Why are Indian & Chinese kids attaining much higher than white/black/Pakistani children?

[Widilo]

I’ve been thinking this over today. DS recently went to a Kumon class (if you trawl through Mn threads over the years this is generally much hated on MN). All the kids coming out were Indian or Chinese, all the kids in her group Indian or Chinese. A smattering of black children and 1 white child (DS). DS won’t be going back (it was a trial class) because it just seemed to be repetitive rote learning of hundreds of sums, but clearly this is working somewhere along the line?

stats linked here www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/education-skills-and-training/11-to-16-years-old/gcse-results-attainment-8-for-children-aged-14-to-16-key-stage-4/latest

I wish white-British parents were as fanatical about education as Asian parents. My god, we really could learn something from them. I remember working with some Nepalese and Indian children a few years ago. They were SO polite, and SO hard-working. If the U.K. is going to survive in the 21st-century (assuming there’s is a U.K.), we need to copy the ferocious work ethic and self-discipline of such people.

I disagree.

It's part of the wider aspect of having your life controlled. Expectations of what grades you'll get, what job you'll do, and who you'll marry.

Many don't really have much choice if they don't want to be disinherited.

@Pigriver Pakistan is such a varied place though. My in laws are Pakistani. My niece joked that her mother decided she would be a Dr. when she was in the womb. She is now applying to medical schools. She's still been able to enjoy her childhood but was pushed and encourage and praised. Her mother wouldn't have been afforded that opportunity and was married at not much older. There's a lot of pride about how well they are doing. My nieces and nephews have lots of out of school activities and some of them a lot of tutoring on top of receiving private school education at schools in the top ten in their city.

@euff oh I totally agree but nearly all if the kids are from a very small remote region. We have had other families in the past that are from the big cities and they have been very involved, well educated and keen for their children to succeed.
I always say that parents just want better for their kids than they had. And these families are doing that. They have a house, access to schooling etc but everyone's starting point is different.

I am happy to let my children grow and develop at their own pace with encouragement from me, rather than be a tiger mum pushing them to the brink of a nervous breakdown in pursuit of 'success'

I think it’s mostly down to the fact that London schools have been better funded compared to the rest of the U.K. since 2003 and most ethnic minorities in the U.K. live in London. So they have disproportionately benefited from better funded and resourced state schools for almost twenty years. (Those stats are only for pupils in State education.)

I don’t agree with any racist lines of thought that ascribe to certain ethnicities superior or inferior capabilities, aspirations, work ethic, etc.

Why do you think that pushing children to succeed automatically leads to a nervous breakdown?

I'll also add that screen time, tik tok, Minecraft etc are not the done thing either! My neighbours can't believe the amount of screen time uk kids get..

If you want a child like this no screen time as such, movies as treats not the norm, lots of books, library, set them extra work. Prioritise social skills, manners & joy in learning. Make sure they have friends with a similar mindset. Don't be afraid to set high expectations for them!

DS does a sport which is very popular with non white kids in the UK. At comps white kids are the minority.

It's a sport that involves a lot of time, (relative to football) money, grit and repetition.

Everyone takes it very seriously. At first I felt sorry for some of the kids, smallish children surrounded by 'tiger' parents, coaches etc.

But now I think we are the idiots. They aren't just competition in the sport, they're competition in everything. DS is going to have to compete for all sorts of resources with these kids, he needs to get used to it.

Most of these kids appear to be loving every minute of it, they don't strike me as being super stressed. I'm don't know them though - it's just my impression.

I don't think the white kids are in the minority because it's not a 'white sport', I think many white kids just can't hack it because they're not pushed the same way.

And before I'm flamed, DS is usually bottom half of everything. I'm personally not prepared to push the last 20% we need. I don't think it's right for our family, DS is happy to improve on his personal best whilst enjoying the sport itself - and it's certainly teaching him resilience.

I don't believe that you can racially stereotype, but I do believe in culture. I work with manufacturers from all over the world and different countries absolutely do have different ways of doing things.

And also - I get that the nature of the sport itself will cause self selection. It just appears that of all the kids playing this sport, it's a particular selection of it that is in the elite.

Fluffy, if he does have traits of neurodiversity, he may appreciate and benefit from the structured nature of Kumon. Might be worth a try to see if he likes it?

@Pigriver absolutely agree and my father said exactly that to me growing up. It makes me sad that I'm not able to do that for my kids as I did not make the effort at school. I do actually feel that I've let my kids down by not doing well and not being able to do even the same for my kids as my parents did for us.

My parents were both immigrants and came from different classes and cultural backgrounds. My white mother was from a working class background and my brown father a middle class background. Dad would constantly talk about how wonderful his nieces and nephews were and how much work they did. My father has in the past made comments about us not having the right kind of mother. (He worked away a lot and actively avoided being around us when not). She did value education but had left school young had no support in her own youth and as an adult and was probably exhausted.

