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

That's my point upthread... The eastern europeans are streets ahead in stem subjects & the parents we know are extremely pushy... Their dc are very accomplished academically & musically

It's a funny quirk of language and national outlook that interest in educational outcome and taking steps to maximise it comes across as 'pushy'.

@euff don't be hard on yourself. I really think attitude towards education is everything. My mum grew up poor. She was one of 12 siblings and rarely went to school as she was raising the younger kids. She has worked minimum wage jobs all her life and left school early. That said she strives to give us everything she didn't have. Love, attention, we had the right equipment for school, went to the library, listened to us read every day despite barely being able to herself, made sure we could swim even though she can't and is terrified of water. We didn't have much growing up and I'm the first in the family to go to university and have a career rather than a job (or no job and live of benefits).

Utter BS.

Indian parent here with all 3 DC's flying academically.

Oldest is priming herself for Exeter Uni with language and politics. She's 14.

Middle is priming herself for Medicine. She's almost 11.

Youngest is priming herself for wanting to teach. She's 9.

While I FULLY appreciate that they are all very young and no one knows what the future holds, all 3 have a strong work ethic, absolutely respect their teachers and they know to get somewhere in life, you have to apply yourself. You get out what you put in.

They also have hobbies, have fun with friends and are still very childlike. But they know they have to work hard and they mostly will prioritise their learning.
At home they're taught values, life skills and compassion for others.

Money has very little to do with it. They attain because I invest in them.

@BecauseICan22
I totally agree. I start asking my children what they want to do at university from age 11. My eldest ds is now a second year maths student at Warwick and already planning his ph.d, second ds is planning to do Economics, and has chosen his A levels, 13 year old dd is prioritising aiming towards a law degree. There is no question or option of not going to university, no matter the cost

I agree that expecting results is not healthy - things can go wrong in spite of the best preparation. I’d rather reward effort (I’m sort of a 2nd gen immigrant though - my parents were more results-oriented).

I agree that the U.K. has a strange idea of an idyllic childhood. My childhood was exhausting, but it helped prepare me for busy adult life. Someone on a different thread said that 17/18 year olds should be partying and carefree at uni. Uncles/aunts at that age were working supporting younger siblings. I tell my young kids they should make the most of their education now - once they are adults they will have to either borrow/save up large amounts to study (retakes, uni) OR study in the evenings after a full day’s work.

i don’t particularly want them to get a high paying job. But I would like them to have options - to buy a house, have enough food, do a job they like.

Why are Indian and Chinese kids attaining higher? The answer is simple. Parent involvement.

I'm not Indian/Chinese/white/black/Pakistani, but my dc is attaining higher than children in his class.. Answer is the same. Parental involvement.

Parental involvement is all to the good. But the nature of that involvement is critical

It’s really wrong to talk about white populations in the U.K. and not recognise the Irish descent and the fact that they always score higher than other white groups and on par with the the highest scoring groups.

This is really overlooked yet the same reasons exist as mentioned for other immigrant groups - a strong focus on the value of education, structured schooling in the predominantly Catholic schools and a focus on personal achievement and endeavour.

So many of us end up in medicine, law and finance ( if you want the high flying stuff) let alone teaching and nursing.

I'm Asian. Growing up it was a foregone conclusion that my siblings and I would work hard at school and achieve good grades. There was no nagging over homework, we just did it because we knew there was no other option. University was non negotiable. We still had fun, friends, hobbies. But education was the be all and end all. And we all benefited from this all pervasive attitude at home, we all qualified and work in highly regarded professional careers.

I've brought up my DCs the same way. They know education is the no. 1 priority in our house and they just get on with it. They still have hobbies and friends and playstation etc. University is non negotiable. My extended family is the same so it's just the norm for them.

I agree with a lot if these posts. My experience (personally and professionally) is that it is - parental involvement, high expectations, structured home life, respect for teachers and society, role models - these all play a part.

Some children just have a very different attitude to school than others. Where does that come from? I would say from their home, and their peer group.

The difference in attainment between ethnicities has nothing to do with racist stereotypes about culture or work ethic or immigrants. All your anecdotes are meaningless.

