Ordinary Gweilo

There’s an interesting article in today’s Independent about Chinese attitudes towards education and the achievements of ethnic Chinese in UK schools.  Their parents are first-generation immigrants, most of whom moved from Hong Kong ("the impoverished enclaves of the New Territorites") to the UK, and they all believe education is very important: 

"The answer to the question ‘is education important?’ was universal," say the report’s authors Dr Becky Francis and Dr Louise Archer, from the Institute for Policy Studies in Education at London Metropolitan University. All pupils and parents, from whatever social class or whichever gender, said that education was vital – a finding researchers may be unlikely to reproduce with almost any other ethnic group. Government figures show the likely repercussions – 75 per cent of Chinese pupils gain five or more GCSEs at A-C level, compared with 55 per cent of white pupils and 34 per cent of black Caribbean pupils.

And yet…

Stereotypes, even when positive, can work against you, however, and Francis says this has been the case, particularly with the girls. "Many teachers described Chinese girls in negative terms, as excessively quiet, overly diligent and repressed," she says. "So girls can feel that popular assumptions about ‘cleverness’ are ‘a big pressure’. Actually, when we talked to girls we found this view of them wasn’t particularly true, and these views are far too simplistic."

Both Francis and Archer are keen that the ability of teachers to turn a virtue (willingness to learn) into a problem is more widely recognised in schools that have Chinese pupils. They say their research has implications for other high-achieving groups – Indian pupils nudge up against the Chinese in the achievement tables.

Pressure from parents to get their children to perform well at school.  Something we all know about in Hong Kong!