Swann (1985)

Notes on the text
Preliminary pages Membership, Contents, Introduction

Part I: Setting the scene
Chapter 1 The nature of society
Chapter 2 Racism: theory and practice
Chapter 3 Achievement and underachievement
Chapter 3 continued

Part II: Education for all
Chapter 4 Ethnic minorities and education: historical perspective
Chapter 5 Multicultural education: further studies
Chapter 5 continued
Chapter 6 'Education for all': a new approach

Part III: Major areas of concern
Chapter 7 Language and language education
Chapter 8 Religion and the role of the school
Chapter 9 Teacher education; employment of ethnic minority teachers
Chapter 9 continued

Part IV: 'Other' ethnic minority groups
Introduction
Chapter 10 Chinese children
Chapter 11 Cypriot children
Chapter 12 Italian children
Chapter 13 Ukranian children
Chapter 14 Vietnamese children
Chapter 15 'Liverpool Blacks'
Chapter 16 Travellers' children
Reflections and conclusions

Part V:
Main conclusions and recommendations

Appendices

Report of the Committee of Enquiry into the Education of Children from Ethnic Minority Groups

Chairman: Lord Swann

Cmnd. 9453

London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office 1985
© Crown copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen's Printer for Scotland.

Chapter 3 Achievement and underachievement
[pages 57 - 187]

1. Introduction

2. The achievement of West Indian pupils

3. The achievement of Asian pupils

4 Factors involved in school performance
4.1 Our Interim Report
4.6 The range of factors involved in achievement and underachievement
4.10 The IQ Question
4.15 The inter-relationship of Racial discrimination, socio-economic status, social class and Region.
4.23 Educational and other factors

5. Our conclusions - West Indians

6. Our conclusions - Asians

7. The implications of our findings

8. Summary of main conclusions

9. References

Annexes

Annex A - Achievement and underachievement: evidence from young people of Afro-Caribbean and Asian origin

Annex B - Results from the School Leavers' Survey 1981/82: A paper by DES Statistics Branch

Annex C - The education of Bangladeshi children in Tower Hamlets: A background paper by the Education Officer, Inner London Education Authority

Annex D - The IQ question: A paper by Professor N J Mackintosh and Dr CGN Mascie-Taylor

Annex E - Revised research proposal on 'Academically Successful Black Pupils', submitted by the Research and Statistics Branch of the Inner London Education Authority.

Annex F - Summary of main findings of a longitudinal study undertaken by Dr GK Verma.

Annex G - A note on research: A paper by Mr J Cornford.

Chapter 3 Achievement and underachievement
[pages 57 - 92]

1. Introduction

1.1 Our terms of reference required us to '... review ... the educational needs and attainments of children from ethnic minority groups ...' They also required us to '... give early and particular attention ... to pupils of West Indian origin and to make interim recommendations ...' While we considered the attainment of West Indian children at some length in our interim report, we left a number of matters for further investigation in this, our final report, where in addition we examine the attainments of children from other minority groups.

1.2 In our interim report we discussed at length the evidence we received on the factors involved in achievement and underachievement, from the ethnic minorities themselves, from those in the educational system and from others. This revealed a wide consensus that focused on racial intolerance, prejudice and discrimination as a prime cause, with the emphasis on these factors as they operate within the educational system. To give something of the flavour of this evidence we have included in Annex A to this chapter quotations from the evidence given to the Committee in November 1980 by a group of students assembled by the NUS and from interviews with young people between 15 and 18 years of age, conducted in the Leeds and Bradford area between 1980 and 1983.

1.3 This chapter is concerned with a different type of evidence, namely research and statistics, and any such investigation is beset with difficulties. The evidence is incomplete and sometimes conflicting; in addition there is the immediate problem of deciding what we mean by achievement and underachievement. These are not absolute terms, only relative ones. But relative to what? Moreover, they are terms that are often used indiscriminately in two crucially different senses.

1.4 Turning to the first sense, we have, throughout this report, and in our interim report, made the comparison between the achievement of particular ethnic minorities and their school fellows in the White majority. For the most part this simple comparison is the only one that we can make, but it is not as simple a one as might appear at first sight, mainly because of the complexities of the effects of racial discrimination, social class and socio-economic status, matters we deal with in paras. 4.15 onwards. This comparison is also unsatisfactory in that it gives little indication of the extent to which individuals or groups are achieving their full potential - namely achieving in the second sense. It is often supposed, naively, that there is a true measure of innate potential, namely a child's IQ (Intelligence Quotient), but this, as we shall see, is not the case. It may be the best measure of potential that has yet been devised, but it is far from perfect and is influenced by a variety of factors. In short, there is no really reliable indicator of a child's academic potential. Nevertheless, we are clear that many ethnic minority children are not achieving their full potential, regardless of how they compare with the white majority. The problem is further complicated by the fact that many white children are not achieving their full potential either.

1.5 A further point cannot be stressed too often. In our data on achievement and underachievement we frequently quote average performances for different groups. West Indian averages, for instance, tend to be lower than White averages. This however does not mean that all West Indian pupils are achieving less well than whites. Far from it; as Figueroa (1) has recently pointed out, some West Indian children do very well in this country. A statistical average conceals a wide range of scores, some very high, some very low, a fair number on the high side, a fair number on the low side, and most somewhere in the middle, clustering around the average, i.e. the group mean. In fact there are greater differences within a group, where achievement is concerned, than between groups, no matter what their ethnic identity may be. To complicate matters yet further, unexpected differences within groups have often been noted. In some studies, for example, West Indian girls have been found to be performing at a higher level than West Indian boys (2).

2. The achievement of West Indian pupils

2.1 The origins of this Committee can be traced back to a widespread concern about the level of achievement of West Indian pupils in British schools. In preparing our interim report, however, we were much hampered by the absence of ethnically based examination statistics at a national level. We had therefore to rely in large measure on a variety of research evidence already available on the academic performance of West Indian pupils. This evidence was identified and analysed for us by the National Foundation for Educational Research in their first review (3).

They concluded:

'... there is an overwhelming consensus: that research evidence shows a strong trend to underachievement of pupils of West Indian origin on the main indicators of academic performance ... Depressing though it is to relate, it appears inescapable that by any standard of comparison, the pupil of West Indian origin is underachieving.'

2.3 Since our interim report and the first NFER review of research were published, a range of other studies have confirmed this picture of West Indian underachievement, including for example, a recent study by Craft and Craft (4) carried out in an Outer London Borough, which showed clearly that, irrespective of social class, West Indian children are markedly under-represented amongst high achievers, and markedly over-represented amongst low achievers. We reproduce a Table from this paper below:

Fifth-form examination performance by ethnicity and social class

2.4 When our interim report was published, many heads and teachers offered further evidence to support our view that West Indian children were indeed underachieving in the educational system. Some however questioned the existence of West Indian underachievement by offering instances from their own experience of children who had been academically successful (in the light of our earlier comments this is in no way surprising), or commented on what they regarded as the shortcomings of the data from the school leavers' survey exercise. The major criticism which was levelled at these data was the absence of any attempt to take account of socio-economic variables and the bearing which these might have had on the findings. We would be the first to acknowledge that such background information would have added to the completeness of the picture and indeed at the time we explored with the DES Statistics Branch whether this additional information could be collected. We were informed however that the nature of the school leavers' survey precluded this being done, most notably because at the time the information is collected, many of the pupils concerned had left school several months previously. It was also suggested that the value of the school leavers' survey exercise data would have been enhanced by the inclusion of more specific and clearly defined ethnic classifications for the groups studied, rather than simply the broad divisions of 'Asian', 'West Indian' and 'all others'. In fact those schools which participated in the school leavers' survey exercise were asked to place their leavers in one of ten ethnic categories:

The numbers in the sub-categories of 'Asian' and 'All Other Leavers' were, we were informed, too small to be statistically significant and the findings were therefore aggregated under the general heading - thus permitting a broad comparison to be made on the basis of figures which were statistically significant.

2.5 A further comment which was made by a number of people in relation to the school leavers' survey exercise data in our interim report was that too much reliance should not be placed on information relating to examination results for just one year and that the evidence for West Indian underachievement would be considerably strengthened if it could be shown, by repeating this exercise over several years, that the results for 1978/79 were not atypical but part of a continuing pattern. One of the principal recommendations of our interim report was that steps should be taken to collect a range of educational statistics on an ethnic basis and inter alia we recommended that the DES should, with effect from 1 September 1982, introduce ethnic classifications into its school leavers' survey. When it became clear that this recommendation was not going to be implemented by the date we had specified, we asked the DES Statistics Branch to repeat the school leavers' survey exercise for us to enable us to see whether, within the limitations already acknowledged, the relative performance of the groups had altered in any way in the intervening three years. They kindly agreed to assist us again and we reproduce at Annex B their paper summarising the findings of the exercise carried out in relation to the 1981/1982 school Ieavers' survey and incorporating some statistical comparisons with the previous exercise.

2.6 What is most immediately apparent from the findings of the more recent school leavers' survey exercise is that, as in the previous exercise, West Indian children are again shown to be performing markedly less well than their fellows from other groups on all the measures used:

• In all CSE and GCE O Level examinations 6 per cent of West Indians obtained five or more higher grades compared with 17 per cent of Asians and 19 per cent of 'all other leavers' in these LEAs;
• In CSE English and GCE O Level English Language 15 per cent of West Indians obtained higher grades compared with 21 per cent of Asians and 29 per cent of 'all other leavers' in these LEAs;
• In CSE and GCE O Level Mathematics 8 per cent of West Indians obtained higher grades compared with 21 per cent of Asians and 21 per cent of 'all other leavers' in these LEAs;
• At GCE 'A' Level 5 per cent of West Indians gained one or more pass compared with 13 per cent of Asians and 13 per cent of 'all other leavers' in these LEAs;
• 1 per cent of West Indians went on to University compared with 4 per cent of Asians and 4 per cent of 'all other leavers' in these LEAs; and
• 1 per cent of West Indians went on to full-time degree courses in further education compared with 5 per cent of Asians and 5 per cent of 'all other leavers' in these LEAs.

• In all CSE and GCE O Level examinations, the percentage of West Indians obtaining five or more higher grades has increased from 3 per cent in 1978/79 to 6 per cent in 1981/82;
• In CSE English and GCE O Level English Language, not only has the percentage of West Indians obtaining no graded result fallen from 31 per cent in 1978/79 to 25 per cent in 1981/82, but the percentage obtaining higher grades has also increased from 9 per cent in 1978/79 to 15 per cent in 1981/82;
• In CSE and GCE O Level Mathematics, not only has the percentage of West Indians obtaining no graded result fallen from 47 per cent in 1978/79 to 45 per cent in 1981/82, but the percentage obtaining higher grades has also increased from 5 per cent in 1978/79 to 8 per cent in 1981/82; and
• At GCE A Level, the percentage of West Indians obtaining at least one A Level pass has increased from 2 per cent in 1978/79 to 5 per cent in 1981/82.

'West Indian children as a group are underachieving in our education system ... (and) ... this should be a matter of deep concern not only to all those involved in education but also the whole community.'

3.1 In considering the performance of Asian pupils we have again been hampered by the absence of ethnically based statistics at a national level. A considerable amount of research has however been undertaken on their performance, and the broad consensus of these studies was described in the following terms by the NFER in their second review of research (8):

'Asians do not in general perform worse at public examinations than indigenous peers from the same schools and neighbourhoods ... Most of the studies point to performance levels on the part of Asians that either match or exceed those of indigenous peers. Findings usually relate to overall examination performance; when individual subject breakdowns are given, English often stands out as the area of weakness.'

3.2 Both the initial school leavers' survey exercise (1978/79) and the further exercise (1981/82) obtained data relating to Asian leavers*. In general terms the findings of the two exercises (see Annex B), taken together, show Asian leavers to be achieving very much on a par with, and in some cases marginally better than, their school fellows from all other groups in the same LEAs in terms of the various measures used:

• At GCE A Level the percentage of Asians gaining one or more pass, in both years studied, mirrored exactly the 'all other leavers' figures: 12 per cent in 1978/79 and 13 per cent in 1981/82;
• In CSE and GCE O Level Mathematics the percentage of Asians obtaining higher grades in the 1981/82 exercise was the same as for 'all other leavers' 21 per cent;
• The same percentage of Asian leavers as 'all other leavers' went on to university in both 1978/79: 3 per cent, and 1981/82: 4 per cent.

The major divergence from this pattern of achievement was in relation to CSE and GCE O Level English Language - see Table 5 in Annex B - with a significantly higher percentage of Asian leavers obtaining no graded result compared with 'all other leavers' in the same LEAs, and the percentage obtaining higher grades being also significantly lower. The marked difference in performance in this particular subject may well, of course, be a major contributory factor in the lower percentage of Asian leavers obtaining '5 or more higher grades' in the Table of overall O Level and CSE achievements - see Table 4 in Annex A.

3.3 While the evidence about school performance of Asian pupils is not unanimous, the majority of studies, in common with the School Leavers Survey exercises, show an average level of performance, other than in English Language, that is generally on a par with that of indigenous White children. Recently Craft and Craft (4), for instance, in an extensive study (see para 2.3 above), have shown that the examination performance of Asian pupils at fifth form level, whether categorised as middle class or working class, compares quite closely with that of their White School fellows. And a smaller study by Brooks and Singh (9) reaches the interesting conclusion that:

'It is the similarities between White and Asian performance which are impressive, rather than any differences.'

'Asians as a group tend to do well in examinations ... there appears to be no special trend in examination success ... different from those of the indigenous population.'

4. Factors involved in school performance

Our Interim Report

4.1 Diagnosing and evaluating the factors involved in achievement and underachievement is full of difficulties, and we turn first to the conclusions of our interim report. The factor most frequently and forcibly put to our Committee was undoubtedly racism within schools, mainly centring around teachers' low expectations of West Indian children; this we accepted as significant. But as we pointed out in our conclusions (p70):

'Whilst we cannot accept that racism, intentional or unintentional, alone accounts for the underachievement of West Indian children in our schools we believe that when taken together with, for example, negative teacher attitudes and an inappropriate curriculum, racism does play a major part in their underachievement.

'... relatively low paid or low status jobs for the first generation of immigrants go hand in hand with poor overcrowded living conditions and a depressed environment. If for example, job opportunities, educational facilities, housing and environmental conditions are all poor, the next generation will grow up less well equipped to deal with difficulties facing them. The wheel comes full circle, as the second generation find themselves trapped in poor jobs and poor housing.'

