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Applying material from Item B, evaluate sociological explanations of differences in educational achievement between ethnic groups (30 marks)£4.29
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This is an A* essay on ethnic differences in education, all feedback that was received from my teacher has been added into the essay to make it an even stronger A* essay. I am an A* sociology student and have completed my sociology A level.
There are many sociological
explanations as to why different ethnic
groups achieve differently for example
in the item it states it could be due to
‘home and family life’ but also could be
due to ‘factors within schools’ and both
can work together to disadvantage
children. From GCSE results we can see
Chinese and Indian students always do
the best with 64% of Chinse pupils getting a grade 5 or above in maths and English and 56%
of Indian pupils. White students tend to perform averagely and Black Caribbean and
Pakistani students tend to underachieve year on year. External factors are the main cause of
underachievement and cultural deprivation and material deprivation intertwine.
As the item states “some sociologists focus on the role of home and family life” and believe
this is the main factor for differences in educational achievement. Sewel demonstrated the
difference between different ethnicities’ family structures. According to Sewell in Indian and
Chinse families, education is highly valued and children are encouraged to work hard at
school. For example, Chinese parents may be always asking how their child is getting on at
school and may make them do their homework and monitor it. This is supported by Driver
and Ballard who state Asian parents have positive attitudes towards education and so
socialise their children to believe education is very important and teach them they are
working towards their future. Whereas black families tend to socialise their children to have
a more ‘live for today’ attitude and socialise their children to be more fatalistic and accept
their position in society and this can cause black children to lack motivation for work and to
not be bothered by what they achieve. Murray would argue it is due to the family structure
of only having one female parent as this causes inadequate socialisation and can cause
children to long for a male role model so they may join an anti-school subculture or gang
and they may try to gain status through illegitimate means and not focus on their
education. On the other hand, Driver stated having a lone parent mother can be
inspirational for children especially girls and teaches them to be independent and work
hard. For example, they may see their mother working 2 jobs whilst also juggling the
domestic house role and this may push the children to achieve well so they can help their
mother in the future. Keddie would argue this is victim blaming and it is not fair to blame
them as they are a victim of our society- school should be heling pupils who come from a
more vulnerable background and the blame should not all be on the parents. Pakistani
students underachieve even though they have a similar family structure to Chinese families
so cultural deprivation can not be the only cause of differences in ethnic achievement- it
must be an internal factor. Lawrence challenges the view of cultural deprivation theorists
and says black pupils underachieve due to racism as they feel they do not fit in.
Another factor that may effect ethnic differences in achievement is poverty and material
deprivation. Palmer believed poverty was the most important factor for underachievement
of some ethnic groups. He found that almost ½ of all ethnic minority children live in low-
income households compared to a ¼ of white children. Almost half of Bangladeshi and
Pakistani workers earned under £7 per hour compared with only a ¼ of white workers.
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