Ethnicity

Rutter (1979) explained in his research “Fifteen Thousand Hours” that his research was done upon educational achievement that was examined through institutional variables. Five measures were selected to assess the relative achievements of the twelve secondary schools in London which took part in the study: the students' attendance record, behavior, examination success, post-school employment and criminal behavior. The whole point of this was that the school with the best record on those measures was most likely to be successful in achieving the aims of that school. “The research also showed which school variables were associated with good behavior and attainment and which were not.” (Rutter 1979).

Although this research may have shown that secondary schools do have an important influence on their students behavior and achievements, I would argue that these good behavior and great achievements came from the individual's hard work and determination. For instance, if a school sets guidelines for you such as achieving a B in your next essay or not getting in to any trouble for a whole month, then it is basic common sense that you take on board these "rules" set out for you and put in all the effort you can to reach these goals. Like my doctor once said to me, “fulfil your dreams my child, because it only depends on YOU”. To back my point of view is the research done by Taylor (1976) in “The Half-way Generation”.

Taylor's study was conducted in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The approach here was different compared to Rutter's because Taylor assessed educational achievement in terms of individual performance. The samples included South Asians' and their White peers. Here the criteria selected to measure individual's achievements were the number and level of public examination passes, length of stay in full-time education and higher education entry. The assumptions behind this use of criteria was that students' who performed well on them were more likely to be educationally successful then those who did not.

Although both Rutter's and Taylor's studies made sense, I think they failed to mention practical and scientific problems, especially those ones related to the standardization of measurements. Such standardization is important if comparisons are to be made between institutions and individuals. I think Rutter would need to find ways of controlling the variations in the twelve schools and from what I had read from Taylor's study, he would be facing the same problem as Rutter, just that he would need to control the variables that affect the educational outcomes of individual South Asian and White pupils. For instance, some students' may be receiving more help from school teachers and from family and friends compared to other students', hence those receiving a lot of help are likely to do well in exams and so on. Also another factor to take in to consideration is parental achievements and how they may be influencing the students. For example, if a student comes from a well-educated family where the father is an environmental engineer and mother is a doctor, then the child is more likely to get that extra help and pressure to do well in education in order reach higher up in the occupational/class hierarchy where their parents are.

Referring back to the educational achievement of children in ethnic minorities, I would like to stress that from the available evidence of different researches and statistical evidence from the ofsted, it shows that although ethnic minority students may have had problems with achievements in the past, 2007 shows a brighter future for those children. The ofsted statistics show how the ethnic minority children are doing well then their White counterparts in all parts of England.

“Children from Chinese, Pakistani, Indian, Bangladeshi and black African backgrounds have, in virtually every local authority and in most schools, better "value-added" scores for secondary education than white youngsters.”

All other Black minorities were of a mixed result. But this evidence makes me question, why is the White population of students now underachieving? The answer, according to the ofsted lies in different family's' aspiration. Does this mean every White family had the same aspiration before? Did they not have any different goals and ambitions back in the days? I don't think different family aspiration is the answer to my first question on why White students are underachieving. There can be many factors that may be causing this such as, gender, lack of motivation, status and so on. However, I think more research must be done on this new finding which is bewildering me as much as my White friends! After all, wouldn't people agree that White could be ANY White person in Britain? The ethnic term "White" is very broad, and needs to be split in to categories so we can see exactly what TYPE of White population are doing poor.