Ethnicity, educational attainment and the transition from school

This paper investigates differences between Britain's ethnic groups in their educational attainment at age 16 and their subsequent destinations from school. We use pooled cross-sectional data for the period 1992-98, derived from the Youth Cohort Study, the School Performance Tables and the Schools Census. The raw data indicate that the exam performance of Afro-Caribbean, Bangladeshi and Pakistani youths is considerably below that attained by white, Indian and Chinese youths. After controlling for personal, family, peer group and school effects, however, all but the Afro-Caribbean group are estimated to perform better in (national GCSE) exams than whites; and the gap between Afro-Caribbean's and whites is substantially reduced after controlling for these other (non-ethnic) influences on exam performance. Similar results are obtained at subject level. Other results of interest include the positive effect of attendance at single sex schools on exam results and the varying performance between boys and girls across