Where are all the WHITE kids gone?????

[drosophila]

I live in a multicultural area in London where maybe 50% of the people are white. Our local school is mainly non-white. In DS's class there is about 5 white children and about 21 non-white children.

The school has a good rep and twice was in the OFSTED top 300 schools in the country. Why do you think it's not representative of the neighbourhood. The other schools around have very strict catchment areas so I don't know where they go to school.

My son's primary school was a church school with a 3/4 of the pupils white - a much higher proportiong than our multi race area.

He made two best friends, one black and one white. All three boys are now at the same grammar school. My son's friendship with his white friend has cooled because he says he is a non sporty 'geek'. However, he is mega best friends with his black friend who also happend to be a star football player.

The only discrimination my son seems to make at the moment is between nerd, geek and cool kids. Then the discrimination is strick and cruel. Race and skin colour don't come into it.

I may be come to this at a slightly different angle because my eldest is in year 9 at school. She goes to a highly selective grammar school where there is a good racial mix, black, asian, white and Chinese. She finds that the asian girls (particularly muslim girls) are very cliquey. She has also finds that whenever anything bad happens to them like being told off by teachers, they say how racist everyone is at the school and that is why they are being told off. I think it a great pity that children who have been given every opportunity in their education still believe that the school is racist!

It is a great pity that the media is constantly talking about racism because it definitely rubs off onto the children. "Institutionally racist" one child said about the school. My daughter said, if the school was Institutionally racist then that girl wouldn't be there!

jennypog -

I went to international schools all my life and found that most kids of most nationalities formed their own cliques very quickly, the Americans with other Americans, the Brits with the Brits, the Africans with the Africans, the Japanese with the Japanese, etc.

I was one of the very few who made a real attempt to make friends outside the British circle. My best friends were an Orthodox Jew from New York, a half-Morrocan, half French girl, a boy from what was then still Yugoslavia, a girl from Haiti and another from Turkey. I also mixed regularly with a group from Iran and another from Japan.

I think it's unfair to say that only the Muslim girls stick together or that they feel victimised by their schools. This probably applies to many different ethnic minorities in this country, especially in the inner city areas.

I think you will find it applies to many different ethnic groups when they are put together in a particlar situation. How else do you account for British expats abroad who have their own pubs and social activities and tend not to mix with the natives ?

Message withdrawn

I think children are more inclined to simplfy an issue like racism and see things in black and white. Racism does exist as does tolerance and I suppose it is about getting children to understand that. Such a complex issue.

Nannah

I am only relaying my daughter's experiences in school. She has found certain girls will not mix with her and these are within a certain ethnic group. Surely if you live abroad you are drawn together by a common language/culture etc, but if we all live in Britain, haven't we all had common experiences within school? My child is open to experiences from every ethnic group and has no problem with that. I worry that others do not share her optimism.

drosophila - you are right. Children can be very very cruel to each other. I have seen this first hand because I had foreign friends who were bullied at my very posh private school back in the late 70's in rural England.

I think that's where the parents play a vital role. We have to teach our children from a very young age to respect each others backgrounds. Certainly I intend to lecture my son often about respect for other cultures and religions. That is what my parents did for me.

I know what you are saying Jenny.

In an ideal world children would not be effected by the politics of their parents, but unfortunatley they are. I have an Arab friend living in Munich who has a daughter who is 3.5 years old and attending a nursery.

She has a very fair skinned blond German friend who turned up at nursery one day and said to the little Arab girl, "I don't want to be your friend any more, because my Mummy says I shouldn't because you have black hair". The mother had taught the child what to say. I honestly doubt that a child of 3.5 would say such a thing if they had not been taught to say it by an adult.

That's my view of the parents' role in these situations any way.

Blu - I totally agree.

hI,
Just wanted to see what people think about s.thing. I was in a library with my 3yo son when a primary school class (mixed) came in and sat down. A little boy asked his teacher a question. My son couldn't see him and asked me who was speaking. I quietly replied 'that little boy over there' and discretely pointed my hand to where he was sitting. My son loudly said 'Is it the black one?' I nearly dropped. On consideration I realise that this term is not insulting anymore than 'white', 'redhaired' or blonde is. Would anybody else be embarassed?

Caligula, the study you have linked to at the bottom of this thread is an American study. It may have some truth to it, but the statistics are US based therefore not relevant to the UK.

nanneh, I made it clear that it was American, but I do think it's relevant as it was talking about the phenomenon of white flight, which looks like it's spreading to the UK.

