Ethnicity and Educational Achievement in Compulsory Schooling

This article documents that at the start of school, pupils from most ethnic groups substantially lag behind White British pupils. However, these gaps decline for all groups throughout compulsory schooling. Language is the single most important factor why ethnic minority pupils improve relative to White British pupils. Poverty, in contrast, does not contribute to the catch-up. Our results also suggest the possibility that the greater than average progress of ethnic minority pupils in schools with more poor pupils may partly be related to teacher incentives to concentrate attention on particular pupils, generated by the publication of school league tables. Copyright © The Author(s). Journal compilation © Royal Economic Society 2010.