Essay: Ethnicity and Educational Achievement

Ethnicity and Educational achievement

Evaluate the argument that cultural factors are the main reason why some ethnic minority groups perform better within education than others.

Ethnicity is a word used in sociology to describe the culture that you belong to. Everyone has an ethnicity. The majority ethnicity in Britain is white British. People who do not fit into that group are said to belong to an ethnic minority. There are many ethnicities in Britain. The majority of the UK population in 2001 was White (92 per cent). The remaining 4.6 million (or 7.9 per cent) people belonged to other ethnic groups.

It has been known for a long time that different ethnic groups appear to have differing rates of attainment in the education system. Whilst no ethnic group is naturally less capable than any other we can identify patterns of achievement associated with ethnic groups. There is a general concern about the achievement level of Black minorities. For example, there is data to show that they are far more likely to be permanently excluded from school than other ethnicities. Furthermore, there is also statistics to show that children from Asian-Indian background do well in education, than any other ethnic group.

It has been argued that Asian families are more supportive and encouraging of their children’s education than Afro Caribbean parents. They encourage their children to work hard towards their education, also the adult authority in an Asian-Indian household is seen as very similar to the model that operates in schools. However, whilst Asian-Indians excel in schools, statistics show that their Asian counterparts, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis do not. This may be due to the fact that they come from poorer areas and backgrounds than Asian-Indian students. Furthermore, government statistics show that 70% of Bangladeshi pupils and almost 60% of Pakistani and Black African pupils live in the 20% most deprived postcode areas compared to less than 20% of White British...