ABSTRACT
This chapter details a piece of research which illustrates the way in which inequalities within the British education system act to produce differential educational achievement for pupils of different ethnic origins. It aims to examine the distribution of pupils of different ethnic origins among schools in Birmingham. The problem of ‘underachievement’ of pupils of African Caribbean, Bangladeshi and Pakistani origins is usually depicted as an ‘ethnic problem’. This led in the past to the proposal of both biological and cultural explanations for the low achievement of pupils of these ethnic origins. The chapter focuses on differences between different Asian groups as differential achievement between Asian and African Caribbean pupils could possibly occur as a consequence of different racist stereotypes which abound within society. The importance of such research is that there is a need to discover the real cause, or causes, of ‘underachievement’ so that an appropriate solution can be found.