Investment in education results in higher performing students.

London schools get far more funding per pupil that the schools in the rest of the U.K. Over a £1k per pupil more. Not including an additional £40m that was also given to London schools by the mayors excellence fund. This higher investment in London schools has been the case since 2013. Every child living in London benefits from better state schools compared to every child going to state schools outside London.

So of course, every London 16yr old who took GCSEs in 2022 will have had the benefit of 9yrs of better state schools compared to every 16yr old not in a London state school. No wonder London kids outperformed all other regions by a significant margin in 2022 GCSEs. 32.6 per cent of all exams taken in the capital were graded 7/A or above compared to everywhere else was only 26.3 per cent.

Bump this against the % of each ethnic group living in London
35.9% Asian
58.4% Black
33.1% Mixed
49.9% Other
10.1% White

If you have only 1 in 10 White students going to a better London school, then the average attainment of white students is going to mostly reflect the results of the poorer nonLondon state schools.

But if you have 6 in 10 Black students going to a better London school, then of course the average attainment of Black students is going to mostly reflect the results of the better London schools.

Not all state schools are equal. The state schools in London have benefitted from a decade of concerted effort to improve their quality backed by extra millions of £s that the rest of the country’s state schools did not get.

This isn’t a case of good students vs bad students or good families vs bad families or good cultures vs bad cultures. This is a case pure and simple of your children get the education the government has paid for them to get.

Rote learning is massively important. It frees up your brain to focus on the higher-order parts of the task if you are not consciously having to work out 4 x 6 etc.

Countries which perform well in maths in international assessments all do a LOT of rote learning, as a basis for more creative stuff later on. English schools are not bad, by international standards, but they could be better still if they really got the kids to well and truly nail things like tables and maths facts.

Parental involvement and support will absolutely be the main reasons why these kids are doing well. There is also a very low % of kids growing up in single parent or blended families in these ethnic groups. The single mums I know are all good parents, but realistically they are time stretched and money stretched--there are limits to how much practical support they can give when they are having to bring home the bread, do all the housework, run the practical life admin stuff AND do all the educational stuff with little help.

I would probably say life is hard for some less academic kids from cultures where there is a lot of emphasis on grades and exams though. Not much encouragement for doing a vocational qualification or apprenticeship - which can also lead to a stable, well paying job. Also the pressure can be too much and the kids could try hard but still feel like a disappointment.

Diasporas are complicated, by the way.

Couple of friends of mine are British-Pakistani, both from the southeast. Their grandparents' generation came from Karachi and a couple of other major urban centers in Pakistan. They, just like the Ugandan Asians and similar, see themselves as professional middle class types, where all the family members without exception go to university or similar.

I'm from the north of England, where "Asian/Pakistani" tends to imply the Pakistani diaspora who settled in the ex-mill towns and other deindustrializing areas of Lancashire and South Yorkshire--Rochdale, Rotherham, Oldham and all that. These diasporas came from poor and rural parts of Pakistan like Mirpur, settling in the UK to fill factory jobs in the post-war period.

My friends, when these areas came up in conversation, did not exactly use the words "hillbillies," but you could kind of tell that that was kind of what they were thinking. They seem to regard this diaspora as constituting an entirely different group of people, even though a lot of people would look at both groups and just say "Pakistani."

I would probably say life is hard for some less academic kids from cultures where there is a lot of emphasis on grades and exams though.

Totally agree. The government of China, right now, is actually trying to crack down on the tutoring industry because they are concerned, rightly, that overly competitive educational environments are pushing the fertility rate down to unsustainably low levels. If you make education gruellingly expensive and competitive across a whole society, people will stop having kids or refuse to have more than one.

Balance is key.

@Notwavingbutsignalling so are the Irish also pushy parents?

Going by this argument there must have been no difference in attainment across different cultures before 2013?

And surely you won't see any difference then if you compare how students from different cultures do within London as they would've all benefitted from the same supposedly well-funded state schools?

Sorry, I don't think this argument holds.

Well I am what might be called 'pushy', and I'm Irish.

