Ethnic differences Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Ethnic differences - Essay Example The ethnic differences in education are more visible between minority and majority ethnic groups. In Europe, where ethnic differences play a major role in education, different countries have different ethnic communities, for instance, Turks and Kurds can be found in Germany, North African in France, black Africans in united kingdom, Denmark and France and Pakistanis and people of Asian origin in Germany, France, Denmark and the united kingdom (Szalai, 2011). One of the features that the ethnic minority groups have is that they have higher than average fertility levels in comparison to the natives of the area that they are living in. Do instance, in Europe, most of the ethnic minorities who live there come from families with three or more children. In addition, most of the families from minority ethnic groups had an economic disadvantage since a large number of them could be categorised among the poorest members of the society. Most of the parents of minority ethnic groups have a simi lar trend in terms of their educational attainment in that most of them are either attained primary level education qualification or vocational education. In societies where there are clear ethnic majority and minority, the educational system is likely to show some signs of ethno-social segregation where it can occur at the system level, the school level or the class level. The school system can propagate ethnic differences in education where the pupils from different ethnic groups enrol in distinctive schools as a result of residential segregation; this type of segregation is very common in France and Germany. However, in some instances, the school systems may work against ethno-social segregation especially where schooling boundaries are set taking into consideration socio-ethnic composition and diversity. Some educational institutions also treat their students differently depending on their ethnic background, for instance, some institutions, are more diversity conscious, other di versity blind while others deliberately separate the students depending on their ethnic backgrounds. The segregation of students based on their ethnic background has affected the performance and attitudes towards education especially among the minority students. This is because all factors are usually to their disadvantage, for instance, most of the students from the ethnic minority communities also come from the lowest social classes in the country. In addition, this group also comes from the backgrounds where the parents are not that much educated or aware of their rights and they therefore prefer to take their children to schools that are within their reach financially or those that they will not be discriminated against. In most cases, these schools are among the poorest performing ones. The ethnic background of individuals may also affect their health; that is their levels of health consciousness or the type of diseases that they are likely to suffer from. Some cultures have di fferent perspective on certain diets, which have an impact on their health, for instance, Muslims and Jews, which are the most predominant lifestyles in the middle east, have restrictions regarding meat, for instance, they are not allowed to eat any products from pigs. Other practises from these cultures also include fasting, which depending on the