4.3 On page 20 we went on to consider the 1980 ILEA Literacy Survey (12), which showed that reading attainment of West Indian children was low at eight years, and remained low at school leaving age. The survey examines a number of possible factors which might have led to this result - length of education in this country, social deprivation, linguistic handicaps, teacher expectations and the self image of the child. It finds that each of these factors plays some part in the overall picture of underachievement, and concludes:

'A major contributory factor would seem to be adverse environmental circumstances. When factors of social deprivation ... were taken into account the difference in the average attainment of West Indians and Whites ... was halved. The possible effects of linguistic interference and teacher attitudes and expectations could not be measured directly but it seems probable that they have an adverse effect on West Indians, particularly when coupled with adverse social circumstances.'

4.5 Since we presented figures that showed Asians on average to be performing very much on a par with whites, and since it was argued by our critics that Asians were no less subject to racism than West Indians, it was said that the prominence we had given to this factor must be misplaced and that other factors must therefore be at the root of the problem. Low West Indian IQ scores were mentioned as the real cause, and, as we have noted earlier, the absence of any consideration of socio-economic factors was also criticised. It became clear to us that we must examine these criticisms in detail in the final report, as indeed we had, in our interim report, declared our intention of doing.

The range of factors involved in achievement and underachievement

4.6 Many research workers who have studied the matter in depth have listed the wide range of factors that may be involved, and have gone out of their way to emphasise that the problem is a very complex one with no single cause, but rather a large number of inter-related causes - see for example Jeffcoate, (13) and (14) Mabey (15) and the ILEA Report on Race, Sex and Class (16) as well as the study by Tomlinson (2) and both NFER Reports (3) and (8). The same point emerges in the study we commissioned from one of our members, Dr Verma, which we consider later in this chapter - see also Annex F. The argument has recently been put particularly succinctly and readably by Dr Bhikhu Parekh, formerly a member of our Committee (17).

4.7 Under the heading 'Some explanations of underachievement' Dr Parekh lists the following:

'First, the low attainment of West Indian children is, according to some commentators, easily and adequately explained in terms of their genetic intellectual inferiority. This view of Eysenck and others is far more widely held than is realised ...'

'A second explanation accounts for West Indian children's low attainment in terms of the structure of their family ...'

'Third, some commentators explain the fact of low attainment in terms of the materially and culturally disadvantaged West Indian home. While the previous explanation blames the parent and the traditional structure of the family, this one blames their economic conditions and the character of the wider social structure ...'

'Fourth, some explain ... low attainment in terms of racism both in society at large and in the school ...'

Fifth, some hold the structure and ethos of the school responsible ... because many a school has renounced its traditional task of educating its pupils and helping them achieve basic intellectual skills, in favour of dabbling in social work and psychotherapy ... they underplay the value of formal methods of teaching, hard work and discipline ...'

'Sixth, some explain the low attainment of the West Indian child in terms of the failure of the educational authorities to identify and meet his educational needs ...'

'In addition to the above, several other explanations are also advanced from time to time ...'

'First, the debate is vitiated by what I might call the fallacy of the single factor. The participants tend to look for one specific factor, be it class, racism, West Indian family, West Indian culture, the school or educational system, to explain the fact of underachievement. This is obviously an inherently impossible enterprise. Not even a relatively simple natural phenomenon like the falling of an apple or the dropping of a stone can be explained in terms of a single cause ...'

'Second the debate is led astray by two false assumptions, namely that all West Indian children fail and all Asian children succeed ... thanks to these assumptions, some have argued that the reasons for West Indian children's underachievement cannot be found in the factors they share in common with the Asians ... thus racism, either in the society at large or in the school, is dismissed as an important factor on the ground that otherwise we would not be able to explain Asian success ... as we saw, the assumptions are false ... (the argument) is invalid also because it wrongly assumes that the same factor must always produce the same results.'

'Third, much of the debate is conducted at too abstract a level to connect with the reality of the school or the child, or to permit sensible discussion, or to have clear policy implications ...'

'Fourth, with few notable exceptions, the participants are deeply committed to specific theories and either ignore others or dismiss them with a bundle of sweeping generalisations ...'

Fifth, as we would expect, a debate on so sensitive an issue ... can hardly remain apolitical. By its very nature every explanation points an accusatory finger at a particular target ... Not surprisingly, the group which suspects that it might be blamed ... tends to marshal whatever arguments it can against the threatening explanation, or to demand impossible standards of proof and conceptual rigour, while not bothering to provide these for its own alternative explanation ... Like every political debate, the debate has an ideological character ...'

The IQ question

4.10 Scores in IQ (Intelligence Quotient) tests were for a long time used as a measure of academic potential, and a pupil's score in such tests undoubtedly played a part in determining the set, stream or band in which he was placed, and this in turn was liable to condition the expectations of individual teachers, and indeed of the educational system as a whole. The high proportion of West Indian children placed in ESN schools as a result of such tests was first pointed out by Coard (18) in 1971. Present practice, however, has changed markedly, and the limitations of IQ tests are now much more clearly appreciated within the educational system. Nevertheless, there remains in society at large a view, quite widely but as we shall see incorrectly held, namely that West Indian underachievement is the result of low IQs. To what extent this misconception has contributed to racist attitudes in general and a feeling in particular that West Indian underachievement is inevitable, is a matter for conjecture. But it is, as we said in our interim report, a matter that we decided we must examine, and this we have now done.

4.11 Interest in the differences in IQ scores between different ethnic groups stems from the United States, where it was discovered, a long time ago, that US Blacks scored substantially below US Whites. There has been less research in this country, but a similar, if less pronounced difference, has been found between children of West Indian origin and the indigenous population. It must be emphasised here that the argument only centres round average scores. Individual scores vary greatly, both within the West Indian community, and within the White one. It follows that many West Indian children have higher IQ scores than many White children. It is when the averages are calculated that West Indians are rather consistently seen to be scoring less highly than Whites.

4.12 The heated debate that has followed these findings has centred round the cause of the difference. Jensen, in the US, and Eysenck, in this country, amongst others, have argued that it is little more than a reflection of the respective difference in average intelligence, and that a significant part of this difference is due to genetic inheritance. Others, for a variety of reasons, have disagreed.

4.13 This is a complex, difficult and sensitive area, and we have been very fortunate in getting a distinguished psychologist, Professor Nicholas Mackintosh of the University of Cambridge to review the field for us, and to carry out some fresh investigations. His paper, prepared in association with his colleague Dr Mascie-Taylor, is reproduced in full as Annex D to this chapter. The paper is a lucid and cogent exposition of the different arguments involved in the controversy, and we would urge that it be widely and carefully read. The authors are duly cautious about the evidence, but they have, we believe, disposed of the idea that West Indian underachievement can be explained away by reference to IQ scores.

4.14 We have not attempted to summarise Professor Mackintosh's and Dr Mascie-Taylor's rigorous and balanced argument, if only because they summarise it very clearly themselves (pp48-52, Annex D to the Chapter). In brief they show that much of the difference in IQ scores between West Indian and indigenous children appears to be related to differences between them in such factors as parental occupation, income, size of family, degree of overcrowding, and neighbourhood. All of these factors are related to IQ among Whites, and when they are taken into account, the difference between West Indian and indigenous children is sharply reduced.

The inter-relationship of racial discrimination, socio-economic status, social class and region

4.15 Racial discrimination, in a variety of ways, affects socio-economic status, social class and region, and some explanation of these terms, which may not be universally familiar, is necessary before we go any further. Socio-economic status, or SES for short, and often referred to as socio-economic circumstances or socio-economic variables, is an umbrella for a variety of reasonably precise measures of the degree of affiuence or deprivation of an individual, a family or a group. What is the level of income, what is the level of unemployment, is there overcrowding or ill-health, are they living in an unfavourable environment, and so on? Social class is a more blanket way of referring to the same thing, and is based on categories of employment e.g. professional, intermediate, skilled non-manual, skilled manual, partly skilled manual and unskilled manual. These categories are often grouped together in various ways e.g. middle class and working class, descriptions which, it should be mentioned, do not carry all the overtones of everyday usage. Finally there is the term region, which refers to the sort of neighbourhood in which people live e.g. inner city, suburban etc. Socio-economic status, social class and region, for the White majority, are determined, without doubt, by a great many factors, ranging from parental circumstances to educational qualifications. But where ethnic minorities are concerned, there is a further crucial factor, racial discrimination, which, as we discuss in later sections of this chapter, can, and frequently does, lead to poorer jobs, higher levels of unemployment, poorer housing in poorer areas, and in many instances poorer school achievement and fewer qualifications, than are to be found in the White majority.

4.16 Thanks to the pioneering work of JWB Douglas and many others, it has long been known, where White children are concerned, that poor school performance is closely correlated with low socio-economic status. It is also well known, as Professor Mackintosh points out, that IQ scores and low SES are similarly related. The precise interplay of cause and effect in these correlations is by no means fully understood, but is generally accepted as involving a great many factors, including level of employment, quality of housing, and level of parental education, see for example Rutter and Madge (19) and Mortimore and Blackstone (20). Nevertheless the phenomenon is so marked and so consistent as to leave no doubt about its significance. The fact that two things are correlated, however, does not prove that one is the cause of the other. It could be that both are caused by one or more quite other factors. At the same time it does not take much imagination to see why poor socio-economic circumstances might have a marked effect on school performance. There are first, of all, material reasons. It has long been realised that they can lead to poorer health and nutrition, and that they can lead to overcrowding, and little space and quiet for children to work. There are also psychological reasons. Families where parents have to work long or unsocial hours, and have to be out when children are at home, with the best will in the world cannot readily provide as much adult talk, or as much interest and encouragement in schooling as, say, a more affluent home. Region introduces a further complication. The poorest socio-economic circumstances are usually to be found in (often decaying) inner city areas, and here again the interplay of cause and effect is complex. On the one hand the poorest people are only likely to be able to afford to buy or rent in such areas, or, if they seek local authority housing, to find it in such areas. They therefore gravitate to these neighbourhoods, and having arrived there, they find an extra dimension of deprivation in terms of social amenities and available work.

4.17 As with almost all sociological problems, it is not possible to reach unchallengeable conclusions, and it may be that all the factors we have discussed play some part. Nevertheless, the weight of evidence about the direct effects of socio-economic deprivation make it likely that this is a very important factor (see references in para 4.19). In any case, the fact that it clearly operates across ethnic lines, revealing a marked correlation with school performance for Whites as well as all ethnic minorities (see again para 4.19), means that we must take account of it before reaching conclusions about achievement and underachievement, defined either as a comparison with White peers or with potential.

4.18 There is, of course, a very wide spectrum of socio-economic circumstances in the White population as a whole, but in the light of our comments above, we would expect to find the lowest socio-economic circumstances and the poorest school performance figures amongst children living in inner urban areas. This, indeed, is the case. A close examination of the school leavers' survey exercise tables in our interim report, and in Annex B of this chapter, shows, for instance, that the performance of 'all other leavers' (mainly White children) is noticeably poorer than the national average. Since the school leavers' survey exercise was conducted in inner urban LEAs (where the largest amount of deprivation is to be found), this is exactly what would be expected. Had the comparison been with leavers in areas more affluent than the national average, the disparity would have been greater still. It follows that a large number of white, as well as of minority children, are not achieving all they might, given more favourable circumstances. So much is common knowledge, and emerges very clearly from a recent Statistical Bulletin published by DES (21).

4.19 We turn now to the more complex question of socio-economic circumstances in relation to ethnic minority children. It would be surprising if social and economic deprivation did not affect them as it affects White children, and there is indeed clear evidence that it does. Professor Mackintosh, having discussed this effect as it shows up with IQ, analysed some of the same data in relation to school performance, and concluded:

'... not surprisingly, they show that much, but by no means all of the initial difference between either West Indian or Asian and White children is accounted for by the differences in their social circumstances.'

4.21 At this stage in the argument we need to look at the extent to which ethnic minorities are economically and socially deprived. If they were no more deprived, on average, than the White majority then any underachievement by comparison with their White peers in similar circumstances, could only be due to factors other than social class, socio-economic circumstances, or region. But in fact there is a great deal of evidence that many minority groups are substantially more deprived than Whites, and this must increase the significance of these factors. This evidence is collected together in the masterly third PSI (formerly PEP) Survey (24). The Employment Gazette (25) also provides much recent evidence. We do not attempt to summarise the massive PSI report in any detail, and would refer the reader to the work itself, in particular to the last chapter. Suffice it to say that though there are many differences of detail, ethnic minorities in general suffer from higher levels of unemployment than Whites, and when employed have lower incomes. Their housing, in addition, is poorer than White housing. Moreover the survey finds that although there have been a few improvements, there has been depressingly little change since the previous survey (1974).

4.22 The PSI report goes a considerable way towards analysing why there should be this marked level of ethnic minority social and economic deprivation, over and above that of the majority White population. As they point out:

'One purpose of this type of Survey is to obtain information on the total impact of racial disadvantage on the black population (the Report uses the term black to include all non-white minorities). This requires a detailed survey because it is important that our comparisons between white people and black people take into account the other differences that presently exist between them: for example in this study the analysis of job levels can be adjusted for any differences of qualifications and English fluency. It is also important to understand from the outset that no direct evidence of racial discrimination is available from a survey like this, except in the reports of individuals who have reason to suspect that they have been its victims. For objective evidence about the levels of discrimination we must look to other studies, and in particular the research carried out by making test applications to employers and other bodies and observing the responses to black and white applicants.'

Despite these caveats, the report leaves us in no doubt that a substantial part of ethnic minority deprivation is, in fact, due to racial discrimination of various sorts. It is of some interest to learn where the minorities themselves laid the blame for this treatment. (24)

'Several bodies stand out from the others, however, with a significant proportion of Asians and West Indians claiming they discriminated: those were employers, private landlords and the police. Among West Indians, concern is also expressed, though to a lesser extent, about the Courts, Housing Department and Schools.'

Educational and other factors

4.23 It will be recalled that in preparing our interim report we received a great deal of written and oral comment, especially from the West Indian community, pointing to racism within schools as an important factor in the underachievement of West Indian children. We concluded that:

'... there seemed to be a fairly widespread opinion among teachers to whom we spoke that West Indian pupils inevitably caused difficulties. These pupils were, therefore, seen either as problems to be put up with or, at best, deserving sympathy. Such negative and patronising attitudes, focusing as they do on West Indian children as problems, cannot lead to a constructive or balanced approach to their education ...'

'Teachers should be prepared to examine and reappraise their own attitudes and actions in an effort to ensure that their behaviour towards and expectations of ethnic minority pupils are not influenced by stereotyped and negative views.'

'... discrimination, both intentional and unintentional, can have an adverse effect on how a West Indian child sees himself and his ethnic group in relation to majority White society which in turn can have a bearing on his motivation and achievement. This is clearly a complex and difficult issue ... We shall be looking further at this whole issue, in relation to all ethnic minority children, for our main Report.'

