Young, black and failed by school: the market, education reform and black students

Abstract

The late 1980s and early 1990s have witnessed an unprecedented period of top‐down reform in the English educational system. Successive Conservative administrations (first led by Margaret Thatcher, and subsequently by John Major) have sought to introduce the principles and discipline of the market‐place as a means of ‘raising standards’ for ‘every child’. Simultaneously, issues of ‘racial’ and ethnic diversity have been swept from the policy agenda, which is now dominated by a de‐racialized discourse that assumes an avowedly ‘colour‐blind’ approach. This paper explores the position of black/African Caribbean young people within this changing picture. Drawing on a range of data (including statistical material on rates of expulsion from school and the examination achievements of successive cohorts of students in major centres of ethnic minority residence), the paper concludes that the reforms have done little to improve the lot of black students. Indeed, in certain areas, the scale of black/white inequality has grown. It seems that black students are suffering disproportionately as schools face increasing pressure to prove their worth in relation to crude performance indicators. In conclusion, attention is drawn to the need to keep sight of ethnic diversity as a major field of ideological and political struggle, where apparently de‐racialized reforms can serve to increase existing divisions and inequalities.