I don't call it pushy though. I think that term has a lot of negative connotations. My youngest DC is 21, but back when all my DCs were all in school I definitely took a keen interest in what they were studying, homework deadlines, extra credit opportunities, and encouraged them to volunteer, get part time jobs, play sports, join the drama club, band, etc. I mentioned this here on MN a good few years ago, and someone made a snide comment about 'sharp elbows'. Taught me a lot about a certain strand of British culture.

Along with other emigres in the school community I figured out which school district was ranked highly, moved there, read the high school academic catalogue from cover to cover, and studied the process involved in university application. A few of us had a good chortle over that when we found out what we had all been doing. But if you're dealing with a system that is new to you, would you honestly not try to find out everything there is to know about it so your children could have confidence in your advice, and make the best of their opportunities?

Ireland has a competitive education system and an egalitarian university application procedure, and I think Irish people outside of Ireland bring something of the expectation of good grades bearing fruit - even if you're basically an outsider - to their approach to the education of their children. Irish friends and relatives in the UK have all waved children off to Oxbridge with none of the handwringing and questioning whether they'll 'fit in'.

You’d have to do full historical analysis. London schools may have been better funded all along. I’ve only gone back to 2013.

No, this doesn’t mean zero difference within London or zero difference outside London either because of the impacts of deprivation. For example there is also a rural/urban divide that is less significant but would also cause minor differences.

Youd never get identical results because there are always additional confounding factors that have smaller levels of influence that need to be accounted for.

Right now, the biggest factor driving how well a student does is whether or not they live in London. If you zero in on London itself, then you’d see minor differences and have to look at things like neighbourhood, class, parents education level, single parent family, and other factors.

It is highly unlikely that children from one ethnicity are harder working than children from another ethnicity. Or that parents from one ethnicity have lower aspirations than parents from another ethnicity. Generally, inherent human foibles are present in equal numbers no matter the ethnicity.

@Snowqueen22

I would say that Ireland had a lot of poverty for a long time and people like my parents who came over in the 60s had attended very strict schools like the Christian Brothers and Presentation convents and they knew the difference money made in how you were treated and how even basic things were unavailable to those without money. They did difficult jobs - labouring and clearing asbestos building like many Irish men did back then were the worst jobs as the conditions were very bad in those days. I also think that part of the Catholic culture has expectations and certain ideas that lead to a certain way of life and the only way to achieve that and have some sort of quality of life is to have money and that requires a good job which you need a good education for. But where I think there is a difference between some of things I hear and have read on here is that on the whole, I think there is a good attitude about how you learn - and a realisation that there is no fixed way. I also think the culture teaches us to respect our unique skills so you are not defined by only academic skills ( although there is snobbery amongst some about this). In the disadvantaged area of London I grew up there are a disproportionate number of us ( compared to the rest of the area) who attended Excellent universities and entered the professions.

Pushy isn’t the word I ‘d use but strict definitely. High expectations about behaviour, etc. I wasn’t allowed to discos, etc until 16. Conservative about boys/boyfriends - absolutely no ‘gallivanting’ with boys🤣

Nobody seems to be acknowledging this despite my multiple links about the psychological impact on some children

@Onnabugeisha Of course school funding is very important, but it’s not that simple. If a child has poor attendance / regularly late to school / doesn’t do their homework / is tired / is hungry / not having a computer at home or space to study / - all these will affect how well they do in their exams, no matter how well funded the school is.
Pupils on Free School Meals on average score worse in their GCSEs.

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

This report shows average attainment score by ethnicity.
Chinese students had the highest attainment, white Gypsy/Roma the lowest.

However as a pp has pointed out within ethnicities and communities it can vary widely. For example amongst Black students attainment varies (black African pupils have higher attainment than black Caribbean pupils, something which London schools are trying to address).

@Bluefluffyclouds

that table is a good way to prove my point

Top attainment is Chinese, Indian, Asian other, white Irish.
One of the other issues here is we don’t always tick the white Irish box - I tick British now, not white Irish. If more of us ticked the WI box, I think it would be higher