Race and mixed heritage influence educational outcome

This essay will present a critical analysis of the factors influencing the educational outcomes faced by racial and mixed heritage children in England. By outlining previous statistics on attainments within these groups, it will not only provide a better understanding of the issues but also suggests the idea of a continuum pattern of underachievement and experiences. Furthermore, attention is drawn to the importance of identity and the recognition of the distinctions within mixed race experiences and their needs. This will then provide a basis for a critical analysis of the barriers to success within the education system; these originate as follows: low teacher expectations which are associated with a misunderstanding of the identities and backgrounds of such groups, a linkage between attitudes towards schooling and peer group pressure and/or the idea of ‘masculinity’. In doing so, this essay will refer to the past historical evidence to determine whether changes have been done in terms of practice, policy and the experiences of racial/mixed children and their parents. In the last part of this essay, a Critical Race Theory (CRT) analysis of policies such as the English Baccalaureate as well as the National Curriculum (NC) will be made. The gist behind using CRT is to demonstrate that white supremacy is presented and maintained within the education system and seen as ‘normal’ in today’s society. And lastly, it will also offer some recommendations and implications for practitioners and policy makers.

‘I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character.’ (Martin Luther King, Jr, 28 August 1963, cited in Ladson-Billings, 1994, p. 30)

Looking at the timeframe from 1963 to this present date, a lot has changed; humanity is one step closer to the ‘dream’ of equal opportunity and acceptance. Black people are well presented in the world of entertainment, sports and, even in politics. For example, Barack Obama is elected Senator for Illinois in 1996 and in 2008 he became President of the United States of America.

However, the picture is not the same for every ethnic minority, there could still argued to be factors hindering such opportunities and success by a political, economic and cultural system which is controlled by white people; influencing ‘…ideas of white superiority and entitlement are widespread, and relations of white dominance and non-white subordination are daily re-enacted across a broad array of institutions and social settings’ (Ansley, 1989: 993). The education system is one of many institutions Ansley (1989) is referring to, however in this sense it is important to point out that racism is structural rather than individual which continues to privilege white people and marginalise people of colour.

Within Europe, England is one of the ethnically, linguistically and culturally diverse countries in which 32% of black and ethnic minority groups arein existence in the school population. According to the 2017 census, 7,088,784 children were in schools. The largest group was formed by White British with 68%, followed by White Other at 6%, Black African 4%, Pakistani 4%, Indian 3%, Bangladeshi 2% and Black Caribbean were around 80,000 pupils. The number of Mixed-Race pupils increased in size to 388,868 (5.5%). What is noteworthy here is that, the DfES has recognised mixed- heritage as a category in the Pupil Level Annual School Census; making it possible to ascertain the educational performances of such groups.

Research by Demie and Hau (2018) indicated that the number of pupils attaining five or more higher grades in GCSE exams has increased by 37% in 1998 to 70% in 2016. However, the overall picture is more complex when analysing the attainment of each ethnic group which illustrates that not all share an improvement in attaining the level of 5+A*-C. The data shows that the lowest achieving groups at GCSE, in 2016,were Mixed Black and Black Caribbean students with a percentage of 45%- compared to the national average of 58%. Similar patterns were evidenced for the Black Caribbean ethnic pupils and also showed a substantial achievement gap with their White British peers. The highest achieving group at this level is granted to Chinese and Indian pupils with 68%.

Analysis of the statistics by gender identities, demonstrates a constant pattern of outperformance by girls and underachievement of boys in GSCE including Maths and English. Overall speaking, around 62% of girls gained 5+ A*-C whereas boys had a percentage of 52 %. Within this group, Black Caribbean boys were seen as the lowest grade achievers with 36% following Black African boys with 50%. Girls from Chinese origin had the highest percentages of 84% compared to 71% of Chinese boys, followed by Indian girls 76% and 71% to Mixed White and Asian.

Furthermore, the evidence gets more shocking when comparing pupils eligible for free school meals (FSM) and those coming from the most economically advantaged background. Not only were White British FSM the lowest achieving group with 28 % but the gap within non-FSM were also the highest with 33%. Like in the other categories, Mixed White and Black Caribbean FSM had one of the lowest achieving percentage of 31% compared to their Non-FSM peers with 48%. This was followed by Black Caribbean FSM achieving 34% at GSCE who had a gap of 13% with Non-FSM pupils. Interestingly, the highest performance within this category was non-FSM Chinese pupils with 77% and had a gap of 3% with those who were eligible.

