failure by any other name? - runnymede trust...raise minority ethnic pupil attainment. in this...

Failure by AnyOther Name?

– Educational Policyand the ContinuingStruggle for BlackAcademic Success

Nicola Rollock

Runnymede Perspectives

The Runnymede Trust is an independent policy research organization focusing on equality and justice through the promotion of a successful multi-ethnic society. Founded as a CharitableEducational Trust, Runnymede has a long track record in policy research, working in close collaboration with eminent thinkers and policymakers in the public, private and voluntary sectors.We believe that the way ahead lies in building effective partnerships, and we are continually developing these with the voluntary sector, the government, local authorities and companies in theUK and Europe. We stimulate debate and suggest forward-looking strategies in areas of public policysuch as education, the criminal justice system, employment and citizenship.

Since 1968, the date of Runnymede’s foundation, we have worked to establish and maintain a positiveimage of what it means to live affirmatively within a society that is both multi-ethnic and culturallydiverse. Runnymede continues to speak with a thoughtful and independent public voice on theseissues today.

About Runnymede

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Published by Runnymede in November 2007, this document is copyright © 2007 the Runnymede Trust.

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ROLLOCK: FAILURE BY ANY OTHER NAME? I

Contents

Foreword II

Introduction 1Structure of the paper

1. Background 1Methodology

2. Understanding Academic Success 42.1 Staff definitions of academic success2.2 Who is academically successful?2.3 Pupil definitions of academic success

3. Summarizing Staff and Pupil Definitions of Academic Success 13

4. Differential Treatment of Successful and Unsuccessful Pupils 144.1 Staff treatment of pupils4.2 Pupils’ views of how staff treat them

5. Discussion 18

References 20

II RUNNYMEDE PERSPECTIVES

The educational underachievement of children from specific minority ethnic groups has concerned educa-tionalists working in the area of race and education for well over two decades in this country. Despite themany important initiatives that have been developed both at grassroots and government departmental level,the gap in achievement between ethnic groups remains.

What also persists is the nature of the debate about race and underachievement – though the explana-tions proffered for minority ethnic pupil underachievement have adapted over time. Many of these explana-tions – low teacher expectation, high rates of school exclusion, for example – have been argued vociferouslyby academics and activists alike as clearly contributing to pupil underachievement, and for many years. Thisnew Runnymede Perspectives paper by Dr Nicola Rollock re-focuses attention on the issue of Black pupileducational success. In changing the nature of the debate about race and achievement in this way, it helps tobreak that association between school experience and underachievement which continues to beset manypupils of minority ethnic descent.

This is not to suggest that discourses of (under)achievement are not changing. Indeed, the debate abouteducational underachievement has focused over recent months on the greater propensity of white malepupils from low income families to underachieve at school, noting that their risk of experiencing under-achievement is roughly the same as boys of Black Caribbean heritage. Many observers – especially the mediabut also the Conservative Party in its focus on low income 'family breakdown' – interpret these claims as anargument for diverting attention away from minority ethnic pupil educational failure. Clearly, the debateabout educational underachievement needs to reinforce the important impact of class differentials on educa-tional outcome. However, the suggestion that we should transform the underachievement debate into aranking of particular class or ethnic groups poses serious risks. In any hierarchy of underachievement,minority ethnic pupils are more likely to see their legitimate needs and interests ignored, a result unlikely toraise minority ethnic pupil attainment. In this paper, Dr. Rollock re-frames the debate, not by ignoring thepersistent rates of underachievement among Black Caribbean pupils in UK schools, but by de-pathologizingtheir educational experiences.

An important finding of this paper is how definitions of success vary widely and are often contradictoryfor teachers. But this finding is hardly surprising, given the difficulty of trying to square the competing aimsof higher overall achievement for all, but also targeting the most vulnerable students. Reducing the risk offailure, however, is unlikely to move up the agenda given the high premium placed on the achievement ofhigh non-vocational qualifications and the clear reliance on school examination performance tables as ameans of determining excellence, both by Government and by prospective parents. The increasing relianceon more educational choice as a means of improving school standards does little to enable teaching staff tomove beyond the fairly restricted understanding of what educational success can mean. As the paper clearlysuggests, the huge discrepancy between what young people themselves and their teachers perceive as successmust be set within this context.

Being able to chart what educational success looks like for Black pupils is of immense importance. Itenables any understanding of what may contribute to underachievement and highlights those strategieswhich facilitate success. However, that this paper has not been able to talk about success for Black childrenwithout also drawing on the ways that definitions of high achievement simultaneously exclude them, aptlyillustrates the processes through which Black pupils continue to experience educational hurdles that allowthe gaps in achievement between pupil groups to persist.

Dr Debbie Weekes-BernardSenior Research and Policy Analyst

Runnymede TrustNovember 2007

Foreword

ROLLOCK: FAILURE BY ANY OTHER NAME? 1

failure to understand the ways in which cumulativepressures to reach targets can combine withteachers’ (albeit often unintentional) subjectivepositioning of particular groups of pupils as a threatand anti-school, and thereby undermine any overar-ching commitment to raise Black pupils’ educa-tional attainment.

Structure of the PaperThis paper is organized in five sections. • Section 1 provides a brief overview of the histor-

ical background to Black pupils in Englishschools and the more recent focus on achieve-ment and academic success.

• Section 2 describes how staff and pupils at theschool where the research was carried out under-stand the nature of academic success and theprerequisites considered important to achievingacademically.

• Section 3 summarizes the findings.• Section 4 examines how pupils are treated differ-

ently by staff depending on whether they havebeen positioned as academically successful, ornot. Pupils’ responses to this differential treat-ment are also examined, especially in relation tothe allocation of work and the meting out ofdiscipline.

• Section 5, the Discussion section, considers howpupils’ identities and teachers’ views of differentgroups of pupils might be best understood in thecontext of academic success. It goes on to suggesta new way forward in the schooling of Blackpupils.

1. BackgroundThe dire historical trajectory of Black pupils inEnglish schools has been documented by manyseminal publications. They have detailed the dispro-portionate number of those then termed ‘West

Introduction The persistence of lower academic attainment byBlack1 pupils in English schools is now welldocumented. Black pupils continue to perform wellbelow the national average and the levels attainedby their white counterparts.2 While concerns aboutthe achievements of certain white British andMuslim pupils are largely well founded,3 thelongevity of debates regarding Black pupils, thosecontentions embedded in now historic publicationsand grassroots activism, must not be overlooked.Instead they should be recognized as a part of anon-going crisis: to date, no single government policyhas successfully closed the gap in educationalattainment, and Black pupils continue to be associ-ated with educational disadvantage and failure.

While the negative aspects of Black pupils andeducation should not be ignored, it is notable thatvery little is known, in the UK context, about Blackpupils and academic success. This paper draws onthe findings of in-depth qualitative research into theexperiences of academically successful Black pupils.It takes the standpoint that thinking about andexploring the experiences of Black pupils in relationto success will lend a new angle to current educa-tional debates on their achievements, and helpchallenge their existing prevalent pathology.

The research considers how staff at one partic-ular inner-city secondary school construct academicsuccess; how these views shape their practice andthe subsequent implications for Black pupils beingable to achieve academically. It is argued that one ofthe fundamental flaws of government policy is its

Failure by anyOther name?

– Educational Policy and

the Continuing Struggle

for Black Academic Success

Nicola Rollock

1 I use the generic term ‘Black’ throughout to refer to pupils defined as ‘Blackor Black British’ in the 2001 Census, which includes Black Caribbean, BlackAfrican and Other Black backgrounds. In some cases. I make reference to BlackCaribbean pupils in particular who have tended to be the main focus of theachievement debates. Elsewhere, I employ the terms used by particularauthors.

