Race, Class and Attainment

“It’s all right to tell a man to lift himself by his own bootstraps, but it is cruel jest to say to a bootless man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

The educational attainment gap is one that represents and is entirely intertwined with social factors such as class, wealth, living circumstances and race. It’s not that kids from a ‘certain background’ are idiots or that they lack potential, despite the stereotypes that burden them. Let’s talk about classism, racism and how various –isms come to play in the gap that separates equally bright or capable children from achieving the same academic and accordingly, career success.

The EEF’s most recent report outlines how the attainment gap is prevalent from early years consistently to secondary school and beyond. It also emphasises that the gap is a historical trend in the data, which means that the process in closing it will also take time. However, the gap is currently narrowing at too slow of a pace.

The report focuses on disadvantaged children, which refers to pupils who have been eligible for free school meals in the past six years, classified as ‘Pupil Premium’ pupils. These pupils can also be those who are looked after by authorities or are in service families. This criterion was developed to measure economic disadvantage and allocate government funding to schools with these pupils as a result. It is these pupils, along with those who have special educational needs, that statistically have the lowest academic attainment. It is easy to observe figures and statistics, then come to conclusions (i.e. generate stereotypes and prejudice) about young people whose lives they just do not understand. Simply put, hungry children can’t focus. The schools they attend may be short on resources and have over-crowded classrooms. They’ve skipped breakfast and can’t afford lunch. The teachers may be disinterested and often act as the igniters of a child’s self-fulfilling prophecy of failure, if their parents don’t do it first. They may also come from dysfunctional or broken homes. An interest in crime or gang culture, for instance, may outweigh their interest in school. The list goes on. If these young people finally make it to the point of their lives where they must choose whether or not to pursue higher education, it isn’t always the eager, exciting experience most consider it to be. At this point many of these teenagers ask themselves why they would want to apply for university, especially the top universities in the country.

First of all, young people, particularly those who are ethnic minorities are not oblivious to the feeling of being unwelcome and segregated, regardless of how many smiling black and brown faces are put on the university brochures. It has become common knowledge now that minorities are ‘overlooked’ in top university selection processes. In 2015, 1 in 3 Oxford colleges failed to admit a single black British A-level student. Not even one. This unspoken norm that we’ve all internalised as typical can affect students’ decision to even bother applying to finding out more about top universities. But regardless of if universities improve their admission policies, which many have made recent efforts to do, this does nothing if students still aren’t applying in the first place. Aside from the attainment gap, extremely bright disadvantaged students may not be motivated to apply to top universities for a range of reasons.

If no one else in the family has progressed to university before, not only can they be ill-informed about crucial knowledge such as the application process, personal statements, student loans, interview or audition advice, league tables, career opportunities post-graduation and more, but can be discouraging or contemptuous towards the concept of higher education as a whole. Their parents may not know the differences between universities to help with a dilemma or may urge them to go directly into finding a job. Now the motivation for reaching university lays mostly in the hands of their school/college that lack sufficient advice and rather encourage alternative higher education options: internships, job-seeking fairs and vocational courses. The school’s UCAS advisor or teachers are also nonchalant and don’t expect that the student will achieve their target grades, thus say “think a bit more realistically”. The Sutton Trust found that 40% of state school teachers never or rarely advise their brightest students to apply to Oxbridge, claiming they “wouldn’t be happy there”. This isn’t a total lie, but I digress. These students don’t have the money to pay for train tickets to visit different university campuses and find out more. They manage to go to a couple, and realise everyone in these cities are – yes, you guessed it, white.

For many disadvantaged young people, the concept of making it to any university is one that is a distant, funny possibility, let alone one that is known for being where only ‘posh kids’ attend. It is simply out of the question. The self-fulfilling prophecy that because of who they are – despite their academic potential – they are not ‘supposed’ to be in certain environments and have certain achievements is a mindset that unconsciously burdens and limits them for a lifetime. No one talks or thinks about its prevalence, so it has become extremely normalised. So, what happens when disadvantaged young people (or simply POC, however race and class create an important intersection) do get into universities? In terms of race and university life, Annabel Murphy (editor of The Tab) says “The kind of people that go there are often very privileged. They’ve had a lack of exposure to other races and have grown up surrounded by vaguely racist jokes that have been seen as just ‘banter’”. Recently, social media exploded when a fresher at Nottingham Trent shared a video of her flatmates chanting “We hate the blacks” outside her door in her halls. Or the Exeter Law student group chat where boys discussed a “race war”, “being chased by a n****r” and used other slurs such as “p*ki”. Or the Exeter students wearing jackets with swastikas and ‘F**k the Syrians’ on them, on a pub crawl. Or the other Exeter students that wore ‘The Holocaust was a good time’ t-shirts (someone please tell me what is going on in Exeter). Or the Anglia Ruskin rugby student who wore blackface and called himself Serena Williams. Or just any fancy dress party, ever. 

Institutions receive reports of racism or discrimination frequently, but often fail to act unless accusations or videos go viral on social media.

Besides the more blatant examples of racism, it is true for many ethnic minority students that university life is extremely trying, beyond the standard challenges of being a student. The lack of representation not only in the student body but in the lecturers teaching (especially lecturers that teach on culture, race relations, slavery etc. that lack understanding or interpersonal sensitivity, view events from a colonial lens, use problematic or racially insensitive terms, etc.) is hurtful. When the curriculum is inherently Eurocentric and the prominent figures within it and those teaching it do not represent or relate to you in the slightest - how would one ever feel inspired to become successful or recognised also in their desired field? Additionally, outside of the school environment, is the city culturally diverse and tolerant? Are we living in buildings and streets named after slave traders? Is there adequate effort from communities to be welcoming? Are cultural societies active in students’ lives - that is if they exist (you’d be surprised how many UK universities do not have an Asian or Afro-Caribbean society, let alone sub/category societies). Do the welfare & well-being programmes as well as mental health services offer effective enough support for ethnic minority students? Are ethnic minority students made to feel as safe and respected as everyone else? It is literally more difficult to secure student housing if your parents are not UK nationals or homeowners. These are issues that no one else has to even think about when choosing to come to university, let alone carry the emotional weight of daily. Feelings of isolation, depression, or insecurity are consequences as much as they are symptoms; there is a cyclical nature of detrimental social and economic issues that result in lower attainment. In 2016, 21% of black students were less likely to be satisfied with their time at university than their white counterparts and only 17% of UK-domiciled students of Chinese background were very satisfied with their university experience. In this light, it is easier to understand why an attainment gap is present even in higher education, regardless of the fact that everyone got in based on meeting the same academic requirements. 

It goes without saying that more work needs to be done to close the race and class gaps in society, which would contribute to closing the attainment gap. These are systems that are historical, institutional and alive. Attacking disadvantaged youth does nothing but promote the already brutal circumstances they face. Widening participation programmes, early years intervention schemes, charities like the EEF, workshops, one-to-one tutoring, changes to school and university admission policies etc. are all important steps. Additionally, for young people to take accountability and have self-determination is crucial. However, the myth of just ‘working hard’, often spewed by those blind to the head-start they were given in life, is thoughtless and frankly, ridiculous, when we don’t understand the contexts in which people live in nor work to dismantle the systems that keep them in these circumstances. We can’t pull ourselves up by the bootstraps if we have no boots to wear.

More links:

The EEF report

https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/evidence-summaries/attainment-gap/ 

https://www.ecu.ac.uk/guidance-resources/student-recruitment-retention-attainment/student-attainment/degree-attainment-gaps/