...Sociology of Education Unit 04 What patterns of achievement are there for students of different ethnicities? Learning targets: • Different ethnic groups appear to have differing levels of achievement in school. Overall, the ethnicities of attainment are White, Chinese and Indian heritage students. • There has been concern about the achievement levels of certain Black minorities: in particular, African Caribbeans and Bangladeshi students under-attain in schools. • Sociologists have difficulty in measuring the impact of ethnicity on achievement because other factors may be involved. Poverty, class and cultural factors may all form part of reasons why some Black ethnic groups underperform. Key questions (AO1) What is ethnicity? (AO1) What patterns of attainment on the basis of ethnicity are there? (AO2) Is the education system institutionally racist? (AO2) What other social factors may influence ethnic attainment? Summary of key points Ethnicity is a word used in sociology to describe the culture that you belong to. Everyone has an ethnicity. For most people in Barry, this ethnicity or sense of belonging to a culture is Welsh. Some people have more than one ethnicity; they might be Welsh/Chinese or English/African. The majority ethnicity in Britain is white British. People who do not fit into that group are said to belong to an ethnic minority. There are many ethnicities in Britain...
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..."It is education that has altered my life. Carried me far." This quote was drawn from the story "The Hunger of Memory." In this essay I will answer the prompt "To what extent does a person's culture inform the way we view others and the world." I will defend that prompt by saying "Our culture always informs the way we view people or the world around us." In the stories "Everyday use", "Hunger of Memory" and " Indian Father Plea." They are all good examples of my thesis statement because they use three areas of culture such as education, family and ethnicity. Those all help to explain how culture shapes the way we view things. A person’s culture influences the way that he or she looks at and interacts with the world. For example, in the story "Everyday Use" education plays a big role in the story." She used to read to us without pity; forcing words, lies, other folks’ habits, whole lives upon us two, sitting trapped and ignorant underneath her voice. She washed us in a river of make-believe, burned us with a lot of knowledge we didn’t necessarily need to know." Mama speaks these words in reference to Dee’s formative years. Rather than her daughter’s intelligence and accomplishments triggering pride in Mama, Dee’s schooling prompts fear and intimidation in her instead. Education is the means through which Dee rejects and belittles her family, thus leading to division and alienation. At the same time, knowledge is a provocation, reminding Mama of the exposure and opportunities...
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...predominately African American schools. The circumstances of African American education in the United States are abominable in some communities compared to other ethnicities, which is taking a toll on the students, teachers, and families of the black educational system. The history...
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...Assess sociological explanations of the relationship between ethnicity and educational performance in Britain. Sociologists have traditionally placed strong focus on the effects of race and ethnicity on a wide range of social outcomes to conclude genuine reasons for the educational under-achievement of some pupils. Ethnicity refers to a shared culture, religion, language or geography. At GCSE level, students that received their average 5 A*-C grades showed that it was Chinese students that are the most successful, followed by Indian, White, Pakistani/Bangladeshi students and then lastly Afro-Caribbean origin students. Another factor I studied in the past was whether gender has an effect on educational achievement and to my surprise it links to this category of explanation as in every social group (expect Asian pupils) females perform better then males. However it is clear that Afro-Caribbean, Pakistani, Gypsy and Bangladeshi students are less likely to gain A-levels and then go on to attend university. Lastly there is evidence suggesting that gypsy students are by far the lowest achievers in the education system. Cultural deprivation theory claims that the underachievement of some ethnic groups is caused by inadequate socialisation in the home. This consists of two main aspects; these are intellectual and language skills and attitudes, values and family structure. This theory claims that children from low-income black families’ lack intellectual stimulation. This means that...
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...Educational achievement is influenced by a variety of factors, each of which is interwoven with another. Gender influences educational achievement for a variety of reasons and in a number of different ways. I intend to describe the ways in which educational achievement differs between males and females and the possible reasons for this variation between the sexes. Social class and ethnicity also play important parts in affecting the achievement of individuals and groups. I intend to discuss their affects on results seen in education and the way in which these factors are interwoven with one another. I will highlight the importance of each of these factors in determining the achievement of individuals and groups in education and the reasons behind their importance. Over the last ten years, the gender gap between the achievement of males and females in education has been growing in developed countries. (Gibb, Fergusson and Horwood, 2008) On average, girls in England achieve better results in most subjects at all levels of education. The issue is not confined to the UK as the problem also presents itself in other countries. (Machin and McNally, 2005) Women in the USA have continued to be more educated than men since the mid 1970’s. (Charles and Luoh, 2003 in Machin and McNally, 2005) Females attain more school and post school qualifications than males and also attend university in higher numbers. (Alton-Lee and Pratt, 2001, in Gibb, Fergusson and Horwood, 2008) National statistics...