'Intuitively one can readily see how constant denigration, whether overt or more subtle. might sap a child's confidence in his own abilities. and cause him to fail.'

'Overall the evidence on teacher expectation and attitudes does not really permit firm conclusions as to whether teacher expectations for black children are a determining influence on their school life and performance. Whilst it is most likely that some teachers do have negative perceptions of and attitudes towards (some) black pupils, it would also appear that many teachers are sensitively and actively concerned to evolve a consistent and fair policy towards and treatment of their black pupils ...'

'We know that expectancy effects can be found and that they cannot always be replicated, we know that the most subtle experiment may fail to show expectancy effects and we know that they will turn up (contrarily) in quite unexpected contexts.'

4.25 This conflict of evidence is nevertheless puzzling, for it is not only West Indian parents who believe that schools are not bringing out the best from their children. There can hardly be any parent anywhere who does not think that some teachers bring out the best in their children, while others do not. We come therefore to the tentative conclusion that we ourselves, those who give evidence to us, and those who have researched into the question, may perhaps be taking too simplistic a view of the matter. It is for this reason that we touched on the work of Green and reproduced his paper in Annex B of Chapter 2. Despite the cautious disclaimers at the end of his paper, we think his work suggests an interesting new approach to the problem. We also think the verbatim remarks quoted by two researchers (see Annex G to this Chapter), give much food for thought. In short, while we do not retreat from our earlier conclusions about the influence of teachers, we do think the problem is complex and subtle, and needs much more research if it is ever to be understood in full. To use a medical metaphor, until it is understood, it will be difficult to prescribe with certainty the treatment that is likely to be most effective.

4.26 Where teacher attitudes and expectancy effects are concerned, the research evidence is clearly conflicting and confusing. In many other areas where comparable factors have been thought to be important, in the school, in the home or elsewhere, the research evidence, is, once again, all too often confusing. The question, for instance, of whether underachievement can be attributed to low self-esteem, generated by racist treatment in school or elsewhere, has been much disputed and much researched - see references and comments in Taylor (3), Tomlinson (2), Figueroa (1) and Jeffcoate (14) as well as Thomas (28). We can only conclude that the issues involved are certainly complex and that there is now a good deal of evidence that low self-esteem amongst ethnic minority children is not, contrary to what one might expect, the widespread phenomenon that has often been supposed. The related question of motivation is equally complex and as Verma (29) and Verma and Ashworth (30) have shown, depends on attitudes in school, in society and in the family.

4.27 The extent of the conflict and confusion that prevails in so many areas of research on the achievement of ethnic minorities has, no doubt, many causes. Some of it is simply not very good research and suffers from some or even all of the defects vividly listed by Parekh - (see para 4.9). But above all, we believe, it must be attributed to the complexity of the problems, and the fact that there are many underlying causes. We have emphasised this point repeatedly, and do so again. Nevertheless, we believe that the message is slowly getting across, and not only in the world of research. In this context we draw attention to a paper that has reached us recently, and which makes the point very dearly. Blatchford et al (31), examining the influence of ethnic origin, gender and home on entry skills (literacy and numeracy) into infant schools, looked at a large number of possible factors, and by means of multiple regression analysis separated out those that were important and those that were not. In this case three factors stood out - parental teaching, the extent of parental education (particularly maternal) and parental views on education. But even these three only accounted for one quarter of the variation in children's entry skill scores. The conclusions are interesting and important in themselves, but the clear demonstration of the complexity of the problem is perhaps even more striking.

4.28 In the light of the difficulty in reaching helpful conclusions from existing research about the factors, other than socio-economic status, which are involved in achievement and underachievement, we decided that a major study was needed to unravel further the many issues involved, believing them to consist of a complex combination of factors, operating differentially both in school and out of school. We were fortunate that Dr Mortimore, the Director of Research and Statistics at the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) approached us about undertaking such a study on our behalf, designed to provide information on the factors - in the school, in the community and at home - which had enabled West Indian pupils in a range of ILEA schools to be successful in GCE O Level and CSE examinations. The proposed study closely resembled that suggested by the NFER in their first review of research (3):

'A major in-depth investigation ... to study and compare the relation between the performance of West Indian pupils, their family background and factors internal to school. The emphasis in such a study would be on home-school interaction and type, size and atmosphere of school, necessitating carefully matched samples for detailed study, focusing particularly on those children who were comparatively high achievers.'

4.29 The researchers embarked on informal consultations about the project with interested organisations, communities and individuals, but it soon became evident that there were serious reservations, and since the research team felt that the cooperation of teachers and the ethnic minority communities was essential to the success of the project, they decided that they had no option but to abandon it. Some members of the Committee regret the loss of this study, believing that it might have provided valuable insights into a difficult problem. Others were sceptical about its value and feasibility.

4.30 With the loss of this research project, we were anxious to find other data concerned with the factors influencing the performance of ethnic minority pupils, including those of West Indian origin. We were fortunate that one of our members, Dr GK Verma, had already collected some relevant data in the connection with a longitudinal study he was undertaking in the Leeds and Bradford area on 'Ethnicity and Achievement in British Schools', and that he was able to draw out for us from this data some broad conclusions on the main factors influencing the examination achievement of children from the different ethnic groups. A summary by Dr Verma of the main findings of his study is attached as Annex F of this chapter. As the summary makes clear, the study was not intended to compare directly the levels of achievement of different ethnic groups, but rather to identify the way in which different factors influenced the high and the low achievers within each group. The findings raise a number of interesting points, and highlight yet again the complexity of the factors involved and the need for further research in this area.

4.31 Finally, this Chapter would be incomplete if we were not to note the changing response of schools to the presence of ethnic minority pupils, and the relevance of this to underachievement. At the outset, as we discuss in detail later in our report, the aim was assimilation, and LEAs concentrated their efforts on E2L work. But in the past few years, and in part, we would like to think, as a result of our interim report, things have begun to change. More pluralist aims have come to the fore, more positive attitudes towards pupil bilingualism and dialect differences are apparent, and there are stronger moves towards respect for diversity through curriculum permeation. We have noted, in paragraph 2.6, that there are signs of improved pupil performance, and we would like to think that these are the result of changing school attitudes. But there is a long way to go, and only time will tell.

5. Our conclusions - West Indians

5.1 There is no doubt that West Indian children, as a group, and on average, are underachieving; both by comparison with their school fellows in the White majority, as well as in terms of their potential, notwithstanding that some are doing well. In our interim report we laid particular stress on teachers' stereotyped attitudes and negative expectations as likely to be an important factor in this underachievement. But we also listed a whole range of other factors to be examined in more detail in our final report. This, as best we can, we have now done, and we are led, not so much to revise our earlier conclusions, as to add to them. This is not surprising - we originally pointed out that we were dealing with a complex problem and that there were likely to be a variety of factors involved.

5.2 Our interim report was criticised on two grounds in particular, first, that it failed to consider IQ, held by many to be responsible for West Indian underachievement, and second that we paid altogether too little attention to social class and socio-economic factors, long known to be closely related to achievement amongst White children. We turn first to IQ where, we believe, we have been able to make an important contribution, thanks to an impressive research paper which we commissioned from Professor Mackintosh and Dr Mascie-Taylor. The authors show that the often quoted gap between West Indian and White IQ scores is sharply reduced when account is taken of socio-economic factors - contrary to general belief, IQ scores, like school performance, are related to these factors. It follows from their work that low West Indian average IQ scores are not a major factor in underachievement, and as the authors point out, may well be of no more significance than the well-known average difference in IQ scores between twins and singletons within a family. As the authors put it:

'We do not think that this matters and we should rightly question the good sense or good will of anyone who claimed that it did.'

5.4 Having reached this stage in the argument, it is natural to ask the question: what proportion of West Indian underachievement is due to these social and environmental factors? There is no easy answer, but where achievement is recorded as a straight score, as for instance IQ, or literacy, then the answer seems to be something like a half (see Annex D, and the ILEA Literacy Survey, mentioned in our interim report and in Para 4.3 of this chapter). Where we are dealing with other measures of achievement, such as percentages of children obtaining various numbers of CSE, 0 Level or A Level grades, which cannot be expressed so simply, then the answer is less sure. We can however get an idea of the importance of these social class and socio-economic factors by looking in detail at the paper by Craft and Craft, discussed earlier, and in particular at their Table in Paragraph 2.3. Though the percentages with high achievement are markedly different as between Whites and West Indians, there is in both cases a two-fold difference between middle class children and working class children. We can, however look at these figures in another way and calculate from them the difference between White and West Indian high-scoring percentages with the class adjustment removed. It turns out that 22.7 per cent of White children are high achievers, as against 10.6 per cent of West Indian children, that is to say about a two-fold difference. If however we look at the original figures for middle-class children in the Table, we see that 31 per cent of Whites are high achievers, as against 20 per cent of West Indians. In other words, a two-fold difference has been sharply reduced to only a one and a half fold difference. Returning to our question, how much of West Indian underachievement is attributable to social class and socio-economic factors, it is clearly difficult to give a precise figure. Perhaps, a substantial amount is the best answer. But there is no doubt that these factors do not explain all of West Indian underachievement, so that we are left with an important element still unaccounted for, to which we now turn.

5.5 Having concluded that the complex of factors involved in social class, socio-economic status and region account for a substantial part of West Indian underachievement, but not all of it, and having concluded that IQ is not a major factor, and possibly not even a minor one, we are left with a large number of other factors that have been suggested in explanation. These are summarised briefly in our quotation from Parekh (Para 4.8). All of them involve the interaction of the school and society at large with the West Indian child, the West Indian family and the West Indian community, with, running through the whole complex, the influences of prejudice and discrimination in one form or another. We had hoped to get further than we have in disentangling this web of possible factors, but the research evidence is often lacking, and where it exists it is often sketchy or conflicting, or both. Moreover our own research project on the factors making for success, which many of us believe could have pointed the surest ways forward, had, as we explained earlier, to be abandoned. In this context current research being carried out jointly by the Policy Studies Institute and the University of Lancaster by Dr David Smith and Professor Sally Tomlinson (32) will, we believe, prove helpful. Meanwhile we seek to draw a few conclusions in this particularly difficult area:

We and many others offer views on where solutions lie, and it may be that society, mainly by hunch, will light on what prove to be the key ones. But there is a serious need for more research, and especially more good and innovative research in this ill defined area. There is, in some quarters, an uneasy suspicion of scientific enquiry, but as Sir Peter Medawar has put it:

'the purpose of scientific enquiry is not to compile an inventory of factual information ... it begins as a story about a Possible World - a story which we invent and criticise and modify as we go along, so that it ends by being, as nearly as we can make it, a story about real life.'

Secondly, and in this same context, we have seen in the previous section, that even such familiar explanations as the effects of teacher stereotyping and teacher expectations, are likely to be more complex and subtle than has usually been supposed. It would not be surprising if other current explanations also turned out to be too simplistic.

Thirdly, even if it were to be shown beyond any doubt that some particular factor related to ethnicity played a large part in underachievement, we would not expect that we could alter it by exhortation of the individual or group concerned. Shy people are not turned into extroverts by telling them to be more talkative; nor are teachers, advisers or administrators whose educational practices need to be liberalised and made more aware of the multi-ethnic context, likely to change without considerable encouragement, advice and in-service assistance. If we want to help, we have to do what we can to reduce ethnocentrism and racism in the educational system, and where the educational system can help to reduce this in the next generation, it must do so. As we discuss at length elsewhere in our report, there is now a good deal of material available, produced by the former Schools Council and the School Curriculum Development Committee, as well as by many LEAs and others, designed to help teachers and advisers to produce a curriculum appropriate for all children in a plural society, as well as meeting the particular needs of minority children. We conclude that the message of the interim report still stands: we should do all we can to diminish prejudice and discrimination within the educational system, and, through the next generation, outside it; and, simultaneously, we should give every help and encouragement within the educational system to enable minority children to overcome their disadvantages.

6. Our conclusions - Asians

6.1 Incomplete as our conclusions on West Indian achievement may be, we have to admit that our conclusions on Asian achievement are even more incomplete. Moreover the statistical and research evidence on the many smaller minorities is so lacking that we do not even attempt an analysis where they are concerned, though it seems certain that some at least of them are seriously underachieving - see Part IV of this Report and the third NFER Survey (33).

6.2 Much evidence, as we have seen, leaves no doubt that the performance of the totality of Asian children resembles on average the performance of White children. This has not always been the case, since new immigrant children with language difficulties, not surprisingly, did not do well; but this effect has faded away in recent years with the decline in immigration. Averages, however, as we have pointed out earlier, conceal much variability, and statistics have often shown differences in achievement between the various Asian sub-groups. These differences, however, are not always consistent, and are not great, with the exception of the Bangladeshis, whom we discuss in Paragraph 6.8. They, it is clear, are seriously underachieving.

6.3 The close resemblance between the performance of most Asian and White children is not easily explained. It will be recalled that our remarks in the interim report about racism in general, and racism in schools especially, as being an important factor in West Indian underachievement, were much criticised in some quarters, on the grounds that Asians also are subject to these influences, but do not seem to be affected by them, at least where school performance is concerned. We have more to say about this later, but it is not the only puzzling feature of Asian achievement. We have seen earlier that the performance of all children, White, West Indian and Asian, varies with social class, socio-economic circumstances and region; moreover that Asians as well as West Indians are, on average, more deprived than Whites, for reasons we have discussed earlier. Once again, therefore, one might expect to find Asian performance to be poorer than White performance. But in general it is not.

6.4 We examined earlier the question of IQ, to see whether this might be the cause of West Indian underachievement, but concluded that it was not. Is it possible, on the other hand, that Asians have rather high IQs? If so we might have an explanation of their achievement. But as is apparent from Professor Mackintosh's Report (Annex D), there is no reason to suppose that their scores differ much from those of the White majority, when adjusted for social class.

6.5 There is, as we have seen earlier, no doubt that Asians are affected by social and economic deprivation, as are West Indians (and Whites) but it would seem that it cannot be to quite the same extent, or in quite the same way. When, moreover, we turn to the educational and other factors which, as we saw in paragraphs 4.23-4.29, seem to be substantially involved in the underachievement of West Indians, we have to conclude that they can only be having, at most, a slight effect on Asians. Notwithstanding the criticisms made of the interim report on this very point, we need not be surprised. As we have made clear earlier in this chapter, we are dealing with a very complex interaction between social class, ethnicity and race. White attitudes towards the different ethnic minorities vary, no doubt in association with social class perceptions and racial frames of reference. There are, in consequence, likely to be different forms of prejudice and discrimination directed at the different ethnic minorities, while the cultures of the ethnic minorities are the product of very different histories, which have led to very different attitudes, beliefs and assumptions on the part of the community, the family and the individual, a point that comes out very clearly from Dr Verma's study. Given the infinite variability of mankind, it is not surprising that different groups should evoke different reactions from the White majority, and themselves react differently to this complex of factors. On the contrary, it would be surprising if they did not. We would remind anyone who thinks that racial prejudice and discrimination must have identical effects on every minority, of Parekh's perceptive second comment in paragraph 4.8.

