Alex Mistlin explains why geography, not race, explains the disadvantage gap
CREDIT: This is an edited version of an article that originally appeared on The Guardian
It sounds weird to me now but, looking back, I didn’t know I was black until I went to university. At every school I attended (seven between the ages of four and 18) I was one of many students from a minority ethnic background and it never occurred to me that I was less likely to succeed because of my race.
Indeed, the latest government figures for England show that black pupils actually have a higher rate of higher education (HE) participation than white pupils. According to the research, mixed white and black African pupils eligible for free school meals – the category I was in – were more than twice as likely to attend university than their white British counterparts (40% v 16%).
While the culture wars have created a perverse demand for stories that present different identity groups as being more oppressed than others, the below par performance of white students, particularly those who are poor and male, has long been a popular response to the notion that racial discrimination is something that disadvantages minority communities. “What about the white-working class?” those on the right cry.
Consequently, a recent blogpost from Chris Millward, of the Office for Students, represents a timely intervention. The post confirms that poor white students are the least likely to attend university. “The rate of progression into higher education for white British students who are eligible for free school meals is only 16%” – as compared with rates of 32% and 59% for poor black Caribbean and African students respectively.
However, astutely, the blog emphasised the impact of geography on these outcomes; white students who receive free school meals in London have pulled away from those in other parts of the country, with their rate of HE participation 8% higher than any other region, at 44.7%.
The headline statistics – most notably, the figure that white pupils are the least likely to progress to HE by age 19, at 38% – were eye-catching enough for many to conclude that poor white teenagers are being ‘left behind’. Further inspection, however, reveals that, if this is the case, it’s more likely to be a consequence of place than of race. As Millward points out, the “most important ingredient for HE participation is the level of attainment in school”; levels of school attainment are universally lower outside the capital.
This is a reflection of a focus on improving educational outcomes in London, where less than half (45%) of the population is classified as white British while, the next most-diverse region – the West Midlands – is 79% white British. The capital’s strong performance skews the data in favour of black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) groups because London’s demography is so different from the rest of England’s.
A proxy for place
In Britain, race can be a proxy for place, particularly in relation to the black community because 66% of black British people live in London or the south-east. As such, simplistic framings of the education debate in terms of how black students outperform their white counterparts – as though schools and local authorities are somehow privileging the needs of their BAME students – are often missing key context. For instance, black pupils remain the least likely to progress to ‘high tariff HE’ – which refers to Britain’s elite universities – including Oxbridge and the Russell Group – and they tend to do worse once there. According to Advance HE research, the gap in likelihood for white and black students to get a 2:1 degree will not close until 2086 at present rates.
Moreover, the educational success of BAME communities is a relatively recent phenomenon. Black students, for example, haven’t always done better in UK education. In 2005-06 the HE participation rates for black Caribbean and black other students were below the corresponding figure for white British students. In other words, BAME students aren’t ‘naturally’ predisposed to do better, nor are they at a systemic advantage at every stage of their education; they tend to do better at school because they disproportionately live in London, where schools are better.
However, this was not always the case. By 1997, the year of my birth, the poor standard of state education in London was a cause for embarrassment. Only 16% of students gained five GCSEs at grades A to C, and large gaps in the achievements of different ethnic groups were a major issue for many communities. The London Challenge, launched by Labour education secretary Estelle Morris – herself a former teacher – in 2003 was a game-changer. By 2010, Ofsted had declared that London had a higher proportion of good and outstanding schools than any other English region.
Yes, my mother was a hardworking, entrepreneurial British-Nigerian who always prioritised my education – but the abundance of good local state schools surely helped.
The key to any solution, therefore, isn’t to cast a suspicious eye at one of the few areas where BAME communities are more successful, but instead to look at what worked in London and apply it to the rest of England. Not only is this less divisive than inflammatory references to ‘woke teachers’ and ‘critical race theory’, it’s also more likely to succeed.
The Opportunity North East initiative – a multimillion pound government-led programme to improve social mobility and raise aspirations for children in the north-east – may well have a positive initial impact.
In other words, the key is to stop being so worried about race, and start thinking about public investment in the lives of those who weren’t lucky enough to be born inside the M25.
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