ABSTRACT
Public concern over the educational attainments of recently immigrated children seems to have first become noticeable in the late 1960s, and from 1970 on a modest but steady stream of reports, analyses and discussions have been published. Recent immigrants, regardless of their origins, found the adjustment to British schools difficult, and obtained relatively low scores on formal tests of attainment, such as reading and mathematics, as well as on IQ tests. Children whose first language is not English and who speak some other language at home are unlikely to read English as well as their English-speaking contemporaries. Relationship between IQ scores of different ethnic groups and their social circumstances. In both studies these circumstances included: father in non-manual occupation; male head of household present; fewer than four children in household or family. The 'problem' of the educational attainment of children from ethnic minorities amounts to this: newly arrived immigrants tend to find it very difficult to adjust to British schools.