6.6 Nevertheless, as we examine school performance, we are bound to ask what it is about Asians that somehow enables them to surmount in some degree the influences of social and economic deprivation, to an extent that seemingly West Indians do not; and what it is that enables them either to surmount direct racial prejudice, discrimination and harassment, to an extent that West Indians seemingly do not, or causes them to attract such prejudice and discrimination to a lesser extent, or in a different form. We do not know the answers, though a number of suggestions have been put to us. Some of these we find contrived and unconvincing, but two of them seem to us to have a certain plausibility. We put them forward tentatively, since there is little objective evidence:

Asians, it has been put to us, are given to 'keeping their heads down' and adopting 'a low profile', thereby making it easier to succeed in a hostile environment. West Indians, by contrast, are given to 'protest' and 'a high profile', with the reverse effect. Given the very different histories of the two groups, it is not an improbable explanation. But it is a stereotype judgement, and as with all stereotype judgements it must be viewed with caution - it is certainly not true of all Asians or all West Indians.

It has also been put to us that the explanation lies in the particularly tightly knit nature of the Asian community and the Asian family, more tightly knit than is the case either with Whites or West Indians. Since parental and family influences on speed of learning to read, and educational success in general have long been recognised-see the Plowden Report (34), Johnson (35) and Douglas (36) this also seems to us to be a factor to be borne in mind.

6.8 We mentioned earlier that the Bangladeshis were the one Asian sub-group whose school achievement was very low indeed, and we reproduce an ILEA Report on the large Bangladeshi community in Tower Hamlets in Annex C of this chapter. We have no relevant research on this particular minority group, but it will be evident that their degree of social and economic deprivation, not to mention racial harassment, is so high that we are not surprised at their marked level of underachievement. We are glad that ILEA is well aware of their special problems.

7. The implications of our findings

7.1 We have seen that school performance depends in substantial part, for ethnic minority groups, just as it does for Whites, on social class, socio-economic circumstances and region. To this extent any minority underachievement is part of the universal problem of social deprivation. But as we have also seen, the ethnic minorities, to varying extents, are, on average, significantly more deprived than Whites. And again, as we have seen, there can be no doubt that a substantial part of this extra deprivation is due to prejudice and discrimination by the White majority. Other factors may enter in - there may be an element of the 'cycle of deprivation', and in the case of Asians, lack of fluency in English may also be involved, though with the slowing down of immigration, to a decreasing extent. Nevertheless, the fact remains that racism in society at large, and operating through employers, trade unions, landlords and housing authorities, not to mention racial harassment and violence, contributes to this extra element of deprivation, which in turn may generate an extra element of underachievement.

7.2 In the short term, countering racism within society at large must be a matter for the law, for government, local authorities, employers, trade unions, the Commission for Racial Equality and indeed many others, individually and collectively. But in the long term, teachers have a crucial role to play. Though they may sometimes weary at being expected so often to put society to rights, the fact remains that education is a powerful instrument when it comes to changing social attitudes. And our conclusions so far leave us in no doubt that the educational system is perhaps the most promising instrument for bringing forward future generations of children who will grow up knowing about the nature of our plural society, about its many minority cultures, as well as about the diverse origins and many borrowings of its dominant, white culture. 'Prejudice', it has been said by Hazlitt 'is the child of ignorance', and teachers have a unique opportunity to dispel present ignorance, and with it, present prejudices. The logic behind the emphasis we have laid on educating all children to this end, and behind the phrase we have used to describe the sort of education we look forward to, namely 'Education for All', will be obvious.

7.3 As we have seen in earlier sections of this chapter, social and economic deprivation, exacerbated in the case of the ethnic minorities by racial prejudice and discrimination on the part of society at large, accounts for a substantial part of school underachievement, where this occurs. But it does not account for all of it. There is a further part, the causes of which must be sought elsewhere. As we have pointed out, a large number of factors have been suggested as being responsible. Moreover, throughout the large amount of oral and written evidence we have had from individuals and groups within the ethnic minorities and elsewhere, a special emphasis has frequently been laid on racial prejudice and discrimination within the educational system, and particularly on the low expectations that teachers may have about the achievement of West Indian children. Disappointingly, research evidence does not, so far, point decisively to which factors are the most important. Rather, as we have said earlier, it points to the complexity of the issues involved, and the likelihood that many different factors are involved. This is not the first time that research and common wisdom have been at odds. Research tends to take a long time to reach a fair degree of certainty, and neither it, nor any human endeavour, can achieve complete certainty. But wherever truth may ultimately seem to lie, all the factors which have been suggested are ones that impinge on ethnic minority children. Teachers, therefore, more than anyone else, have the opportunity to help be it in the way they teach, in their relations with parents and families, and in their relations with minority communities. As James Cornord, one of our members, points out in his perceptive 'Note on Research' (Annex G):

'Many of the recommendations of this Report are, as it were, acts of faith, based upon experience and commonsense. If, as we hope, they are implemented, they will become hypotheses to be tested to see whether or not they have the good results we expect.'

8. Summary of main conclusions

8.1 West Indian children on average are underachieving at school (Section 2). Asian children, by contrast, show on average a pattern of achievement which resembles that of White children, though there is some evidence of variation between different sub-groups (Section 3). Bangladeshis in particular are seriously underachieving (Annex C). Such evidence as there is suggests that of the smaller ethnic minorities, some are underachieving and some are not (Part IV). Averages, of course, conceal much variation. There are West Indian children who do well, as well as Asian children who are underachieving. We discuss possible causes for the difference in average achievement between Asian and West Indian children in Section 6.

8.2 Low average IQ has often been suggested as a cause of underachievement, particularly in the case of West Indians. This has long been disputed, and our own investigations leave us in no doubt that IQ is not a significant factor in underachievement (Paragraphs 4.10-4.14 and Annex D).

8.3 School performance has long been known to show a close correlation with socio-economic status and social class, in the case of all children. The ethnic minorities, however, are particularly disadvantaged in social and economic terms, and there can no longer be any doubt that this extra deprivation is the result of racial prejudice and discrimination, especially in the areas of employment and housing. This extra deprivation, over and above that of disadvantaged Whites, leads in many instances to an extra element of underachievement. A substantial part of ethnic minority underachievement, where it occurs, is thus the result of racial prejudice and discrimination on the part of society at large, bearing on ethnic minority homes and families, and hence, indirectly, on children (Paragraphs 4.15 to 4.22).

8.4 Not all of underachievement, where it occurs, is to be accounted for in these terms, and the rest, we believe, is due in large measure to prejudice and discrimination bearing directly on children, within the educational system, as well as outside it. We have received much oral and written evidence on this score, referring in particular to stereotyped attitudes amongst teachers as well as other factors, and these we discussed in our interim report. See also Chapter Two and Annex A.

8.5 We have examined the research evidence about racial prejudice and discrimination in the educational system and their effects on ethnic minority children. We can only say that the findings are inconclusive when it comes to deciding which factors may be important (Paragraphs 4.23-4.31). We are left in no doubt, however, that the issues involved are complex and ill-understood, and that much more research is needed if we are to understand the problems. We include a section on future research at Annex G.

8.6 It will be evident that society is faced with a dual problem: eradicating the discriminatory attitudes of the white majority on the one hand, and on the other, evolving an educational system which ensures that aU pupils achieve their full potential.

8.7 In the short term, the first of these problems is a matter for the law, the government, housing authorities, employers, unions, the Commission for Racial Equality, and many others. But in the long run we believe that it is a matter for schools to bring about this much-needed change in attitudes amongst coming generations.

8.8 The second problem is specifically one for the educational system. A start has been made in recent years, but there is still a long way to go before schools bring out the full potential of all their pupils, and in this context, particularly their ethnic minority pupils.

8.9 This dual approach to one of Britain's most serious social concerns, leads us to the concept that we have called 'Education for All' - an attempt simultaneously to change attitudes amongst the White majority, and to develop a pattern of education that enables all pupils to give of their best.

9. References

1. Figueroa, P (1984). 'Minority Pupil Progress,' in Craft, M: (Ed). Education and Cultural Pluralism. Falmer Press

2. Tomlinson, S (1983). Ethnic Minorities in British Schools. Heinemannn

3. Taylor, M (1981). Caught Between. NFER-Nelson

4. Craft, M and Craft A (1983). The Participation of Ethnic Minority Pupils in Further and Higher Education. Education Research 25.1

5. Tomlinson, S (1983). 'The Educational Performance of Minority Children.' New Community 8.3

6. Tomlinson, S (1983). 'The Education Performance of Children of Asian origin.' New Community 10.3

7. Fogelman, K (Ed) (1983). Growing up in Great Britain: papers from the National Child Development Study. Macmillan

8. Taylor, M and Hegarty, S (forthcoming) Between Two Cultures. NFER

9. Brooks, D and Singh, K, (1978). 'Aspirations Versus Opportunities-Asian and White school leavers in the Midlands.' Walsall CRC and Leicester CRC

10. HMSO (1975) 'Racial Discrimination.' Cmnd 6234

11. HMSO (1981) 'The Brixton Disorders.' Cmnd 8427

12. ILEA Literacy Survey. (1980) London: ILEA

13. Jeffcoate, R (1984) 'Ideologies and Multicultural Education.' In Craft, M (Ed). Education and Cultural Pluralism, Falmer Press

14. Jeffcoate, R (1984). Ethnic Minorities and Education. Harper and Row

15. Mabey, C (1981). 'Black British Literacy.' Educational Research 23.2

16. ILEA (1983) Race, Sex and Class: I. Achievement in Schools. ILEA, London

17. Parekh, B (1983). 'Educational Opportunity in Multi-Ethnic Britain.' In: Ethnic Pluralism and Public Policy. (Ed Glazer, N and Young, K) Heinemannn

18. Coard, B (1971). 'How the West Indian Child was made educationally sub-normal in the British School System.' New Beacon Books

19. Rutter, M and Madge N (1976). Cycles of Deprivation. Heinemann

20. Mortimore, J and Blackstone, T (1982) Disadvantage and Education. Heinemann

21. DES (1984) 'School Standards and Spending: Statistical Analysis.' DES Statistical Bulletin 13/84

22. Coleman, J S (1966) Equality of Educational Opportunity. Washington: US government Printing Office

23. Jencks, C (1972) Inequality: a Reassessment of the Effect of Family and Schooling in America. Allen Lane

24. Brown, C (1984) Black and White Britain: The Third PSI Survey. Heinemann

25. Employment Gazette (October 1983 and June 1984)

26. CRE (1984) 'Race and Council Housing in Hackney: Report of a Formal Investigation.' CRE

27. Nash, R ( 1976) Teacher Expectations and Pupil Learning. Routledge and Kegan Paul

28. Thomas, K C (1984) 'A Study of Stereotyping in a Multicultural Comprehensive School.' Educational Studies 10.1

29. Verma, G K (1980) The Impact of lnnovation: An Evaluation of the Humanities Curriculum Project. University of East Anglia Press

30. Verma, G K and Ashworth, B (forthcoming) Ethnicity and Educational Achievement. Macmillan

31. Blatchford, P Burke, J, Farquhar, C Plewis, I and Tizard, B (1984) Educational Research

32. Smith, D and Tomlinson, S (forthcoming) Factors Associated with success in Multi Ethnic Secondary Schools PSI/University of Lancaster

33. Taylor, M and Hegarty, S. Third Review of Research NFER (forthcoming)

34. HMSO (1967). Children and their Primary Schools: Report of the Central Advisory Council for Education in England. HMSO

35. Johnson, D (1982) 'Educational. Research and Development in Britain.' Ed. Cohen, L. Thomas, J and Manion, L. NFER-Nelson

36. Douglas, J W B (1964) The Home and the School. MacGibbon and Kee

Annex A: Achievement and underachievement: evidence from young people of Afro-Caribbean and Asian origin
[pages 93 - 109]

Introduction

1. It has to be borne in mind when looking at achievement and underachievement that conclusions drawn from statistical evidence are only one side of the argument. The conclusions drawn in Chapter 3 may offer scant comfort to the individual pupil or parent, who feels the issue acutely as 'what is happening to me (or my child)'. The perceptions of individuals give the human dimension of the argument. While those perceptions cannot be added up and set out neatly in tabular form, they provide a reminder of the expectations held of education by individuals and of the realities they see themselves as having to wrestle with to make sense of their world.

2. We want to consider some of these realities now, in order that as wide an audience as possible has the opportunity to share them and to understand that there is much still to do, if ethnic minority children are to be given a 'fair deal'.

Part One: Evidence from students of Caribbean and African origin

1. The quotations which follow are selected from the oral evidence of 18 students brought together by the National Union of Students from universities in different parts of the country and following a variety of degree courses including law, anthropology and education. They had been educated in state schools as far apart as Harlesden and Huddersfield, Birmingham and Croydon, Leeds and Newham. Some had progressed from the lower streams of comprehensives in inner urban areas, others through the A streams of suburban areas where 11 plus selection for grammar schools still exists, and at least one student had attended an otherwise all-white rural school. The value of this evidence, we believe, is that it comes from academically successful students in universities, polytechnics and colleges of education; not from pupils who might be expected to bear a grudge against the education system. These students were particularly well placed to compare their experiences with those of their peers who had not 'made it' in education and to assess the range of factors that influenced their own educational progress. Their perceptions of the reasons underlying 'success' or 'failure' present another dimension of evidence - the human reality behind the statistical research.

2. Headings and a linking commentary are added to group the quotations into some of the many factors raised in the discussion.

I School factors

a. Experiences of school - the situation of Black children

'... I was the only one with a hint of a tint in an A stream in my year and the majority of black children were in the bottom stream ... but why was it that all these black children were in lower classes, there must be something wrong ...'

'The same thing happened with me, I went to a comprehensive ... and ... all the children that passed 11 plus were in the top stream the majority of the black kids were in the bottom two streams and that obviously affects their whole performance through the school.'

'I also think it affects the children's self-image ... I am a classic example because I was put in a low stream when I started school and when I came first in class I was quite amazed because I thought the teacher was doing me a favour because he liked me. And when it happened on numerous occasions and I eventually reached the top stream, all the time I kept thinking I should be in the bottom stream because I still haven't got that capability because all the black kids up to then were all in the lower stream ... Like on prize-giving I still never got in coming first [in class] any kind of recognition in terms of prise, but I got prizes for sport and dance.'

