| Abstract: | This paper reviews published research on the education of South Asian young people in the UK. Young people of South Asian ancestry face extra problems of social adjustment at school because of the clash of values between the Asian home and the school and the racism of British society. The review covers important areas of concern, i.e. scholastic achievement, vocational aspirations, entry to higher education, inter-ethnic relations in schools, attitudes of teachers and mother tongue teaching. It is quite clear that South Asian young people in the UK (with the exception of Bangladeshis) are achieving as well as their white counterparts. Indeed, their rate of entry to universities is higher than that of whites. There also appear to be 'good' race relations in British schools as reported by most researchers. However, what emerges from the analysis is that there remain two main areas for concern; namely, the teaching of the mother tongue within the school curriculum and the entrenched negative attitudes (prejudice) of some teachers against South Asians. It is argued that there are wider ramifications of this paper for other ethnic minority adolescents in Europe and elsewhere. The paper concludes by offering some suggestions which might prove useful in this context. |
