Educational alternatives as, and shaping, consumption

Abstract

Compulsory education experiences are not commonly thought to shape future consumer behaviour, except for defining social and cultural differentiation. This article will illustrate how Caribbeans in Northamptonshire, England used compulsory education, even by antithesis, to thwart institutional and social views of Caribbean inferiority through various manifestations of consumption. The article will commence with a brief overview of educational issues that affected Caribbean people in Britain generally in the 1960s onwards, especially in terms of the institutional structures they were fighting against. It will then move on to illustrate how local Caribbean people resisted cultural hegemony individually and collectively. Various forms of isolation combined with educational experiences indoctrinating inferiority on to Afro-Caribbeans occurred at multiple points and through multiple prisms which will be delineated throughout this article.