2 DfES (2005a, 2006)

3 See Rollock (2006a; 2007) for further discussion

Indian’ pupils who, placed in special schools, werethereby rendered unlikely to ever return tomainstream schooling.4 They have traced thegovernment’s failed attempts to introduce, in theearly 1960s, a national ‘bussing’ policy to limit thenumber of Black and Asian pupils in each school.5

And they have extensively covered what can beregarded as an ongoing concern about the lack of aculturally diverse curriculum and the perceivedlower self-esteem of Black children and youngpeople.6

Research has generally sought to investigate,understand and establish explanations for thediffering school experiences and low qualificationoutcomes of Black pupils. Such research has tendedto cite, on the one hand, the impact of institutionalfactors via, for example, low teacher expectationsas they interact with processes such as settingclasses by pupil ‘ability’7 or, alternatively, theperceived lack of interest and low levels of motiva-tion encountered among Black pupils and theirfamilies towards schooling and education overall.8

However, barring the major research of academi-cally successful Black and white students that wasplanned in the early 1980s, and then abandonedamid fears that it may have overshadowed the moreprevalent difficulties faced by Black and minorityethnic pupils,9 relatively little attention has beenpaid to educational achievement and academicsuccess amongst Black pupils. It is only quiterecently that academic and policy debates havebegun to focus on this area. For example, Ofstedhas attempted to offer an overview of good practicein relation to Black Caribbean pupils in primaryand secondary schools10 but there is little evidencethat the recommendations (listed below) have beenincorporated into national policy or that they havemade any significant impact on Black Caribbeanattainment.

2 RUNNYMEDE PERSPECTIVES

Recommendations from Ofsted reportson the Achievement of Black Caribbeanpupils in primary and secondary schools11

1 use data analysed by ethnicity to check the partici-pation and achievement of ethnic groups

2 gather and debate the views of staff, pupils,parents and the wider community about barriersto achievement and responses to school

3 focus sharply in their response to the RaceRelations (Amendment) Act 2000 on what con bedone through the curriculum, teaching, assessmentand guidance to remove barriers to achievementand to reflect ethnic and cultural diversity

4 set clear objectives and targets for improvingparticipation and achievement based on a compre-hensive whole-school plan and using the opportu-nities represented by mainstream improvementinitiatives

5 provide access for all staff to high quality trainingso that the needs of minority ethnic pupils can betackled with confidence

Through the government’s Aiming High pilot, schoolleaders were encouraged to develop a whole-schoolapproach to raising the achievement of AfricanCaribbean pupils.12 While the evaluation of the pilotreveals that the initiative was successful in enablingsome schools, for example, to prioritize issuessurrounding the achievement of African Caribbeanpupils in school development plans and the profes-sional development of school leaders and to improveparental support, such results were not consistentacross all of the schools involved in the pilot.

Recommendations included: how governors, theheadteacher and other members of school manage-ment should make a clear commitment to addressingrace equality issues and to mainstreaming initiativesfor raising African Caribbean achievement; how theheadteacher should be strategic and visionary inseeking to address the needs of these pupils andshould ensure accountability in the use of AfricanCaribbean achievement and inclusion data, as wellas in the fair and consistent implementation of theschool’s behaviour policy.13

A sister pilot programme, aimed at primaryschools, is currently being implemented across anumber of schools in England. While its effectiveness

4 Coard (1971)

5 Bonnett & Carrington (2000)

6 See e.g. Taylor (1981); Tomlinson (1983); Gillborn (1999)

7 Gillborn & Youdell (2000)

8 See e.g. Sewell (2000a, b)

9 Swann (1985)

10 Ofsted (2002a, b)

11 Ofsted (2002a: 29; 2002b: 31)

12 DfES (2003)

MethodologyThis paper discusses the ways in which staff andpupils construct academic success and the strate-gies or processes necessary for academic improve-ment. It is based on a year- long in-depth casestudy involving semi-structured interviews with 21school staff and 25 pupils from a range of ethnicbackgrounds at a coeducational inner-city second-ary school, fictitiously called Metropolitan High.

Staff included senior management within theschool and Heads of subject areas as well as sup-port staff. Pupils included academically successfulboys and girls from Years 9, 10 and 11. Theseyear groups were regarded as central to shapingan understanding of academic achievement sincethey represent a period in the school calendarwhere both staff and pupils are concerned aboutsubject selection or are involved in study towardsGCSE/GNVQ16 examinations. The school selectedthose pupils who had achieved, or were predictedto achieve, the highest scores in their Key Stage 3tests.17

The interviews were substantiated by observa-tions and records of staffroom conversation andactivity, staff meetings, school assemblies andachievement evenings. Information collected onpupil exclusions, school policies and inspectionreports informed the analysis of the findings andconclusions.


is yet to be determined, Griffiths, Cotton &Bowbrick (2005) argue, following an evaluation ofthe Intensifying Support Programme aimed atproviding additional support and professional devel-opment to schools who have made little progress inraising literacy and numeracy standards, that theeffectiveness of any intervention is often difficult toattribute to the intervention itself, since the range offactors which affect school performance are so vast.

Academic research on the achievements of Blackstudents is scant. Channer (1995) revealed theimportance of the church and the wider communityin offering educational and career support andguidance to young Black people. A similar finding isreported by Cork (2005) in her study of the ways inwhich parents of Black pupils gain informationabout and understanding of the education systemfrom community support groups in order to betterguide their children through school. Other researchhas examined the life histories of young Black peoplein higher education or of Black professionals,encouraging participants to reflect on the factors andexperiences that they consider instrumental to theirsuccess.14 Such work not only highlights the fact thatsome Black pupils are able to achieve academicallybut also plays an important role in challengingdominant discourses of failure and disadvantagewhich surround Black children, young people andtheir families.15 These perspectives, along with aninterest in understanding how some Black pupils areable to achieve academically, despite the continuedstatistics regarding their low educational attainment,form the focus of the research discussed in thispaper. Specifically, the research sought to address thefollowing questions:

1 How do staff and academically successful pupils’construct academic success and failure?

2 How do academically successful pupils under-stand their experience of school, and how arethese experiences shaped by the ethnicity and/orgender of the pupil?

3 What are the implications of these findings forBlack pupils achieving academically?

This paper focuses on the first and last of thesequestions.

13 Tikly et al. (2006)

14 MacDonald (2001); Rhamie & Hallam (2002)

15 Modood (1993); Osler (1999)

16 GCSE (General Certificate of Secondary Education) and GNVQ (GeneralNational Vocational Qualification) refers to the examinations that pupils sitduring Year 11, around the age of 16 in this their final year of compulsoryschooling (Department for Education and Employment - DfEE, 1996).

17 Between the ages of 5 and 16, pupils sit a series of tests as part of aprocess to determine whether or not they have reached specific levels of theNational Curriculum (NC). These tests, called Standard Assessment Tests, andfrequently referred to as SATS, take place at the end of each Key Stage.Within this period of compulsory education, the NC is divided into four keystages that represent different age spans and levels. There are eight levels ofincreasing difficulty and pupils are expected to reach an expected level(shown here in brackets) according to their age.

Attainment targets and levels for the National Curriculum

The SATs taken at the end of Key Stage 2 form part of the profile whichaccompanies each pupil to secondary school. According to staff atMetropolitan High, these SATS are used as part of a probability calculation togenerate predictions of pupils’ future performance at Key Stage 3. In turn, theSATs taken at the end of Key Stage 3 are used to predict the results of KeyStage 4 examinations (traditionally GCSEs and GNVQs).

Year group Reception 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

Age of pupils 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16at end of year

Key Stage KS 1 KS 2 KS 3 KS 4

Level 1–3 (2) 2–5 (4) 3–7 (5/6) Via NationalQualifications

2. Understanding Academic Success2.1 Staff definitions of academic successSchool staff tended to describe academic success interms of any level of improvement in educationalperformance, irrespective of the specific gradesobtained, or in terms of progress in a pupil’spersonal development:

Academic success simplistically means thegrades pupils achieve, but there are clearlyother forms of success which aren’tacademic, which aren’t recognised,personal qualities, more practical applica-tion of knowledge …things that areoutside the National Curriculum remit …

(Head of English, female)

… you can look at it [academic success]in the very narrow sense in terms of whatcertificates is a child leaving school withand some people would just see that asthe only sort of success. I tend to look atit more as the development of thatindividual while they are at school …what we like to see is children developingtheir own personal potential but also in abroader sense as well, developing, helpingto develop decent young people who areconfident but also have a, you know,sense of community spirit; the sort ofchildren, who are going to make nicecitizens once they leave school.

