Ethnicity and Achievement: Some Facts

When looking at different levels of educational achievement amongst ethnic groups in our society, its important to keep in mind the fact that the concept of ethnicity does not simply refer to differences between "Blacks" and "Whites". 

Having noted this, however, it is evident that these are significant types of ethnic groupings and it is, perhaps, reasonable to focus on the different levels of educational achievement we find in evidence between them...

Keeping the above in mind (and also the fact that, within broad ethnic group categories there are frequently massive differences in achievement based on categories of class and gender), we can note the following facts about ethnicity and educational achievement.

The performance of different ethnic groups in Britain varies greatly, both in terms of a "white / black" dichotomy and in terms of the performance of specific cultural groupings.

Whites on average, achieve most in the educational system, although this is matched by children from Asian backgrounds in all subjects and at all levels (with the notable exception of English language). Indeed, if we take this factor into account, it is evident that, on average, children of Asian descent achieve more than their white counterparts.

Afro-Caribbean children, on the other hand, appear to significantly underachieve in the education system. This is not just true in Britain and Europe, but also comparatively in terms of societies such as America.

However, educational performance amongst Afro-Caribbean children is not uniformly "low". Second-generation British West Indian children, for example, perform significantly better than their first-generation peers (although, as has been noted, this is still below the achievement of many other ethnic groups). There is also evidence to suggest that secondary level school performance amongst this ethnic group is relatively better than their primary school performance.

Driver, in a small and not particularly representative study of five multi-racial inner city schools, argued that Afro-Caribbean students performed marginally better than their White peers. In addition, girls generally outperformed boys.

The Swann Report (1985) put forward a wide range of statistical evidence across a range of different ethnic groups to show their performance in our education system. This evidence, by-and-large, broadly supported the general findings of most studies (for example, Verma and Pumfrey, 1988) into educational performance.

As I've noted above, the evidence relating to "ethnic group achievement" is by no-means conclusive or exhaustive and we should be careful about making widespread generalisations about relatively large groups of people based on simple categories such as nationality. However, as Bilton ("Introductory Sociology", 1986) notes:

"While ethnic origin is clearly linked to educational under achievement for pupils of West Indian origin, it is not so linked for children of Asian origin as a whole. The 'ethnic minorities of Britain', sometimes considered as an homogeneous category, are in fact composed of distinct groupings, and each of these groups may have a unique relationship to the educational system.".