregation. They found that schools discriminated against ‘problem students’. This leads to a difference in achievement for certain ethnicities as they are not accepted into the better schools and are left with minimal choices.
Although internal factors play a key part in ethnic differences in educational achievement, external factors such as cultural deprivation can affect a child’s achievements. Cultural deprivation is the idea that some children have inadequate socialisation within the home, which can then lead to under-achievement. Many such as Bereiter and Engelmann see the language spoken by lower class black American families as inadequate for educational success. Also, many see black culture as socialising the children into a subculture that instils a ‘live for today’ attitude and doesn’t embrace the importance of an education. Cultural deprivation theorists argue that the failure of properly socialised children is down to the lack of stable families within certain ethnicities. An example of this is Moynihan (1965) who argues that many black families are lone parent and the main role model is a mother, and the children become deprived of adequate care because she struggles financially being a single parent. The lack of a father figure also leads to boys not having an adequate role model of male achievement. Many such as Flew (1984) agree with this view as he believed that ethnic differences in education stem from cultural differences external to school life, and not racism within. Cultural deprivation is a key reason for ethnic differences in achievement as different ethnicities are raised with different values in regards to education.
Another main factor is material deprivation and class. Material deprivation is the lack of necessities such as school books which are seen as essential for school. It is seen that working-class people are most likely to face material deprivation. Many ethnic minorities are seen to be of working class as Flaherty (2004) found that unemployment is 3 times higher for Africans and Pakistani’s than for whites. These differences parallel those seen is educational achievements. It also explains why Bangladeshi and Pakistani pupils tend to do worse than Indian and white pupils as they often face high levels of poverty. This is also supported by the Swann Report (1985) which estimated that social class accounts for at least 50% of difference in achievement between ethnic groups.
Ethnic differences in educational achievement are mostly due to school factors such as teacher racism, however external factors such as different cultural values affect achievement for certain ethnic minorities.