Paul Connolly

The Effects of Social Class and Ethnicity on Gender Differences in GCSE Attainment: A Secondary Analysis of the Youth Cohort Study of England and Wales 1997-2001

This article is based upon a secondary analysis of three successive cohorts of the Youth Cohort Study of England and Wales and examines the effects of social class and ethnicity on gender differences in General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) attainment for those who left school in 1997, 1999 and 2001 respectively. The article shows that both social class and ethnicity exert a far greater influence on the GCSE performance of boys and girls than gender. Within this it assesses whether there is an interaction effect between gender and social class and also gender and ethnicity in terms of their impact on educational attainment. The article shows that, across all three cohorts, there is no evidence of any systematic variation in the size of the gender differences in educational attainment that exist across either social class or ethnic groups. Simply in terms of the effects of social class, ethnicity and gender on educational attainment, therefore, it is argued that these can actually be understood...

Engaging science policy: from the side of the messy

Taylor and Francis CBSE_A_559345.sgm 10.1080/01425692.2011.559345 British Journal of Sociology of Education 0142-5692 (pri t)/1465-3346 (online) Rev ew Symposium 2 11 & Francis 3200002 1 LynYates l. at s@unimelb.edu.au Engaging science policy: from the side of the messy, by Patti Lather, New York, Peter Lang Publishers, 2010, 128 pp., US

Addressing diversity and inclusion in the early years in conflict‐affected societies: a case study of the Media Initiative for Children 1 —Northern Ireland

89.95 (hardback), US

Racism, Masculine Peer‐group Relations and the Schooling of African/ Caribbean Infant Boys

22.95 (paperback), ISBN 978-1-43-310328-5 (hardback), 978-1-43-310329-2 (paperback)

Summary statistics, educational achievement gaps and the ecological fallacy

This article reports on the development and systematic evaluation of an innovative early years programme aimed at encouraging young children to respect differences within a deeply divided society that is emerging out of a prolonged period of violent conflict. The programme, the Media Initiative for Children—Northern Ireland, has been the product of a partnership between a US‐based organization (the Peace Initiatives Institute) and NIPPA—The Early Years Organisation, and has been supported by academic research and the efforts of a range of voluntary and statutory organizations. It has attempted to encourage young children to value diversity and be more inclusive of those who are different from themselves through the use of short cartoons designed for and broadcast on television as well as specially prepared curricular materials for use in pre‐school settings. To date the programme has been delivered through 200 settings to approximately 3500 pre‐school children across Northern Ireland. This article describes how the programme was developed and implemented as well as the rigorous approach taken to evaluating its effects on young children’s attitudes and awareness. Key lessons from this are identified and discussed in relation to future work in this area.

All Lads Together?: racism, masculinity and multicultural/anti‐racist strategies in a primary school

The past decade has witnessed the publication of a growing number of important ethnographic studies investigating the schooling experiences of Black students. Their focus has largely been upon student‐teacher relations during the students’ last few years of compulsory education. What they have highlighted is the complexity of racism and the varied nature of Black students’ experiences of schooling. By drawing upon data from a year‐long ethnographic study of an inner‐city, multi‐ethnic primary school, this paper aims to compliment these studies in two ways. Firstly the paper will broaden the focus to examine how student peer‐group relations play an integral role, within the context of student—teacher relations, in shaping many Black students’ schooling experiences. By focussing on African/ Caribbean infant boys, it will be shown how student—teacher relations on the one hand, and peer‐group relations on the other, form a continuous feed‐back loop; the products of each tending to exacerbate and inflate the o...

The general and specific effects of educational programmes aimed at promoting awareness of and respect for diversity among young children

Summary statistics continue to play an important role in identifying and monitoring patterns and trends in educational inequalities between differing groups of pupils over time. However, this article argues that their uncritical use can also encourage the labelling of whole groups of pupils as ‘underachievers’ or ‘overachievers’ as the findings of group‐level data are simply applied to individual group members, a practice commonly termed the ‘ecological fallacy’. Some of the adverse consequences of this will be outlined in relation to current debates concerning gender and ethnic differences in educational attainment. It will be argued that one way of countering this uncritical use of summary statistics, and the ecological fallacy that it tends to encourage, is to make much more use of the principles and methods of what has been termed ‘exploratory data analysis’. Such an approach is illustrated through a secondary analysis of data from the Youth Cohort Study of England and Wales, focusing on gender and ethnic differences in educational attainment. It will be shown that, by placing an emphasis on the graphical display of data and on encouraging researchers to describe those data more qualitatively, such an approach represents an essential addition to the use of simple summary statistics and helps to avoid the limitations associated with them.

A Critical Review of Some Recent Developments in Quantitative Research on Gender and Achievement in the United Kingdom.

ABSTRACT This article examines the articulation of racism and masculinity as manifest amongst infant children in a multi‐ethnic, inner‐city primary school. Drawing upon a year‐long ethnographic study of the school, it will highlight some of the inherent problems of multicultural/anti‐racist strategies which are not sufficiendy grounded in an understanding of racism and how it complexly interrelates with other systems of inequality, in this case gender. The article will show how many of the racist incidents and processes evident amongst the infant children can only be understood within the context of their expressions of masculinity. With this as a starting point, the article will go on to outline and assess one particular strategy of the school to try and engage older African/Caribbean boys through sports and particularly football. It will be shown how, as a result of this ‘multicultural/anti‐racist’ strategy, a distinct masculine ethos has been created within the school which, ironically, provides a stro...

Using survey data to explore preschool children's ethnic awareness and attitudes

This article reports the findings of a mixed‐method evaluation of a pilot educational programme undertaken with six to seven year olds in a sample of primary schools in England with the aim of increasing their awareness of and respect for diversity through theatre, workshops and related teacher‐led classroom activities. The qualitative feedback from the teachers involved was extremely positive and encouraging and an analysis of the actual impact of the pilot programme on the children’s attitudes and awareness, using an experimental design, demonstrated some positive effects. In particular, the programme was found to increase the children’s general awareness of diversity and their ability to recognize instances of exclusion. While not a planned objective of the pilot programme, the evaluation also examined whether it had any effects on the children’s attitudes to specific differences, in this particular case racial differences. Interestingly, however, no evidence was found of any change in the children’s racial attitudes. With this in mind the article suggests that there is a need to distinguish between the general and specific effects of such educational programmes. The article considers the implications of this for future work in the area and also stresses the need to begin undertaking more thorough and rigorous evaluations of such initiatives.

KEEPING A SENSE OF PROPORTION BUT LOSING ALL PERSPECTIVE: A CRITIQUE OF GORARD'S NOTION OF THE ‘POLITICIAN'S ERROR’

Over recent years the findings of a number of quantitative research studies have been published in the UK on gender and achievement. Much of this work has emanated from Stephen Gorard and his colleagues and has not only been highly critical of existing approaches to handling quantitative data but has also suggested a number of alternative and, what they claim to be, more valid ways of measuring differential patterns of achievement and underachievement between groups. This article shows how much of this work has been based upon rather under‐developed measures of achievement and underachievement that tend, in turn, to generate a number of misleading findings that have questionable implications for practice. It will be argued that this body of work provides a useful case study in the problems of quantitative research that fails to engage adequately with the substantive theoretical and empirical literature and considers some of the implications of this for future research in this area.