(Support Staff A, female)

Such views appear to reflect a liberal, holisticideology where the role and purpose of schoolingexplicitly allows for the recognition of individualpupils’ needs and development. This notion ofwhat can be termed inclusive success seems tocontradict Gillborn & Youdell’s argument18 of anA-to-C economy operating in schools in whichteachers remain committed and constrained toachieving academic success strictly in higher-gradeterms as advertised and endorsed, for example,


through school performance tables. As a result theytend to focus their time and resources almostexclusively on those pupils seen as able to achievein these higher-grade terms.19

However, despite supporting this largely inclu-sive approach, staff also constructed and supportedthe acquisition of academic success specifically interms of A* to C grades, as the following sets ofcomments by a member of staff reveal:

I hate this government, the previousgovernment, they sort of say you have tohave a C … I mean if you get a D, that’shard to get. To say ‘well sorry D is nogood’, I mean I just hate that idea, sowhatever grades you get – as long as youdo your best.

(Maths Teacher, male)

I put a lot of kids in this year for Mathsand I said really to the previous deputyhead, ‘yeah’, I said, ‘listen, we’ll call this atrawl, we’ll just put ‘em in. I will teachthem, I’ll give up all my time and we’ll seewhat we get. Let’s just see what we getbecause the school at the end of the daywill be judged, you know, it’s judged onthe exam passes. So if we get some Dswell that’s fine, then they know the Ds.And then we put them in again inNovember – we’ll have another crack atit.’ Well then we had a bit of argumentabout, ‘Oh, er, we can’t put them in untilwe’re absolutely sure they’re Cs.’


In the first of these two remarks the acquisition ofD grades, though recognized as not beingsuccessful in government terms, is repositioned bythis teacher as having legitimacy and status.However, later in the same interview, he appears tocontradict this view, providing a vivid account ofthe strategy he sought to introduce in order toboost the number of pupils achieving higher-gradepasses in Mathematics. The importance of andpressure attached to these grades – to achievingthis exclusive, high-status success – is clearly

18 Gillborn & Youdell (2000: 43)

19 See also Davies (2000); Jewell (2007) for press coverage regarding the con-sequences of testing.


You will find that in every borough thereare always two or three schools thatalways hover around the 20 percent21 butyou’ve got to sort of look at the intake …Most schools now say that they’re notselective, but it is [sic]!

(Maths Teacher, Head of Year, male)

These comments are important for several reasons.First, they demonstrate the impact of parentalchoice and school admissions policies in affectingthe pupil demographic of local areas and individualschools.22 Second, they reveal how academic successbecomes reconstructed and legitimized directly inrelation to perceptions about the profile of thisdemographic. This is exemplified in the first state-ment by the reference to ‘nice girls’ attending thenearby grammar school, simultaneously exposingthe less agreeable nature and desirable status of anyremaining girls applying to and attendingMetropolitan High. Therefore, exclusive successbecomes, in the view of these staff, almost impos-sible for pupils at Metropolitan High because theyare regarded as simply not academically ‘able’because of who they are. This was most explicitlyarticulated in relation to pupils with SpecialEducational Needs for whom achieving an ‘inclu-sive success’ was perceived as their only option:

We’ve got a reputation as a school that isgood with children with SpecialEducational Needs, so some of them kidsjust aren’t gonna get…they’re just notgonna get five A to Cs but I think it’s[academic success], you know, how theycome out of the school, if they’ve gotself-esteem and they feel they can go outthere and get a job, depending on whatlevel they’re at.

(Physical Education Teacher, Head of Year, female)

In other words, within what can be regarded as aperversely misconstrued and contradictory inclu-sion agenda, the very extent to which pupils areseen as able to achieve the best grades – that is A*to Cs – depends on certain pupil characteristics, orwhat Bourdieu (1986) refers to as their cultural

evoked in his recollection of the tense exchangebetween himself and the deputy headteacher who,unwilling to risk the possibility of pupils attainingthe ‘failure’ of a D grade, is prepared to enter themfor the examination only if they are absolutelycertain to achieve at least the minimum higher-grade pass of a C. Achieving exclusive success (Cgrade and above), therefore, is not a straightfor-ward case of equal opportunity for every pupil buta tense, strategic exercise of risk assessment andprobability in order to enter for examination onlythose pupils already identified as most likely toobtain a C.

This engagement with two apparently contradic-tory forms of success might simply reflect a desireto appear well-meaning, liberal and inclusive(especially in light of contributing to a piece ofresearch) while at the same time being subject tothe everyday realities and pressures of the educa-tion system once behind the classroom door.20

However, it was also influenced and shaped byquite fixed, uninterrogated views about the partic-ular types of pupil who were perceived to attendMetropolitan High.

2.2 Who is academically successful?In explaining how they arrived at their under-standing of academic success, staff revealed quite astark distinction between the type of pupil seen ascapable of attaining either inclusive or exclusiveterms. This was greatly influenced by views aboutthe relationship between the school’s admissionpolicy and the types of schools by which it wassurrounded:

… a lot of the children in the area arecreamed by other schools erm because westill have grammar schools, call themwhat you will erm, you see one over there[points through the window] where thenice girls go? Selective, though theypretend not to be. So we don’t get firstpick, if we get able children, it’s sort of bychance really.


20 See Keddie (1971)

21 This refers to the minimum percentage of eligible pupils in each schoolwho were expected by the government to attain 5 or more A* to C grades atGCSE and GNVQ.

22 See Ball (2003); also Weekes-Bernard (2007)


capital. Rather than all pupils being perceived asequally ‘special’ and equally able to achieve,certain groups of pupils (here those with SpecialEducational Needs and girls) get ‘left behind’despite a government commitment to thecontrary.23

These varying expectations are informedpartially by the drive to meet targets, throughwhich the acquisition of lower grades andpersonal development – neither of which isaccorded much economic worth or status beyondthe school gates – are reconstituted by staff aspositive, desirable and acceptable as they strive toview all pupils as succeeding in something.

Pupil characteristicsPupils who were perceived as able to achieveacademically and who gained popularity amongststaff were also those who displayed a willingnessto work hard, handed in homework on time andasked for help. Despite the fact that MetropolitanHigh was seen to attract a lower intellectual typeof female pupil compared with neighbouringschools (see above), it was in fact girls who wereseen as more likely to demonstrate these types ofbehaviours than boys, and who were thereforeperceived as more predisposed to succeedacademically:

... there’s more pressure now to study,you have to have your courseworkhanded in, there’s [sic] your deadlines,you have to study your intermediateexams. It’s more like a drip effect. It ispart of the reason girls are better thanboys … girls tend to be more organised,more pragmatic, they meet the deadlines,they get the work in, they hand it in, itgets marked and handed back to them...


… girls tend to be more motivatedbecause they are more mature, theymature much earlier than do boys. Whenboys are playing their boys’ games with

their boys’ toys, girls are thinking career,aren’t they, for the most part?

(Senior Management A, female)

Simply being female, according to these membersof staff, naturally and automatically affords girlstheir motivation, organization and focus. Bycontrast male pupils are viewed as deficient in allthese key areas. This suggests that staff regardvariations in approaches to academic work asunproblematically located within a fixed paradigmof gender difference, where merely to be female isthought to imbue girls with an inherent ready-to-work attitude and approach to schooling. In thiscontext, staff can more readily construe femalepupils as ‘desirable’ and ideal learners, therebyrequiring less supervision and management thantheir male counterparts, whose masculinity rendersthem less capable.24

AbilityReferences to perceived notions of ‘ability’ or‘potential’, either in relation to classroom teachingmethods or to individual pupils, were common inthe context of explanations about who were thepupils considered to have the potential to achieveacademically. Pupils who were able to achieve inhigh-grade, exclusive terms were seen to possessan innate or biological capacity for success.

