In England, around a fifth of all students in state-maintained secondary schools are from a minority ethnic origin22 (DCSF 2009:2) and the proportions of the different ethnic groups are as follows: White British: 78%, Other white groups: 3.9%, Mixed: 3.3%, Asian: 7.7%, Black: 4.3%, Chinese: 0.4%, and any other ethnic group: 1.1%. Looking at the subgroups, the most numerous are Indian (2.5%), Pakistani (2.9%) and Black African (2.4%) (ibid: Table 4). As mentioned earlier, the minority ethnic categories do not distinguish between recently arrived pupils and those who were born in England. Therefore, another figure worth mentioning is the number of pupils who are either known or believed to have another language than English as their first language. In secondary schools, this number is 11.1% (ibid: Table 5).
The distribution of minority ethnic pupils in different geographic locations, quite naturally reflects the country-wide distribution of minority ethnic people in general, and as noted earlier, this is rather uneven. In the Birmingham area, which formed the basis of my fieldwork, between 30% and 50% of pupils come from a minority ethnic background, depending on the local area (DfES 2005:5). Most minority ethnic students attend state-run schools and there is certain evidence of segregation, albeit with a significant degree of variation across both localities and ethnic groups (Burgess and Wilson 2004).
The history of minority ethnic groups in English schools
Since the initial migrants who came from the Caribbean islands and South Asia in the early 1950s, as previously mentioned, often came alone, it took a while before families were
22
Defined in the DCSF publication (2009) as students from any other category than ‘White British’ (p.2)
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established and black and Asian children began to enroll in English schools in significant numbers. It was also therefore only in the late 1950s and 1960s that British educationalists began to consider the issue of ethnic diversity (Gillborn 1997a:375; Modood and May 2001:306).
Within English schools, the initial approach towards children of minority ethnic origin was most often assimilation and the cultural backgrounds of the children were seen as a disadvantage, which had to be overcome (Abbas 2004: 9; Mason 2000:68). The children were given language support, and if there were more than 30% minority ethnic children in a given school, the Department for Education and Science recommended that they were bussed to other schools (Tomlinson 2008:30; Troyna 1993:24). The fundamental assumption behind this approach was that the educational system presented a model of meritocracy and opportunity, into which minority ethnic children were to be adjusted. Minority ethnic parents, however, became increasingly dissatisfied with the way their children were schooled and as awareness of the ethnocentric nature of the British school system grew, “issues of cultural identity now began to assume importance, and strategies designed to foster positive cultural identities amongst the young came to be seriously considered” (Brah 2006:39).
Increasing resistance from minority ethnic groups combined with the failure of the educational system to live up to its meritocratic ideals led to a gradual shift towards multiculturalism (Mason 2000:69), which by the 1970s rose “like a phoenix out of the ashes of mono-cultural education” (Troyna 1993:25). Cultural differences were no longer to be considered a ‘problem’ or a disadvantage, but instead they were to be valued and explicitly acknowledged (Mason 2000:69). It was believed that minority ethnic children, by learning about their own cultural and ethnic roots, would improve their chances of educational success and that learning about other cultures would diminish prejudice and
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discriminating attitudes among children (Troyna 1993:25). Schools were encouraged to introduce multicultural programmes, but as these often focused on the most marginal parts of the curriculum, (religious festivals, food and music), they were criticised for being nothing more than ‘saris, samosas, and steelbands’ (Troyna and Williams 1986:24). Critics pointed out that multiculturalism could not challenge the underlying assumptions of underachievement as a result of individual deficiencies (Abbas 2004:10), nor the central issues of racism within society (Modood and May 2001:308).
This criticism was linked to a more general, but growing concern with the concept of institutional racism, which had recently become part of race legislation. The idea that schools were an integral part of creating and upholding institutional racism in society, formed the basis for an anti-racist approach, which held that the curriculum should be ‘de- racialised’ and that anti-racism should be explicitly taught in schools (Abbas 2004:10). Rather than seeing racism as an individual phenomenon, anti-racists thus held that it was part of the institutional make-up of the society and rather than celebrating cultural differences, they focused on racial differences and the way that they upheld inequality (Modood and May 2001:308). During the late 1980’s and 1990’s, minority ethnic issues, however, came to play a smaller role on the political agenda. Funding for multicultural or anti-racist initiatives was increasingly removed (Abbas 2004:11; Tomlinson 2008:114) and the market-like policies, which developed from the 1988 Education Reform Act had, as earlier mentioned, some rather serious implications for minority ethnic students (Gillborn 2005:494; Parekh et al. 2002:155-157).
