How Racism Shapes the Experience of Schooling - Case Study Example

How racism shapes the experience of schooling Introduction Much as they would love to, the western world, and more specifically Great Britain, has never been able to provide a comprehensive answer to the problem of racism that has persisted like festering sore on its social fabric ever since the first immigrant of Afro-Asian origin landed on its shores. David Gillborn, in his article “Citizenship education as placebo: standards, institutional racism and education policy” has examined this problem in great detail and has come up with a most disturbing phenomenon called ‘institutional racism’ that has long been vitiating the social atmosphere without ever being identified as a problem that is essentially different both in nature and potential than the interpersonal problem that racism is generally viewed as by intelligentsia across the world. The author has painstakingly described how United Kingdom has long viewed racism to be essentially an interpersonal problem or at the most a problem between two or more groups that perceive the each other as adversaries and the primary reason for some long standing social malaise that happens to adversely affect the agitated group. Since this problem is entrenched between individuals, a possible solution to this problem has always been thought of in terms of influencing interpersonal behaviors through changing perceptions in the minds of ethnic majority about minority stereotypes. (Tajfel & Turner, 1986) However, the leaders of the society and successive governments in Great Britain acknowledged the fact that these misconceptions had become deeply entrenched in the minds of adversarial ethnic groups. Thus, the best way to rid the society of such pernicious prejudices, the governments thought, would be to introduce a school curriculum that would educate school going children in the age group of 5 – 11 about their duties and responsibilities as citizens of a multi-ethnic country. (Ryan, 2003) There have been a series of education policies that attempted to educate, or rather, enlighten the future citizens about their responsibilities and duties both towards the country and towards fellow citizens. (Banks, Multicultural education: Historical development, dimensions, and practice, 2004) Citizenship Education in United Kingdom The first concerted attempts to educate school going children about duties and responsibilities of a contributing citizen began in early 1990s when ‘cross cultural themes’ were introduced in the school curriculum specifically to make young would be citizens aware of what their responsibilities shall be as they grow up to be adults. These themes included a specific section on the characteristics of a pluralistic society that attempted to enlighten the students about the ideal desirable social structure of a multi-ethnic society that United Kingdom has become and the role each responsible citizen has in it. (Banks, 1994) Carrying on in the same strain and increasing the emphasis on cross cultural assimilation, the then Labor Government set up a committee in November 1997, under the chairmanship of Professor Bernard Crick that submitted its report (called the Crick Report) in 1998. But the report failed to tackle the menace of racism head on, instead adopted a patronizing attitude towards minorities and sermonized on how they should try to assimilate with the main stream and show more respect towards the rules of the land. Those that expected this report to throw light on how to eradicate racism from British society were predictably disappointed and were further let down by deliberate attempts made by this report to stereotype ethnic minorities into groups that were prone to stay huddled in closely connected groups that did not want to shed their shady and oftentimes criminal tendencies and refused to honor the laws, traditions and customs of Great Britain. What Professor Bernard Crick possibly overlooked or deliberately did not elaborate was that most members of ethnic minority were second generation immigrants and were born and brought up in UK. Thus this report did not in any perceptible manner try to tackle the problem of racism. (Archard, 2003) However, based largely on the recommendations of the Crick Report that emphasized the urgent need of making children falling in the age group 5 – 11 aware of their future role as responsible citizens and sensing the palpable divide in the society after the terrorist attack on twin towers in New York in September 2001, the then government in UK made Citizenship Education a compulsory part of school curriculum with the hope that future citizens of the country will become more aware of their role in tomorrow’s society that would automatically be free of racial prejudices as the citizens will be more aware of what the society expects from them. (Rooney, 2002) Institutional Racism It is precisely at this juncture that Gillborn forwards his well researched opposition to the potential of Citizenship Education of being an effective tool to fight racism. The author shifts the focus by redefining racism as something not only between two persons or groups of persons but as an inherent bias that is very securely ingrained in many respected and revered institutions (such as police and education system) of the society that imperceptibly but very securely prejudice the interests and future of the vast multitude of ethnic minority that have nowhere else but the UK as their home. (Curtis, 2008) That the police department is steeped in institutional racism became apparent after the publication of The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry Report in February 1999 (Macpherson, 1999) but Gillborn has gone ahead and proved with the help of systematically collated statistical data that education system is also equally to be blamed and plays an equally pernicious role in perpetuating the curse of racism in British society. The problem with institutional racism is that it can never be blamed on a specific individual or a group of individuals and more often than not the individuals involved in perpetuating such an evil practice are mostly unaware of any wrongdoing whatsoever. On the contrary, the perpetrators of such