Race, education and the status quo What effect has government policy, enacted in education between 1997 and 2017, had on the educational attainment of Black children in London secondary schools and how can this be explained? Nicholas Taylor-Mullings University College London PhD Declaration I, Nicholas Taylor-Mullings, confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where information has been derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated in the thesis. Word count: 99,748 Nicholas Taylor-Mullings 2 Abstract This thesis is an investigation into the effect government policy, enacted in secondary education between 1997 and 2017, has had on the educational attainment of Black1 children in London. It focuses on the policies enacted by New Labour (1997 to 2010) and the Coalition (2010 to 2015). However, it also refers to the activities of the Conservative administration of 2015 to 2017. It starts from the premise that, following a short upward surge in the attention afforded to race equality at the turn of the century, there has been a de-prioritisation of race as a public policy problem. The central argument is that, despite this less than favourable (if not hostile) public policy environment, it may be the case that the policies enacted by these administrations assisted in improving the educational attainment of Black children. However, it also contends that, whilst it may well be the case that the attainment of Black children improved and racial inequalities were reduced, the policies enacted were not intended to address the underachievement of Black children. Instead, these policies were aimed at responding to the concerns of the White middle class and addressing the institutional self-interests of successive governments and schools. As a result, this thesis concludes that the policies enacted by successive governments during this time led to improvements in the educational attainment of some Black children, but also entrenched institutional racism. This left Black children as a whole further disadvantaged. 1 In this thesis, the term Black will refer to people who identify themselves and/or their children as being Black Caribbean, Black African and Black Other and, therefore, are reflected in government data as such. At the beginning of chapter 2, I discuss in more detail how race and the term Black should be understood within the context of this thesis. 3 Contents Declaration ........................................................................................................................................... 2 Abstract ................................................................................................................................................. 3 1. Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 9 Context .............................................................................................................................................. 9 The post-racial fallacy ................................................................................................................... 12 Race and education ........................................................................................................................ 14 Policy and enactment .................................................................................................................... 18 Structure of the thesis .................................................................................................................... 20 2. Experiencing Racism ................................................................................................................ 22 Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 22 The social construction of race ..................................................................................................... 22 Critical Race Theory ...................................................................................................................... 26 CRT insights ................................................................................................................................... 27 CRT and education ........................................................................................................................ 32 Policy analysis ................................................................................................................................ 34 The colour-blind approach ........................................................................................................... 34 Intersectionality ............................................................................................................................. 36 Whiteness ........................................................................................................................................ 37 White supremacy ........................................................................................................................... 38 Putting race at the centre .............................................................................................................. 39 Critiquing CRT ............................................................................................................................... 40 Interest convergence ...................................................................................................................... 45 Self-interest ..................................................................................................................................... 46 The false promise of interest convergence ................................................................................. 49 Interest convergence and education ........................................................................................... 52 Critiquing interest convergence .................................................................................................. 54 Institutional racism ........................................................................................................................ 57 Institutional racism and interest convergence ........................................................................... 60 Institutional racism and education.............................................................................................. 61 The perpetrator versus the victim ............................................................................................... 64 Race, education and research in England .................................................................................. 65 Underachievement ........................................................................................................................ 66 Two schools of thought ................................................................................................................. 67 4 Measuring the attainment gap ..................................................................................................... 70 School exclusions ........................................................................................................................... 70 Policy as an obstacle ...................................................................................................................... 72 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................................... 75 3. Public Service Reform .............................................................................................................. 77 Introduction .................................................................................................................................... 77 Reforming public services ............................................................................................................ 78 Neoliberalism ................................................................................................................................. 79 A social market doctrine ............................................................................................................... 84 The normalisation of neoliberalism ............................................................................................ 86 Ideological concepts ...................................................................................................................... 87 Choice .............................................................................................................................................. 88 Privatisation .................................................................................................................................... 89 Competition .................................................................................................................................... 95 Critiquing choice, privatisation and competition ..................................................................... 97 The discourse of standards ......................................................................................................... 101 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 105 4. Methodology ...........................................................................................................................