I’m sure it’s what you want, but I’m not bothering with your posts while you flout your own rules on ad-hominem posting.

You’re a bit slow aren’t you?

The problem isn’t about ‘discussing’ anyone, though you seem to love making stereotypical pronouncements about why Carribean ‘baby mamas’ are to blame for everything.

We’re talking about why certain boys (note, not girls) are doing worse than other racial groups.

Now rather than having a fixed stereotype in your head about why they are to blame, you might want to consider that class and gender is a bigger factor in differences in attainment.

In fact, in many places across the country, white working class boys do the worst in education.

Now, what theory are you going to come up to blame them?

People do have multiple identities and different individuals place different emphasis on different aspects. Perhaps it would have been better for this study to address this point so as to prevent us getting diverted down a dead-end argument.

You need to explain why it is so difficult to discuss this group in particular, which is my whole point and you are just proving it.

You also need to stop abusing your admin privileges by making ad-hominem comments to me.

The research being commented about points to race, not class.

You really are idiotic beyond belief. The report may be looking at race, but that doesn’t mean factors such as class are irrelevant,.

Rather than talking nonsense all the time, I have a suggestion for you. Go through the points I made in the above post and tell me where I’m wrong (about different attainment rates among different groups).

Then, come crawling back once you’ve got something intelligent to write in response.

The research being commented about points to race, not class.

Re-framing as a class issue- very Harman 2008 / Scargill 1974.

ac256, that’s not a response, that’s just a poor excuse. You still haven’t explained what exactly those conditions are.

The condition I usually focus on here is class. White Caribbeans are more likely than black Africans to be working class (a lot of richer Africans send over their children to study).

The same goes for Asians. If you break down the figures, Indians do way better than Pakistanis and Bangladeshis. Similarly, white working class boys are at the bottom of the pile.

So maybe you can tell us about the ‘conditions’ that keep white working class boys back? Or are you going to blame the ‘race industry’ for that?

the point here is about CLASS – that is the factor that determines educational achievement better than any other measure. You blaming the left is just the usual rubbish response that you can muster.

Or is this just another time when you jump on my back?

Perhaps I should have made it clear: the intervening variable is of course the pupils’ expectation of the education system, and the impact of that on their behaviour. The argument is that a significant proportion of Afro-Caribbean pupils but no others consider that school has nothing to offer them, are disruptive and disconnected, and then scapegoated/abandoned by their teachers. Jasper’s case is that this can only be addressed by educating them separately. No one has yet said he’s wrong. Education does enforce hard choices – boys learn better when girls are around but girls learn better when boys aren’t around – so either our sons or our daughters get a second-best education and there is no fix for it. I don’t see how to rule out, a priori, a similar conundrum in terms of ethnicities.

I’m not convinced by Jasper because I think the heart of the matter is peer-group pressure, particularly among boys, and an attitude among (some) Afro-Caribbean boys that education itself is “cissy” – perhaps itself a consequence of a deeper belief that happiness doesn’t exist and that all that life has to offer is the exercise of power and the gratification of desire, and re-inforced by the higher academic performance of Afro-Caribbean girls. Such a view would follow from the continued internalisation of a “slave mentality”. It seems to me that educating Afro-Caribbean boys apart from all others would be as likely to intensify as to oppose such a world-view. Nor do I think the existing private sector “black schools” provide a counter-argument, since there is no reason to suppose that the parents who choose them are typical (and some reason to think the opposite).

The end of the previous post suggests that poor performance by black boys is not due to racism, if I unerstand you.

Your analogy with travellers is not exact enough to be revealing. A better analogy would be if a study found discrimination against travellers whose parents had, say, a Romanian background, but not against travellers wose parents had, say, an Albanian background (allowing that they are all of the same skin clour). That might be down to anti-Romainian traveller prejudice but that seems unlikely. Racism is not usually so fine-grained.

Re-read the end of the previous post, John, and remeber the “intervening variable”. Or do a thought experiment – suppose another such study were to find discrimination against travellers’ kids in schools – you wouldn’t dismiss it out of hand on the grounds that they don’t have a different skin colour.

Sunny, if the report is accurate, the study doesn’t find widespread underachievement among ‘black kids’ but only among black kids with Carribean family backgrounds. It is difficult to see how a school could be institutionally racist with such fine grain as to distinguish between physically similar black children from Africa and those from Africa via the West Indies, unless there were explicit policies requiring teachers to make the distinction. It may be that there is a racist factor at work, but that is far from an obvious candidate to explain this pattern. Why do teachers not have low expectations of black children with, say, Nigerian parents, but do of children with, say, Jamaican parents? How does ‘racism’ explain that? Perhaps the study shows how, but at first blush it looks very tenuous.

First, these kinds of stories seriously piss me off for the simple reason that there’s no link to the research paper on which the article is based, so what we’ve got a bunch of assertions but no way of assessing their validity or checking for any methodological issues or confounding that might compromise the results.

