Black pupils 'held back by teachers' bias against hoodies'

Both black and white staff and pupils believe children are given less of a chance of getting good grades if they adopt "hoodie and hip-hop" styles of speech, posture and dress, according to a study by academic Dr Nicola Rollock.

She called for teacher training courses to ensure staff were aware of the dangers of subconsciously stereotyping pupils in a way that could harm their chances of success.

Dr Rollock's findings were based on interviews with staff and pupils at an anonymous secondary school in London.

She said: "Black male pupils, notably those engaging in what staff termed 'street culture', were unlikely to fit the profile of the pupil achieving in 'exclusive' terms.

"Positioning pupils in this way - to have low expectations of them simply because of who they are - legitimises an acceptance of lower expectations and therefore poorer academic standards for black pupils."

One black female classroom assistant told Dr Rollock: "The students that you see here, even if they're Year 11 and they tower over you, the fact that they've got a uniform on, you can approach them and talk to them.

"But if you were out on the street with them, with their hoods and everything on, it's a different persona - you wouldn't approach them 'cos you wouldn't know what you would get back with any exchange."

Statistics show black Caribbean and African pupils have lagged behind their white, Indian and Chinese classmates since records began.

Pupils from poor families are likely to be in the bottom of the class regardless of ethnicity, with only 21 per cent of children eligible for free meals achieving at least five A* to Cgrades including English and maths last year.

But Dr Rollock, a research fellow at London Metropolitan University, said that black pupils were disproportionately likely to be regarded as failures, regardless of their parents' income.

She warned that some black children "may inadvertently contribute to their own negative positioning" by failing to consider the impact that flaunting hip-hop styles of dress and speech in school may have.

But Dr Rollock also stressed that government policies - particularly school league tables and pressure to divide children into ability "sets" - was making the situation worse.

She said: "One of the fundamental flaws of government policy is its failure to understand the ways in which cumulative pressures to reach targets can combine with teachers' subjectivepositioning - albeit often unintentional - of particular groups of pupils as a threat and anti-school and thereby undermine any overarching commitment to raise black pupils' educational attainment."

GCSE results last year showed that Chinese girls came top of the class, with 74 per cent achieving five A* to Cs including maths and English, followed by Indian girls with 67.2.

Among black Caribbean pupils, 32.7 per cent achieved five Cs or better including English and maths, up 3.5 percentage points from 29.2 per cent last year and more than double the rate of improvement for all pupils of 1.6 per cent.

The figure for black African pupils was 40.2 per cent, up three points. Dr Rollock's study was published by think tank the Runnymede Trust.