Racial Inequality in the UK Educational System - Essay Example

?Racial Inequality in UK educational system Introduction Education is considered an important aspect of the social fabric of any society by governments of whatever political persuasion given their universality. More importantly, education is a human right recognized by many international bodies including the United Nations (UN), the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and the European Union (EU). The obligation set out by UN stakeholder agencies for member states to respect, protect and fulfill this fundamental right saw it embedment within the UK’s race equality legislation (“Commission for Racial Equality (CRE), 1976”, 2000). Almost everybody goes to school and it in these institutions where students study to attain qualifications that will enable them to seek further or higher education and enter the labor market. However, evidence suggests that there exists racial inequality in the UK educational system (DFES, 2005) with the most affected groups being ethnic minority pupils of Black, Irish Travelers and Gypsy/Roma heritages. The evidence shows that pupils from these racial backgrounds perform poorly in schools compared to their counterparts from other ethnic groups, a situation that has long-term implications on their future. Efforts by various stakeholders to find a way of breaking this chain of inequality, educational underachievement and restricted life chances continue to remain a fundamental challenge. Although the UK policymakers and practitioners have come up with wide ranging attempts to alleviate this problem, the desired impact is yet to be achieved. This paper looks at racial inequality in the UK educational system and tries to explain the phenomenon though the lenses of theories of sociology at an attempt to understand the causes. Moreover, the paper outlines evidence that suggests racial inequality still exists in the educational system of UK and looks at policies that have been enacted by governments to alleviate this issue. Conflict Theory There are various theories that can be used to explain racial inequality in the educational system including conflict theory. Conflict theorists do not believe that public schools help in alleviating racial inequality but rather, that the educational system strengthens and promotes racial inequalities. Where functional theorists regard education as serving a valuable role, conflict theorists on the other hand view it from a negative angle, seeing education systems as structured in such a manner to preserve the status quo and push people of lower status into obedience. The capacity for an individual to fulfill his or her education is closely linked to social class and racial status. It is the norm that pupils who belong to lower socioeconomic statuses are generally not accorded similar educational opportunities as those of higher status, regardless of their academic ability or desire to learn. Consequently, the educational system perpetuates a vicious cycle whereby the cultural values of the majority group are rewarded at the expense of the minority ethnic groups. Instructions and tests accommodate the dominant culture while the students of minority heritages are left struggling to identify with cultures that are unfamiliar to them. For example, there has been considerable debates over the true aspects of education that tests such as the GCSE measure with many arguing that they group pupils according to cultural ability rather than by natural intelligence. This cycle of rewarding those who hold dominant cultural values is evident both in the formal education curriculum and the hidden ones, which is the type of nonacademic knowledge learned in informal settings and cultural transmission, thereby reinforcing the positions of those with higher cultural capital, and serves to bestow status unequally (Meighan and Harber, 2007). Another area that conflict theorists refer to in trying to explain perpetuation of racial inequality in the educational system is tracking which sorts students according to their achievement level. Although it is a widely held belief by those in the education sector that tracking is beneficial to students as they are placed in classes with their colleagues with similar academic ability, conflict theorists argue that the system may lead to self-fulfilling prophecies in which students live up (or down) to teacher and societal expectations. These theorists believe that the public school educational system trains students of minority ethnic backgrounds to accept and retain their status as lower members of the society. However, there have been documented accounts of students who came from middle class families but ended up having good careers and others had no so good ones, and examples of students who were disadvantaged but late became successful (Power et al, 2003) There have also been discussions regarding the validity of IQ tests, with many conflict theorists regarding them as being biased for testing cultural knowledge rather than actual intelligence. For example, a test item may ask pupils the kind of instruments used in an orchestra, a question that can only be well answered with sufficient background knowledge in orchestral music. This brings unfairness to students who do not enjoy the level of affluence enjoyed by students of higher socioeconomic status who are more acquainted with such kinds of cultural aspects. Although experts claiming that bias has been eliminated have defended the validity of such tests, conflict theorists on the other hand maintain that this is impossible. Conflicts theorists maintain that these tests are one of the ways that education fails to afford equal opportunities to all students, perpetuating an established pattern of social inequality particularly based on race. Symbolic Interactionism Symbolic interactionism views education as one way labeling theory is seen in action, having a straight association to those who are in power and those who are being labeled. For instance, poor class performance or even meager standardized test score prompts a student to be identified as a low achiever. Such labeling of the perceived low achievers is extremely hard to get rid of and can lead to