Why in the UK do black Afro Caribbean boys perform so weakly in school?

Question

The data suggests that Indians of both genders now perfrom bettter than white eurpoeans , yet those from a afro carribean and Bangladeshi backrounds consistently perform poorly. Has the Uk education system let them down?>

Answer 1

Hm, I think this is a really interesting issue. We have observed the same patterns in North America for some ethnic minorities as well. It may extend well past the education system. Some of the theories proposed by psychologists are:

1. self-fulfilling prophecy: the children learn to live up to what society expects of them, and if not much is expected, then that is what they will identify with
2. subculture effects: minorities tend to be pushed into suburbs with poorer conditions, less opoortunities, increased crime rates... this will definitely affect a child's performance in school

Arguably, Indians in London no longer represent a minority population (curry is practically the national dish!), so perhaps that has contributed to the alleviation of negative social expectations, and hence allowing them to improve in confidence, self-esteem, and inevitably, scholarly performance.

Answer 2

Expectations of the students - an earlier posting mentioned the self fulfillng prophecy.
Expectations by parents; many do support their sons but others may only see them as not that bright.
Expectations by teachers; anti discrimination practice has lifted this out of schools thankfully but tackling issues like eye contact needs to be addressed.
The education system, which currently does not give every student its full potential academically.
I highly recommend 'Tell it like it is' which is an update of Bernard Coard's 1971 pamphlet on Afro Carribean boys in education. At the time many were in specialist units and were classified as 'educationally subnormal'. There is hope out there.

Answer 3

A lot of factors are involved but recommended you pick up a copy of, I think its called, England's failure. its about the failure of the educational system with Black students and would be available on Amazon and other main chain stores. Personally , as an opinion, I think it has a lot to do with a lack of black teachers and the procedure for recruiting teachers straight out of Higher education, not necessarily a an indicator of aptitude with young minds.

Answer 4

Its not the education system that has let them down, its their parents. Traditionally indian parents push their children much harder in terms of learning than any other culture. Afrocaribbean families dont seem to take learning seriously (I am generalising as we all know there are exceptions).

Answer 5

These are cultural things, and a bit of genetics.
Black African historic background meant that during midday they tended to have to take life easy, and they tended to be very intermarried and family oriented. When used as slaves they did not tend to wander far and again tended to continue thus, therefore they also have a culture of being laid back. Mixed race children will tend to be a lot more alert and brighter, I had a black American secretary and she used to get real pissed of with her husband and all his friends because they were, as she put it bums, even though she loved him a lot, and they all worked for the US Postal Service.
I guess Bangledeshi might be the same situation.
Marry the child off and create a mixed race child and see what happens. (No I know thats not practical.... or is it!!!)
Whites used to also treat them this way. (Look at the situation with Bantu's in SA)

Answer 6

it is ridiculous. This %. crap has to flow. i come across hypenating to be demeaning and declassifying. If one is an American, they're basically that. do no longer care the place else they got here from. One is the two proud to be an American or no longer. attempting to interrupt it down into one hyphenated record or yet another could be unacceptable. If we give up using them, they'll. And black is black. enable's bear in mind that maximum people who call themselves afro-american have never been to Africa nor have been born there. And Puh-leeze, one is the two from the Caribbean or no longer. Do they actually need to interrupt all of it the way down to afro-Caribbean-American? Or French-Caribbean-American? How approximately Dutch-Caribbean-American? and then if one marries yet another race, can we could upload yet another hypen? Does all of us see how stupid this is? Be an American and be happy with it. flow away the rest on my own.