As previously described, research has shown that discrimination still takes place within English school. The achievement gap between minority ethnic groups and majority ethnic groups has been lessened, at least for some groups, but it has not been closed (Gillborn and Mirza 2000; Strand 2007). Figures furthermore show important variations between
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different minority ethnic groups. Chinese, Mixed White/Asian and Indian pupils are among the highest achieving minority ethnic groups and all three groups achieve significantly higher than national average. Black Caribbean pupils, particularly boys, however, achieve significantly lower, and Pakistani, Black African, ‘Other Black’ pupils and Mixed White/Black Caribbean pupils similarly have rather low levels of achievement in comparison to other groups. Within all groups girls achieve considerably higher than boys (DCSF 2006/2007: 3; National Statistics 2001).
Statistics show that, to some extent, these differences can be related to socio-economic status. In England, this factor is often measured in relation to the proportion of pupils entitled to free school meals23, and figures from the Longitudinal Study of Young People in England show that the groups with the lowest proportions of pupils entitled to free school meals are White British Pupils and Indian. Compared to these two groups, twice as many Black Caribbean children are entitled to free school meals, three times as many Pakistani and African Pupils and almost five times as many Bangladeshi pupils (Strand 2007:32). Some groups are more likely than others to draw on state service, and therefore free school meals may not the best way to measure poverty (Archer and Francis 2007:10).Nevertheless, the figures can give a general idea of the significant differences in income levels among minority ethnic groups and show that they correspond to some extent with the achievement differences mentioned above.
The low achievement levels of some minority ethnic groups continue to create concern among educationalist and policy-makers. A number of attempts have therefore been made to raise achievement, many of these specifically aimed at black Caribbean boys (e.g. Ethnic Minority Achievement Grant, Aiming High, Black Boys Can and The London Challenge).
23 Children whose parents are on certain benefits or income supports may receive free school meals. For a list of benefits entitling families to free school meals see:
(http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Parents/Schoolslearninganddevelopment/SchoolLife/DG_4016089?cids =Google_PPC&cre=Education_Learning_Franchise (last accessed 09.12.10)
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The focus of these initiatives is predominantly issues of achievement and targets. Within more general school policies, a more ideological or abstract preoccupation with ‘community cohesion’24, ‘Britishness’ and citizenship has however also developed in recent years and the role of schools in identity creation is increasingly debated. At the legislation level this has led to the introduction of citizenship education in 2002, and an obligation being put on schools from September 2007 to promote community cohesion25. A certain shift thus seems to have taken place, moving away from celebrating differences towards searching for a more common ground. Nevertheless, a number of policies and practices, which focus on diversity and the diverse needs of different communities, have remained in place. Schools have for many years celebrated Black History Month during October, and the Race Relations (Amendment) Act has, since 2000, obliged schools to assess the impact of their policies on minority ethnic pupils, staff and parents. This has included issues of dress code, amongst others, and schools are generally expected to show sensitivity to the needs of different cultures, races and religions, for example by allowing Muslim girls to wear appropriate dress and Sikh boys to wear traditional headdress (Eurydice 2004:54).
Initiatives relating to ethnic diversity are, however, often taken by the local educational
authorities or the individual schools, and there might therefore be some local variations
(Eurydice 2004).
24
According to the Institute for Community Cohesion, Community Cohesion can be seen as a development of the concept of multiculturalism, in which the emphasis on separateness and differences is counterbalanced by the creation of interaction and commonalities
(http://www.cohesioninstitute.org.uk/Resources/AboutCommunityCohesion#2001 last accessed 15.12.10).
25
In the 2007 Guidelines on Community Cohesion, three main ways are mentioned for schools to promote community cohesion: 1) through the teaching, learning and curriculum, 2) by providing equal opportunities for all and removing barriers to access and participation, and 3) by engagement and extended services aimed to build positive relations between children and young people of different backgrounds (DCSF 2007:8). The duty to promote Community Cohesion is currently being revised by the coalition government, who is considering to abolish it (Shepherd 2010).
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