White British pupils more impacted by poverty

Friday 03 September 10

Recent studies conclude that white British pupils from disadvantaged social classes are much more likely to be affected on how well they perform in school than pupils from an ethnic minority. This gap may be partly explained by the fact that parents from poor white British backgrounds put less emphasis on education as those from other ethnic groups.

Researchers have analyzed official data on thousands of teenagers’ grades between 2003 and 2007. Their findings also show that poor white British pupils are falling far behind their richer white classmates at primary schools and in their GCSE results.

The first study - led by Professor Steve Strand at Warwick University – investigated children from a South London area. According to its results, “White British pupils are the ethnic group most polarized by the impact of socio-economic disadvantage. They are simultaneously both the lowest and the highest attaining ethnic group, depending on the level of disadvantage experienced."

Even if the reasons for this gap remains unclear, Professor Strand explains that “White families of high socio-economic status have more resources to be able to invest in education, such as buying tutors for their children, and they might be a bit more savvy about ensuring that their children go to schools with similar pupils and good results."

Strand’s study highlights that for ethnic families with a low socio-economic status, and especially recent immigrants such as those from the Portuguese, Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities, education is often seen as the most efficient way of increasing social mobility.

On the other hand, the study reveals “if you've been in a white working class family for three generations, with high unemployment, you don't necessarily believe that education is going to change that. All of these factors may combine to make the effect of socio-economic status remarkably strong for white British kids."

Other researchers from the Institute of Education and Queen Mary University (London) also discovered that Chinese pupils from families in routine and manual jobs perform better than white pupils from managerial and professional backgrounds; African and Bangladeshi girls had vastly improved their GCSE grades in the last few years; and globally, black Caribbean pupils have the worst results, while Chinese and Indian pupils have among the highest results. 

Project leader and report author Professor Ramesh Kapadia explains: "This may be linked to cultural aspirations and expectations, as well as parental support for education - as appears to have been the case for Indian and Chinese pupils for many years."

Both studies will be presented at the British Educational Research Association's annual conference at Warwick University this weekend.

By Nora Zirek

Sources: British Educational Research Association; Yahoo News; The Guardian