'... Those children in the lower streams end up unemployed or on the dole and other kids see that and think, well, that's what will happen to me.'

'The type of education that the black kids are given is so limited it is usually in the direction of the arts, that they can never have the chance to become doctors or scientists ...'

'I feel my education is lacking. I have got a whole bunch of O Levels which are all commerce, history, social studies, but no maths no science ...'

'I think that's down to the streaming because when I was at school I couldn't do the science because the sciences were taught to the top groups and all the blacks were in the bottom groups. So your education is restricted in that sense.'

'I feel that a lot of black kids lose out in terms of the kind of science (or) maths teacher they get. I know this is a problem that happens to white kids as well. But since money and prestige in the science department is far greater than in social studies, where most of the black people tend to tail off into. There is a lot lacking in the primary schools towards black kids.'

'You are holding back the black society from going further ... to become part of an industrialised society.'

'It is expectation again because Asians have always been recognised as having a valid civilisation whereas people from the Caribbean have not, so it is a racial expectation which is different.' ,

b. School experience - teacher expectation and teacher attitudes

'People like us who make it through the system ... the teachers will say ... 'But you are different', instead of changing their attitudes about black people they make an exception of you ... They don't make an assessment that ... perhaps we might be a bit wrong about this,'

'... The teachers expect very little of coloured children and that is why they are put in the lower streams.'

'I was in the top set in school but even ... I was excluded from school, and to this day I am not sure why, you see, because I didn't turn out for a voluntary lesson after school or because they said I was rude. I was excluded for a whole week ... I missed all my classes and I stood outside the office, and it was at that time that I realised that some of these children are having a hard time. Because you stand outside the office, teachers pass you and you hear 'This is another rude boy'. You just stand there, you don't have to do anything, you have your lunch and come back and stand there, day after day after day. That sort of thing should not happen.'

'In my sixth form there were a lot of white children who would play truant just as much, the point is that ... they get a letter from their parents, their parents say they were ill or whatever and that letter will go straight through. On the other hand it is always the black child who did it, the point being that you have written this letter and have signed it, and they will probably ring home to see if your parent has agreed to this. It's a sort of suspicious attitude which they show towards you.'

'If you want particular instances, I was sitting in the sixth form once ... white children had truanted - they had missed an entire lecture ... and some black kids had been playing cards during a free period. The ones who had truanted were just told off, the black kids had letters sent home, had threats about what was going to be done.'

'I think once they get involved with the police ... it creates a bad feeling in school because the teachers reinforce certain ideas they have about black children ... once the police have arrested you they assume you are guilty ... and the teacher will go on that premise that you are a crook, therefore ... you can't be trusted.'

'Yes ... when my brother was picked up he was then accused at school by the teacher for stealing something out of her bag. That was about two weeks after he had been picked up.'

'Yes, when I went to a school to observe, I was in the staff room and one teacher came in and said, "Oh, so and so was causing a lot of trouble - she pinched some one's book, as a joke". So the other teacher said to her, "Oh, you have got to be careful of her you know, she was picked up the other day by the police and she is a bloody kleptomaniac". Already they had labelled her.'

'... if the kids are spending so much time in prison and police custody they have very little time to pay attention to school, I mean that affects them if they think they're going to be hassled - that disillusions them with the whole school system, because often the teachers when they come up to give reports they are going to give "Oh, yes, that kid used to be so disruptive in school and so naughty" - that's just the kind of back-up the kid doesn't need. So it works both ways, the school could help black kids who get into trouble much more. I mean - a lot of black kids get into trouble because they are truanting because often the lessons are so boring, the teachers are not giving them any stimulation ...'

'My brother and some of his friends were picked up ... and that sort of destroyed the whole family atmosphere for a year and when the court case actually came up the police were unable to come ... hence went another six months ... at the end of it the judge says "I can't see any evidence that these boys did these things, they seem to be reasonably intelligent and respectable boys". And all because they got very good references from school and my mum made a lot of fuss.'

'I went to a comprehensive school which was quite small, 600, and I went there the year after it opened ... and I was the only black pupil in the top stream. My sister came in the year afterwards. Because I was doing so well, obviously she was going to do well ... and all the attention was put on her. When she got to her A Levels the teacher was taking bets on what grade she was going to get and which university she was going to go (to).'

'... in my first year I had a black form master and his attitude was always to get all the black guys around and counsel us as to our work ... push us forward to work ... all the black boys although we were in the A stream we all came in the first ten ... but we had another teacher, he took us for chemistry ... in the fifth form ... (and) was also my form master, now he wasn't really bothered whether or not we got on, ... he didn't really help us.'

'Yes we need them in the teaching profession, but we need them as black people not as black in colour ... There is an important difference ...'

'You find a lot of black teachers who go into the school system they end up teaching on the same sort of basis as a white teacher, because they haven't got much choice right, because they are not in a position of authority. That's how they have been trained. When they try to do anything different, they just get called up before the headmaster and he says you are not teaching by our curriculum that we have set out so you have to curb what you are doing. He hasn't much choice if he wants to keep his job ...'

c. School experience - identity, race and culture

'... I'm not West Indian, .. but I consider myself black now, and I am half and half. But I made it, absolutely perfectly through the system, through grammar school, 11 plus, university OK ... I personally denied my blackness, because that is how I made it in the system ... I wasn't taught anything about myself as a black child or a child that was not necessarily white, except I was sometimes held up as the nicest token coloured girl. I lived in a nice middle class, country rural area ... It wasn't until I left university and actually faced the reality of going out and getting a job and things like that did I actually recognise that there was something wrong ... I couldn't now go and get a really good job unless it's ... to be a teacher or get involved with the race relations industry, because I am not going to make it in a successful sense as whites are supposed to make it ... and the way I was brought up to think I could achieve.'

'... in secondary school, ... up to about the third year I was white minded in so far as I didn't know anything about being black and I came to realise when I was about 18 and these guys started throwing these Black books at me and assuming that I knew them, and I didn't and I felt so ashamed. And then it was that I knew that my background and my education had been very limited, because I knew nothing about it. Yet all the time within myself! thought I was very Black, I mean I went to Black parties and none of my friends outside school were white ... I had considered myself Black. Here I was at 18 and didn't know anything about Africa or the West Indies or anything.'

'also it is a matter of materials, the kinds of books used in primary schools for black children, and the kind of cultural references they have are totally inadequate and alienating for a black child.'

'In a lot of books you will find lovely pretty pictures, but the pictures are white postmen, white businessmen. You never see a black postman, you never read about a black family, you never read about black scientists, black whatever. It is always white. If you can't really identify yourself with something that you are learning then it is going to kill the incentive in you to learn or go further.'

'... the books are the first stage of your learning, the primary school plays a big part in what (children) conceive as the society ...'

'... things like Noddy where the little black boy goes and nicks his car, what a terrible little black boy, poor Noddy all sympathy for Noddy because this little black boy comes and nicks his car. All black boys must be naughty, they do bad and terrible things.'

'the kids don't have a choice of the books they look at anyway.'

'Self image is very important and the point is that OK a few people make it through the system, but then you can say OK there will be other factors that have helped us ... but look at the majority of others that haven't.'

'Also you say that we ... have succeeded ... , but I look back ... at the years that I have wasted and that's what makes me really angry ... I could have been learning so much more ... spending hours with things which are totally irrelevant to me and to what I want to do with my life as a black person.'

'It is of special importance to us because we are West Indian but ... why the system should be changed is not just for black people but white kids are getting a biased impression as well; it could help towards a multiracial society, truly multiracial ... to start to understand each other ...'

'I'm doing this post graduate teacher training course and we do a multicultural education option. And the headmaster has got a school in the North of London and his school is all white ... he said up until recently he didn't see any reason why he should have a multicultural prospectus, curriculum, there was no reason to. "We haven't got a problem we have got no Black or Asian kids" ... He was seeing the school as a sort of autonomous body and totally divorced from society as a whole, until one day he was walking down the corridor and he heard one of the boys come out with what he thought was a particularly racist comment. And he suddenly thought something has got to be done, because they are going to go into the outside world and ... mix with black people, whether they like it or not. So it is relevant for both black and white children.'

'The problem here is this idea of multiculturalism which has been brought down from above somewhere and the idea blacks were still supposed to be interested in Rastas, in reggae, and mangoes and coconuts. They do not see the correlation between the other cultures in this country. In terms of Asians, they are here for the same reasons that West Indians are here, they have different cultures but they have a common struggle. That is, multiculturalism is not recognised, they are recognising the difference but they are not recognising the common struggle which is the problem of housing, education, police and the society. And if teachers were to be sensitive to that I think they could go a lot further ...'

'We hear about (our) history as slavery ...'

'... it's like Africa never existed until ... the white man came and civilised everybody.'

'That phrase "the Europeans brought civilisation", that phrase should be cut off, it should never be taught at school, it implies heavily that their ancestors were inferior.'

'... they should be careful what kind of books they have and the use of words like "primitive" and "tribal" and "civilisation", I mean those continue to reflect or give the black , kids inferior concepts of themselves.'

'You want to point out to children really that the black contribution to the world is just as valuable as the white contribution. We just get it from the white angle all the time.'

'... the slant, ... it affects not just blacks but the whites as well. Whites get an inferior sort off eel towards black children. My class at school, and I was at the top of the class, but when we did history and the slave trade, it was embarrassing. I felt as if I shouldn't be there, even though on paper I was as good as the person sitting next to me. It was the slant not so much as the history itself, you know.'

'Exactly, I think the slant of it is very important and ... looking where history books come from and the kind of people that teach them, it goes right through to university level. Even ... where special courses arranged for African history to be taught it was always white ex-colonial lecturers ...'

'... looking at the curriculum as it stands now ... Egypt is in the curriculum for all first years in most of England ... look at the way Egypt is taught and you would get the impression that all Egyptians are white.'

'... If I had put down that the majority of Egyptians in the early stages of the Egyptian dynasty were black in an exam, that would have been marked wrong. So what do I put? That is a denial of my identity.'

'... nobody ever correlates ... that Egypt was black ... the correlation between African and Egypt, and Egypt and Greece, and in Greece the Western civilisation, and nobody ever makes that correlation that Africa has contributed to the western civilisations and is probably the basis of it.'

'Who is teaching the teachers? My degree was in anthropology and I was taught by an ex-colonialist and it was primitive tribes in the Sudan. It's the university lecturers and the lecturers in the teacher training colleges they are the ones who are teaching ... the teachers and the subsequent lecture lecturers ... so not only is it the course content but it is also the teachers themselves and who is writing the textbooks.'

'If you are looking for people who are going to be creating resources for black people to be using, those people will have gone to those universities and if they have been dealt rubbish like that then the amount of work that they have got to do to overcome that mis-education is massive ...'

'... if there were special courses in African whatever, or West Indian, it must also be introduced into the curriculum when it is valid, and not just something special that black people can have as an option, so that they can take it as an exam and it is a valid piece of paper.'

'And it goes right across the board in things like geography as well.'

'... they are teaching like multicultural education but in such a passive way ... it's lip-service to it really.'

'Like yesterday we were discussing language and the fact that language in the classroom can be very racist and sexist ... most of the students could not understand why this lecturer was making such a big deal about ... certain words such as blackmail, ... although they can be taken at this very simplistic level, there are other words which do have much deeper meanings that do affect the self image of the black child. There was so much debate going on ... people couldn't see the implicit assumptions and sometimes the explicit assumptions that are being made by teachers in the type of books they use. You can take the word golliwog which is a figure on a jam jar but when a racist calls you a wog they are not calling you a bottle of marmalade, they are calling you something more, ... yet here were these 200 people who are going on to be teachers and they were totally unaware that there was a problem.'

One student introduced the question of reading as basic requirement for education, and this led to a discussion of the language of West Indians.

'When I finished my O Levels we were helping some of the children to read in class and some of them were black ... one particular child ... was 11 or 12, he had a reading age of 5. As far as I could see, not being a doctor, he wasn't mentally sub-normal ... quite a few of them have passed through the system without being able to read - a basic necessity ...'

'That's dedication on the part of the teachers. Teachers have such an amount of time to spend on each individual child, ... if a child is very slow with reading, the teacher is not going to spend the time in my experience. So it means I couldn't read ... it was in the West Indies. Another teacher went out of her way to show me basics ... now that is what is needed in schools for any child ...'

'I would also say it's a question of language as well, I mean that West Indian is faced with two dialects which they have to overcome, and sometimes you get a teacher who categorises a child who speaks with let us say a Jamaican accent, or pronounces words in a Jamaican way ...'

'... I had such a low self-image because I had a bad primary school education where I came last the whole time, because I had just come to England and my Jamaican accent was very pronounced and most of the teachers didn't understand me.'

'... English and speaking it reasonably correctly is a necessary thing, therefore I think that that should be basic, I don't think you should ban patois ... but we live in this country right, therefore in order to succeed it's no good talking patois when you are going for a job and if you are not dealing basically with black people ...'

'I don't think it ought to be denied, I mean if a child starts to speak in the classroom, not on his essay, but in the classroom to the teacher in a Jamaican way or whatever, it shouldn't be put down ...'

'... language is part of the curriculum ... and in terms of dialect in Creole that we speak, in terms of English in the English Department, in my experience I wanted to speak in dialect and I was stopped and dialect should be part and parcel of the curriculum because it is a question of recognising the cultures within the school and how they want to express themselves, and how they perceive themselves ... so if we actually deny the existence of dialect or patois or Creole in school we are denying (the culture) ... and I feel that a lot of teachers feel inadequate in terms of all the cultures that exist in school and they find difficulty in trying to cope with it ...'

'I think in drama you could find patois or Creole could be very effective in the English teacher understanding the West Indian Creole ...'

'... they want their children to get through the educational system within Britain ... the only way ... is by becoming as anglicised as possible and that means denying all your sort of cultural connections and that means speaking in a way that everybody else will recognise as standard English ...'

'... it seems to me a sad state of affairs when even in the West Indian home kids are discouraged from speaking patois, I mean my parents they were concerned about getting me through the system. If! broke out speaking patois in the home they'd tell me "No, you have got to learn to speak this way automatically because that's the way people speak to get on".'

'They force white middle class values on you, that's the only way they think you can succeed.'

a. Parental attitudes

'One thing we felt was very important is the sort of different attitudes that West Indian parents have to schooling. Like, for instance, in the West Indies parents consider that you should send your child to school and it is the duty of the teachers to teach children ... Therefore perhaps they don't really expect the problems that occur ... like if you are in school here and you are not working, ... quite often teachers just let you get on with it ...'