There is definitely a natural ability and anatural lack of it. I mean I myself foundspelling easy and I always enjoyed it butI’ve always found Maths difficult nomatter what teachers I had or you know… So, you know, I mean there are somechildren who are really blessed and seemto be, to take everything, find mostsubjects easy …


…you will find that there may be a childthat no matter where you throw them,they will be a success, but that’s just thenatural ability within them …

(Support Staff C, female)23 See Gordon Brown’s (2005) speech on liberty and the state.

24 See also Youdell (2003)


AppearanceStaff were asked to consider how they understandacademic success, which pupils are successful andwhat they might do to become more successful,focused considerable attention on pupils’ appear-ance and demeanour and the overall attitude theydemonstrated towards the school and educationitself. Such views were most common amongstfemale members of staff who tended to unques-tioningly assign importance to appearance as aspecific predictor of male pupil behaviour andacademic capability:

Support staff C It’s almost like they are more orBlack female less conforming to school, when

they haven’t got all that gear on, you know, they’re not an individual within a school. When you look at them they are studentsand … but when you got your hat on and this on, you’re individual and it’s individual behaviour and sometimes it can be a bit threateningand, you know, like er … like what’s depicted on the TV and about the American sort of influenceand stuff. Erm, once they haven’t got their Nike on, you know, their anything else on, they become more receptive students.

Researcher Hmm, you can feel that, yeah?

Staff Yeah, you can feel that! And Ithink as well within the school itfeels less threatening because theyare all looking like students shouldlook.

Researcher Right.

Staff It’s really strange, you know, whenthey’ve got the hat on and every-thing on it’s almost like it’s adifferent thing. The children thatyou, the students that you see here,even if they’re Year 11 and theytower over you, the fact thatthey’ve got a uniform on, you can

Remaining pupils were regarded as only remotelycapable of acquiring ‘ability’ through sheer hardwork and determination:

You’ve got natural ability but you havealso got the ability of what they canactually do if they sit there and workproperly the whole time … the studentsthat have to work hard to achieve… Wehave students that do everything thatthey possibly could do, so at five o’clockthey’ll still be hanging around the schoolworking somewhere and they’re gener-ally the ones that achieve to their poten-tial, probably higher than we wouldexpect them to when they come in atfirst …

(Head of Maths, female)

This member of staff describes the type ofacquired ability available to those who lack itnaturally. Here, ‘ability’ is regarded as synony-mous with ‘potential’ which, in turn, reflects whatpupils are expected to attain as determinedthrough school testing and assessment. That apupil might achieve higher than the resultpredicted is seen to reflect their hard work ratherthan any problem with the validity and reliabilityof the testing process. This clearly equates anyeducational success or failure specifically with theextent of the pupil’s input. It also reveals theunquestioning faith of staff in the teststhemselves, and calls into doubt the role of theteacher who remains absent from these debatesabout pupil ‘ability’ and academic performance.

References to an innate natural ability, whichsome pupils possess and others lack, not onlyworryingly echoes Hernnstein & Murray’s (1994)now generally refuted argument for a biologicalbasis for intelligence, but implies that the lack of(exclusive) success for certain pupils is simply dueto some deficit of their genetic make-up. Thisclearly has implications for teacher expectation ofpupil achievement, the extent to which pupils mayor may not be considered as beyond help, and theextent to which they are categorized as havingreached some a priori benchmark of academicsuccess.


changed their behaviour, but that she, now calmedand less warily vigilant after their appropriation ofa more ‘suitable’ appearance, has simply reposi-tioned them as receptive. Similar strict, uninterro-gated views were evidenced in the headteacher’scomments about suitable forms of attire for youngpeople growing up and being schooled in Britain:

And I will say to the children ‘This is notNew York, we’re not LA. This isn’t theghetto. It’s a school.’ I can say that and getaway with it because I am a Blackheadteacher, but if a white headteacher saidthat then yes they would be ‘oh stereotyp-ical images’ and whatever but the childrenknow why I’m saying that and I’m sayingthat for their good because if I was adifferent head yes the boys of this schoolwould, like in some schools, would walkaround with their hoods up you knowwhatever. Not in this school!

Hooded tops do not form part of the uniform, sothe headteacher’s rejection of them within theschool is understandable. However, the judgementsread into these forms of clothing can be called intoquestion. They are equated with an Americansubculture that is positioned as lacking legitimacyand relevance to Metropolitan High in terms ofboth geographical location and the perceivedimpoverished lack of ambition of ‘the ghetto’. Theheadteacher’s statement is saturated with bothovert and implicit references to ethnicity. Directingher words to Black pupils, the headteacher usesher own ethnicity to lend (alleged) authenticity toher argument and to confirm her well-meaningand non-racist intent. This, along with the asserteddichotomy between British and American youthcultures, reflects a rather simplistic reading ofidentity as predictable, fixed and uniformed byclassed assumptions. These symbols of academicdecline – hooded tops, baseball caps and Nikeclothing – comprised what staff termed ‘Blackstreet culture’, and extended to include the waysome Black boys walked28 and the interest theytook in a particular form of music:

approach them and talk to them.But if you were out, on the streetwith them with their hoods on andeverything on, it’s a differentpersona, you wouldn’t approachthem ‘cos you wouldn’t knowwhat you would get back with anyexchange at all. But within theschool, you expect a certain levelof something because they havegot the uniform on and … youknow? [emphasis added]

Alongside stricter school uniform enforcement, theheadteacher had introduced various rewards foracademic and extra-curricular participation, forexample, in the form of the presentation of certifi-cates at assembly and achievement evenings.Nevertheless, it is the changes in appearance per sethat this member of support staff regards ascentral to the improvement in pupils’ behaviour.Their having reconfigured their uniform to meetthe school guidelines allows her to more easilyposition these boys as a manageable, faceless,homogeneous group which, she argues, theirhooded tops, American-influenced attire and sheerphysical presence did not previously allow her todo. In effect, this re-dressing in line with staffexpectations of how a pupil should look, or ofwhat Youdell25 terms ‘desirable learner identities’also allows this member of staff to realign herselfas having control and power within the context ofthe traditional, hierarchical teacher–pupil relation-ship.26

However, the importance of this analysis liesnot simply in the ways in which these boys areseen as having gained legitimacy by looking likeideal pupils27 but in their rejection of quite definiteforms of dress that have been arbitrarily defined asa source of threat, intimidation and generallyunpredictable behaviour. Further, in her assess-ment this member of staff fails to consider that thepupils themselves may not have necessarily

25 Youdell (2003: 15)

26 See Rogers (1979); also Moore (2004)

27 See Becker (1952)


evoke unambiguously unfavourablefeeling.

Hip-hop, hooded tops and Nike clothinglikewise lose any neutral or complex meaning andbecome simplistic correlates of a racialized andclassed anti-school attitude. Yet, while hip-hopwas viewed negatively by the member of staffdiscussed above, it was repositioned or relabelledby another as an area in which pupils could besaid to achieve. In the following extract, takenfrom a conversation with the deputy headteacherabout academic success, he has earlier rejected the‘old-fashioned idea’ of academic success as ‘beingable to pass examinations well’ and, instead,argues for the inclusion and recognition of otherforms of success:

You also have other students who arevery talented – especially at MetropolitanHigh I think they are amazingly, youknow, talented kids in this school. I thinkthat can also be considered as anacademic thing, like Music or Sports orwhatever it might be, all these things arenow seen, I think, on a sort of levelplaying field. So it’s not just ‘oh you’regood at Maths, you’re good at English’. Ithink you celebrate the whole lot. I don’tthink you can in any school unless it is aselective school talk, really talk, onlyabout academic achievement becausethere are so many other achievementsthat happen and I wouldn’t want to pullout the academic things from everythingelse that the school does … We’ve gotamazingly talented athletes at this school,we have very talented rappers. We havelots of things that the pupils do which ifyou don’t dig deep enough you don’tactually see.

