Young black males: resilience and the use of capital to transform school ‘failure’

Abstract

This article addresses the idea of ‘failure’ of young black males with respect to schooling. Perceptions of black masculinity are often linked to ‘underperformance’ in the context of school academic achievement. This article addresses how young black men, by great personal effort, recover from school ‘failure’. It explores how young black men, despite negative school experiences, see possibilities for their future and how they seek to transform school ‘failure’ into personal and educational ‘success’. Low attainment combined with permanent/temporary exclusion from school does not necessarily deter young black men from pursuing their education. This low attainment is used by some to make a renewed attempt at educational progression in a different post-school learning environment. Yosso’s concept of ‘community cultural wealth’ provides an understanding of how different forms of capital are accessed by young black men to form a ‘turnaround narrative’. This article considers the complex ways in which young black males work to transform their negative school experience. Their narratives reveal a determination to succeed and the ways in which cultivation of this determination by the family, organisational/community agents promotes a sense of possibility. However, it remains to be seen how, in the UK, the cuts to vital local services and support will impact on this sense of possibility.

Keywords:

• aspirational capital
• education
• familial capital
• identity
• navigational capital
• resilience
• resistant
• social capital
• success
• young black males

Notes

1. Within the British education system the most serious sanction that a school can take against a student is to exclude them permanently. This is where a school decides to remove a student from the school role. The local education authority has the duty to ensure that such students receive a basic education elsewhere. However, permanent exclusion is only one form of school exclusion. Most school exclusion is of a fixed term with students readmitted after a period of time.

2. The findings are drawn from a study funded by Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Overcoming school exclusion and achieving successful youth transitions within African-Caribbean Communities, 2003–2005.

3. The form of ‘capital’ referred to as ‘Linguistic capital’ is not relevant in this study because English is the first language of all participants.

4. All the names of people are pseudonyms.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Cecile Wright

Professor Cecile Wright is Professor of Sociology and Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Advanced Studies, Honorary Associate Professor at the School of Sociology and Social Work, and Professorial Fellow at the Institute of Mental Health, all at the University of Nottingham.

Uvanney Maylor

Professor Uvanney Maylor is Director of the Institute for Research in Education at the University of Bedfordshire. Prior to joining the University of Bedfordshire she was a Reader in Education at the Institute for Policy Studies in Education at London Metropolitan University, and Director of Multiverse (a professional resource network for initial teacher education).

Sophie Becker

Sophie Becker is a Researcher at Century Films London. She previously worked as a Research Assistant at Nottingham Trent University and the University of Nottingham.