Blu, if there's still snobbery and racism thirty years after the equal opportunities act, then it does rather bear out Moondog's point, that for whatever reason, the version of multi-culturalism we've got isn't working. It's disgraceful that black parents who've grown up in this country feel the need to send their children to the Caribbean because they can't depend on getting an education in Britain. And that's not just because the English educational system is shite across the board (I can't speak for the Welsh or Scottish one), it is because of institutional racism in schools and the way young black boys are encouraged to have lower expectations than their peers. And part of that imo is to do with multi-culturalism, a sort of reverse racism which accepts disaffection from education from a black child and makes allowances for it, citing cultural factors, when it's not accepted as easily from a white child. Thus losing thousands of bright black children from education. No wonder some black parents feel so let down by the educational system that they feel the need to take extreme measures.

Interestingly, one of the most successful turned around schools is one in the East End of London with a black headteacher, who won't make excuses for under-achievement and expects black children to achieve as highly and higher than white ones. And they do. Sorry, I can't find a link.

I think the numbers of kids being sent out of the country, though, is tiny. The vast majority of British black and muslim children are being educated here - not, as Moondog suggests, abroad.

Perhaps my point is that it isn't because of multiculturalism that these things are not working, but that aspects of multiculturallism are not working because of other social factors. Snobbery and racism being one of them. Because when I hear that Wales is full of white people fleeing the inner cities because of multiculturalism, I think 'FFS' and 'well good riddance to them' and 'Hah! See if the welsh nationalists want them!'

westerngirl: no not really. Small children say it as they see it. You're right when you say that it was the same as saying oh the one with blond hair. My children did/do it. (I'm black btw and my kids say the black boy/white boy. It's just descriptions) He was simply trying to be sure who you were talking about.

"And that's not just because the English educational system is shite across the board"
Bit of a generalisation if we are all going to be fair and liberal.

If anyone "flees" any area because they can't stand the fact that they live in a multi-racial and multi-faith UK and decides to send their kids to a private school full of white English boys called Alfie and Henry (sorry, someone in a post further down mentioned these names), that's fair enough, it's their choice.

If English (or Welsh or Scottish) parents do this, then they have no right to criticise the parents of an ethnic minority child who decides to pull their child out of the UK school system and send them abroad because they want their child to be in a school full of Singhs or Khans, or whatever.

In fact I saw a doc. I think some time ago of a Nigerian GP and his wife living in London who had decided to send their son to a private boys school back in Nigeria. Guess why ? They said one of the most important reasons was that a decent private school in Lagos is cheaper than the ones in London.

I agree with you nanneh

But I think the point is, how depressing it is that either group feels the need to do it, why they feel the need to do it and whether it's a "Good Thing" for a cohesive society, that they choose to do it.

If a few individuals do it, in the great scheme of things it doesn't matter. If it reaches a critical mass however, then I'd argue that it's deeply unhealthy development for our society. I don't think it's a great achievement of multi-culturalism, if large numbers of individuals choose educational segregation by the back door.

When talking about underachieving black boys don't you think we forget about class? As far as I'm aware the two lowest achieving groups in English Education are black boys and white working class boys. You never see stats on how well middleclass boys are doing. This is what particularily annoys DP. It's like as if class isn't an issue if you are not white.

Ooops meant to say how well middleclass black boys are doing.

totally agree with you drosophila. Class is always underplayed because it sort of became a dirty word in the eighties and has never been re-habilitated.

Diane Abbot really anoyed DP when she didn't send her son to state school cos of 'how black boys do academically'. As if the son of an MP was going to be an underachiever. Could happen I know but what are the odds?

Quite hypocritical I thought. Perhaps she could have set black boys an example by sending her own son to a state school ?

This has been a brilliant thread that i have found very useful to help me undestand my anxieties,and I would like to add my ha'penny worth, even though I may be two months too late.My DS who is an only child, has just started at school where he is the only white child. All the other children speak English, and the predominant culture is greek!There is a mix, Greek, african, west indian,asian descent,no muslim because of the Greekness!. But yes I have an anxiety for my child.Especially as he is an only child. Why, because I don't want him to have an early experience of feeling different. We gravitate towards what we know. I have a chinese friend, she told me her son was pleased to have a boy with similar facial features to him "mummy, mummy there is another chinese boy in my class" the boy is in fact malaysian, but her son had chosen him and was pleased to have him in his class. My first school was in Jamaica,where there was only one other white family in the school, the little girl became my best friend.As children we seek out people who make us feel normal. I suppose we do that as adults aswell.
The state schools in our area,the one everyone wants to go to, we didn't get into! It has a higher proportion of white children, but that is getting smaller year by year!Ours is actually a great school, very welcoming mums, good Headmistress but why am I left feeling I am making a political statement by sending my child there? And will my child suffer for that. I wish to stay in our house, especially as we have just spent a small fortune on it!I wish my son to go to a local school.
Yes, where do the white people send their children? The Independant schools around us are predominantly black and asian.