White working-class pupils fall behind 'because they're turned off by lessons on other cultures': Researchers warn multicultural curriculum risks marginalisation

• White working-class pupils becoming marginalised by multicultural curriculums, report says
• Problem compounded by growing up in 'a small world 'with low parental expectations
• Research carried out by Lambeth Council and Goldsmiths, University of London
  

By SARAH HARRIS

Published: 20:40 EST, 27 June 2014 | Updated: 20:40 EST, 27 June 2014

White working-class pupils are becoming increasingly marginalised by multicultural curriculums, a report has found

White working-class pupils are becoming increasingly marginalised by multicultural curriculums, a report has warned.

They are being turned off school by lessons that  celebrate diversity but do  not ‘reflect the culture and lives’ of their own community.

The problem is being compounded by growing up in ‘a small world’ with low parental expectations and an early ‘language deficit’ which sees youngsters arriving at primary school talking only in ‘grunts’.

It means white working-class pupils end up being outperformed by every major ethnic group at GCSEs, according to the research by Lambeth Council and Goldsmiths, University of London.

Researchers interviewed 25 head teachers and deputies; 51 teachers and teaching assistants; 10 governors; 39 white working-class parents and 61 pupils at 14 schools in Lambeth, South London.

Parents ‘lamented a lack of white culture reflected in school life which perpetuated the marginalisation they felt within their communities’.

The report, Raising the Achievement of White Working Class Pupils, said many parents felt isolated within a ‘diverse’ community and declared themselves as the new  ‘ethnic group’.

However, they were also being marginalised by middle-class parents who took up places at facilities such as Children’s Centres.

Schools and parents felt curriculums did not ‘reflect the culture and lives of white working class children’.

A headteacher said: ‘There has been much emphasis in recent years on elements of black history and a celebration of cultural days such as Portuguese Day. There has been nothing for the British culture. This might have led to a sense of them losing their identity.’

Another said: ‘It is very difficult for the white children to identify culturally with the other, more dominant, cultures in the school. They aspire to Eminem or street culture and I would say that a lot of their role models are black. They speak in South London patois.’

The report, by Dr Feyisa Demie, head of research at Lambeth Council, and Dr Kristin Lewis, of Goldsmiths, University of London, said the Government should support schools to ‘develop a multicultural curriculum that treats White British identity in the same way as ethnic minorities’.

‘This curriculum should give confidence for White British pupils to proudly assert their identity as an ethnic group,’ the document added.

Children are being turned off school by lessons that celebrate diversity but do not reflect their own communities

Schools struggle to get white working-class parents to engage with their children’s learning in contrast with the ‘high aspiration of the immigrant community’, the report said.

It also warns that many white working-class children ‘know little of a life beyond their home and school’ and do not even visit local parks amid a lack of family ambition.

Staff at a school said: ‘The parents don’t go anywhere. They stay in their flats watching TV. They do not travel; they don’t go into other parts of London.’ This ‘lack of aspiration’ along with a ‘culture of instant gratification’ for material things proved challenging for many schools, the paper said.

And problems emerge as some white working-class children arrive at primary school, unable to even recognise their own name.

The report said: ‘A head teacher talked of some young children, more frequently the white working class, coming to school only being able to grunt because they had been “stuck in front of a TV all day”.’

Teachers also said white working-class pupils do not have language models or the ‘mindset’ of EAL (English as an Additional Language) learners.

The ‘language deficit’ is so severe children from white working-class homes need the same remedial support as those who have English as a second language, the report said.

‘Staff felt the school grants needed to be rethought as there is currently no money to support the language deficit within the white working class community,’ it said.