This clearly shows that underachievement is real, especially with Mixed White/Black Caribbean and Black African/Caribbean pupils; and is consistently the lowest performing group in every category.

In addition to that, the DfE (2007) has indicated that these children are also highly overrepresented in the ‘behaviour, emotional and social difficulties’ unit on the SENs register (DfE, 2007, p.5). Gillbornet. al. (2016) calls this ‘…one of the key issues in the field of race and education for many decades’ (p.14). He goes back to the 1980s where a disproportionate number of Black children were presented in exclusion: for example, around 14% were accounted for Afro-Caribbean pupils in London in which over 30% made up all exclusions. The problem got even more intense in the 1990s when the overall number increased enormously: looking at the figure 1 for the year 95/96, 12,276 children were excluded- this is four times bigger than in the start of the decade (Gillborn, 1998). In the same era, official inspection has found that nationally Black Caribbean students were six-times more represented in the exclusion statistics than their White peers (Gillborn, 1998). The above Figure (1) offers an overview of all permanent exclusions of ethnic origin in England from 1997. Interestingly, the shaded period from 1998 to 2001 marked the time were government ‘…targeted a reduction in the overall number of permanent exclusions.’ .It was in 1998, when the ‘Social Exclusion Unit’ for the first time, focused on exclusions and absence within schools. It reported several recommendations which were undertaken by the government to decrease the number of permanent exclusions and the result was immense: the number went down from 12,700 students in 1997 to 8,600 by 2000/1. However, in the same year, the government decided not to follow the recommendations, rationalising their decisions by stating that the reduction had been achieved and therefore, it was not necessary to continue. As a result, schools experienced an increase in the number of permanent exclusions following the years.

When children are removed from education, it is argued to have an immensely detrimental effect upon their educational outcomes and success achievement. Gillborn (2008), is more specific and states that only one in five students within the exclusion unit are able to achieve five higher GCSEs and they are four times more likely to gain no qualification at all. The Longitudinal Study of Young People in England (LSYPE) found some alarming patterns: exclusions are most common in year 9 and even continues while they are studying GCSEs.addition to school failure, research has revealed the correlation between those excluded and youth crime- they have more than double the propensity to report their crimes in comparison to the young school students studying at the mainstream educational services (Equalities Review, 2006).

The discourse around the reasons for such representation and underachievement within the black community, has frequently blamed the child as being inadequate and genetically delinquent. They suffered of poor self-esteem and low self-concept which is seen as a product of cultural deficit. This theory was taking by Fordham and Ogbu (1986) who state further that the refusal to engage with education is to perpetuate the idea of ‘acting white’.

Various previous researches regarding the measure of self-esteem have outlined that those Afro-American males who had the least admirable academic accomplishments, had the highest of the positive demonstrations in factors such as peer based self-esteem. However, the extents of self-esteem at both home and the schools were extremely low(Hare &Castenell, 1985). This indicated the possibility of existence of praises or accolades, in the perception of such students, in abjectly failing. Such perceptions could exist amongst the peers who could influence the psyche of most of the teenagers.

Beale-Spencer et al. (2001) disagrees with this notion and emphasises the danger of contributing to cultural stereotyping.

Other studies suggest the same stance, Sewell (2001) and the DfES (2003) emphasis the peer pressure on Black Caribbean students’ behaviour, especially boys. They experience an enormous pressure to adopt ‘street credibility’ and reject any notion of knowledge or schooling (Sewell, 2001). Warren (2005) on the other side, views the problem differently: ‘…Black Caribbean boys may not constitute a rejection of schooling per se, but can be a way of resisting the ‘inequality of respect’ that they experience from some teachers’ behaviour, he argues, is a strategic tactic to overshadow their anxiety about teacher’s negative expectations and perceptions (Warren, 2005). However, Haynes et. al. (2006) have emphasised that there is an added dimension in the way peer pressure functions within White/Black Caribbean pupils as they are ‘caught between two worlds’ and have therefore identity issues. They feel the urgency of adopting ‘extreme stances’ so they can get the approval of being ‘Black’ in order to be accepted by other Black students.

