Black pupil exclusion gap closing

Black pupils continue to be more likely to be excluded

Black Caribbean pupils are three times more likely to be excluded from school as white pupils - but the difference is narrowing.

Research for the Department for Education and Skills shows that black pupils are still disproportionately likely to be excluded.

But it also says the differences in exclusion rates between ethnic groups had fallen sharply.

The research highlights violence as a reason black pupils have been excluded.

The findings will add to the debate about the under-achievement of black pupils, particularly boys.

Separate classes?

Trevor Phillips, head of the Commission for Racial Equality, has suggested that black boys might benefit from a US experiment in which they are taught separately for some lessons, in a bid to rekindle an interest in education and to counter the idea that learning is unfashionable.

The research for the DFES, tracking schools between 2002 and 2004, shows that black pupils are 2.7 more times likely to be excluded than white pupils - and that there is an even higher rate of exclusion for pupils of black Caribbean origin.

The findings showed that black pupils were disproportionately likely to have been excluded for violence against other pupils - accounting for 41% of exclusions for black and "mixed heritage" pupils.

But the researchers also produced an "adjusted" figure, which takes into account factors such as social deprivation and special needs, and this found the exclusion rate for black pupils to be 2.6 times than for white pupils.

Although the rate of exclusion for black pupils remains high, the report says that this represents an improvement.

In 1998, black pupils were six times more likely to excluded than their white counterparts.

Other groups were found to be more likely to be excluded from school, including travellers, gypsy, mixed white and black Caribbean and mixed white and black African.

The research was commissioned to investigate how local authorities and schools were responding to the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000, which required organisations to look at how their practices might have negative effects on ethnic minorities.