Using Material from Item a and Elsewhere Assess the Sociological Explanations for Ethnic Differences in Educational Success

Howard, T.G. (2010). Why Race and Culture Matter in Schools: Closing the Achievement Gap in

This paper includes a reference list of literature relating to the impact socioeconomic status and race/ethnicity has on academic achievement and what can be done to combat the achievement gap. In general, the literature seems to indicate that socioeconomic status has a greater impact then race or ethnicity on achievement. However, these constructs are often intertwined. The greatest source for combatting the achievement gap are teachers high in self-efficacy, strong and well directed principal leadership, having a positive and accepting racial climate, smaller class sizes, less harsh discipline with more support

Authors Glenn E. Singleton and Curtis Linton in Chapter Five of Courageous Conversations About Race broach the topic of race, by asking the reader to evaluate his or her own consciousness of race. According to the authors, in order to address the achievement gaps between African American students and White students, educators should shift their energy towards focusing on the factors that they have direct control of inside the classroom rather than on the factors that influence this achievement disparity between races outside the classroom.

In the reading, Culture and Power in the Classroom: A Critical Foundation for Bicultural Education, Antonia Darder argues that education is a critical tool and necessity for the advancement of people of color. She highlights that education is tied to status, which in turn, then gives you power in society. She helps us see many of the flaws in the school system that prevents students of color from excelling in the academic world. She points to us, that although there are many things within the school institution itself that fail students of color over and over again, the blame is always placed on the individual. She also highlights that there are many myths about students of color that say that their failure is tied to coming from cultures and backgrounds that do not value education. Finally, Darder argues that conservative educators hurt bicultural student’s education, and liberal educators, although may seem the better option, still fail to attack the institutions that help foster failure in the education setting. They also end up alluding to student failure to individual failure.

Racism in the education system has generated a difficulty in inner cities, with white parents preferring to send their children to school with other white

or her best, so it is important to me to find out if racism is the

Students abilities strongly correlate with the family’s socioeconomic status i.e. it depends on a combination of variables, including occupation, education, income, wealth, and place of residence. The statement mentions that children whose parents have the good educational qualification and income, can have the good impact on child's performance. Above average

Race plays no part in a pupil’s ability to learn and apply lessons learned to daily life. Taking race

My first awareness of racial identity and diversity occurred when I was in Year 3. Having being raised acknowledging acceptance of people of racial or cultural difference my thoughts of children of colour were positive and impartial. However, one day a boy in my class of Sri Lankan descent got into trouble with another student, but only the Sri Lankan boy was asked to go to the principal’s office. During our lunch break he came over to a group of us and told us that he thought he was the one that got into trouble ‘because he was ‘black’’. I remember thinking to myself, ‘why would he get into trouble just because he was black?’ It was in fact that both boys

Racism and prejudices seem to be one of the causes for why African American students achieve low in academics. According to Garry Bold, even though funding levels of black schools are the same as wealthy white schools, predominately black schools will remain unequal. The reason why predominately black schools remain unequal is because educational reforms such as the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) keeps probing into black schools in attempt of creating a new and improved way of teaching African Americans students so they can be like their white

African American students account for the larger majority of minorities in public schools in the United States. Most areas in the northern part of the United states and coastal areas are ethnically diverse. However, down south this is not the case. Students of color will experience a harder time in the education system. African American students meet the obstacle of educators who will not want them to succeed based on a preconceived thought. In fact, Caucasian teachers make up for 85% of all

1. How may a student's social class origin and related factors impact on her/his learning outcomes and how can teachers intervene to effectively address any resulting disadvantages and injustices for students?

However social class is not the only factor influencing educational achievement; Girls achieve higher grades than boys in Standard Assessment Tests (SATs) and GCSE’s (Mitsos and Browne, 1998), in 2010 to 2011 54.3 per cent of black pupils achieved five or more A* to C grades at GCSE compared to 58 per cent of white pupils and 61.8 per cent of Asian pupils (Attew, 2012). Therefore educational achievement is also affected by gender and ethnicity.

According to Bennett and colleagues, “There is extensive evidence suggesting that students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds experience poorer education

A student’s cultural capital will have an impact on their education. It will either be positive or it can be negative for the child. In this essay I will explain the idea of cultural capital and then use it to analyse the impact it has had on education in different settings. The first educational setting I will discuss is a story called Butterflies, written by Patricia Grace (2002), and the second being the contrast in education between high and low decile schools in New Zealand. This essay will demonstrate the implications of the inequality in education because of cultural capital, and the effects it has on a student’s presence, participation and achievement.