'... Working class parents, particularly West Indian, put all their trust in the educational system for their children. They think that the teacher will educate the child and we are not really involved in that, we get them to the school, you teach them ...'

'... I had what I reckon to be very good parents who knew the way through the system and were willing to fight for me.'

'... my mother ... knows a certain amount about the system ,and therefore she isn't going to sit down and watch anything happen to any of us. She will go down there and will tell them what's what.'

'If the parents are very very persistent they will get something done, but if the parents don't know the system ... they don't know how to get around it.'

'... I know of two incidents where parents have been told that their children need special schooling, ... in the end it turns out to be an ESN school ... it was put into such luxury language that the parents were totally blinded ...'

'The thing is that there are certain housing policies which put black people into certain areas, thus they go to these certain schools, that is the point.'

'... you can see very clearly not just in high immigrant areas ... the majority of black kids will be sent to one school ... and white kids go to the other schools and the educational facilities at some schools are decidedly better than the others ...'

'... I know ... you write down on the list of where you want your children to go first, second, third choice. But then if you don't get your choice, well bad luck.'

'The policy of these schools, you see a lot of children do CSEs they don't push O Levels ...'

'In my case it is due to my parents, and in a lot of cases it is due to the child losing its identity as a black child and sitting down keeping quiet, taking everything that is put to him or her ... because their fighting ability has been killed as they grow up. So (they) just do the work. And when they get to the top if they do ... they are only black in face. They haven't tended to look back and to pick up their brothers and sisters, they are only there as a figurehead.'

'There are some people that just learn to play the game, you realise how it works and you think well, if I want to get on, ... this is how I have got to do it, you don't have to become totally Anglicised ... you don't have to lose all identity, some people do. You don't have to, you learn to switch the system to how you want it. I met a lot of people at university who said, "We are doing this because we want to prove that we are better than the white person".'

'It means you have to work ten times harder if you are not conforming to get through, if you want your own identity you have to work that much harder.'

'... many black students who make it to university make it through evening classes and ... college, not necessarily from the school they went to.'

'Another thing ... a certain number of people would like to get back into the system into education and they find it very difficult to get into it again because of lack of grants. Therefore to do evening classes ... would take a sacrifice on somebody's part and working and trying to support yourself is difficult.'

'You should get data from schools, if you were to ask your headmasters to write down how many blacks go up to university, directly from school ... you will have your data there straight away ...'

'I know teachers know how many blacks there are in the sixth form and how many go to university because there are very few, I was one. They are usually outstanding in a sense because everyone knows them - this is the prise black boy, he will go far, ... so people will remember them.'

'I tend to feel that we are exceptions to the rule therefore it is more important for us to say why we think the others won't make it ... because I had what I reckon to be very good parents who knew the way through the system and were willing to fight for me. I had brothers ... who had been through the system already, had been to grammar school ... to university. You can't hope to make the environment of every child the same as ours was.'

'That's why individual statements from all of us would be useless, because the most important thing is to identify the areas that need to be changed ...'

'We are black, we have made it. We have made it at a loss in many cases or we have made it with a fight and usually since we were young children the fight wasn't ours ... in my case it was my mum, in a lot of cases probably the parents, in a lot of cases probably older brothers and sisters.'

'And it might just be sheer motivation, you might think well I'm going to prove that I can do just as well as the next person ...'

'If you look for a clue or a common factor, you can see that the common factor is self realisation among everyone that the system works against you. And whether that self realisation is given by your parents or your brother, anything, you realise it sooner or later and you work.'

'... we have a pretty realistic attitude to what's going on in society therefore we attempt ... to use the system to our advantage.'

'The type of advice I was given by my careers teacher at school ... when I started to become a lawyer was "Work in Woolworths where you can meet people" ... I was so amazed I couldn't be bothered to say anything else to her.'

'I had the same thing, when I went to see my careers adviser I said I wanted to apply to university and before that I had wanted to go to teacher training college and he told me not to run before I could walk, no sort of encouragement at all ...'

'I didn't have (encouragement) to go to university either, I was told to do something like HND or something that would far better suit my ability.'

'... I was leaving comprehensive school and I wanted to go to sixth form college. I was pushed into lots of different jobs - building, welding, car mechanic, ... it just wasn't on that I should go, they felt I should leave and get a job.'

'I think it is that careers officers tend to say to a black person "We all know black people are good with their hands so you find yourself something to do with your hands".'

'I didn't have that experience because ... I just asked him about universities, I didn't bother to ask him anything else because I knew what I was going to do therefore I didn't ask him for any advice.'

'I feel I didn't really want to go to them because I heard so many stories about them like one guy he wanted to be an engineer, and they put him in a factory as a machine operator. And other people wanted to go to university and the careers office just laughed at them. I didn't go ...'

'Change the system.'

'That is generally what we want, we want the system changed. Barring that we want the curriculum changed by the schools at a young age.'

'... I wouldn't want positive discrimination in a way that made black kids somehow special, so that they are seen as targets by their white classmates. I mean, that is bad positive discrimination where the two kids are getting on well together. Not problems, not similar to Head Start or the compensatory education ...'

'Like positive discrimination in the sense that you are actively making teachers aware of other cultural things, like that type of positive discrimination - where you actually decide to spend money on educating teachers.'

1. The quotations that follow are taken from a series of over 200 individual interviews conducted with youngsters in the Leeds/Bradford area, in the course of Dr GK Verma's longitudinal study of ethnic minority adolescents. The quotations are not taken exclusively from interviews with Asian youngsters, although the sex and ethnicity of each youngster accompanies each quotation. We should point out here that the term 'Asian', which is used as a general category in the statistical evidence, can be misleading in view of the widely differing religious, linguistic, social and cultural traditions and the different experiences of the various groups from the Asian sub-continent. The interviews from which these quotations are taken were recorded during the period 1980-83 and were fully transcribed. The perceptions and attitudes displayed in these quotations were similar to the ones given at a number of forums conducted during the course of this Committee's work.

2. These quotations are offered with the minimum of editorial comment but have been set out under three main headings: Home and family, School and (Un)employment/Further Education.

I. Home and family

a. Parental support expectations

i. Indian Boy. 'Well the only reason he (his father) came over was to get a better education for his children. I don't want to let my father down - his sole ambition was to come over here and educate his children because the education in India is non-existent.'

ii. Indian Girl. 'To do well you need a good relationship with your parents - good relationships with the family as a whole. I think if you have got your parents and the family you can face anything in the world. That's my belief.'

iii. Pakistani Boy. 'The only reason anyone comes here is that education is better, it's free and in Pakistan pupils have to cross rivers and walk miles a day. Here there is the luxury of buses. So we come here for education so we can go home and say we have got a qualification and get a job and settle down and that's it. That's the whole point in coming here, I think.' (NB This boy's intention to return home was atypical).

iv. Pakistani Boy. 'Asian parents are really looking towards a good future for their sons, they are the base of the family. Actually the girls do the housework, but it would help if they are educated, but they don't rely as much on them as they do on sons.'

i. Indian Boy. 'I am proud of being English, but I am more proud of being Indian. I don't agree with my Mum and Dad hardly ever, but if it comes to the crunch I am more Indian than I am English. I think that my kids will be very western but they will never forget their own culture.'

ii. Indian Boy. 'There is the stuff like arranged marriages and so on. I disagree with that, but that doesn't mean that I am totally 100 per cent against it - I am against it 90 per cent but because of my parents you know - like, say you found a girl and fell in love, well I'd ask my parents about it first if I did want to get married.'

iii. Pakistani Boy. (asked whether he'd seen any changes in the community) 'It just depends on what type of families you look at. 'Cos my Dad gives me more freedom, you know he doesn't care if neighbours say something or talk about something. He sort of argues against them and he sticks up for me, whether I am wrong or right. But the next door neighbours, if there is anything their family does wrong and somebody tells them about it they get really angry. Like my friends, when they see all these ladies and women and all this English sort coming down to our house, they start getting funny ideas about what we are doing.'

iv. Indian Girl. ''I'd do exactly what my parents have done to me because I think it's very important to keep one's culture; to be identified because when you live in a society it's very important to belong to a society. If you don't belong to something, then you are cast out and get lonely and it's very bad for you.'

v. Pakistani Girl. 'I had two interviews with the careers teacher and they asked me what I wanted to do. I said helping old people and nursery nursing and so on. Then they told me to go on work experience. My parents don't allow that, they say work experience is mixed for girls and boys and my parents say it's no good thing being with boys because boys are ... boys are different than girls.'

vi. Pakistani Girl. 'I could have been a nurse - there are girls who take City and Guilds who go to different hospitals in Bradford. But if I took on nursing I would have to wear a skirt which is against my religion. I'd like that very much.'

vii. English Girl. 'Obviously Asians don't get as far as we do because of their families and religions - especially the girls - the girls marry at an early age. Their parents say to them that you should get married and have a family and stay at home. You don't see many Asian women at work as you do English. You tend to see them more with children just staying at home. I think some of them have got used to the English culture. I think they must have felt a lot of resentment.'

a. Perceptions of their teachers

i. Pakistani Girl. 'The teacher didn't get on well with me neither, 'cos I was Asian and we only had about two or three Asians in our group. She always picked on us or something.'

ii. Sikh Boy. 'Things which should hold me back in life are being ... because I am Indian, that is a disadvantage. Some teachers have very poor expectations of all Asians.'

iii. Pakistani Girl. 'You try to humour them (teachers) ... they treat you as though you are from another planet or something. If you get on well with them they stop hating you ... but you have got to try first. If you start putting a barrier between them and you, they hate you more, so you have always got to try to be on your best side for them.'

i. Pakistani Boy. 'The careers teachers were trying to get me into engineering and forcing me, and they were saying don't stay on at school, it's bad for you, you will never make A Levels and discouraged like hell they did. You really got put off and the only thing that keeps you going is your friends who say 'don't listen to them, you'll do all right.'

ii. Asian Boy. 'Nobody really bothered about the careers teacher, to be quite honest; because what she said was a load of codswallop anyway.'

iii. Pakistani Boy. 'The Careers Officers asked me why I don't want to take up agriculture as my career. He said that my father comes from a rural area of Pakistan.'

iv. English Boy. 'Yes there was a weekly careers. They had a careers teacher there and you had a careers interview. I don't know how often it was, I can't remember. But to be quite honest I thought they were a waste of money, they were no help at all - I suppose to others they may be - but to me they weren't.'

v. English Girl. 'Well there was a careers teacher at school and we used to go and see her about once a week. But every kind of job we said we wanted, she would try and put us off.'

i. Indian Girl. 'When I was in junior school I never bothered about my colour ... Since I have come to this school I have encountered a lot of racial prejudice and I realised that I was this colour, and it was this colour that was making them so horrible to me.'

ii. Tanzanian Girl. 'Well some people, that's what I don't like, some people are really against you, racialist mostly here (at this school) ... and it's just that I don't like it. It's just people's attitudes ... Being Indian, I think that is a disadvantage.'

iii. Indian Girl. 'One girl in the fifth form, she picked on me and she kept on picking on me every day. I just kept on ignoring her and then she pushed me down the steps. I told the Headteacher and he took her and told her off. She said if you tell the Headteacher again I'll kick you in again. And she kept on doing that to me again. So I told my parents and they went up to school and told the Headmaster.'

This section on school would be incomplete if it were to be confined to illustrations of pupils' perceptions. Therefore, the following quotations, taken from interviews with teachers, are presented to offer an illustration of the type of stereotyping of ethnic minority pupils, which some teachers engage in, either consciously or unconsciously. Such stereotyping, as epitomised by these examples, is likely to have an adverse effect on teachers' interactions with pupils, with all sorts of attendant consequences for the latter's educational achievement and, ultimately, life chances.

i. Teacher. 'There is a certain tendency amongst some of them (Asians), to believe that knowledge and ability can be boxed and taken down from a shelf, and the ingredients of that box can be put in front of them and all that they need to do is to soak it up, recharge themselves like a battery with academic standing; that's very sad because there's a great tendency to believe among the Asian community - to think sheer diligence is sufficient, and it is not.'

ii. Teacher. 'They (Asians) approach their ambitions with the hopes of obtaining a particular post or particular places, and yet academically they are not bright enough, so that they set their aims too high, and although a school will try very often to indicate this to them, they don't really want to know and therefore they switch off.'

iii. Teacher. 'We have no distinction in this school between pupil and pupil, that's our first objective ... I should have put it - if all the Asians ... evaporated tomorrow, it would not make a scrap of difference to the curriculum.'

iv. Teacher. ' ... the people (Asians) you are talking about, their sons and daughters, finish up in this school in classes which are non-examinations or bottom CSE. They rarely have sons and daughters who are going to be bright GCE candidates, and it isn't the fault of the education system, and it isn't the fault of Western civilisation - it's inherent in life.'

a. Jobless

i. Indian Boy. 'Now I have been rejected from so many jobs, all I want to do now is get a job. I am asking people what is the fault with me: why can't I get a job?

ii. Pakistani Girl. 'Yes - I feel really funny now,like going down to the Job Centre. I don't even like to meet my friends sometimes because they all know what they're doing, don't they. Look at me, I'm here, I've done nothing really. Before in school I used to be the one who knew everything, but now I feel as though I don't know anything. I don't like to meet them a lot.'

i. Indian Boy. 'I remember seeing some of the applicants, and prior to that my Mum and Dad used to say that racial prejudice exists and I used not to believe them because of my friends and the teachers. As soon as I started to experience this situation where I was short-listed and did not get the job, I started feeling sort of rejected and bitter.'

ii. Pakistani Girl. 'You see they offered this work at You know, at school, there were five of us who applied for it. Three Asian girls applied for it, including me, and two English girls. And ... accepted the two English ones and said no to us and I don't think that's fair.'