These traits are also found within the experiences of White/Black Caribbean female students in terms of their appearances and sexuality: for example, their skin tone, hair and clothing style, relationships and friendships. This was noted by one of the female students in the research conducted by Tilkyet. al. (2004):

Like one time this argument I was having and he was trying to talk to me and I didn’t want to talk to him… And he said, “oh you mixed race girls are all bitches […] because they say that white girls let off easy, so that’s why,’ cause we’re half white. That’s why. They don’t say it about black girls but they say it about mixed race girls (Female Pupil, cited in Tilky et. al. 2004).

Critiques like Beale-Spencer et al. (2001) came to word, arguing that the thesis of ‘fear of acting white’ is doubtful and a misconception in its context; they rather highlight school pressure which Mixed Race and Black students encounter and with that cannot or do not know how to adopt coping strategies. Therefore, they shift the blame to schools and present it as a stressful experience which has a negative influence upon students’ psychosocial well-being.

It is therefore observed that the presence of racism, in a structural format, as well as engagement with the same, could pose extreme risks to both learn and implement strategies of adaptation based coping. The positive nature concerning the health and well-being related activities arealso related to both the communities as well as the individuals(Beale-Spencer &Harpalani, 2001, p. 28).

This was also evidenced by the findings of the DfES review ‘Getting it Right’ which points out concerns regarding the method through which the education systems treat the students of colour. From a particular perspective, this could be better understood as a process of judgements, subjective in nature, undertaken by the staff of the school concerning the students of colour. The impact of such judgements is of critical significance.

Although the Swann Report (1985) rejected the claims of teachers’ low expectation towards children of Caribbean origin for seven years, the notion has been there for decades. In 1971 Bernard Coard published his book on ‘How the West Indian Child is Made Educationally Subnormal in the British School System’. While the Swann committee reported on the low performances of the Black community; Coard (1971) researched the relationship within the teacher and the child’s performance and what he found was noteworthy. Teachers with a positive expectation towards the child’s learning had ‘spurt’ within six months. However other studies in the 1980s found that although white students’ performance was worse than Black students, teachers put them into higher academic sets. This pattern is also presented in the schooling of the current era. With this being said, it seem that over 30-40 years since Swann and Coard’s research, nothing really has changed for Black students and stereotypical false assumptions are still being made by teachers.

As, Gillborn (2008) has recognised that African Caribbean pupils were seen as a ‘threat’ to the teachers’ authority. Consequently, greater emphasises is given to their behaviour rather than their academical ability. This is demonstrated by Gillborn’s Paul Dixon who is a determined African Caribbean young boy and labelled as troublemaker. In order to avoid any confrontation and antagonistic teachers, he had to employ strategies during schooling to overcome such stereotypes and worked exceedingly hard to achieve a good grade. Gillborn (2008) rationalises this as: ‘…mere ability and dedication to work are not enough, they must also adapt to their disadvantaged position in such a way that they do not reinforce the widespread belief that they represent a threat to the teachers’ authority’ cited in p. 70.

Looking at the governments, it is undeniable that they have published an amount of policies and legislations to further help the educational experiences of such groups. To ensure performance of minority ethnic children- in these case Black and Mixed children- is driven by a race equality principles and consideration of the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000 and its recommendations. This Act was firstly published ‘…in response to the Macpherson Report into the murder of the Black teenager Stephen Lawrence in 1993’(reffile:///C:/Users/Layla/Desktop/third%20year/mixed%20race%20assignment/sec_blackattain_mgt_0075007.pdf). They have acknowledged ‘institutional racism’ as the most disadvantaging factor effecting some ethnic groups. Institutional racism is defined by the Commission for Racial Equality as: ‘…organisational structures, policies and practices which result in ethnic minorities being treated unfairly and less equally, often without intent or knowledge.’ (ref. the link above) The Act provides a statutory duty for all public authorities to take proactive steps in order to:

• Abolishing the unjustified discrimination depending upon the racial identifications.
• Promotion of the equality of the opportunities and betterment of relations regarding the various individual of differential races.

Furthermore, there are various responsibilities regarding the schools which are meant to assist them to perform their generalised responsibilities. These could be considered to be a means to achieve any end which could be expected to finally bring forth the result of improvement in the existing educational experiences. This involves all of the children and is primarily different from bureaucratic processes. Such particular duties could be identified as the following:

• Formulation of a documented statement regarding the policy of the school concerning the promotion of the equality of races as well as development of further actions on the same.
  • Assessment of the implications of the policies formulated by the school regarding the staff and students as well as the parents of such students belonging to differential groups of races, involving, in particularity, the implications various measures of achievement by such students.
  • Monitoring the activities of all of the policies of all of the schools, including, as in particularity, the impact of the same on the academic achievement measures of various groups of races
  • Undertaking the responsibility of performing the various steps so that the results of the monitoring could be performed.

