Teachers expect less from black students

The Guardian reported this morning that 'teachers expect black middle-class pupils and their parents to be far less interested in education than their white middle-class counterparts.'

Researchers at the Institute of Education, University of London, spoke to 62 black Caribbean parents about whether their race and social class made a difference to their children's school experience. The parents told the researchers that, despite the fact that they have similar academic qualifications to their white middle-class counterparts, they found that teachers treated them differently, assuming them to know less about their children's education.

The Guardian goes on to report that, 'to counter this, some of the parents said they dressed particularly smartly when meeting teachers, while others said they ensured they knew more than other parents about education issues. One said she modified the way she spoke when she was at school governor meetings.'

The parents said they felt teachers expected their children to perform less well than white middle-class pupils.

One of the parents, Eleanor, a social worker, told the academics: "You find it helpful sometimes to use your status, what job you do …people [then] treat you differently."

Jean, a college lecturer, said that at school governors' meetings "we're all sort of speaking the language, I call it the language of Whiteness … It's like you've got to be part of that in order to communicate in certain situations. So the governing body communicates in a very white, middle-class language … They forget themselves and start making these derogatory remarks about parents and … [I] sort of [sit] there thinking 'oh, so this is it'. [You] see very much what their core beliefs are."

Dr Nicola Rollock, of the Institute of Education, one of the study's authors, said racism was a reality for many black middle-class families. "Parents recognise it as less overt than when they were children, but nonetheless [it is] pervasive in more subtle and coded forms," she said.

"White middle-class parents often presume an entitlement to a good education for their children and [an entitlement] to educational success. Black middle-class parents are there to protect their children and insist on high standards," she said.

"Their own negative experiences of school, the labour market and wider society, on account of their race, means that they recognise that they do not have the same security of entitlement as their white counterparts. Black middle-class parents with whom we spoke often find it necessary to actively demonstrate their knowledge about education, their interest and their capability as parents to white teachers in order that they be engaged with as equals."

This study titled 'The Educational Strategies of the Black Middle Classes' will be discussed on Monday at a conference for academics and policymakers. The findings will be published on the Institute of Education's website.