‘Ability’ and ethnicity: education policy, institutional practice and the construction of learner identities in Early Years and Primary education

This research aims to further our understanding of why children from different ethnicities achieve differently at school. The disparity in the attainment of children from different ethnicities in British schools is an issue which has generated much research and public debate, and this research aims to extend understanding of the problem in the light of recent educational reform. Research has traditionally focused on the role of secondary education in creating and maintaining educational disadvantage, but this project seeks to use data from early years settings to question the assumption that the ‘ethnicity gap’ can be explained as the product of secondary education alone. I propose to explore the impact of education policy on the institutional practices in Reception classes, and the role of these practices in constituting learner identities and reproducing raced patterns of attainment.