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...Assess the view that ethnic minority pupil’s underachievement in education is the result of teacher labelling and racism (20 marks) A students ethnicity can be a large influencing factor on their education, many teachers are racist, labelling students on their ‘race’ or ethnicity. A person’s race is the biological differences from person to person, for example skin colour. Whereas ethnicity entirely depends on the individual. Ethnicity is influenced by numerous factors such as ancestry, experience of racism, language, geographical location, and so on. According to the question being of an ethnic minority causes underachievement, meaning that white British students should be achieving highest in the UK. This is not the case, many ethnic minorities achieve better results than white British students. According to government statistics, Chinese and Indian students received the highest percentage of grades of grades A* to C at GCSE in 2010/11. White British pupils are the mid achieving students, with Pakistani and Black Caribbean students achieving the lowest GCSE results. Many teachers label their students, due to stereotypical or racist viewpoints they hold and this can often to lead to underachievement. According to Gillborn and Youdell (2000), teachers are quicker to punish black students than others of different ethnicities for similar behaviour. This leads to many black students being anti-school, rejecting education and then underachieving. Mirza (1992) found after studying black...
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...1. YOUNG AND RUSTIC Age: Young and rustic contains middle aged people that come under 55 years of old or below. Education level: Most of them completed their high school graduation and then stops because of insufficient finance. Income: Because of only high school graduation they tend to get only lower middle income, average of $33,000 annually or often under $30,000. Occupation: They move for the service industry job or Workers compensation job at law firms, Part time jobs and insurance company. Mostly blue- collar occupation. Family composition: They mostly composed of young singles and seniors that are unmarried. Ethnicity: Here we can see a mix both blacks and whites. Housing: Because of low income they tend to live in small apartments in isolated towns or in rural villages that gets at cheap rent. Behavioral: These groups are active and ambitious in life to succeed their goals. Lifestyle: These restless groups get involved in sports, fashion-paced lifestyle. They buy inexpensive cars for their travelling to movies and dating. Also they have the habit of taking fast foods instead of homely foods. 2. HOMETOWN RETIRED Age: This mature group contains old aged and mostly retired people that come under senior citizen who are over 65 years old. Education level: They have the modest education level; even most of them never completed the high school graduation. Income: They have comparatively less income than other segment. Most of them depend...
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...reflect the relationship between you and a group of people. We choose to find ourselves in our society in an easy way that helps us represent our roots, family, culture, and personal beliefs. Personal and social identity it is an important connection were we identify our social class and where we belong. Some of my social identities, I can say it varies base on my ethnicity, identity, race, religion and education. These terms helps me to identify my self as a white male Hispanic student, referring to the fact that I’m from Ciudad Juarez Chihuahua, and I live here in El Paso Texas for the passed sixteen years. I’m truly proud to be from Mexico, because...
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...AQA AS Sociology SCLY2: Education with Sociological Research Methods Student Guide Introduction According to sociologist Michael Rutter we spend 15000 hours in the education system. Consequently the schooling process has a large role in forming our personalities. For some, education also manages to act as a way of socialising people into the norms and values that are seen to be important for a particular society. For others it can be seen as a source of conflict particularly when issues surrounding gender, class and ethnicity are put under the sociologists, ‘microscope’. It also provides an excellent indicator of how political ideology affects social policy, with the changing of governments impacting on educational policy. Some questions sociologists are interested in about education are: * Why do some pupils achieve more than others? * What is the relationship between education and the economy? * What is the purpose of education? * Do pupil’s school experiences vary? Assessment The course will be assessed by examination only. The examination will consist of various short answer question and essay style questions. Date of Exam: June 2010 Duration: 2 hr The Unit 2 exam is worth 60% of your final AS level grade. There will be 90 marks available on the paper. You will answer one question on the chosen topic, one question on sociological research methods in context and one question on research methods. Assessment Objectives ...
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...The participants were given a test booklet that contained seven scales: The Machismo Scale, Familism Scale, Valuing Children Scale, Childhood Trauma Questionnaire, the Conflict Tactics Scale, the Nurturance Scale, and the Vignettes of child maltreatment. They also completed a demographic questionnaire about their age, sex, ethnicity, marital status, living arrangements, occupational status, and highest level of education. The Machismo scale (Multiphasic Assessment of Cultural Constructs) that was used, measured gender role attitudes and it was concluded that the scale had good construct validity and the scale demonstrated good internal reliability. The Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ), an instrument that assess the severity of physical and emotional neglect, and physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. This scale has shown high levels of internal consistency and has also demonstrated good convergent validity. The Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS) was used to measure the degree of punitiveness behaviors that were demonstrated by parents and indicates the parent’s level of risk to abuse his or her child. Internal...
