1. Internal Factors and Ethnic Differences in Achievement

2. The Ethnocentric Curriculum
What is ethnocentric?
Definition:
Ethnocentric describes an attitude or policy that gives priority to the culture and viewpoint of one particular ethnic group while disregarding the others

3. The Ethnocentric Curriculum
How is the national curriculum ethnocentric?
Troyna & Williams (1986): gives priority to white culture & English language
Miriam David: describes NC as ‘specifically British’ as it teaches culture of ‘host community’ while largely ignoring non-European languages, literature & music
Stephen Ball: ‘little Englandism’; history tries to recreate ‘mythical age of empire & past glories’ ignoring the history of black & Asian people.

4. The Ethnocentric Curriculum
How might an ethnocentric curriculum create underachievement?
Bernard Coard (2005) gives example of history, where British presented as bringing civilisation to ‘primitive’ people they colonised; image of black people as inferior undermines black children’s self-esteem & may lead to failure
Impact unclear: NC ignores Asian culture, yet Indian & Chinese pupils’ achievement above national average.

5. The Ethnocentric Curriculum
What is institutional racism? You may want to compare it to individual racism?
Individual racism: results from prejudice views of individuals
Institutional racism: built into the way institutions such as schools & colleges operate
Troyna & Williams (1986) argue that ethnocentric curriculum is example of institutional racism, e.g. meagre provision for teaching Asian languages is racial bias built into everyday working of schools & colleges
Hatcher (1996) looked at schools’ governing bodies and found often no formal channels of communication between school governors & ethnic minority parents, resulting in nothing done about their specific concerns, such as language support

6. Selection & Marketisation
How might this put ethnic minorities at a disadvantage?
School gets better results
Can ‘cream skim’ more able pupils
Increased funding and more facilities
School becomes more popular
Can ‘silt-shift’ less able pupils to less successful schools

7. Selection & Marketisation
Gillborn (1997): selection gives more scope for negative stereotypes to influence decisions about school admissions
Moore & Davenport (1990):
Discrimination against ‘problem students’ – use of primary school reports to screen out pupils with language or learning difficulties
Application process difficult to understand for non-English speakers or less educated parents
Ethnic stratification

8. Selection & Marketisation
Commission for Racial Equality (1993) identified bias of British education system:
Reports from primary schools that stereotype minority pupils
Racist bias in interviews for school places
Lack of information and application forms in minority languages
Ethnic minority parents often unaware of how waiting list system works and importance of deadlines