The Problem Of Underachievement Of Black Caribbean Pupils
Ethnic minorities are still being exposed to white ambiguity, which Alexander (2014) highlights through statistics that reveal Black and Asian men today are still much more susceptible to prejudicial treatment within British society than the white ethnic majority. The negative behaviour of teachers can be disturbing to child and could stick with him forever, it would also effect the teacher relations with his pupils and could result in increasing number of exclusions and suspensions of the Black pupils and lose their learning opportunities, leading to the underachievement.
Teacher Racism in the schools or institutions is one of the leading reasons for the underachievement of Black pupils. While the education system needs to provide equal rights and same education to all, this not observed in case of education given to many ethnic minority children, with Caribbean children being one of them. The decline in attainment of the Black Caribbean youth and students is influenced by racism and as recommended by Demie and McLean that it should be discouraged long time ago and should be eradicated from the British educational system. Inspections carried out in schools do not find racism in the schools. It doesn’t appear normally and is hidden, unintentionally still there exists institutional racism. Despite many of the initiatives and policies by the government, the Black Caribbean pupils are still at disadvantage and are humiliated and discriminated at various academic levels in the education.
Socio-Economic Status & Low Cultural Capital
Parents’ earning and income is also a determinant to identify level of cultural resources provided to children; that would influence the performance of the students. It is these cultural resources that schools indirectly require of students to succeed, explaining differences in achievement by social classes. Vast resources gaining knowledge in different fields can be accessed by children having high cultural capital and gain advantage over the pupils with low cultural capital, this implies why the white pupils performance is good in schools.
Most of the Black Caribbean children come from underprivileged areas and belong to the working class. The best predictor of the child’s academic performance in schools is the socio economic status of the family is, as reported by the Department of Education 2007. Children belonging to the families with low income do not learn enough social skills that can prepare them for school readiness. According to Demie and McLean (2017) claim that the children from poor of low income families lack the necessities or resources in order to participate in society and are socially excluded due to poverty. Cultural capital, according to Bourdieu and Passeron (1990), plays a strong role in academic performance whether they are going to progress or get excluded from the education system which helps to explain underachievement amongst working-class pupils.
Wealthy families provide children privileged forms of cultural capital like, private schooling and extracurricular activities, than poorer families. Many Black Caribbean pupils are disadvantaged as they attend low cost under resourced and unsuccessful schools in deprived areas. It has been observed the poverty decreases the child’s readiness for schools or learn with aspects of health, homelife, schooling and society. Parents take decisions which affect the social resources a child receives, to choose where the student lives and the school their child attends subsequently affects the social capital available to their children like, the type of peers children socialise with.
School exclusion is associated with not only ‘poor academic progress, but also with other wider aspects of social exclusion’. The research studies revealed black students felt school exclusions were attached to racist associations. Child-parent relationships and frequent interactions would safeguard students from any negative stimuli which may come from a child’s peers. There are cases where exclusion helped to reform their behaviour although this comment was made in a context of racial resentment towards the school and the education system. These children’s cultural capital has negative effect on the educational achievement of Black Caribbean children.
Low Teacher Expectations
Maylor (2014), recognises the stereotype unconscious or conscious attitudes among teacher’s towards certain ethnic groups, particularly the Black Caribbean leads to teacher racism & institutional racism in schools thereby creating educational inequalities and unequal learning experiences. Black Caribbean children are still subjected to teacher racism, which could be the cause of exclusion, and are more likely to be categorised as having special education needs than other ethnic groups, with teachers more likely to underestimate this group of students by selecting lower examination tiers for them to sit, meaning that the highest grade they can achieve will be lower than that for the ethnic majority. Black Caribbean children and young people of this ethnic group face humiliations and their abilities are underestimated which suggest that these teacher expectations are overruling these students’ academic talents. This secondary education literature is meant to help contextualize why members of my sample may remark the education system as something that is set up to disadvantage black boys. Overall evidence suggests the disruptive or bad behaviour of Black children in the schools receive more adverse action against them than the pupils from other ethnicity. Black Caribbean children are getting excluded three times more than the exclusion rate of the entire pupil population.
The inequality in teaching environment is seen as the one they expect to be bright they could work hard and make them excel in their achievements while the students who the teachers have low expectations would never or rarely receive praised or any positive feedback is given to these students as they would perform poorly anyway. Low teachers’ expectations, have been particularly cited by many researchers as contributing aspect to low attainment amongst Black children. Demie and McLean report that the Black pupils when interviewed said that their teachers have told them that aren’t going to achieve high education and wouldn’t be getting in careers. The conflict to this argument comes in the form of Sewell (2009, 2010) who suggests that academic achievement is solely down to how well a child has been raised and their resistance to peer pressure.