(Senior Management B, white male;emphasis added)

The extracurricular talents that this member ofstaff insists deserve greater recognition are thesame activity areas (music and sport) into whichBlack students historically have been encouraged,often based on stereotypical perceptions of an

I just think sort of like the music that thekids listen to; it doesn’t promote educa-tion and doing well. It’s all about sex anddrugs and that kind of thing. There’s lotsof swearing and cussing and I think they,erm, kids even though they don’t realiseit they sort of internalise that and it doescome out. In their leisure time they’reeither listening to hip-hop and all the sortof rap and stuff that talk about thesekind of negative things…

(Head of Year, Black female)

This remark was made during a conversationabout the educational achievement of Black boysand street culture. As with the unquestionedassumptions attached to appearance, here it is hip-hop being positioned as wholly negative andundesirable, and as having no status within thedominant discourse of the school and the valuesand lifestyles seen to be encapsulated by exclusivesuccess. Hip-hop apparently loses any diversity inmessage and lyrical content, being insteadcommitted to promoting a hedonistic lifestyle ofsex, drugs and related debaucheries, all of whichare seen to readily infiltrate the susceptible andgullible minds of its naïve young Black maleconsumer.29

The singling out and relabelling of particularforms of racialized and arguably classed youthsubcultures as signifiers of fear, intimidation andan anti-school mindset, mirrors a similar moralpanic about the ‘mods’ and ‘rockers’ of the 1960s,described in detail by Cohen in his book FolkDevils and Moral Panics.30 Emphasizing the histor-ical recurrence of these ‘moral panics’, he describespublic response to Mexican American youthduring the Los Angeles riots of 1943:

References to this group were made insuch a way as to strip key symbols(differences in fashion, life style andentertainment) from their favourable orneutral connotations until they came to

28 This is not a new finding. Early research into the schooling experiences ofBlack pupils has reported that they (notably African Caribbean pupils) are fre-quently reprimanded because of the way they walk, talk or wear their hair.See Wright (1986); Mac an Ghaill (1988); Gillborn (1990); also Ofsted (2001);see Rollock (2006) for an overview of this literature.

29 See also Rollock (2005); Osgerby (2004: 149)

30 Cohen (2002)


innate aptitude for them. This attitude connectswith a persistent concern of many Black parents,that their children have been restricted fromachieving in mainstream subjects as a result oftheir having been channelled into lower-statusextracurricular activities. The deputy head’s desireto value all forms of achievement equally meansthat even those who are achieving in these non-traditional areas, which have little wider valuebeyond the school gates in terms of facilitatingaccess to further and higher education and tohigh-status employment, are applauded andencouraged. In fact, such relabelling may mask thedoomed celebration of an inferior form of successfor Black pupils.

Family backgroundStaff also drew inferences about familybackground, home environment and theirperceived relationship to pupils’ academic achieve-ment. They understandably stressed the need forparents to value education, to be able to pass onthis mindset to their children, and for them to besupportive of the school and its rules and guide-lines. However, as with pupils, there were partic-ular families and lifestyles which they felt hinderedacademic achievement:

Why are some pupils not as academicallysuccessful? As I say parental expectation,home environment, they haven’t gotsomewhere to work, they go home to youknow a fish and chip dinner or a televi-sion. Their parents are not supportive.They don’t turn up to various evenings er, you know or they will come up attimes of trouble and shout the odds butthey won’t come up if you want todiscuss the work.

(Senior Management A)

Attendance at parents’ evenings was often cited asevidence of parental commitment to their child’seducation. Those who did not attend wereimmediately positioned as uninterested in theirchild’s education with no consideration of howparticular circumstances, such as working shifts,

could have made frequent attendance difficult.However, simply attending parents’ evenings wasnot always enough commitment to merit recogni-tion as an active parent. Parents were expected tospend the ‘right’ amount of time speaking withteachers – too long a conversation was thoughtinconsiderate of a teacher’s time. In addition, therewere parents who simply were not worth engagingwith seriously:

You talk to them and you think ‘I don’tknow why I’m wasting my time’. So onparents’ evenings I say as little as possiblebecause I know I am wasting my time. Igo [voice lowers, assumes insincere,pacifying tone] ‘yeah, really well done,really well done, yeah that’s great. Ohno, they’re doing fine.’

(Teacher A)

While this reflected an extreme position, it demon-strates how teachers’ personal beliefs and person-alities shape the schooling process. In addition toattending and acting appropriately at parents’evenings, growing up in an environment conduciveto learning was, according to staff, crucial to theacquisition of academic success. Comments aboutthe suitable home environment revealed furtherbeliefs about the academic propensity of particulargroups of pupils:

I mean obviously if you’ve got a stablehome life, two parents, you got your ownbedroom with a computer in it, youknow you’ll obviously find it easier thanif you’re from a single parent family,you’ve got 2 or 3 younger brothers orsisters to look after and you’re helpingmum cook tea. You know the two typesof students are gonna be very verydifferent when it comes to actuallearning.


What is striking in this remark is the depictionof the families at either end of thisstable–unstable dichotomy, who are seen as


they have been through the systemand the system has worked forthem and they’re more aware of itand I think they probably feel theyare better able to support theirkids through it. They know moreabout how the rules, how thesystem works. They’re morefamiliar with the vocabulary ofeverything and they have hadprobably had more of a formaleducation themselves and cansupport their kids through it. Ermbasically they know the rules andhow the system works more –they’re are better able to supporttheir kids through it. They aremore likely to have more moneyerm so I think, on average, I knowpeople who, they probably gotmore time to devote to their kids.If you’re not as well off you couldbe working all hours to try to keepthe family going, you have gotmore stress as well, perhaps you’reless patient with your kidssometimes if you’re in that sort ofenvironment. There’s something inhousing as well – if you’re morewell off you live in a bigger house,you got access to books and otherfacilities, you can pay for your kidsto go to piano lessons and learnmusic and stuff like that.

Therefore, simply being from middle-classbackgrounds advantages pupils in a number ofways. Their parents, for example, are more likelyto understand the codes and rules to helpnegotiate their child through a system with whichthey are already familiar.31 Financially, too, theyare able to supplement their child’s learning byoffering material resources, a space to study,computers, books or particular aspects of personaldevelopment, such as learning music.

2.3 Pupil definitions of academic successIn comparison to the two forms of successproposed by staff, most of the pupils across the

representing the ideal and worst home-lifescenarios. The problem with this analysis is theunquestioning way in which the teacher readscausality into the pupil’s attitude to learning,sees it as stemming directly from home environ-ment and parental status, prejudging pupils whogrow up in the ‘wrong’ kind of environment asautomatically more likely to fail, and therebychallenging the notion of high expectations forall pupils.

Social classPupils from middle-class backgrounds were seento value education, know how to exercise thisvalue appropriately and understand the conceptof academic success. It was also argued that theparents in such families acted as positive rolemodels for their children through the fact thatthey themselves had usually attended highereducation and pursued professional careers:

Teacher B ... achievement just doesn’t comethrough school. If you spendmost of your life out of school it’sthe background that you grow upin that influences, er, you know,your academic achievement. Alot, er, I don’t know, I can’t say inpercentage terms but, you know,basically kids from fairly better,more well-off, middle-classbackgrounds achieve academi-cally more than kids from diffi-cult, you know, who live in, erm,who come from poorer families. Ithink there is definitely a wholeset of social and economic factorswhich disadvantage certaingroups and advantage others.

Researcher Can you give me an example ...of what you think some of thosefactors are?

