Education and Ethnic Minorities: The Political, Institutional and Professional Responses in the United Kingdom

Abstract

The thesis starts with an account of the post-war changes in the ethnic composition of the British population including an estimation of the racial and ethnic mix of the school classroom. Basic terms such as "race", ethnicity and culture are defined and the concepts of a multi-racial, multi-ethnic and multi-cultural society are considered. The ideologies of assimilation, integration and cultural pluralism, and their relevance to the British educational system, are examined. A specific analysis of the political and institutional responses to the educational "needs" of ethnic minority children is conducted against the background of a dominant ideology of "assimilation" in the nineteen sixties and early seventies. These responses are further discussed for the period from the late nineteen seventies to the mid nineteen eighties, an era characterised by a shift of emphasis from assimilation towards ethnic diversity and cultural pluralism. The implications of these changes for the education of children from ethnic minority groups are considered. The second part of the thesis is concerned with the issue of academic achievement and assesses theories connected with the debate over "heredity versus environment" and their consequences for "racial" differences and measured intelligence. The significance of a variety of other factors such as language, identity and teachers' expectations is also discussed. Different conceptions of multi-cultural education are considered with an analysis of the factors related to the origins and initiation of such policies in British schools. The major criticisms of multi-cultural education are stated and their implications for the implementation of multi-ethnic educational policies are examined. The final section of the thesis describes the development of multi-cultural education in an Inner London school during the period 1978-86. With the use of both participant observation and survey analysis the response of teachers to multi-cultural education initiatives is presented. The finding of the survey on teachers' attitudes are analysed in connection with the definitions, objectives and the implementation of multi-cultural education