a personal fulfilling prophecy. As Ball (2008) asserts, the labeling has become more prominent in UK schools whereby children with special needs and those whose mother tongue is not English are grouped into particular schools thereby creating a cycle of class disparity (Ball, 2008). One of the major revelations of his Jeremy Iverson’s personal experiences as a Stanford graduate posing a California High school student is that of teachers applying tags that their students are never able to disassociate from such tags. According to the author, he was told by of the teachers that he would never amount to anything (Iverson, 2006) without the teacher realizing that he was a bright graduate from an Ivy League university. Personally, he could not seriously take the teachers false analysis to heart, but compared to an average seventeen year old student such an assessment would lead to a negative impact on the student. The student would be affected as the assessment would be a derivative from a person who has authority over him or her, and the student might begin to feel associated with such a live down tag. Symbolic interactionists are concerned with this labeling as it defines the level of educational attainment a student accomplishes. Credentialism, which emphasizes the use of certificates in determining the level of education attained by an individual or the possession of a certain skill, also contributes to this labeling. Indeed, as depicted by the above mentioned examples, labeling theory can have significant implications on the schooling of an individual. This is evident in the educational system as stakeholders in the education sector come up with various labels that are biased towards minority ethnic groups, and these labels are adopted by the entire society. Moreover, the validity of selective schools has also been questioned and there has been considerable debate on whether such schools should be abolished or they be allowed to run concurrently with the comprehensive schools (Crook, Power and Whitty., 1999) Intersectionality and Educational Inequality Intersectionality is a theory that aims to examine the manner in which gender, class and race interlink and have an impact on social norms or people’s lives. The intersectional stratification theory strives to explain the nature of the relationship between the power structure and the level of education. Over the years, contemporary writers have acknowledged that caution should be used to extending Bourdieu’s theoretical additions to developing knowledge on the success of Afro-boys and girls, who in numerous circumstances overcome classed disparities (Archer and Francis, 2007). On further analysis of the British curriculum systems, it can be deduced that black students with GCSE results around or below the national median have a higher likelihood of going further in education that Caucasian students who have attained similar results. Several research works have pointed out that cultural capital being the source of educational proficiency for middle-class children has own drawbacks. Significant information is more important when evaluated against cultural ones in working class educational failure. In so far as this may be relevant for certain black families, their pursuit of brighter future by having a sound education is vital regardless of the socioeconomic status. In the debate about the issues concerning the perpetual experiences of the black community in the UK, it is imperative to note that the manner in which this community has countered the racial inequality especially in the educational system has formed part of the discourse. In an account of educational experiences of African Caribbean students from the perspectives of their parents or guardians, Crozier (2005) portrays a configured negative stereotyping of black students which greatly contributes to their underachievement and a feeling that the system has excluded them (Wright, Weekes and McLaughlin, 2000) Evidence of Educational Inequality The educational attainment level report released in 2012 shows a continued disparity among various ethnic groups with the minority ones having the lowest levels. For example, the report shows that 48.6% of Black Caribbean students in UK schools attained 5A*-C Grades including Math and English in GCSE for the 2010/2011 academic calendar compared to the national level and White British students attainment levels of 58%. The lowest achieving group in the same period was the Travellers, Gypsies and Roma with students of Irish Taveller heritage achieving 5 A*-C grades standing at 17.5% and students of Gypsy or Roma background being the lowest at 10.8% (Department of Education, 2012). Although there is an improvement in the attainment levels especially for the Black community, there is still a considerable gap between the overall minority groups and the dominant White British students in UK schools (Asthana, 2010). Policy Interventions to alleviate educational racial inequality Policymakers and practitioners in the UK have so far enacted various policies at an attempt to alleviate the continued racial disparity in the educational system especially in regard to the black community. One type of such interventions is the general interventions which have popularity in England when the Labor Government came into power. The interventions mainly dealing with the national literacy, numeracy and key stage 3 strategies were incorporated into the more comprehensive National Strategies and entailed a set of templates for higher quality teaching and learning for teachers to adhere to. The implementation of the policies was rather atypical where ‘consultants were tasked with the process of ensuring compliance to the highly prescriptive improvement strategies at the local, regional and national levels. Other countries followed the footsteps of England with Northern Ireland introducing the policies into its educational system in 1998, and in the same year, Welsh Framework for Action also had similar literacy strategies even though the implementation of the comprehensive policies that were enacted in England was left to the local authorities’ discretion. In the previous year, the Scottish government enacted a comparable strategic approach