Multi-ethnic muddle

Educational opinion, in debating urban disadvantage, classroom life and family problems, had invested heavily in educational solutions. But as Harold Silver observed, there was growing doubt that a just society could be arrived at simply through educational reform. ¹ When urban policy was seen through the colour prism of ethnicity the key problems were highlighted and intensified. What happened to urbanized New Zealand Maoris or Polynesians, Australian aboriginals or ‘new Australians’, or the West Indian family in Birmingham was an emotive and highly-charged question; it was also dramatically visible. Undoubtedly there was a close link between ethnicity, black skin and low socio-economic or housing class. In the US, for example, two-thirds of all whites were middle class while two-thirds of all blacks were lower class. So if you wanted to study closely the multiply deprived lower class child you followed round the New York Puerto Rican, the Greek child in Melbourne or the French-speaking child in the Canadian city.