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Underachievement among Black Caribbean Black Boys Education

By (Name)

Course Code

Instructor

Institution Affiliation

City and State

Date
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Introduction

Recent studies have confirmed that there has been continues increase of underachievement

among the Caribbean boys studying in British school. Referring to the Department for Education

and Skills (DFES) reports, only 39% of the black students can manage to get 5+, which signifies

that the black boys are among the lowest achievers in the secondary level as when compared to

those with minority communities. On the same the DFES also shows that black students are most

likely to be expelled from the school than other group (Lindsay, 2017 p 72-79). Over the last four

decades the achievement of the black boys has been lagging behind while the success of their

peers has been gradually growing after their primary and O levels education. What of the worry

is that, this has contributed to unemployment among the Caribbean people as most of them

become unemployed .The underachievement’s is under question and has also raised emotions

since early 1950s, when the Caribbean community shown concern on their children education

(Jiru 2017 p 164). The literature review examines the reasons as to why black boys of Caribbean

have negative experiences in their secondary education, which is also related to historical under

achievements in the secondary schools.

Demie, (2019pp.1–16) states that the governors, staffs, parents provides little support for the

Caribbean students in the schools. There have no set strategies for tackling the low attainment.

Until in the end of mid –sixties the central government still had no set policies for education for

common wealth countries. The raised concerns were to teach English to the non English speakers

also dispersing the immigrants aiming at preventing individual schools to coup with big numbers

as well as help to facilitate British Society. On the same Birmingham and the London Education

although having a large number of education had also rejected the dispersal policy. The black

Caribbean pupils are so much subjected to institution racism which has drastically undermined
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their chances of the academic success in the regard to the recent study. The teachers are usually

routine under the estimating the ability of some Black pupils, which clearly suggests the

behavior problems are, overshadows the academic talents. The scholars have as well documented

the racial discrimination among the mixed raced schools within the United Kingdom and other

areas in the United States (Chapman, 2019 p.1110-1129).There has been a remembrance

between African American and black Caribbean students in predominantly white suburban and

also in rural secondary schools. The position is just the same to Alexander 2018 n.p who

continues to elaborate that one of the factors affected the Caribbean education. Brissett, 2018

p.197 outlines on the social political infrastructure that affects the Caribbean pupils. There was

an anguish of economical scarcity and crisis resulted to illusion among the black immigrants, and

has been viewed as an invading force for absorbing the resources of the poor immigrants.

Brissett, further explains that there has been a long outstanding achievement in England and is

associated with the social –economic status

A small scale study conducted by Harris and Reynolds 2014 p464-486.suggested that the

ethnic minority and the white majority members had been favored by the diverse curriculum

which was in corporation of global histories. The research suggested that the Caribbean students

had challenges of understanding the type of curriculum that was taught in the schools as it

favored the whites. For instance the white ethnic groups found the history lessons more

repetitive, which covered the Tudor and the Victorian 47 periods. It is also revealed that the

ethnic minority students felt very frustrated seeing that they were not studying any history of

their own heritage such as something about their ancestors.

It is clear that academics recognize that a child peer can also have an impact on the

achievement (Barnett, 2011 n.p). Also a few studies have focused on the academic outcomes as a
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result of the peer influence. Children have a tendency of socializing with those they associate

with, through their dairy interactions over the course in many years, social customs and fostered.

Similarly the children from the Caribbean had experienced a lot of negative influences within the

other Caribbean students which contributed to poor performance in education. For instance most

of the teachers had moved their children from the schools t prevent their children from being

affected from being drawn to the drug culture.

Shankley, 2020 p. 149 discusses that that black Caribbean immigrants were facing a housing

problem which again contributed to under performance of their education. They faced

discrimination and racism abuse direct from the land lords who would refuse to offer them any

kind of housing, the reason because they were much racist and they would as well face wrath

from the indigenous white people who considered the Black people as aliens and would threaten

their way of life hence this would lower their tone of neighborhood. Relatively Lukes, 2019

pp.3188-3206 explains that the migrants had discrimination from the public sector council,

where the they were to have been residents within the council postcode for more than a year

before to be put housing waiting list and then they had to wait for another period of one year

before put in the housing waiting list. This was became very live and a functional bureaucratic

process which clear excluded the public housing to the immigrants and in the consequence they

remained homeless .

The black Caribbean youths and pupils were considered to have an association with hooded

tops to the situation that British politics had homogenically seized the hoodless icon to be the

symbol of crime, and therefore this affected how the black people were perceived by the whites

to the relation to their propensity of committing crime (Butler-Barnes 2018 pp pp.30-41). The

criminal stereotyping had even found their way to school and also influence the way the teachers
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had the perception of the students in the schools and those who wore the hoods as well. In fact

some of the schools had completely banned the hoods without an exception as they were

considered to intimidate and antisocial. Due to this perception the black students were frequently

expelled out of schools, the whites perceived them to have a negative influence towards their

white school mates.

 The black Caribbean children were more likely to have absentee father or have a single parent
house hood as compared to many ethnic groups. According to the Millennium Cohorts study, the
children that age in between 11 86% of the South Asian children lived with their natural parents
(Connelly et al 2014). Compared to the Caribbean children, the figure was significantly lower
than 30%, indicating that the Caribbean children mostly lived with single parents 61%, as when
compared with 25% to the white children. Relatively Runnymede Trust 2014 has the same
figures of the black Caribbean children growing with single families.
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References

Alexander, Claire. "Breaking black: The death of ethnic and racial studies in Britain." Ethnic and
Racial Studies 41.6 (2018): 1034-1054.

Barnett, C. G. (2011). The Perceptions of African-Caribbean boys about their Educational

Brissett, N. O. (2018). Education for Social Transformation (EST) in the Caribbean: A

postcolonial perspective. Education Sciences, 8(4), 197.

Butler-Barnes, S.T., Cook, S., Leath, S. and Caldwell, C., 2018. Teacher-based racial
discrimination: The role of racial pride and religiosity among African American and Caribbean
Black adolescents. Race and Social Problems, 10(1), pp.30-41.
Chapman, Thandeka K., and Kalwant Bhopal. "The perils of integration: exploring the
experiences Achievement (Doctoral dissertation, University of York).

Demie, F. (2019). The experience of Black Caribbean pupils in school exclusion in

England. Educational Review, pp.1–16.
Harris, R., Reynolds, R. (2014) The history curriculum and its personal connection to students
from minority ethnic backgrounds. Journal of curriculum Studies, London: Routledge, 2014:464-
486.

JIRU, E., 2017. England’s Education System Is Failing Black Caribbean Students. Black Lives
Matter: Lifespan Perspectives, p.164.

Lindsay, C.A. and Hart, C.M., 2017. Teacher race and school discipline: are students suspended
less often when they have a teacher of the same race?. Education Next, 17(1), pp.72-79.
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Lukes, S., de Noronha, N. and Finney, N., 2019. Slippery discrimination: a review of the drivers
of migrant and minority housing disadvantage. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 45(17),
pp.3188-3206.

of African American and black Caribbean students in predominately white secondary

schools." Ethnic and Racial Studies 42.7 (2019): 1110-1129.

Shankley, W. and Finney, N., 2020. Ethnic minorities and housing in Britain. ETHNICITY,
RACE AND INEQUALITY IN THE UK, p.149.