However, not everyone views policies as a betterment of society or educational institutions. One of which is the well-known researcher Stephen Ball (2008) who regards policy as ‘…self-consciously messy and uncertain, emphasizing that policy is dynamic, contested, and always in flux: ... we need to remain aware that policies are made and remade in many sites, and there are many little-p policies that are formed and enacted within localities and institutions ... policy that is “announced” through legislation is also reproduced and reworked over time through reports, speeches, “moves,” “agendas” and so on. ... Policies are contested, interpreted and enacted in a variety of arenas of practice and the rhetoric’s, texts and meanings of policy makers do not always translate directly and obviously into institutional practices. (Ball, 2008, p. 7)

His observations are very relevant in the discourse of race and education but also a correlation to the banner of Critical Race Theory (CRT)- an international and multidisciplinary movement which firstly began in the US in the 1970/80s (Gillborn and Ladson-Billings, 2010). From a CRT perspective, policy is not seen as a mechanism which pursues a greater degree of equity, it is rather viewed as a progress which is formed only for the dominant white population’s interests and benefits. To further understand this ideology, it is essential to use Derrick Bell’s concepts of interest-convergence and interest-divergence. For the purpose of this paper, interest-divergence will be used to critical analyse the political agendas.

Interest-divergence is a concept found within the English-political agendas- this is, for example the refocus debate over the needs of the poor white people(Gillborn, 2010/8). With this being said, although David Cameron’s government designed various educational reforms in which race equity is declared as a goal, the real picture seems disturbing and absent from the reality. In one of his speeches he said: ‘…I have contempt for the notion that we should accept narrower horizons for a black child than a white one” (Prime Minister David Cameron, 2011b). And on the other side he announced equality impact assessment- these are to detect whether a policy will damage minority groups- as ‘bureaucratic nonsense’ (BBC News, 2012). The English Baccalaureate (E. Bacc) is one of such examples. Cameron’s government introduced a newly measurement of academic performances and dismissed the old one as insufficiently rigorous. In order to be successful in attaining an E. Bacc, higher grades in English, maths, two sciences, a modern/ancient foreign language, and a humanity are required from students (DfE, 2010). This had an immediate effect on achievement as well as widened the inequalities within the educational system. The DfE (2012) suggests that it is impossible for the majority of students to obtain aE.Bacc- one in five students (21.6%) are able to qualify in all subjects required. With this, schools or/and teachers often allow the most able students to enter such exams for example science subjects. As discussed above, those judgements are not ‘genuine differences’ but rather biases towards certain ethnic groups and social class (Gillborn, 2008).

From a simplified perspective, it could be considered that the expectations of teachers regarding the performance of students of colour and their working class peers of Caucasian ethnic origins, are generally lower, in comparison to what could be warranted from the demonstrated performance of such students .

This has a strong influence upon their success chances which makes it unlikely for them to gain any access to higher status courses. Table 2 illustrates this notion very well; there are six groups who suffer the most:

1. SEN children are the largest group suffering from the new measurements- nine out of ten student have gained the E.Bacc.
2. Student eligible of FSM experienced a similar vein
3. Caribbean student were excluded from entering E.Bacc whereas under the old measure 84.3% were successful
4. This was followed by 83.4% of Bangladeshi students
5. Mixed race (White/Black Caribbean) students with 81.2%
6. And 80.6% of black African students.

The effect of curricula is seen as another area which not only hinders racial students’ progress, but also, is an aspect which is in serious need of intervention. This was also examined in the Redbridge report: ‘Cause for Concern: West Indian Pupils in Redbridge’ (ref). Like others, they have argued against the claims of intellectual inferiority within African children but rather endorse the convention of that ‘…West Indian child grows up in a hostile society which portrays black people in a negative fashion.’ (ref ibid 7) By this they refer to the National Curriculum as containing negative position towards people of colour. Similarly, the Haringey Black Pressure Group on Education (HBPGE) had claimed that students were taught not only to marginalise but also dehumanise Black people; within a system which is based on Racist principles.

They further argue that Black children receive European History knowledge and with that ignore great events such as the ancient African Kingdoms and Asian Empires which led many European civilizations. (HBPGE, 1979).