an evil in most of the cases are under the perception that they are doing something that is beneficial to the society. (Mahony & Hextall, 2000) Gillborn bases his argument by citing the inherent contradiction between attempting to improve racial integration through Citizenship Education and simultaneously attempting to improve the overall level of education in Great Britain by exhorting schools to improve their standards. (Youdell, 2003) To motivate, or as many feel, pressurize schools to improve their educational performance, the education department publishes annual performances of schools which are measured by the number of students that have attained five or higher grade GCSE passes during that year. It is but obvious that the prestige and social standing of a school as an educational institution depends entirely on its position in such a list. The school authorities quite naturally try their level best to climb as high up as possible on the list and in the process introduce several strainers to separate the hay from the chaff as it were and categorize their students in three tiers with maximum tutorial attention being focused on the so-called brighter students while leaving the stragglers to wallow in the murky depths of mere passes where obtaining a D is considered to be an achievement. (Hallam, 2002) As expected, most of the stragglers happen to be ethnic minorities that might obtain a D, but as it is below the minimum level of competence that is essential for further studies, would not be able to study any further. Modern day economy is knowledge based and one who is not having sound knowledge is bound to languish at the lower rungs of society where fighting with grinding poverty becomes a daily routine. Thus, the very idea of standards and the practice of publishing scores (more akin to the number of goals scored by a football team) of schools, creates a scenario that is biased against the ethnic minorities and creates a social chasm that is very hard to bridge. (Ladson-Billings, 2004) Just in case some readers might feel that ethnic minorities are inherently less intelligent, a study of scores of children between the age group of 5 – 11 revealed that performance of students coming from ethnic minority background is actually 20 percentage points higher than the average performance of all the students taken together but with advancement in age the intellectual superiority of ethnic students starts declining and sometime around the age of 10 it becomes equal to the overall age. This decline continues unabated as the child grows older and by the time he or she reaches the age of 16, the performance scorecard shows an abysmal record of being 21 percentage points below the overall average. This decline is visible through all sections of ethnic minorities, irrespective of their economic status. (Drew & Gray, 1999) This decline is accentuated by the practice of schools in slotting students in different grades and it has been found (most strikingly when one compared the scores in mathematics) that there is a perceptible bias against ethnic minorities and majority of them are provided a minimal teacher guidance as the maximum energy is channelized towards bringing as many five or more graders as possible in GCSE examination. (Oakes, 1990) This is a clear cut case of institutional racism that is perpetrated by the entire education system without most probably even realizing the harm it is doing the society. The author thus feels that Citizenship Education is a mere placebo that makes all concerned happy and morally satisfied that they have done their bit in improving interracial relations while the ground reality in effect worsens with each passing day. (Younge, 2005) References Archard, D. (2003). Citizenship education and multiculturalism. In A. Lockver, B. Crick, & J. Annette (eds), Education for Democratic Citizenship Issues of Theory and Practice. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Limited. Banks, J. A. (2004). Multicultural education: Historical development, dimensions, and practice. In J. A. Banks, & C. A. Banks (eds), Handbook of Research on Multicultural Education (pp. 3-29). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Banks, J. A. (1994). Multiethnic Education: Theory and Practice. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. Curtis, P. (2008, September 5). Education: Black Caribbean children held back by institutional racism in schools, says study. Retrieved May 2, 2009, from guardian.co.uk: http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2008/sep/05/raceineducation.raceinschools Drew, D., & Gray, J. (1999). The black-white gap in examination results: a statistical critique of a decades research. New Community 17(2) , pp. 159-172. Hallam, S. (2002). Ability Grouping in Schools. London: Institute of Education; University of London. Ladson-Billings, G. (2004). New directions in multicutural education: Complexities, boundaries and critical race theory. In J. A. Banks, & C. A. Banks (eds), Handbook of Research on Multicultural Education (pp. 50-65). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Macpherson, W. (1999). The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry CM 4262-1. London: The Stationery Office. Mahony, P., & Hextall, I. (2000). Reconstructing Teaching: Standards, performance and accountability. Falmer Routledge. Oakes, J. (1990). Multiplying Inequalities: The Effects of Race, Social Class, and Tracking. Santa Monica: The Rand Corporation. Rooney, B. (2002, May 31). Ready for a racial policy? Times Educational Supplement . Ryan, J. (2003, July). Educational Administrators Perceptions of Racism in Diverse School Contexts. Race Ethnicity and Education, Volume 6, Issue 2 , pp. 145-164. Tajfel, H., & Turner, J. C. (1986). The Social Identity Theory of Intergroup Behavior. In S. Worchel, & W. G. Austin (eds), The Psychology of Intergroup Relations (pp. 7-24). Chicago: Nelson-Hall. Youdell, D. (2003). Identity traps or how black students fail: The interactions between biographical, sub-cultural and learner identities. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 24(1) , pp. 3-20. Younge, G. (2005, September 19). Please stop fetishing integration. Equality is what we need. Guardian . Read More