Very few Black Caribbean students have overcome the negative attitudes of their teachers and tried to prove their teachers’ perception of they cannot achieve wrongly. Such cases are very less and is not same with the Black pupils, these negative attitude and low teacher expectations and unfair disciplinary actions is main contributor for their underachievement. The stereotype attitude the teachers possess and have very low expectations from Black Caribbean pupils has been one of the major factors for the underachievement. The greatest concern the British education system has is the negativity, low expectations, discriminations faced by the students by their teachers. Arora, states in his report ‘Race and Ethnicity in Education that the teachers are the people who are responsible to improve the children’s learning experience and have positive impact on the schools and life of children so they need to well trained and have highest credibility and responsiveness.
The teachers’ stereotype thinking that people with black skin would belong to gang and involved in criminal activities would never achieve anything or would never go to University. They are discriminated and aren’t interested to speak and don’t put them at the level of their intelligence and are examined with lower grades. This low expectation toward the black Caribbean pupil may be lead to inequality and treat each student differently. These continuous negative flak and rejections faced by the Black children, develop the failing mindset and don’t even attempt to work hard and achieve in academics.
Parent Involvement
It has been observed through various studies that Black Caribbean parents have very low involvement in education resulting to the underachievement of their children. Research studies carried out by Smith on the Black men who achiever high grades in their academics and overcame the racism, stereotype attitudes of the teachers reveal that the parents involvement and their influence was higher in their education.
Demie and McLean (2017) assert that parents play a key role in developing child’s mathematical, social and reading and writing skills in the early stages. The involvement of parents in children education influences the educational outcomes as they are responsible to provide the resources to educate their children and enable them to attainment in academics. Most of the Black Caribbean youth are illiterates, and their children would be at greater disadvantage to the aspirations of their parents. Studies draw attention to the pivotal role of Black parents impacting the academic achievement of their children. Some of the students have reported if their parent did not concern about their performance in schools, then due to lack of pressure they wouldn’t achieve or perform well without their involvement.
The higher the support and expectations from Parents, the higher the academics attainment in the academics reveals Smith in his studies of successful Black youth in academics. When the bad behaviour of child isn’t noticed or has not been recognised at home, then if the rules of home aren’t followed then this kind of bad behaviour would be continued or practiced in school. This kind of behaviour is obviously unacceptable in schools and becomes the reason and evidence to understand high rate of exclusions of black Caribbean students and the reason for their underachievement.
Harris and Goodall in their research found that parent’s involvement in their child’s education is related to their socio-economic status and linguistic ability. Parents absenteeism or no involvement by the working parents also leads to the underperformance of the children. When there is no parental engagement in children while developing reading or writing skills and homework, lack of supervision would discourage and develop lack of interest towards learning among Black Caribbean pupils. The positive attitudes towards education and aspirations also associated with the tight supervision of the parents.
The research carried out on the focus group revealed that Black Caribbean parents lack academic language and cannot access the curriculum. It has been identified that write in colloquial way, which turns as a barrier for Black Caribbean pupils achievement in schools throughout the academic year. McLean and Demie (2017), recognize and acknowledge that the parent participation, their education and literacy and engagement with the schools and teachers for the child’s academic performance, influence directly on academic performance of the Black students.
The examples of parents are cited by Cork who have worked collaboratively with schools to develop curriculum materials and explains the ways parents of Black pupils can have active participation in school activities by taking up the roles as governors, assistant teachers or mentors. Cork discusses and asserts how the schools are developing relationship with the parents and partnering with them to improvise the education of children. The school and parent teacher partnership would benefit the children and improves their academic performance and achievement.
Conclusion
The literature reviewed has studied the underachievement of the Black Caribbean pupils over the years. Though the government has taken lot of initiatives, racism has changed its course and still prevailing. Black children are most likely to be excluded from school.
Overall research evidences indicate that schools distinguish and retort to the behaviour of Black children more severely and harshly when compared to other ethnic groups. Four areas identified as the key factors for the underachievement have been discussed which include low teacher expectations, institutional racism, socio economic status and low cultural capital and parent involvement. The attitudes the teacher has towards the pupil impact on their attainment, the teacher – pupil relations and higher expectations would benefit the children. Parentsє social status and their provisions for the education can also influence the attainment. Lack of involvement of parents with teachers and illiteracy among the Black Caribbean people has been observed as key reason for the underachievement in the pupils.