Teacher B Well, I mean erm, social class. Ithink middle-class parents tend tobe … they have seen the system,

31 See also Ball (2003: 83)


some feeling that successful pupils tended to bothwear the correct school uniform and be neatlypresented. For the most part, however, the inter-viewed pupils tended to attribute doing well atschool to hard work and, as the followingcomments show, rejected any inferences that successwas related to individual or group characteristics:

It’s nothing about their gender oranything like that. It’s not about; it’s not[about] disability, nothing. It’s not aboutwho you are on the outside it’s aboutwho you are on the inside ...

(Year 11, Mixed heritage male)

Researcher … Cos you’re saying you can beacademically successful and likehave your shirt out ...?

Year 11, Black Hmm, you can.AfricanCaribbean male

Researcher So then I’m lost. Does that meanthat you can not do the schoolrules and still be academicallysuccessful?

Pupil Yeah you can, you can. I think youcan. As I said, it all boils down toyour GCSEs, that’s what I thinkand your level. It boils down toyour GCSEs, what you achieve.And then you’ll know howsuccessful the person, howsuccessful the student is.

This latter exchange highlights the discrepancy inviews between the way many pupils viewed therelationship between appearance and academicperformance compared to school staff discussedabove. Such opposing views are clearly likely toincrease the level of conflict between staff andpupils as the former seek to manage pupil appear-ance and the latter reject being managed.

three Year Groups (9, 10 and 11) tended to viewacademic success in terms of the acquisition of A*to C grades at GCSE:

[Academic success is] probably studentswho are doing well in their subjects,getting good marks, marks that are quitehigh, passes. In GCSE there’s A, B, Cs –they’re passes. And Ds, I don’t thinkthey’re passes. I’m not sure about Ds...

(Year 10, white male)

I would describe it as if you get averagein your GCSE which is C and then B isabove average and A is really good andA* is excellent ...

(Year 10, Black Caribbean female)

Aspirations for these high grades was closelyrelated to an understanding that they would facili-tate access to higher education, a particularlifestyle and high-status jobs:

Everyone says ‘when I grow up I wannahave a nice house, nice car’. If you don’thave good grades you’re gonna have likea mash up32 car and a little council flat orsomething ... You could end up workingin like Mark One,33 and they’d likeprobably still want people with a fewgrades or something.

(Year 11, Black female)

Just 2 of the 25 pupils interviewed considered thatwhile grades were important, school should alsoprovide a basis for personal development and self-awareness. They tended, unlike the dichotomousmodel of their adult counterparts, to view this aspart of a singular or overarching definition ofsuccess. Academically successful pupils were quitesimply regarded as those who worked hard andwere focused. A small number (6 pupils) tentativelysuggested that girls might be more likely to beacademically successful than boys and there was

32 ‘Mash up’ is slang, in this context meaning ugly, old or battered.

33 Mark One (spelled ‘Mk One’) is a young women’s high street fashion chainselling clothes and accessories at discounted prices.


3. Summarizing Staff and PupilDefinitions of Academic SuccessThe ways in which staff and pupils viewedsuccessful and unsuccessful pupils can be summa-rized as shown in Tables 1 and 2.

Table 1 (staff constructions) shows that femalepupils from two-parent, middle-class householdswith few (if any) siblings, who do not display orengage with forms of Black street culture, aremore likely to be considered able to achieve exclu-sive academic success. By contrast, male students

who engage in Black street culture, who comefrom lone-parent families, live in small homes andwho have a number of siblings are alreadypositioned as more likely to fail academically or, interms of this school, as achieving an inclusive (butundoubtedly lower-status form of) success.

While pupils (Table 2) might be said to have amuch smaller worldview than the adults whoteach them, it is noticeable that they have fewerpredetermined – and therefore more equitable –notions of who is and is not able to achieve.

Table 1. Summary of staff constructions of successful and unsuccessful pupilsSuccessful pupils Unsuccessful pupils

Characteristics Girls BoysOrganized DisorganizedMotivated [less motivated]Clear goals/aspirations Ineffective future planningGood conversational skills/analytical [lack of/poor communication]Receptive [disengaged][the right level of self-esteem] Low or too much self-esteem[no Special Educational Needs] Special Educational Needs

Ability (Usually) innate [can be acquired]

Appearance/ Abide by school uniform rules [disobey school rules]demeanour Minimal or no obvious display of Influenced by ‘Black student sub/street cultures’

Black subcultures (dress, walk, hip hop) (dress, walk, hip hop)

No strong individual identity Portrayal of individuality

Social Class Middle class (parents with ‘good’ Working classjobs, educated)

Family/home Dual parentage Single parentageenvironment Parents value and demonstrate No/little value of education or poorly

understanding of education demonstratedAttend parents’ evenings (ask the Infrequent attendance of parents’ eveningsright questions) (ask wrong/too many questions)Access to books, learn instruments, [little extended learning/poor financial computer acumen]Own room/space to work [cramped living conditions][few siblings/manageable household] Number of young siblings [calm/organized environment] Difficult/stressed circumstances

Note. Comments in square brackets denote inferences of the explicit data provided in the corresponding column.

Table 2. Academically successful pupils’ constructions of academically successful pupilsSuccessful students Less successful students

Characteristics Girls (boys) no specific groupingshard workersnot too noisy

Ability anyone can succeed

Appearance/ wear correct uniform/attention to demeanour detail (girls)

4. Differential Treatment ofSuccessful and Unsuccessful Pupils4.1 Staff treatment of pupilsWe have looked at how staff views about theacademic capabilities of pupils relate to fixedunexamined views of pupils’ characteristics,lifestyle and home circumstances. In addition, wehave discussed the ways in which a form of‘educational triage’34 operated withinMetropolitan High so that teacher time andresources are prioritized for those pupils deemedmost capable of achieving in exclusive terms.Such categorization and differential treatmentwere exacerbated by the stressful and challengingteaching conditions that existed at MetropolitanHigh, along with its need to position itself asachieving in governmental terms:

Well I think there’s an awful lot ofpressure on schools because of leaguetables really and the pressure is on forthem to see it more and more in thenarrowest of terms, you know how manychildren got a certificate and how manygot the magic A to Cs ... It does put moreand more pressure on working with thechildren who are going to be the ones whoget you in the league tables. I’m not sayingthis school ... the pressure is there for allschools but I think actually this school willalways have a lot of time for maybe theless able children and bringing them alongand I think we do try to do that as muchas we can.


I mean sometimes staff work under verystressful conditions and they probably willrespond to a child who they know isfocused academically who wants that extrahelp, who has been sort of inquiring,wanting to do something extra comparedto someone who has just ended up in afight and is disrupting the lesson.

(Head of Year Group, female)


34 Gillborn & Youdell (2000)

These comments convey both the degree of tensioninvolved in constantly striving to ensure pupils attain‘the magic A to Cs’ and the way in which this, inturn, encourages a particular focus on those pupilswho are likely to offer promising, high-status returnsacademically. In this climate of targets those pupilsconstructed as successful (see Table 1), and therebycontributing to the school’s legitimacy and survival,are worth more investment than their less successfulpeers. The statement from the Head of Year alsoreveals the perceived linear relationship betweenacademic performance and behaviour, with those‘focused academic’ pupils construed as well-behavedand, by implication, the less academic pupils aspoorly behaved. Therefore, to be defined as academi-cally successful readily imbues pupils with a range ofadditional, favourable attributes and principles:

Say one of those [academically successful]pupils got involved in a situation thenfrom the very onset you would trust thatstudent, you would trust what they say –so to trust your pupils is a big thing andthat trust extends to if there is a piece ofwork that they need to do in the librarywith some students you would say, ‘Yeahfine, you got to be in the library? See youin fifteen minutes.’ To other students youwould say ‘sorry, no you stay in here’. Sothey are treated differently. Often it can be,say, if you got a rowdy boy who is disrup-tive in the lesson, when his hand goes upfor help, sometimes it is very difficult to goand help him but then the person that’s satacross the room if they are on task, hard-working it is a pleasure to go and helpthem and spend five minutes talking withthem, you know, it comes down to yourrelationships at the end of the day but isbased around who do you trust or whodon’t you trust and do you actually enjoyspending time with that person becauseyou can have a conversation or when youspeak to most students it ends up inconfrontation. So you shouldn’t havefavourites but sometimes it’s hard not to.