I was at primary in the mid 60s and we used to chant our tables - the idea being that when we needed that information it had been drilled into us so thoroughly that it was there without thinking about it. Teacher used to go around the class asking us '6 times 9!' '11 times 12!' and we'd have to give the answer.

So much starts at home. There are still families who have little interest in their children’s education, their behaviour, their speech etc. Unfortunately, some schools will have more than their fair share of pupils from those backgrounds. Some parents will actually take pride in not wanting their children to do better than them. Inverted snobbery?

DH met that attitude as a child where he grew up, and wanted better for our DC. No tiger parenting, just encouragement to grasp opportunities. And not bringing them up in a similar environment to his.

I think Lottiegarbanzo hit the nail on the head with this post:

*The complacent white middle class believe we can rely on social capital to get around lower educational attainment. It's worked pretty well for generations. Is that changing yet?

The complacent white working class haven't yet adapted to the change that's already taken place, with the loss of widely-available manual jobs in the UK.

People from minority immigrant backgrounds know they can't afford to be complacent.*

I live in a predominantly white area with very low (bottom decile) educational attainment. So much so that a national charity has opened an academic support centre right in the middle of the estate.

Primary school kids get classes in "University" subjects (obviously at a primary level!) like Ancient Civilisations, Astronomy, Computer Science. Older kids get homework help and mentoring. All for free.

My white kids are in a minority there.

Plus we're not even using the centre as its intended. My eldest is Home Educated due to ASD and the support he gets at the centre is almost substituting for a formal education rather than supplementing it.

Had he not been homeschooled and had I not been casting around for any and all educational opportunities.....would I have definitely sent them?

Truthfully, maybe not. I might have treated it like any other out of school activity and they could have gone if they were interested or stayed home if not.

Whereupon her parents told her to refuse the job or they would throw her out for showing them up.

Pointythings why did her parents throw her out for getting a job/

They threw her out because she was 'letting the side down' by not living on benefits like the rest of her family. At this point in time it was still possible to leave school at 16 with nothing lined up - she wanted to stay in school and finish her GCSEs, but her parents refused to support her. They were utterly awful people. She is fully NC with them, has been for years.

Look at the amount of people on here who moan about kids being given two hours of homework a night, saying "when do kids get chance to be kids" and suchlike. That's why.

Western culture fetishizes childhood at the expense of the adults that children become.

Because Chinese/Indian immigration is usually done legally, so high skilled people get Visa, that’s why there are a lot of Indian Drs/Dentists/IT Professionals, and intelligence is 80-90% hereditary so they have clever children. Immigration from Pakistan is much more likely to be illegal, and so less intelligent people.

Its the same reason that Turkish people in USA do extremely well whereas in Germany they do poorly. It’s because most immigration from Turkey to USA is selective immigration, whereas to Germany it’s largely illegal migration.

They threw her out because she was 'letting the side down' by not living on benefits like the rest of her family.

That’s terrible Pointythings. Thank goodness you were able to help her.

Does it matter that much? Some of it seems extreme to me tbh and dc are in diverse or high achieving schools and doing well

Only 1 in 5 Pakistani muslims are in work which is an absolute disgrace and inexcusable, and a huge drain to society considering millions live in this country.

My dd has a number of asian friends in her sixth form. Parents push them extremely hard, they are not allowed to go out socialising much except to numerous family weddings and gatherings. They are all pushed into careers like dentistry and medicine and don't seem to get any choice in it. Most of them because of their work ethic get into the best schools in town. I'm actually very glad my dd is friends with these kids as the work ethic seems to rub off on her !

Could you provide a source and comparative population statistics for this please @Miss03852
It’s utterly meaningless opinion without

How much illegal immigration do you believe occurs?!
You are writing mostly twaddle mixed in with a tiny bit of truth.
For example, I live in a predominantly Turkish area in Berlin. Germany's Turkish immigrants (who are legally here btw) were brought here under the Gastarbeiter scheme and were mostly recruited from the poorest and remote areas of Turkey. They deliberately targeted people with little education. It was thought that this would mean they would have a strong incentive to earn well in Germany for a few years and then return to their home villages and use the money they had earnt to settle down, buy land, start a business, or such like. In practice, many of the home villages were so poor and cut off from infrastructure that this prospect did not appeal and immigrants wanted to stay in Germany instead.
Because the Turks had been envisioned only as short term visitors to the country, services such as German language classes (which had been requested by the Turks) were denied. Ultimately, of course, this was a huge setback to integration and to the ability of Turkish parents to help their children with school work. Social prejudice within Germany also didn't exactly help matters.
Obviously, educated Turks emigrating from large Turkish cities to the USA as skilled workers will have a very different educational and social starting point as well as undergoing a very different immigrant experience.
But both groups are/were legal immigrants.
Chinese/Indian vs Pakistani immigration to the UK is similarly nuanced and nothing to do with legal vs illegal immigration.