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.

Part IV: Reflections and conclusions
[pages 760 - 763]

Common 'ethnic minority experience'

1. When we first turned to considering the 'other' ethnic minority communities discussed in this part of our report, we expected to find their needs fairly discreet and self-contained with relatively little in the way of common experiences. As is evident from the preceding chapters, however, we found a remarkable number of points of similarity and mutual concerns shared by these groups, many of which had also previously emerged from our consideration of both the West Indian and Asian communities. Taken together, we feel that these shared needs and concerns constitute a clearly defined 'ethnic minority experience'. By way of conclusion we now seek to draw together some of the key aspects of this common experience.

'Ethnic identity'

2. One of the major factors which emerged from our consideration of these groups was the very strong sense of their own 'ethnic identities' which they shared. This appeared to be just as important for groups such as the Chinese, where the majority of youngsters were now British-born, as for recent arrivals such as the Vietnamese. With several groups, great efforts were made to maintain the community's identity through regular visits 'home', where these were feasible, and through quite extensive programmes of community-based provision for 'mother tongue' teaching and other forms of 'culture maintenance'. In the case of the Italian community, and to a lesser extent, the Cypriot and Chinese communities, direct assistance was given by the 'home' countries to such activities. Such criticisms as were made of the curricular diet offered by mainstream schools were chiefly concerned with the risk that an exclusively Anglocentric focus, which appeared neither to respect nor recognise the languages, cultures, histories or religions of ethnic minority communities, might serve to alienate ethnic minority youngsters from their 'roots' thus placing in jeopardy the community's integrity. From the point of view of the relationship between the ethnic minority and ethnic majority communities in our society, it seems clear that none of the minority groups whom we considered is looking for 'assimilation' within the majority community, other than in terms of being fully accepted as equal members of this society. In fact the continuing strength of ethnic identity within these minority groups in our view reinforces the conclusion which we reached at the opening of this report, that assimilation, in the sense of the 'submergence' of minority groups within the majority community, is not only unlooked-for but is also likely to impossible to achieve in practice. The only feasible and desirable blueprint for our future society is thus, as we have proposed, along pluralist lines.

Influence of racism

3. Another clear feature of the 'ethnic minority experience' shared by these groups is, regrettably, the influence of racism on their lives. We ourselves were initially surprised at the frequency and intensity with which, unprompted by us, representatives of these communities expressed their concerns about racism, and by the extent to which racism appeared to cross the 'colour' divide - in that it impinged on the 'white' ethnic minorities whom we considered as well as the 'non-white'. In relation to the 'white' ethnic minority groups, we were also concerned at the suggestion that the potential 'invisibility' of such groups i.e. the fact that they were sometimes not seen as ethnic minorities at all, might lead to any particular, educational difficulties which they might experience being overlooked and therefore remaining unmet. The persistence of racism, even where particular ethnic minority communities have been settled in an area over a long period of time, is evidenced vividly by the situation of the 'Liverpool Black' community which, although established over several generations, still experiences extremes of racial prejudice. The forms of racism encountered by different groups encompassed a range of experiences along the continuum of intentional and unintentional racism which we discussed at length in Chapter Two. Included in these were the racial harassment and violence experienced by the Vietnamese community, and ostensibly less serious incidents such as the racist name-calling encountered by the Italians, which we would also regard as indicative of a negative view of these communities. The Cypriot community also offered a particularly interesting illustration of the wide-ranging influence of the stereotypes of different ethnic minority groups, which we see as such a key factor in racism, with the differential achievements of Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot youngsters in part at least appearing to derive from the very different stereotypes of these two groups. The extremely negative stereotype which exists of the Travelling community and the almost universal hostility and hatred which they appear to evoke from most other sections of society also serves to demonstrate the powerful influence of stereotyping. In relation to the Chinese community, as we have seen, even a positive stereotype can work against a community if it leads teachers to misinterpret or overlook genuine educational difficulties. One further aspect of racism which was evident from our consideration of these ethnic minority groups was the existence of a degree of racist feeling towards other groups, both minority and majority - a point which we made in Chapter Two. Whilst the factors which may have led to these feelings may be rather different than those which have conditioned the views and attitudes of the majority community towards minority groups - we were for example interested in the suggestion that the Turkish Cypriot community may simply have adopted and internalised the view held by the majority community of groups such as West Indians - such feelings are nevertheless in our view still very much to be regretted and deplored.