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...How would you define diversity? Open-ended responses from student-conducted survey, 28 April 2010 A wide range of interests, backgrounds, experiences. Differences among groups of people and individuals based on ethnicity, race, socioeconomic status, gender, exceptionalities, language, religion, sexual orientation, and geographical area. Diversity of experiences, viewpoints, backgrounds, and life experiences. Tolerance of thought, ideas, people with differing viewpoints, backgrounds, and life experiences. Diversity can be measured across many variables -- age, race, sex, economics, geography, religion, philosophy, etc. variation in race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, political leanings, professional and personal background Diversity in graduate school includes a group of people from different backgrounds (this can be many things not just racial). People with different skills and career interests and hobbies. People with different political points of view. Anything that sets one individual apart from another. However, often it is used to specifically reference gender, race, ethnicity, and more recently sexual orientation differences. Diversity is differences in racial and ethnic, socioeconomic, geographic, and academic/professional backgrounds. People with different opinions, backgrounds (degrees and social experience), religious beliefs, political beliefs, sexual orientations, heritage, and life experience. dissimilar My definition of diversity would include openness...
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...now put forward. Ethnicity refers to the shared cultural traditions and history, which are distinct from other groups in society. The level of achievement of different ethnic groups varies. This may be due to factors such as home background, class, language and in-school factors. Recent studies highlight the effects of racism. Ethnicity influences factors that lead to an impact on education. There are many reasons for educational underachievement and it has been said that ethnicity is one of these key factors. Item A suggests that Chinese and Indian pupils are of higher educational achievement than Bangladeshi, Pakistani, and Black pupils. One possible cause of ethnic differences in education could be at the fault of the education system. To investigate this Sewell carried out a study using semi-structured interviews and observations in an inner-city boys’ comprehensive school. His study revealed the ways in which African-Caribbean students are labelled by their teachers, peers and white students as ‘problems’ in the classroom. Sewell showed how Black boys use these negative perceptions to construct different responses to school based on their own ‘masculine’ images. Many of these belong in the anti-school culture, such as conformists and rebels, all in favour of gang culture. However some sociologists are critical of this study in that they feel Sewell is blaming ‘black-culture’ for the educational failure as opposed to recognising racism within the education system. Another...
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...about spirituality. As you can see a majority of the people surveyed were female (64%) and the minority group were males (36%). Chart or Table #2: Ethnicity Description of Chart or Table #2: Ethnicity This bar graph illustrates the ethnicity of the people who were willing to take the survey. Of the total 121 people who took the survey, the vast majority of them were of Black or African American decent with the smallest group being categorized as Other or Alaskan/Pacific Islander. The Hispanic group was the 2nd largest, Asian population was 3rd, and Caucasian/White was ranked 4th. One glaring statistic that is glaring in the chart is the African American group of people who were willing to take the survey so large. It would be interesting to know where this survey was offered at and something to note in the future might be to have multiple locations to offer the survey. Chart or Table #3: Education Description of Chart or Table #3: Education This chart shows the education level of the 121 people who took the survey. A vast majority of the people who took this survey had only Grade School education (56), nearly 5 times the amount of people who had formal education (Associate and Bachelor Degree total being 10). I have also taken the liberty of adding a trend line to show the decline in formal a in grade school education of people who were willing to be...
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...THE NEGATIVE IMPACT OF RACISM, POVERTY AND ETHNICITY DIFFRENCES AMONG MEXICIAN LATINOS IN AMERICAN. Mexico is a country located in the southern portion of North America, covers a period of more than two millennia. Mexico is a country that is very rich in history, tradition and culture. Mexico is made up of 31 states and one federal district. It is the third largest country in Latin America and has the largest population—more than 100 million—making it the home of more Spanish speakers than any other nation in the world. In United States, according to Gonzalez Mexican Latinos is the most populous Spanish speaking country in the world. It has 95 million residents, a high birth rate and desperate poverty (Gonzalez). Also, according to the Suarez and Paez in their book reported that the U.S Census Bureau claims that by the year 2050, a full quarter of U.S population will be of Latino origin in which Mexican American with a larger proportion. Mexican-Americans experience in the United States has been profoundly shaped by positives and negatives circumstances. The struggles with self-identification, economic factor, lack of quality education, discrimination at work and poor housing facility issue were the negative factors that Mexican-Americans battle with in United States. Even though, Mexican-...
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...processes within the school are the main cause of differences in the educational achievement of different social groups. It is clear that there are differences in educational achievement of certain social groups, such as gender, ethnicity, and social class. Some may argue that this is due to internal factors, reasons from within the education system. However, others argue that the differences are due to external factors, which occur outside of the education system. An internal factor that causes difference in educational achievement is labelling. This is when a teacher makes assumptions about a student and treats them accordingly to that assumption. An example of this is the fact that teachers label boys as more disruptive than girls. Teachers communicate with girls more positively because they see them as being more co-operative. This can then raise girl’s self esteem which raises their achievement. Teachers have lower expectations of boys, and expect them to misbehave more often. Becky Francis found that while boys got more attention in class, they were disciplined more harshly and felt picked on by teachers. This would lead to them retaliating with bad behaviour, thus lowering their achievements. Labelling can also happen to people due to their ethnicity. Gillborn found that teachers were quicker to discipline black pupils than others for the same behaviour. Gillborn and Youdell found that this is the result of teacher’s radicalised expectations. They expected black students...
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