Inequality and education: implications for the psychologist

Abstract

Inequality in education is placed in its historical context, first by reference to social class in the working of the Butler Act and then to its impact on students of ethnic minority origin as established by the Swann Report (1985). The flawed nature of the psychological tests as instruments, particularly lQ tests, is identified and Owusu-Bempah & Howitt’s thesis (1999) that pyschology continues to support, rather than undermine, racism because racism is deeply, indeed fundamentally embedded in its thinking and practice, is introduced. The curricular requirements of the 1988 Education Act are exemplified by reference to the History Syllabus with its ethno-centric emphasis and a parallel is drawn between the definition of institutional racism provided by the Macpherson report as perceived by Ouseley and the failure of schools to meet the needs of a multiracial society. The paper concludes that this view is supported by the findings of the Ofsted report, which found that the majority of schools continued in their failure to monitor their results by the ethnic origin of their pupils with the result that their equal opportunities policies had little effect.