This research addresses a set of complex and relatively neglected questions embedded in the intricate relations between race, social class and education. We are exploring and analysing the educational perspectives, strategies and experiences of Black Caribbean-heritage middle class families in the UK. In doing so, we intend also to contribute to the understanding and theorisation of the intersections of race and class and deconstruct those generalisations used in the media and in research which tend to position Black British people as a homogenous working class group. The primary aim of the research is to identify the complexities of advantage and disadvantage which are played out through the educational strategies enacted by Black middle class families as they support their children through schooling.

In the research we employ aspects of Critical Race Theory (Crenshaw 1995, Gillborn 2008), and specifically the concept of intersectionality, to inform our understanding and analysis of the role of race, racism and power relations in the experiences of our sample. We start from the position that race is socially constructed and that which is traditionally defined as ‘racial difference’ is invented, perpetuated and reinforced by society. We also recognize that to be Black is to traditionally occupy a position of relative disadvantage in terms of key areas of social policy and lived experience in the UK. However, the Black middle class stands at the intersection of race and class and of privilege and disadvantage. We define intersectionality as:

signifying the complex, irreducible, varied and variable effects which ensue when multiple axis of differentiation – economic, political, cultural, psychic, subjective and experiential – intersect in historically specific contexts (Brar & Phoenix, 2004 p. 76).

The intersectionality perspective encapsulates the notion of multiple identities and the intersection of race and class may be characterized by a particularly complex form of double consciousness: what Du Bois calls ‘this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity,’ (Du Bois 1989:5).

This paper specifically draws upon one aspect of our data. The interviews with parents elicited accounts of their own educational experiences, those of their parents and those of their children. In each generation the forms of racism experienced at schools is different, and the perspectives on race relations and racism are different. In addition to the perspective outlined above, we draw on Karl Mannheim’s paper “On the problem of generations”, which offers an analysis of the impact of generational experience on groups of people across class and geographical lines. Mannheim argued that a generation could be defined in terms of collective response to a traumatic event or catastrophe that united particular cohort of individuals into a self-conscious age stratum, we suggest that racism can be considered in this way. Mannheim (1952, p. 291) went on to suggest that generational locations point to ‘certain definite modes of behaviour, meaning and thought’; generations may exhibit a distinctive consciousness and different situational responses.

Brar, A. & Phoenix, A. (2004) Ain’t I a woman? Revisiting Intersectionality. Journal of International Women’s Studies. 5 (3): 75-86. Crenshaw, K.W. (1995) Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color, in Crenshaw, K., Gotanda, N., Peller, G. & Thomas, K. (Eds.) (1995). Critical Race Theory: The key writings that formed the movement, New York: New Press, pp. 357-383. Du Bois, W.E.B. (1989) The Souls of Black Folk. London: Penguin. Gillborn, D. (2008) Racism and Education: Coincidence or Conspiracy?. London: Routledge. Mannheim, K. (1952) 'The problem of generations' in Essays on the sociology of knowledge. Lonson, Routledge and Kegan Paul).