Educational concerns

4. Many of the points raised with us in relation to the educational needs of pupils from these groups echo the issues to which we have devoted attention earlier in this report. The major educational issue with all groups, except the Travellers, was language - both E2L provision and 'mother tongue' maintenance and teaching. In the E2L field a major concern was the extent to which many teachers appeared to regard a child who required E2L help simply as remedial: lack of English being equated with lack of ability. There was general resistance amongst the community representatives to withdrawing children for E2L help, either within school or at separate language centres, which was regarded as having potentially damaging effects on a child's socialisation and self-image and possibly causing them to fall behind in other subjects, thus in effect condemning them to underachieve. It was generally felt that E2L needs were best catered for by offering support within the normal classroom situation - very much along the lines of the cooperative teaching approach which we have endorsed in Chapter Seven. Many of the E2L specialists whom we met during this phase of our work stressed that all teachers, and not only language specialists, should have a greater understanding of how language difficulties can influence a child's performance and of the need for a 'language across the curriculum' approach in all schools, designed to enhance the language awareness of pupils and teachers. Since many of the children from these minority groups were likely to enter school with at least some knowledge of English, much of the evidence we received focused on provision to meet 'second stage' language needs and to provide continuing language support for pupils, particularly at secondary level, to enable them to cope with the linguistic demands of subject specialisms and of public examinations. In both respects provision was felt to be lacking and it was also felt that examinations in particular tended to use unnecessarily complex and difficult language, thus automatically placing a second language learner at a disadvantage. Inadequately catered for or simply overlooked language needs were generally felt to lead to the possibility of children from these ethnic minority groups underachieving. As we have already noted, the maintenance and teaching of their 'mother tongue' languages was regarded by these groups as a key factor in maintaining their community's distinct identity, and community-based provision was in consequence well-developed and thriving. The references in these chapters to the attitude of some mainstream teachers towards 'mother tongue' provision, serve to reinforce further the concerns we expressed in our Language Chapter about 'linguistic prejudice' - most notably perhaps the perception of the languages of ethnic minority communities as of low status and the belief that any attempt at 'mother tongue' teaching constituted 'back-pedalling' in educational terms.

5. In relation to the rest of the curriculum, as we have already pointed out, concern centred around what was regarded as the Anglocentric bias of the subject matter and the literature studied, to the virtual exclusion of any references to their own background or experiences with which ethnic minority youngsters could identify. The problems which could result from a lack of contact between the school and ethnic minority parents, and the 'cultural conflicts' which can arise for ethnic minority youngsters were also raised by several groups. There seemed to be almost universal criticism of the extent to which teacher training had failed to inform teachers of the backgrounds of ethnic minority groups or to prepare them to adopt a broader approach to their work. Concern about the ability, and in some cases the willingness of teachers to respond to the educational needs of ethnic minority children, had led several of these communities to argue for more teachers from their own communities - an issue which we discussed in Chapter Nine. One final aspect of the educational situation of these groups which is worth drawing out here is the fact that several of these smaller minority communities are dispersed around the country and children are therefore to be found in areas and schools with few, if any, other ethnic minority pupils. The presence of children from such groups in otherwise 'all-white' areas lends weight to our view that 'multicultural' considerations are of as much relevance to such areas as to other, more evidently multiracial areas.

6. All in all, we believe that our findings in relation to these 'other' ethnic minority communities lend added weight and urgency to the proposals which we have put forward for the development of 'education for all' to foster the emergence of a truly pluralist society along the lines we envisaged at the opening of this report.