Minority Education Essay

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5. Education and ethnic minority groups in the UK. Education is one of the main tools a society has to improve the integration of the different ethnicities that make up its population. From Victorian times the approach to education as leveller of social and ethnic differences has changed rapidly. We will see the evolution of the implementation of different educational policies and the effect they might have to blur the lines (if not erase them) between races, genders and economic levels.
The current situation
We cannot deal with the current state of minority education in the United kingdom without taking into consideration the effect that class and ethnicity has on school achievement, especially when there is significant evidence to show that the higher the social class and standard of living of a student, the more likely they are to have success at school.
Poverty has a great influence on school achievement. Students have less time to devote to school work, limited means and possibility to have their own space at home to concentrate on school work and less support from their families. They might not be able to get funds for school activities and access to libraries and scholar materials might be limited. Also Health issues or even youth employment might hinder their possibilities.
Most ethnic students tend to be working class so these situations are usually aggravated in their case. It doesn’t help that racism or discrimination in the school creates a negative influence.
There are complaints about the school system being not open to minorities although a great effort is made to implement anti-racist education in school “…Anti-racist education, in contrast, has directed its attention to the structures that “produce, sustain a...

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...ation of Asian British citizens in Kenya, who were being forced to leave in the face of a new nationality legislation…” (McClelland 48)
“…the act introduced the concept of belonging into British immigration law. More precisely, it racialized the boundaries of national belonging by restricting the entry of British citizens who were not connected to the nation through ties of blood or descent. The law created first and second-class citizens among Citizens of the United Kingdom and the Colonies.” (McClelland 49)

There is strong evidence that black people are over-represented throughout the criminal justice process (Merrik)

Carefully negative indent all first lines of bibliography

Merrik, Jane , Brian Brady, and Kate Youde. "Race in Britain 2012: Has life changed for ethnic minorities?." The Independent. Independent Digital News and Media, n.d. Web. 2 Mar. 2014.

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