Being positioned as unsuccessful, therefore, leadsto an increased probability of being disadvantagedeven before – ‘from the very onset’ – the full factshave been gleaned. So while the ‘rowdy boy’ in theabove example is eventually able to settle enoughto engage in his work the mere fact that he wasdisruptive in the first place is enough to deter histeacher from even offering him help with hiswork. While such perceptions about unsuc-cessful/poorly-behaved pupils serve therefore torestrict their chances of success, the perceptionsheld about successful/well-behaved pupils tend tofacilitate the probability of their success:

The system is set up for academicallyable kids so they are more likely to dowell aren’t they? So to the studentsthey’re gonna say ‘well done, you’ve donethis well’. They are going to get morepraise. The system is that, you know,these are the rules and they’re the kidswho can follow those rules, so they’regonna get the praise. We deal with, wedo reward and praise effort as well, er,but then that is something we have tomake a conscious effort to do, you seewhat I mean? If you just go along withthe system then the academically ablekids get the rewards and the praise, thegrades, but you have to make a consciouseffort to praise the kids who put a lot ofeffort in because the system isn’t built upto recognise effort as much.(Teacher B, white male; emphasis added)

This comment clearly exemplifies the theorypresented by Bourdieu when he argues that pupilswhose disposition or profile most closely matchesthe values of the school, or who are regarded ashaving legitimacy within the context of the rulesand norms of the school (see descriptions in theleft-hand column of Table 1), are most likely to berewarded and to achieve academically.35

4.2 Pupils’ views of how staff treat themThese differences in treatment did not gounnoticed by pupils, who perceived that theiracademically successful status affected not just the

type of work they were given but the meting outof discipline and general fair treatment. Theytended to draw comparisons with the treatment ofless successful pupils who, they considered, faredworse in all areas.

Class workClasses that were set by pupil ability provided anobvious example of an arena where teachersdifferentiated between pupils.

In our class, we’re supposed to be thehigher class but we are different peopleon different levels of work: some are onhigher, some intermediate and some arefoundation. So he tends to spend moretime with the higher people, which I seehe like spends more time explaining tothem and with the foundation people hejust like tells them to do stuff – look inthe book and they just do it.

(Year 11, Other Black Background, female)

Despite being considered academically successfuland part of the (higher) extension group, this pupilremains aware of further subdivisions that existwithin this class and the way in which this informsthe teacher’s behaviour towards different groups.‘Higher people’ are seen to receive a richer, moremeaningful level of interaction, with opportunitiesprovided to discuss their work and understand itfully. By comparison, pupils set lower-level(foundation) work simply receive directives, withthe teacher appearing to lack any real concern fortheir progress and understanding. That such anoticeable difference in treatment exists within theextension group suggests that the treatment ofthose in the lower, separate (core) group must beeven starker. Indeed, pupils in these lower setswere reported to feel disheartened and lack themotivation to work since they felt there was alimit on the final grade they could achieve in theexamination:

[Teacher] says some pupils come to hersaying why do they bother when [theyare] put in Foundation groups if they’regoing to fail anyway. [They] can’t be put


35 See Grenfell & James (1998: 21)

in Core/Intermediate group because if[they] fail, [they] will get a U. [It is]better to get some grade than no grade.36

(Head of Subject Area, female)

… sometimes when I talk to them and theysay, ‘Oh well I’m in the low, the duncegroup or the low group’. And I say, ‘Whatdoes that mean? What do you mean bythat?’ ‘Oh the most you can get is a D.’

(Support Staff C, female)

In addition to highlighting the despondency ofpupils in lower groups which are set by ability, theformer teacher also points to the continued riskevaluation and probability calculations involved inensuring pupils receive certain grades. Whilepupils want at least the opportunity to get bettergrades, by being placed in a higher group, this infact is seen to represent too great a risk for theschool. If the pupils fail they will receive a U(unclassified) mark rather than achieving at least‘some grade’ in the lowest group,37 which isregarded as a more favourable option for theschool and the pupils themselves. Worryingly, suchcomplexities and concern with the experiences ofpupils in these lower groups tend not to beaddressed in the policy commitments of either theLabour or Conservative parties, where theypromise increased grouping and setting by ability.38

While some of the academically successful pupilsinterviewed felt they received more teacher attentionand support with their work and encouragementthan their less successful peers, others were of theopinion that their successful status meant they wereregarded as capable of working independently:

I think teachers tend to encourage youmuch more. Like they tell you ‘you cando it’ or they have more faith in you andthey tend to say it to you but not upfront just like ... sometimes they even


36 Fieldnotes.

37 The percentage of pupils receiving ‘ungraded’ or ‘no pass’ results is alsorecorded in the performance tables alongside the schools A* to C and A* to Gpercentage achievements, which may be a further incentive for MetropolitanHigh to ensure that pupils gain definite graded results even if they do not fallwithin the A* to C grade category – a complex game of risk and probability.

38 e.g. DfES (2005b); Cameron (2006)

give you more time or less time becausethey know you can get on with it. Theygive you more time because they want tohelp you more, like to get ahead. I thinkthey do act differently towards academi-cally successful pupils ... Some teacherstend to help more ‘cos they feel like thosepupils are going to succeed … At thesame time they might not help thosepeople who are succeeding because theyknow they can get on with the work ....


Pupils felt that academically successful pupils wereconsidered easier to work with and more likely tobenefit from teacher input. In contrast, pupils feltthat teachers regarded their less successful peers asrequiring a great deal of time and help, at the endof which success was not guaranteed. This wascompounded, in their view, by the fact that staffregarded and treated less academic peers asignorant and unable to grasp concepts quickly:

The people in the foundation class forMaths, they told me that their teacherwas like patronising him. He was like[assumes deeper tone] ‘do you knowwhat a calculator is?’ Or things like that,sarcastic comments like that or ‘Do youknow what to do with it?’ Stuff like that.Things that you should know, that heknows and he asks do you know aboutthat. It makes you feel stupid.


Pupils positioned as less successful were thereforetreated as inferiors in relation to the type of workthey were given, the quality of teacher interactionthey received but also, as already evidenced in thestaff comments above, in the level of under-standing they were granted.

DisciplineAccording to pupil reports (and as shown earlier),teachers tended to be less suspicious and more

lenient about the motives or behaviour ofsuccessful pupils, a generosity not offered to theirless successful peers:

Like if somebody [who] is not successful,erm, does not do their homework theyget in trouble but the good persondoesn’t do their homework it’s like, ‘ohyou can bring it in tomorrow’.

(Year 10, Black Caribbean, female)

Implicit in granting academically successfulstudents extra time to complete their work is abelief that they have genuine reasons for nothanding it in. A similar judgement is not accordedto the less successful student, who is assumed tobe making excuses and is subsequently punished.Different sets of assumptions prevail for the pupilsdepending on their profile or the extent to whichthey are seen to have legitimacy within the school.The judgement that they possess additional desir-able qualities also often means successful pupilsescape minor reprimands in the classroom:

[Less successful students get treated] likethey’re bad, like every little thing thatperson does, they get picked on. Like ifthey come into the classroom late it’s likea big thing, if like a good person comesin late, it’s like ‘why were you late?’ andyou get to sit down and do your work.

(Year 10, Black Caribbean, female)

In this case, simply asking ‘why were you late?’allows the successful student the opportunity toexplain their version of events. These pupils’opinion is deemed to be honest, reliable and validcompared to their less successful peers, who aregenerally not given the opportunity to explainthemselves. Such unjust differences in treatmenttend to engender despondency and frustrationamongst some of the pupils:

I’ve seen two different students: the goodone and the bad one. A teacher musthave been talking, explaining the work,and the bad one must have asked aquestion but not put his hand up and heshouted out like ‘what you doing? It’srude blah, blah, blah.’ And the good one


done exactly the same thing but he gotanswered. There’s no … I don’t see wherethe boundaries are. You can’t just do thatand then they don’t expect you just to getup and then be angry!

