A* Sociology Student, sat exams in 2022 and received a grade of over 95%.
These are answers for AQA (but would work for all exam boards).
Past paper question on the topic of EXTERNAL differences for ethnic differences in academic achievement, answered to 10/10 or 100% (high A*, as the grade b...
Using the item, analyse two factors outside school that lead to ethnic differences in educational
achievement’ – (10)
One factor ‘outside the school’ that can cause ethnic differences in educational achievement, is a
‘cultural difference’, of linguistic and language deprivation. Sociologists Bereiter and Engelmann
(1966) argued that the language spoken within ethnic households is inadequate and can lead to
adverse effects on educational success. This could be as a result of the different languages spoken at
home, making it considerably more difficult to adapt to the elaborate speech codes spoke within the
educational system without the practice and the cut-off from linguistic development within the
family. This lack of oratory skills can hold the children back within school, in both spoken and written
format as it can lead to underdevelopment of the language – arguably leading to the inability to
express their thoughts and answers. Therefore, the result of what Gordon Bowker argues is a lack of
standard English, acts as a major barrier to progress in education and exam results – which can result
in inferior educational attainment in contrast to ethnicities that hold English as their main household
language. However, this is criticised by the Swann Report (1985) which claims that language was not
found to be a major factor in under-achievement of pupils, with Indian pupils attaining high grades
despite not having English as their home language, thereby, the view of Linguistic and Language
deprivation is perhaps inaccurate through this report’s findings. Moreso, it is thus arguable, with the
high achievement of Indian pupils, that this is not the same for all ethnicities and the impacts of
having different home languages does not affect some pupils which achieve higher than those with
English as their home language.
Another factor ‘outside the school’, that can cause ethnic differences in education achievement, is
the ‘material circumstances of different ethnic groups’ is the prevalent racism in society, leading to
social exclusion which sociologists argue not only amplifies poverty, but apt access to adequate
housing. For example, Rex (1986) argued that racial discrimination can lead to minorities being
forced into substandard accomodiation compared to white people in the same class/spending
power. This can be due to their ‘surnames’, which can lead to social exclusion because of racism –
leading to inferior access to opportuinies such as employment (therefore weaker economic power)
and housing (not only from the weaker economic power but declination for housing). Substandard
housing can have vast impacts of children’s development and thus education achievement through
overcrowding, and thus less opportunitiy to complete focused work and revision and increased
likelihood of ilness due to the inferior housing quality – as issues such as mould are not fixed as fast,
leading to increase chances of the development of diseases such as asthma. This can lead to time of
school, which is one of the instrumental factors in lack of educational attainment because of missed
lesson time. However, this viewpoint can be countered through research suggesting the vast
differences in educational achievement within ethnic groups despite similar social and economic
positions – for example, Indian and Chinese pupils are seen to do much better than white working
class, black and bangladeshi pupils, irrespective of their financial position. Therefore, perhaps other
factors such as those inside the school can lead to the moreso adverse differences between
educational achievement between different ethnic groups.
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