Jasmine Rhamie

Initial teacher training: understanding ‘race’, diversity and inclusion

There is little research which has explored how students on Initial Teacher Training (ITT) courses understand and conceptualise discourses of ‘race’, diversity and inclusion. This article will focus on student understandings of racialised identities; it will explore the discourses by which students understand what it means to be White and what it means to be Black, within the context of ITT. The article will examine the different facets and themes of identity within the context of belonging and exclusion which exist within higher education in the cultural and social contexts of English universities. The findings indicate that students’ understandings of ‘race’, diversity and inclusion on ITT courses are complex and multifaceted. The article argues that greater training is needed in relation to the practical assistance that student teachers require in terms of increasing their understanding of diversity and dealing with racism in the classroom.

Achievement and Underachievement: The Experiences of African Caribbeans.

The disproportionate representation of African Caribbeans in all the negative educational statistics has been well documented. Despite this, there are African Caribbeans who achieve academically but relatively few studies have explored this area. This study aimed to investigate the factors that contribute to African Caribbean academic success, taking into account the factors that contribute to low academic achievement. Questionnaires and semi-structured interviews were used to collect data. Seventy-eight questionnaires were analysed and 38 respondents aged 16 to 40+ years were interviewed. Data is presented for the highest and lowest achieving groups. The findings revealed that most African Caribbeans have negative experiences at school. The difference between those who are successful academically and those who are not depends upon the development of resilience and protective factors that mitigate the negative impact of school. The study suggests that schools, communities and parents need to work much closer together to reduce negative school experiences to ensure the success of African Caribbean pupils.

The colour of class: the educational strategies of the black middle classes

justify attempts at micro-managing parenting practices. But as a textbook for a field of study the book has some drawbacks. Most fields of study, such as childhood or family studies, are full of debate. The field of parenting culture studies presented here is united as to the diagnosis and explanation. With its concern with demoralisation and culture, there is little sense of the driver of neoliberalism’s need for particular types of compliant, individualised worker-citizens. And with its emphasis on a parenting culture that shapes understandings and behaviour of all parents, there is patchy pursuit of the embedding of deep inequalities around gender, social class and race, and the very real and risky differential positioning, for example, of working class and black mothers in relation to expert advice, parenting classes, and neurofication as against white middle-class mothers. I will be putting Parenting Culture Studies on the reading list for my students so that they have access to a well and clearly argued alternative view on the accepted policy and expert wisdoms on parenting. In other words, this volume is a significant contribution – but it is a perspective rather than the field of study.