(Year 11, Black African, male)

There was also evidence, as the following extractsindicate, that teachers tended to exercise anexaggerated level of control and discipline ifsuccessful pupils misbehaved.

Year 10 white If you [as an academicallymale successful student] do something

wrong male then it will be picked up on quite easily than somebody who is less academically successful it would be less picked up on. Let’ssay you have done something bad like punched a teacher or something, you would get excludedworse than if you were less academically successful.

Researcher Why do you think that is?

Pupil They’re not meant to be that way.They want more academicallysuccessful people in their school.More punishment is to like scarethem ‘cos if they were less academ-ically successful I think it wouldn’tscare them as much because theywould just go and do it againwhich is weird but they don’tknow that, I don’t think. I don’tthink teachers do know that or theheadteacher….[emphasis added]

Year 9, Black I was talking once in HumanitiesCaribbean, and … because this boy had myfemale pen? And the teacher sent a letter

home pen? And the teacher sent aletter home saying I was beingdisruptive.

Researcher … Do you think she would havewritten the letter if you were notacademically successful?

academic success: namely a high-status A* to Cgrade ‘exclusive’ success; and a lower-status D toG grade ‘inclusive’ success – each regarded asavailable to only certain types of pupil. Black malepupils, notably those engaging in what stafftermed ‘street culture’, were unlikely to fit theprofile of the pupil achieving in ‘exclusive’ terms.Positioning pupils in this way, to have low expec-tations of them simply because of who they are,legitimizes an acceptance of lower expectationsand therefore poorer academic standards for Blackpupils.

However, while the constructions presented inTable1 (cross-ref page no.) offer a useful overviewof the profile of successful and unsuccessful pupils,it is unlikely, given the fluidity of teacher perspec-tives and of pupil identities, that any individualpupil will sit neatly in either of these twocategories. Instead, the concepts might best beregarded as part of a continuum (see Table 3)where pupils who present with more elements ofthe successful pupil, in terms of characteristics,ability, appearance, social class and family/homeenvironment, can be regarded as having greaterlegitimacy within the school. In other words, theseare the type of ‘able’ pupils that the school regardsas suitable for achieving exclusive success.Conversely, those who present with more of theelements of an unsuccessful pupil can be regardedas having greater illegitimacy within the dominantdiscourse of the school as it struggles to applylimited resources to increase its chances ofachieving well.

The findings shown in Table 3 allow for pupilsto be positioned according to the dynamic betweentheir own identity and that constituted bymembers of staff. This framework therebychallenges existing research on the school experi-ences and educational performance of Blackpupils, which has tended to attribute the reasonsfor their differential achievement to either intrinsiccultural factors or to the structural constraints ofschool organization, governmental policy andteacher racism (see Section 1). Based on theevidence presented here, it is clear that thisdichotomy is too simplistic. The complex interplayof pupil identities, choice (albeit limited and


Pupil No ‘cos I asked most of the peoplewho aren’t academic if they got aletter home for doing these thingsand they didn’t.

Teachers appear unwilling to tolerate any form ofmisbehaviour from successful pupils since this mayaffect the likelihood of their attaining academi-cally. This provides further evidence of the need to‘protect’ pupils who are seen as an importantinvestment, contributing to the school’s success.

5. Discussion

If you had low expectations of a pupil,it’s going be hard for them to achieve. Ifyou aim low then I suggest you are gonnaget low … If you already think when aperson walks into your class that thisperson is gonna end up in the gutter thenall that stuff about knowing your kidsand learning [about] where they havebeen and getting that feeling of achieve-ment, where you have got them to exceedthat place, you know … what has beenpredicted for them [is] that they aregonna end up in the gutter ... It’s waybelow their actual potential and youthink you’ve done a good job thereforeyou’re gonna do the same thing next yearand the year after.

(Teacher C; emphasis added)

This research originally set out to understand theexperiences of academically successful Black pupilsand the ways in which school staff viewed them. Itwas found, however, that staff at MetropolitanHigh were largely unable to talk about Blackpupils in the context of success. Instead, in linewith the conclusions of existing research,39 thefindings expose some of the ways in which staff atthis inner-city school seek to negotiate the pressurefor improved grades and encourage the most‘valuable’ pupils to succeed. In this pursuit, staffsupport and enforce two very different versions of

39 e.g. Cassen & Kingdon (2007); Gillborn & Youdell (2000)

inappropriately executed as they adapt theirschool uniform, wear elements of clothing likely tocause conflict with staff), alongside the implicitand rather arbitrary existence and application ofstaff rules governing the achievement of exclusivesuccess, provides evidence for a third way: aculturalism-within-structuralism paradigm.

This new approach will help move debatesbeyond a solely structuralist analysis in whichBlack pupils are often reduced to victim, with littleor no degree of choice and responsibility, but alsobeyond an exclusively culturalist perspective, whichhas tended to overlook the powerful role of policyand racisms and simplistically contributed to thepathologizing of Black pupils and their families.

The culturalism-within-structuralism paradigmrepresents other means by which future educa-tional debates, projects and initiatives regardingBlack pupils will be able to better prioritize andexplore the complex ways in which policy is inter-preted and ‘played out’ at school level, the extentto which its discourse can reinforce teachers’subjective views about groups of pupils along axesof race, class and gender, and how its implementa-tions differentially affect the school experiences ofthese pupils.

Within this framework, particular considerationshould be paid to the ways in which language andcertain sets of terminology (e.g. ‘potential’,‘ability’, ‘high expectations’) common withineducational policy discourse40 tend, within thesetting of the school, to ‘hide’ different sets ofmeaning depending on whom they are referring to.

At the same time, however, the paradigmadvocates consideration of the ways in whichBlack pupils themselves may inadvertentlycontribute to their own negative positioning asthey attempt to negotiate their school existence.Addressing such processes at the levels of pupil,school and government remains important if Blackpupils are to have a genuine opportunity toachieve in real (exclusive) terms. And it is to behoped that, after declaring his determination to‘invest in the educational chances of all childrennot just some’, new British Prime Minister GordonBrown will be able to clearly demonstrate thatevery child really does matter.41


40 See e.g. Ofsted (1999:18); DfES (2003: 4); DfES (2004:45)

41 Brown (2007)

Table 3. Relationship between establishedpupil profile and predicted grades

Successful pupil Unsuccessful pupil

Desirable attributes; Undesirable attributes;Increased legitimacy Increased illegitimacy

exclusive success (A* to C) Inclusive success (D to G)

low predicted grades low predicted grades challenged not challenged

high pupil/parent high pupil/parentexpectations expectations challenged not challenged


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For information on how to order Runnymede and jointlypublished titles contact us at: The Runnymede Trust, 7 Plough Yard, Shoreditch, London EC2A 3LPT: 020 7377 9222 F: 020 7377 6622 E: [email protected] W: www.runnymedetrust.org

Runnymede Perspectives aim, as a series,to engage with government – and other – initiatives through exploring the use and development of concepts in policymaking, and analysing their potential contribution to a successful multi-ethnic Britain.

Dr Nicola Rollock is a Research Fellow at the Institute for PolicyStudies in Education (IPSE), London Metropolitan University, where sheresearches and writes on issues of social justice, cultural diversity andeducation. Having been previously a Research & Policy Analyst forEducation at the Runnymede Trust, she obtained her PhD in Education,for which she was awarded a Wingate Scholarship, from the Institutefor Education, University of London in 2006. Dr Rollock can be contacted at [email protected]

AcknowledgementsThe author would like to thank the Harold Hyam Wingate Foundationfor the award of a scholarship to support this research.

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