Although a substantial proportion of youngsters interviewed held the belief that better examination results lead to better job opportunities, a number who had left school and found work discovered that academic qualifications were not the only criteria used by employers during employee selection.

i. Pakistani Boy. 'I have been reading all the papers you see. You need experience, you have got the qualifications, then you need five year's experience behind you. Experience is vital really, apart from qualifications as well.'

ii. Pakistani Boy. 'Well, first is that I don't have any experience. Secondly is that they wanted someone who knows about the thing, and sometimes is a matter of age. Sometimes they make you take a test; you might pass or fail. You don't know; but they say you haven't succeeded.'

i. West Indian Boy. 'A year is quite enough in the sixth form. I don't think I would stop on two years because when you are 18 - they would want experience, and in some jobs it's not brains you want, they wouldn't want you at all. Experience it's experience what counts, in some jobs. And besides, they would want you at 16 if they want brains or such. That's what I think anyway.'

ii. Indian Boy. 'Basically what I am trying to do now is staying on in the sixth form so that people think the lad's not losing interest, and so that when I go for a job I can say 'Well look I am in the sixth form!' I am in a situation whereby I am willing to leave if I am offered a good job, but I'm not going to be too choosy. So I stayed on in the sixth form so as not to be regarded as a 16 year old who had left school with virtually no education. 'Cos people who leave school with 5 O Levels get a job, it is very seldom that they don't, and that is why I stayed on in the sixth form. And also I took A Level economics, history, geography and general studies.'

iii. West Indian Girl. 'I think a lot of people choose the sixth form because of the job situation, because they didn't want to go through the dole and things. I think it's depressing seeing your friends on the dole anyway - you don't want that to happen to you. Stay on, even if it's just for the year. You do it 'cos you think you might as well, because you are not given anything else.'

iv. Pakistani Girl. 'I could have stayed on but you see the way things are with Asian people at school, with girls - they have been baddies at school really. You know, my parents - some people told my parents about girls, how they have been at school. So my parents have got the idea you see, of girls, how they are at school and how they are at home you see. So my parents, that's why they didn't tell me to stay on a bit further with my courses you see. That's why really. It's one of the main reasons.'

v. Pakistani Girl. 'They (her parents) think that you know there's no jobs nowadays for us so they said that you might as well stay on at school and get a higher grade or, you know, get a higher qualification for a better job.'

vi. Pakistani Boy. 'I want a job where my academic effort is valid ... I don't want to be regarded as a shopkeeper; I would do that anytime. If I had known that, I could have messed about in the fifth form, no effort whatsoever. And they are in jobs - they are in good jobs - which makes me feel degraded when I stand next to them and yet they have not got any O Levels.'

vii. West Indian Boy. 'Most of my friends who have got jobs are English - well, white - they've got the jobs probably because they are white. 'Cos all my mates who are Asian or Black as it were, they have gone back to sixth form.'

1. It is evident from these quotations that the struggle of young people of Asian and West Indian origin in British Society has many dimensions; it is closely bound up with many social, educational and institutional factors which impose numerous disadvantages. Underachievement may have its origins in the very beginnings of schooling - whether in nursery school or infant school - where preconceived attitudes to children's ability, racist or ethnocentric reading books and the treatment of misdemeanours can give a child a negative picture of himself and his place in the wider world. And these disadvantages become cumulative as the child progresses through the system.

2. The dilemma in which these young people are placed is an extremely difficult one. Their parents have by and large found themselves on the lowest rungs of the ladder of British Society. This has led to great pressure from the family for success in the second generation. Prejudice and discrimination both in school and in the wider society add to this pressure. In order to overcome these adverse factors, many of these young people stressed their determination and need to do exceptionally well in school. But even success in the educational system is not without its problems: it does not necessarily lead to social and economic success, and if teachers' perceptions of ethnic minority pupils often appear to be a hindrance to effective educational practice, the discouragement or suppression of aspirations by teachers and careers advisers may result in a profound alienation between these pupils and the educational system.

Annex B: Results from the School Leavers Survey 1981/82
A Paper by DES Statistics Branch
[pages 110 - 118]

Introduction

1. This paper presents a summary of the results obtained from the Department of Education and Science's School Leavers Survey for 1981/82 on the educational qualifications, age on leaving school and destination in respect of a sample of children from specified ethnic groups. The survey collects data on the age, sex and numbers of all young people who leave school during a given academic year and, for a 10 per cent sample of such leavers, information relating to their educational (academic) qualifications and their intended destination on leaving school.

2. This latest exercise, presented here, broadly replicates that which was conducted in respect of the School Leavers Survey for 1978/79, the results of which were published by the Committee in its interim report 'West Indian children in our schools' (1). For the earlier inquiry, six LEAs with high concentrations of children from ethnic minority groups who, between them, were believed to account for approximately one half of the school leavers of ethnic minorities in this country, agreed to cooperate with the committee and ask all maintained secondary schools in their areas to complete an ethnicity question contained in the School Leavers Survey questionnaire relating to the 10 per cent sample of leavers.

3. Because of the degree of interest accorded to these results, the Committee asked for the renewed cooperation of the authorities in carrying out a repeat exercise to be conducted under the auspices of the 1981/82 School Leavers Survey. The main teacher unions, local authority association and the Chief Education Officers of the LEAs concerned were again consulted and all but one of the LEAs agreed to cooperate. The results contained in this paper thus relate to five authorities.

4. The response to the School Leavers Survey was again of a high order with approximately 99 per cent of the school leavers from the 5 LEAs being allocated to one of the nine specified ethnic group classifications. As a result, information on qualification and destination was obtained on 1317 Asian, African or West Indian school leavers. The Asian category was composed of five sub-groups: Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, East African Asian and 'other' Asian; the last sub-group included children for whom a more precise category was either not appropriate or was not known. None of these sub-groups contained a large number of school leavers and consequently the results for individual sub-groups are subject to considerable sampling error. In general, because of the small sample sizes involved differences between sub-groups in their characteristics are not likely to be statistically significant and therefore the results presented in this paper refer solely to the combined Asian group.

5. The West Indian group contained 653 school leavers and constitutes a group which is referred to in the tables and commented on in the text. The small numbers of African or undifferentiated West Indian/African leavers have been combined with those leavers whose ethnicity was not recorded to form a third, specified, group under the heading 'all other.' The following paragraphs accordingly present results for these three Asian, West Indian and 'other' category groups and compare them individually with, firstly, their combination - which forms a group of all leavers from the 5 LEAs - and with the overall results for all children leaving maintained schools in England for 1981/82.

6. In order to maximise the usefulness of the data collected by both School Leaver Surveys, the results put forward in this paper show the information collected by the 1978/79 survey reworked onto the five LEA basis. Only very small differences have occurred between these summary results and those previously published.

7. A note on the compilation of sampling errors and of the likely statistical significance of any changes in proportion between the results of the two surveys is given in the Appendix to this paper.

Main results

Age of school leavers

8. Table 1 shows the percentage distribution by age - at the beginning of the academic year during which the children left school- by sex and differentiated between the specified categories of school leaver. Those aged 15 at the beginning of the academic year are normally in the fifth form and attain school leaving age during that year and those aged 16 are normally in the first year sixth, and so forth.

9. The Table shows that girls, noticeably those from ethnic minorities, are more likely to stay on at school past the school leaving age than boys. Half of Asian school leavers do so after completing at least one year in the sixth form. These results suggest that West Indian children, more especially the boys, increased their propensity to stay on into the sixth form and that for this group they are now almost as likely to stay on to the sixth form as the group formed by the broad range of non-specified ethnic leavers. However, only 12 per cent of West Indian children stay on into the second year sixth, or later, compared with 25 per cent of Asian children and 17 per cent of all English school leavers. For all school leavers from the five LEAs, taken as a group, compared with the average for all school leavers in England, both boys and girls tend to leave school at the school leaving age with less frequency but then to participate to a greater degree in only one more year of study taken in the sixth form. The proportion of children staying on to the second year sixth and beyond is very nearly the same in the five LEAs as it is in England generally.

Destination and type of course to be followed

10. Table 2 shows the percentage distribution by destination of school leavers. It shows that only 1 per cent of West Indians went to university compared with 5 per cent of all maintained school leavers.

11. There was a statistically significant increase between the two surveys in the proportions of each ethnic group pursuing some form of full-time further education on leaving school (other than a degree course). This was more marked for ethnic minority school leavers than for other leavers. Asians and West Indian children were much more likely to leave school to follow full-time further education in 1981/82 than were the 'other' leavers within the five LEAs and as compared with all maintained school leavers generally. Accompanying this rise there was an offsetting, and statistically significant, decrease in the proportion of children in all school leaver categories leaving for employment.

12. Whereas 10 per cent of all children in England leave school to a destination not known by their Headteacher, one fifth of leavers from the 5 LEAs exhibit this characteristic. For Asian school leavers, the proportion was 28 per cent.

Table 1 Age of school leavers from maintained secondary schools

Table 2 Destinations of school leavers from maintained secondary schools

Full-time further education courses

13. Table 3 shows the type of course followed by those entering full-time further education. Only 1 per cent of West Indians were intending to enter degree courses in 1982/83 compared with 6 per cent nationally in 1981/82. There were small increases in the number of Asian and West Indian children leaving school to study A Levels as a full-time course. There was a statistically significant increase across all categories of school leavers in the five LEAs in the proportion leaving school to follow courses other than those leading to A Levels or degrees. Approximately 25 per cent of Asian leavers falling within this category were intending to take O Level courses with a further one fifth BEC/TEC courses compared with one tenth of West Indian children respectively.

Table 3 Further education courses (full-time)

GCE O Level and CSE achievements

14. Table 4 shows the percentage distribution by broad levels of O Level and CSE achievement. It shows that there is no significant difference between the school leaver categories within the five LEAs in terms of the proportion who achieved no graded results but that this proportion is significantly higher, statistically, than the national figure. The major difference between the achievements of West Indians, Asians and other leavers lies in the proportions obtaining five or more higher grades (grades A-C at O Level or CSE Grade 1). Only 6 per cent of West Indian leavers in 1981/82 had obtained this level of qualification compared with 17 per cent of Asians and 19 per cent of all other leavers in the five LEAs. However the increase in proportion for West Indian children between the two surveys is statistically significant.

Table 4 O Level and CSE achievement

O Level and CSE achievements in English language and mathematics 15. Tables 5 and 6 show the percentage distributions by broad level of achievement at CSE or O Level in English language and Mathematics. In English language, 15 per cent of West Indians achieve a higher grade pass compared with 21 per cent of Asians and 29 per cent of all other leavers in the five LEAs. These differences are statistically significant. Further, the proportions for the five LEAs are significantly different from the national average. However the table shows that the proportion of West Indian children achieving no graded result decreased between the two survey periods, matched by an increase in proportion achieving higher grades. These changes are also statistically significant.

16. In mathematics only 8 per cent of West Indian leavers had achieved a higher grade pass in 1981/82, but this represented a statistically significant increase from the 5 per cent that achieved this level of qualification observed in the previous survey. There was no difference between the proportion of Asian or 'other' leavers obtaining higher grades, but this level of achievement was significantly lower than the national average.

17. The proportions achieving lower grade passes, just under half of all school leavers, did not vary significantly between ethnic categories or from the national figure. As a consequence, since only 8 per cent of West Indian children achieved higher grade passes, the proportion achieving no graded result also represented nearly one half of all West Indian school leavers in 1981/82, a proportion significantly higher, statistically, than the proportion of Asian or 'other' leavers.

Table 5 English Language (O Level and CSE)

Table 6 Mathematics (O Level and CSE)

A Level achievements

18. Table 7 shows the percentage of school leavers achieving an A Level pass. 5 per cent of West Indian leavers in 1981/82 compared with 13 per cent of Asians and as compared with the 13 per cent which is the national average figure, obtained at least one A Level pass. The increase in the proportion of West Indian school leavers gaining this level of achievement from that recorded by the previous survey was statistically significant.

Table 7 A Level achievements

Summary of results

19. Asian children stay on longer at school than other children, and achieve slightly below the national average in overall levels of academic achievement. They exhibit a greater propensity to leave school to follow some form of full-time further education and are only slightly less likely to go to university or sit a degree course.

20. West Indian children, more especially the girls, also tend to stay on at school longer than other children (excluding Asian children). They also tend to go more frequently than the average child from school to some form of full-time education course - but not to university or to pursue a degree course - and to have obtained a lower general level of academic achievement at school.

Appendix: Sampling errors

1. The information contained in the paper is drawn from the School Leavers Sample Surveys for 1978/79 and 1981/82 for five LEAs with high levels of ethnic minority school leavers. Because the data was not collected from a random selection of LEAs in England no probability statements concerning the characteristics shown by ethnic minority school leavers in England as a whole can be made from the sample. All statements in the text refer solely to the characteristics shown by the sample of ethnic school leavers within the purposively selected LEAs and all comparisons between sub-groups are subject also to this limitation.

2. Because the data was collected through a sample survey (approximately a 10 per cent sample), the proportions shown in the tables are subject to random sampling error. The effect of this is that a difference between estimates obtained from the sample and the 'true' population value being estimated can be expected. (Here the population is limited to the leavers from the five LEAs for the reason given in paragraph 1). However, since the sample was randomly drawn, confidence limits within which we would expect the 'true' population value to lie can be calculated and hence a probability statement regarding how likely it is two sample estimates reflect different population values can be made. The method by which this is achieved, together with an example, is demonstrated at paragraph 4.

3. It is usual to present confidence limits of the population value at the 95 per cent level. This means that it is expected that the 'true' population value lies outside the range given by the confidence limits on average only once in twenty times. Other confidence limits are equally possible; narrower limits, e.g. 90 per cent, indicating a reduced degree of belief that the smaller range will encompass the 'true' value, and wider limits e.g. 99 per cent indicating that it would be expected that the 'true' value would lie outside them on 1 per cent of occasions. Where the term 'statistical significance' has been used in the text, 95 per cent confidence limits have been used but this does not imply that other limits are inappropriate.

4. The variance in simple random sampling of attributes is denoted by pq/n where p represents the proportion of the sample exhibiting any desired characteristic, and q represents the proportion who do not exhibit this characteristic i.e. q = 1-p, and n is the sample size. The standard error of the sample estimate is denoted by the square root of the variance, namely:

In order to test whether the sample proportions from two samples (e.g. P_a and P_b) are 'significantly' different then the standard error of the difference in proportion is calculated and compared with the actual difference in proportion between the samples. That is;

where P_o is the pooled estimate of proportion from the 2 samples of assumed common population proportion,

By calculating the standard error of the difference in proportions and by dividing the actual difference by this factor provides an estimate of how likely it is that the sample estimates reflect a difference in the appropriate population values.

5. For example, from Table 4 consider the proportions of West Indians achieving 5 or more higher grade O Level/CSE passes. From the 1978/79 survey sample size is 718 and proportion exhibiting characteristics is 3 per cent and from the 1981/82 survey sample size is 653 and proportion exhibiting characteristic is 6 per cent. Hence, standard error of difference in proportion is:

A difference between the estimates of proportion exceeding (1.96 x 1.1 per cent) = 2.2 per cent would be statistically significant at the 95 per cent level of confidence. Since the actual difference in proportion is 3 per cent it can be concluded that there was a significant increase in the proportion of West Indians achieving 5 or more higher grade O Level/CSE passes between the two surveys.