of improving literacy levels in primary educational system through the Raising the Standard program. However, with the recent tailing off of improvements in test and examinations scores, the effectiveness of this general intervention strategy has been put into question and the respective UK governments seem to have responded considering the phasing out of the national strategies in England in 2009. In England, policies that are aimed at improving the quality of education in disadvantaged areas were introduced including – Education Action Zones (EAZ), the Excellence in Cities (EiC) program, and the Leadership Incentive Grant. The most visible example of these initiatives is the London Challenge which focused on improving the educational attainment levels in disadvantaged communities besides raising the standards of education in all London schools. The efficacy of this approach informed the extension of the City Challenge program to the Black Country and Greater Manchester with the aim of providing more resources to schools in urban areas including more advice. Targeted interventions, strategies for recruitment training and retention of teachers, and school support networks in order to improve the quality of education (Ainscow, Kerr and West, 2010). While the first two types of policies have focused on the improvement of whole schools, a third type of policy is directed at underachieving students in UK schools especially those of the minority ethnic groups including Black students, African Caribbean and Gypsy/Roma students. These types of group-specific interventions rely on the idea that the educational system and the schools are less successful with particular groups of students and therefore there is need to put in place strategies and approaches that would ensure the performance gap between is closed. Strategies that target specific groups are evident across the UK with England having the Extra Mile project which aimed at putting an end to cultural perceptions about education and attainment, the Welsh narrowing the gap program focusing on raising boys’ attainment levels in schools, and in Northern Ireland, there has been greater emphasis on early childhood education. These government initiatives are but a part of the many policies that the government has so far enacted at an attempt to alleviate racial disparity in the UK educational system albeit with a little success as shown by the available evidence. The government interventions and policies have received a considerable amount f criticism with the most vocal being Nick Davis who in his book, attacks both Conservative and Labour governments’ policies over the last three decades. Citing specific examples, Davis argues that the killing of the comprehensive schools contributed to the class and racial inequality when a policy was introduced that allowed parents to choose schools. This created an advantage for parents who were better off who took their students to better performing schools while the other schools, which continued to decline, were left for families from poor backgrounds (Davis, 2000) Summary This paper has looked at racial inequality in UK educational system and used three theories in understanding this issue that continues to be a challenge. Various theories have been applied in an attempt to explain the concept with conflict theorists asserting that schools, especially state-funded schools do not help in alleviating the social problem. In contrast, conflict theorists find blame in these types of schools by claiming that they indeed perpetuate racial disparity I the system through various ways such as tracking. Symbolic interactionists on the other hand see labeling in the education system, a kind of stereotyping which effectively enhances racial inequality in the educational system. There is still evidence suggesting that racial inequality is still an issue in UK schools despite various initiatives being taken by the governments to alleviate this problem. However, there is more that still needs to be done and measures to tackle racial inequality in schools should take into consideration participation of all stakeholders including families and practitioners. References Archer, L. & Francis, B. 2007. Understanding minority ethnic achievement: Race, gender, class and ‘success’. London and New York: Routledge Ainscow, M., Kerr, K., & West, M. 2010. Social inequality: can schools narrow the gap. Macclesfield, British Educational Research Association. Asthana, A. 2010. Britain's divided schools: a disturbing portrait of inequality [Online] Available at:http://www.theguardian.com/education/2010/oct/10/britains-divided-school-system-report [Accessed 04/10/2013] Ball, Stephen J. 2008. The Education Debate: Policy and Politics in the Twenty-First Century. Bristol, UK: Policy Press Commission for Racial Equality (CRE, 1976, 2000) [Online] Available at: www.cre.gov.uk [Accessed 04/10/2013] Crook, D., Power, S., & Whitty, G. (1999). The grammar school question: a review of research on comprehensive and selective education. London, Institute of Education, University of London Crozier, G. 2005. 'There's a war against our children': black educational underachievement revisited. British Journal of Sociology of Education. 26, 585-598 Davies, N 2000. School Report: Why Britain’s Schools are Failing. London: Vintage. Department for Education and Skills. 2005. Ethnicity and education: The evidence on minority ethnic pupils. London: The Stationery Office Department for Education and Skills [DFES], 2005. under the Department for Children, Schools and Families. Department of Education, 2012. Schools, Pupils and their Characteristics: January 2012. [Online] Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/schools-pupils-and-their-characteristics-january-2012 [Accessed 04/10/2013] Iversen, J. (2006). High school confidential: secrets of an undercover student. New York, Atria Books. Meighan, R & Harber, C (2007) A Sociology of Educating. 5th edn. London: Continuum. Power, S. Edwards, T. Whitty, G. and Wigfall, V. (2003) Education and the Middle Class, Buckingham: Open University Press. Wright, C., Weekes, D., & Mcglaughlin, A. (2000). "Race," class, and gender in exclusion from school. London, Falmer Press   Read More