Concerning the possibility that the students could experience an international format of history which could be oriented around the reference frame distinctively English in nature, one specific aspect has to be observed. This could be understood as that within such a reference framework, the people other than the White races could be considered as either exotic and as objects of curiosity or as outright barbarians. In such cases, the commencement of the histories of the populace which had Asian and African lineages could be influenced by the establishment of the contacts with the Europeans. Such revisionism of history obliterated the realities associated with both the economic and political dimensions of the establishment of the British Empire and the migration of the personnel of African lineage to England. For the students who have Asian and African descents and are comprehended as eternal immigrants, are bound to have the experiences where such specific educational perspectives deprived them of the capability to relate to the histories of their ancestors and such education also excised such students from the narratives practiced by the British.

This notion was also found by Tikly et al. (2004): ‘…educational barriers “operate in a context where mixed heritage identities . . . are not recognized in the curriculum (ref j). Like Tikly, Jospeph-Salisbury (2013) highlights the importance of curriculum intervention for raising the performances of Black and mixed-race children; by implementing cultural awareness which according to Coard (1971) would benefit white children as well.

However, it is necessary to go beyond the notion of mainstreaming into the considerations of intervention to support Mixed and Black children’s educational experience as well as understanding and reserving their culture and heritage (Issa and Williams, 2008). One of which is the well-known Black Supplementary School movement which emerged in the 60s after racism in schools had reached its peak (Stone, 1981). The significance of this movement was that it ‘created a fraternity of colour’(ref the web); meaning that there was no hidden curriculum of Whiteness; and, instead of discoursing underachievement, they would encourage overachievement (Andrews, 2013). As part of the ‘fraternity of colour’, students there can express their feelings and experiences of racism which they then get taught on how to gain the necessary resilience to control negative white supremacist ideas (Andrews, 2013). Twine (2010) has researched on how white mothers raise their Mixed-Race child and found out that majority of mothers find these schools as beneficial in learning about being black and understand their heritage, culture and discover history. However, critiques have come to word suggesting that ‘…suggested that, by not focusing on the mainstream schooling that they need for later life, ‘left-wing teachers have done more harm to black children’.

In conclusion, past and recent researches and educational statistics have indicated that underachievement of Black and Mixed-Race children is not only real, but it is quite shocking that in most of the categories they are the lowest and highest proportion of underachievers. In addition to this, these groups, especially those comprised of boys, are highly overrepresented in the behavioural, emotional and social difficulties unit; this pattern was also evident in the past. Most shocking was the governmental withdrawal of the recommendation from the ‘Social Exclusion Unit’ after their strategies had reduced the number of exclusions drastically within 2 years. However, instead of ‘fixing’ the problem, it is argued that such representation and underachievement lies within the black community themselves as being genetically delinquent and experience enormous pressure to adopt ‘street credibility’. This is particularly experienced by Mixed-Race students as they struggle the most with their identities and a sense of belongingness. This has to be recognised by the school and teachers are recommended to familiarise them with their identity issues. All together research indicates that nothing really has changed since the Swann report and stereotypical false assumptions are still being made by professionals. The reasons for this continuum of problems within this group are illustrated through a CRT perspective which sees institutional racism as the primary course. and with that policy is not seen as a mechanism which pursues a greater degree of equity- which politician like Cameron portrayed-, it is rather viewed as a progress which is formed only for the dominant white population’s interests and benefits. One of its examples is the newly developed measurements of success: the E. Bacc. which evidently has a strong influence upon Black and Mixed-Race children’s success chances, making it unlikely for them to gain any access to higher status courses. Thus, government agendas and policies have yet disappointed and marginalised such groups. Further to that, many researchers have called for a curriculum intervention as it does not recognise their identities and culture; this would not only benefit Mixed-Race children but also white children as well. History, is one subject which needs redoing as it portrays people of colour in a negative light as well as widens inequalities which induces the communities of colour to lose their cultures and identities. However, one alternative which schools or government can consider a collaboration with, is the Black Supplementary School movement which is not only a space for people of colour especially Mixed-Race children to learn and explore about their heritage and history but also where they can go and express their feelings and experiences of racism. Referring back to Martin-Luther King’s quote, it can be seen that equality within education is at least portrayed as being ‘there’ but analysing research and statistics, people of colour can only hope and dream of ‘equal chances’ for their children.