Footnote

(1) Cmnd 8273 June 1981

Annex C: The education of Bangladeshi children in Tower Hamlets
A background paper by the Education Officer, Inner London Education Authority
[pages 119 - 125]

A General background

1. Although Tower Hamlets has received immigrants from Bangladesh (formerly East Pakistan) for many years, the arrival of Bangladeshis in significant numbers dates from the early 70s. Initially, almost all those who came to Tower Hamlets settled in the western part of the Borough, mainly in the Spitalfields area. Despite the gradual increase in the number of Bangladeshi children admitted to the primary schools serving that area, there was no real pressure on school places at that stage. Declining school rolls throughout Tower Hamlets ensured that there were generally sufficient places for these children in the schools nearest to where they were living. By the mid-70s the school population in a small number of schools in Spitalfields had already become predominantly Bangladeshi.

2. Up to 1975 the majority of the children of school age coming to Tower Hamlets from Bangladesh were of secondary age, mainly teenage boys who came to join older male relatives already settled and working in the borough. Most of these new arrivals attended the one secondary school serving Spitalfields. From the mid-70s onwards, however, the pattern of immigration began to change, with more and more of the men already here being joined by their wives and younger children. Since most of these families settled in the western part of the borough, pressure on places in those primary schools which already had most Bangladeshi pupils became increasingly evident and difficulties in placing children occurred more frequently.

3. Although there were alternative schools with vacancies in adjoining areas fairly close to Spitalfields, Bangladeshi parents were clearly reluctant to send their children other than to the nearest schools to their home. This was perhaps not surprising bearing in mind that the children did not speak English, had only just arrived from Bangladesh from a rural community and often had no previous experience of school. In addition, there was evident fear on the part of the Bangladeshi community of women and young children being subjected to harassment and physical and verbal attack on the way to and from school. Some alternative schools - often little more than half a mile from their homes - involved journeys through areas which were viewed by the community as 'hostile territory' or involved crossing busy major roads, especially frightening for women and children who had no previous experience of an urban environment and of heavy motor traffic.

4. In the past three years more and more Bangladeshi families have been rehoused in other parts of Tower Hamlets outside the Spitalfields area and the number of schools which have admitted increasing numbers of Bangladeshi children has correspondingly grown. The recent language survey (June 1983) indicated that pupils for whom English was a second language, the majority of whom are Bengali speakers, represented 80 per cent or more of the roll in 6 schools and more than 40 per cent of the roll in a further 21 schools. Although the heaviest concentration of Bangladeshis remains in the western part of Tower Hamlets, the community is now settled in significant numbers both in the centre and eastern parts of the borough.

5. The Bangladeshi community is affected by racism in many ways. Some of these are quite outside the responsibilities or powers of an education authority. The areas where the ILEA does have responsibility are to do with the security of Asian pupils from various forms of harassment and abuse in school; with ensuring equality in the employment and promotion of staff from this and other minority groups; with the attitudes and low expectations teachers sometimes have towards the educational potential of Bangladeshi children and towards the quality and validity of Bengali culture. The authority's initiative on multi-ethnic education and racial equality throughout the ILEA area is a positive move to make major changes both structural and attitudinal to improve the position.

B Language/communication/school placements

1. Many of the Bangladeshi children in primary schools and a growing proportion of those entering secondary schools, speak a Sylheti variety of Bengali, but relatively little English. The 1981 Language Survey showed that Tower Hamlets had 3,200 Bengali speakers, which was 15 times as many as the average number in the other divisions. Tower Hamlets also had 1,530 children who were complete beginners in English. Twenty per cent (2,440) of all the pupils in the division were either at the beginner or intermediate stage in their mastery of English. The average for the other divisions was six per cent. The great majority of the pupils at these early stages of English learning are Bengali speakers and are in schools in Spitalfields and adjacent districts. Over twenty schools in this area have a majority of Bengali speakers and several have over 90 per cent.

2. Very few staff, whether teaching or non-teaching, in schools with a large proportion of Bengali speaking pupils actually speak Bengali themselves. This linguistic disparity greatly impairs the quality of communication in the classroom and other forms of communication, such as liaison with the parents, which are essential to the running of successful schools. Hence the major thrust and concentration on language within the authority's initiatives in this area.

3. One of the major obstacles in dealing with the placing of children in schools has been the difficulties encountered by schools and the Education Welfare Service (EWS) in communicating with members of the Bangladeshi community, for the most part non-English speaking. In recent years efforts have been made to recruit Bengali speakers to teaching and non-teaching posts in schools and to posts in the EWS. In May 1981 a Bengali speaker was recruited as an interpreter for the EWS in Tower Hamlets and subsequently an Asian Team, comprising a Senior Education Welfare Officer, 3 Education Welfare Officers and a team clerk - all Bangladeshis - was established. In addition a further 3 Bengali speakers have also been recruited to the basic EWS posts in Tower Hamlets and a second interpreter post, already authorised, will shortly be filled.

4. The addition of these Bengali speakers has ensured that the EWS is able to give more support to the Bangladeshi community in Tower Hamlets. However, school placements still remain a critical issue, because of the demand from the community for places in a relatively small number of schools, which are generally full and because of the mobility of the Bangladeshi community. There are no institutional means by which EWS can know of children out of school: they are dependent for this information on parents presenting themselves at the school of their choice to request a place. In these circumstances and especially bearing in mind the very short stay of some families at their first address in Tower Hamlets, the task, of following up children out of school is a particularly heavy one. The figure of primary children 'out of school' known to EWS is about 100 at anyone time, although the majority of these will be very recent arrivals. There remains, nevertheless, a number of children who remain out of school for at least a term because of the refusal of parents to consider suitable vacancies in alternative schools and where negotiations between EWS and the families are inevitably protracted.

5. Although there are sufficient secondary school places overall, there have nevertheless been some difficulties in placing pupils, particularly those who arrive in Tower Hamlets during the course of the school year when the number of schools with vacancies in the appropriate year group may be very restricted. Additionally the demand for single-sex schools, especially for girls on religious grounds has resulted in some pressure on girls-only schools and has led to a situation where the sex balance in some mixed schools has become distorted.

C Growth of pupil numbers and provision of additional school accommodation

1. As the pressure on primary schools increased from 1978 onwards as a result of the continuing, growing immigration from Bangladesh, action was taken by the authority to make extra places available, particularly in Spitalfields and the adjoining area south of Commercial Road to meet the needs of the Bangladeshi community. The additional places have been provided by:

(a) bringing into use existing spare accommodation;

(b) releasing accommodation on primary school sites by relocating other educational users;

(c) the minor adaptations of buildings or the provision of hutted accommodation.

3. As far as secondary schools are concerned there has not been the same pressure on places. Overall there are sufficient secondary places available to meet current needs, bearing in mind that it is accepted that secondary pupils will normally travel further to schools.

4. The following points are important when considering the provision of additional school accommodation:

(a) Primary schools

(i) Reluctance of Asians to travel

Asian mothers are reluctant to take their children any distance to school. This is of critical importance in the planning of primary school provision in areas like Spitalfields in that the planning has to be based on a smaller area than would normally be the case. The Department of Education and Science normally require LEAs to calculate the basic need for primary school places on a three mile radius. Experience in Tower Hamlets is that Asians will travel less than ¼ mile if the journey involved is through what they consider to be an unsafe area. This means that a detailed knowledge of the relevant geographical and social factors is essential in order to ensure that the school accommodation needs of the Asian community are met. The willingness of the Department of Education and Science to consider a relaxation of normal requirements in recognition of the particular needs of the Asian community in this respect has been welcomed.

(ii) Need for small group spaces

Non-English speaking children need more intensive teaching in small groups and this has accommodation implications. A recent brief for a new 210 place primary school includes 4 small group rooms each of 12m². In addition existing buildings are being examined with a view to providing extra small group spaces in schools with a large number of Asian children. Care needs to be taken that the small group rooms are quiet and in the design of new accommodation generally. Architects need to ensure that the children will feel secure. Infant play areas, for instance, need to be well protected and segregated from the more boisterous juniors whilst being closely linked to the infants' classrooms.

(iii) Size of classes

The Authority normally bases primary school planning on class sizes of 30. In open plan schools or in small schools which lack small group spaces, class sizes of 30 are not considered adequate for teaching non-English speaking children. In assessing the capacity of primary schools in Spitalfields, class sizes of 25 rather than 30 are used for those schools with a high proportion of non-English speaking children. This gives a capacity for the schools in Spitalfields of 1,105 compared with 1,470 by conventional planning methods, thus illustrating the considerable extra space requirements for the teaching of non-English speaking children.

(iv) Sanitary provision

Separate boys' and girls' toilet facilities need to be provided for infants as well as juniors in schools with a high percentage of Asians as well as separate boys' and girls' changing areas.

(b) Secondary schools

The most important consideration is the marked preference amongst Asians for single-sex schools particularly for girls. This needs to betaken into account in planning secondary school accommodation in Tower Hamlets.

D Resourcing of schools' curriculum and language needs

1. In addition to the language factors in the curriculum referred to above, there is a need to change aspects of the curriculum as well. At present most Bangladeshi children study a school curriculum that has not been designed with them primarily in mind. This is not to imply that Bengali children or children of any other ethnic group, should follow a curriculum that is unique to them; nor that Bangladeshi parents are asking for anything special or separate for their children. Nor is it suggested that teachers and lecturers in schools and colleges have not already made many adaptations, both in the content and in the linguistic presentation of the curriculum. But the Authority recognises that there is still much to be done to ensure that the school curriculum engages adequately with the social reality and the cultural strengths of Bangladeshi children's lives. Much work is actively in hand.

2. The additional needs of the Bangladeshis in Tower Hamlets have been recognised in the resourcing of schools. Although the basic resourcing of all schools is roll related, additional resources are allocated according to needs, determined by the Authority's primary and secondary school indices (which place schools in a ranking order on the basis of a number of measures of deprivation, e.g. fluency in English, ethnic family background, free meals eligibility, large families, one parent families, parental occupation, mobility, behaviour and by the Language Survey (which records the number of pupils for whom English is a second language (E2L) and the stages of pupils' language development). From 1983, indices have been altered to include for the first time a specific E2L measure which has resulted in a further shift, within overall allocations, of resources from parts of London with fewer E2L pupils to divisions like Tower Hamlets with high numbers of E2L pupils. In terms of teaching posts, Tower Hamlets had an additional 60 full time equivalent special needs posts for primary and secondary schools for 1983/84 over the allocations for 1982/83 (the 1982/83 allocations, in turn, showed an increase of 57.2 posts over the allocation for the previous year). Since the cash allocations to schools under the Authority's Alternative Use of Resources Scheme (i.e. money which can be used to purchase additional teaching or non-teaching staff or capitation items) are based on roll and schools ranking in the primary and secondary schools indices, Tower Hamlets schools overall received more than £250,000 additional resourcing for 1983/84 in real terms over the allocations for 1982/83. The following table shows the level of English fluency of Bengali speakers:

*Pupils in primary and secondary schools only - nursery and special schools not included. (Taken from the 1983 ILEA Language Survey.)

E Tower Hamlets Initiative

1. Conscious of the need to improve education support to the community in Tower Hamlets the authority made provision in its 1983/84 Budget for a major new initiative. This was seen as having two main objectives:

(a) To link the process of education to the needs of families and young children, providing increased opportunities for learning English language skills, developing mother tongue teaching and involving the parents in the education of their children.

(b) To provide increased opportunities for young people and adults, through in-service training and curriculum development support for work in E2L and mother tongue teaching, piloting skill-based courses in mother tongue, developing general access courses and in partnership with local youth organisations, making a significant extension of youth provision.

F Careers and unemployment

1. The needs for early identification of potential E2L candidates in secondary schools is a major factor in Careers Service work as it has far reaching effects on employment prospects. Even the highly qualified are less likely to find employment if English is their second language. Sometimes accent rather than command of the English language constitutes a handicap.

2. There is a need to develop language tuition for the older teenager. Since many Asians do not arrive in this country until the teens and may have sporadic attendance at school the problem persists into adulthood. As a result, language is a major obstacle to effective Careers Service work. Although the authority has both Asian careers officers and support staff there are none who speak Bengali or more particularly the Sylheti dialect. This hampers good communication with some youngsters and even with parents. To help in overcoming this language problem certain careers service literature is printed in Asian languages.

3. The absorption of young leavers into the extended family and family business reduces the number of unemployed registered with careers offices. The size of the unemployment problem is thus hidden and the extent of under-employment becomes immeasurable. Female unemployment is almost entirely hidden with many young Asian women becoming isolated within their traditional cultural role in the home. The traditional approach to finance, with money set aside for dowry and/or higher education is breaking down as funds are diverted to support growing unemployment throughout families. Girls in particular tend to suffer because of this.

4. While Bangladeshis suffer from the same problems as other Asian groups, they also face added difficulties. As a generalisation, fewer attain the better academic qualifications normally expected of Asian youngsters as illustrated in the following table:

Achievement in public examinations (1981/82)

An analysis of a sample of school-leavers in ILEA shows marked differences in the achievements of the Asian groups. The numbers are relatively small and have been divided into two broad categories comprising the following groups:

Lower:

not entered
no grades
one or more CSE grades 4 or 5

one or more CSE grades 2 or 3 or O Level D or E
one to four CSE grade 1 or O Level A to C
five or more CSE grade 1 or O Level A to C

5. There is a high absentee rate from interviews at school with careers officers. The explanation appears to be that many return to Bangladesh for extended stays, while some are believed to be working on family contracts, usually in the garment trade, restaurants or shops. Those who do find jobs outside the traditional openings are often restricted to unskilled manual jobs (of which there are fewer and fewer available) as they are hampered by language.

6. While language seems to be the biggest disadvantage in employment it is equally true to say the cultural differences in the Moslem community create the severest problems for Asian girls.

G General comment

As full ethnically based statistics of pupil performance do not exist, it is difficult to assess Bangladeshi pupils performance as compared to pupils from other ethnic groups. Nonetheless, it would be unrealistic to claim that Bangladeshi pupils in this area generally leave school for example with exam results comparable to those of their indigenous peers. That is not surprising as a substantial number of those factors which are generally accepted as adversely influencing educational performance are present in relatively extreme forms in Tower Hamlets. In addition, the length of time spent by pupils from Bangladesh in schools is often quite short and even those pupils who have been in primary schools before transferring to secondary have often had their schooling considerably disrupted by extended 'holidays' in Bangladesh. Many 'new arrival' entrants to secondary schools from Bangladesh have had no formal schooling whatsoever up to that point. These factors are obviously exacerbated by these pupils' lack of competence in English. Statements about 'poor performance' (often allied with claims about how schools are 'failing') tend to be made too readily. This is said in full recognition of the dangers of 'low expectations' of such pupils' performance and without seeking to deny that further special efforts need to be made to help them make up ground on their peers, against the background of their extreme disadvantage. It is in recognition of the need of such special efforts that the authority is taking the exceptional measures shown in this paper.

October 1983.