Of the top of my head, one thing that needs to be verified is whether the study controls for differences between schools attended by those included in the study and their general policy as regards entry for SATs. Its often the case that poorer performing schools will enter the majority of pupils for the lower level of test in order to increase the likelihood of their getting an acceptable grade than risk entering for the more difficult test and risk a failure.

This goes on all the time at with GSCEs where the foundation level paper – on which a maximum C grade can be attained – is often favoured over the higher paper for borderline candidates under the premise that if someone predicted to get a C grade they’ll get that more safely from the easier foundation paper than they will from tackling the higher paper, even though, if they have a real good day come the exam, they could exceed expectations and gain a higher grade.

In such cases its the emphasis that the school place on racking up the Cs to bolster their position in the school league tables that induces them to take the safe option rather than risk entering pupils for the higher paper, where the risk of failure is higher.

If Strand hasn’t controlled for something like that then while it doesn’t invalidate his arguments it does shift them into a somewhat different context, one in which its much less a matter of race and more a function of expediency and low expectations based on perceived social class.

On a related note, Strand did publish a paper looking at education aspirations earlier this year, the abstract for which states that:

There were no significant differences in aspirations by gender or year group, but differences between ethnic groups were marked. Black African, Asian Other and Pakistani groups had significantly higher educational aspirations than the White British group, who had the lowest aspirations. The results suggest the high aspirations of Black African, Asian Other and Pakistani pupils are mediated through strong academic self-concept, positive peer support, a commitment to schooling and high educational aspirations in the home. They also suggest that low educational aspirations may have different mediating influences in different ethnic groups. The low aspirations of White British pupils seem to relate most strongly to poor academic self-concept and low educational aspirations in the home, while for Black Caribbean pupils disaffection, negative peers and low commitment to schooling appear more relevant. Interviews with pupils corroborated the above findings and further illuminated the factors students described as important in their educational aspirations.

All of which relevant to the different opinions of Jasper and Sewell.

I’d comment further but at £15 for a fucking reprint and no free pdf, that as much as you’ll be getting from me….

my approach in this debate is to sidestep the well-worn arguments about the inherent racism of white society and its structures. Those theories were discussed longer and better in the 1970s and 80s.

The point is that for all those seductive theories, many black carribeans are still struggling while the Africans (and Asians who no longer identify as black) have climbed the ladder in spite of all those racist white structures. My current workplace is hugely diverse, with the notable exception of enough black people.

What never gets discussed are the specific conditions pertaining to black carribeans in the UK by which they might be holding THEMSELVES back.

So by all means continue flogging the ‘institutional racism’ horse while joe public sees through it more and more, but why is it so hard to expand the debate into obvious and known problem areas?

Suppressing those debates just pushes them underground and into the hands of people who DON’T have black people’s best interests at heart. If that’s what the Liberal Left is comfortable with, then let’s just keep talking about unwitting/inherent/institutional racism.

Let me get this straight. For a guy who wants to have better racial harmony among people of black and white families, what you’re saying is that the only people responsible for the under-achievement of black kids are ‘carribean baby mamas’.

Is that right? could you just confirm your theory for me please?

http://tomisswithlove.blogspot.com/

Yes, that would have been the one.

Strange, I would never have taken Lee jasper for Tory – just goes to show…

Isn’t that why conservatives on both the right and left are pushing for the expansion of faith schools and academies – so that like minds can associate together and reinforce their biases?

I’m not saying I agree with it, of course I don’t – I am just left with the uncomfortable feeling that the reason I disagree with it is because I’m white myself.”

Oh please.

The reason it’s disagreeable is because it’s an unreasonable load of bollocks.

EVERYONE involved in slavery is dead, and it can never be put right.

The really sad thing is that most people who died slaves are probably turning in their graves to see young children turning their back on every opportunity offered them, as if it is some sort of twisted racial duty to do so.

Mmmm…. I’d like to see the response if a white Conservative politician had suggested that – did someone mention a return to segregated schools?

I’m not saying I agree with it, of course I don’t – I am just left with the uncomfortable feeling that the reason I disagree with it is because I’m white myself.

Meanwhile in the real world people are increasingly aware that race equality has improved over the last 30 years, and excuses like ‘institutional racism’ are wearing thin.

Anyone who seriously cares about the fortunes of the left in the next 10 years must be prepared to say what is currently un-sayable in lefty circles.

Where have you ever seen a serious discussion on the left about, say, the damage that Carribean ‘baby mother’ culture has on the community?

What about the legitimising of patois and street-speak as forms of communication, effectively excluding inner-city children who can only speak like that from any professional career (you get me blud?)

And who has the courage to tackle the deeply racist (and homophobic) beliefs at the heart of the Rastafari religion, which have such a pervasive influence in Carribean culture and music?

Uncomfortable subjects certainly, but necessary if the left is to de-contaminate its brand from all the trouble Marxist race theory has caused.