View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by London Met Repository An ethnographic study of Black Ugandan British parents’ experiences of supporting their children’s learning within their home environments Waliah Nalukwago Musoke A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of London Metropolitan University for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2016 1 Acknowledgments I thank the participants in this study for their commitment, time and willingness to participate in this study given their backgrounds. I sincerely thank and express my gratitude to Professor Jocey Quinn and Professor Uvanney Maylor for their great support and understanding throughout this research. I highly appreciate their guidance, constructive feedback and encouragement at every stage of this research. I would like to express my appreciation to my family and my husband Sadiq Mukiibi who did not only exercise patience especially, during the writing process but who also understood the importance of exercising patience. This thesis is dedicated to my children, Solomon, Sheila, Mariam and Adam with a mission to inspire them to achieve or attain academic success. Finally, my heartfelt thanks go to my father Hassan Musoke and my mother Yudaaya Nakitto who believed in and valued education highly and who made great sacrifices to educate me in Uganda. 2 Abstract This ethnographic study explored how Black Ugandan British parents support their children’s learning in England. It is important to study this group because the parents in this study are Black migrants from Uganda and have an asylum seeking background, thus adding to our knowledge of asylum seeking and education. Moreover, little attention has been paid to this particular group before. The study comprises ten Black Ugandan British families with refugee and asylum-seeking backgrounds in two London boroughs. Adopting an ethnographic and an interpretive approach allowed me to explore how Black Ugandan British parents supported their children’s education over time through data collected via long-term interactions, observations and semi-structured interviews with the ten families in their natural home environment settings. I adopted Yosso’s concept of community cultural wealth to analyse data from my study and the data was theorised using Critical Race Theory. Through this theoretical framework, I challenge the traditional interpretations of cultural capital, particularly in relation to educational support or provision, by highlighting various and different forms of capital Black Ugandan British parents use to support their children’s learning, which are unknown. This thesis contributes to knowledge by highlighting the different nature of parental educational support, educational strategies and the underlying factors that inform Black Ugandan British parents’ nature of parental educational support and educational strategies. I argue that Black Ugandan British parents’ culturalistic approach towards their children’s education within their homes and communities and additionally, the contribution they make towards their children’s learning are unrecognised in English schools and English education policy. Further, this thesis highlights class complexities and contributes to debates on class. The study found that Black Ugandan British parents with middle class backgrounds from 3 Uganda, but positioned as working class parents in the UK, bring their Ugandan middle class backgrounds to supporting their children’s education in the UK, which calls for the need to understand Black Ugandan British parents’ middle class backgrounds and the influence they have on their ways of supporting their children’s education. My study shows that Black Ugandan British parents’ cultural, employment, educational and class backgrounds have a huge influence on how they support their children’s education. My study illuminates how class, ethnicity and culture shape Black British Ugandan children’s learning, and makes an original and important contribution to knowledge in this field. 4 Contents Chapter one: Setting the scene, research contextual overview and a review of the literature around migration/asylum seeking, parental support/engagement/involvement in children’s learning and literature concerning the attainment of Black children..................................................................................14 1.1 Introduction............................................................................................................14 1.2 Defining the terms ‘Black’, ‘achievement’ and ‘underachievement’, racism and institutional racism......................................................................................................15 1.2.1 Black.......................................................................................................................15 1.2.2 Achievement and underachievement.....................................................................16 1.2.3 Racism and institutional racism..............................................................................17 1.3 Rationale/why I carried out this research..............................................................17 1.3.1 The need to focus on researching Black Ugandan British parents and the role they play in supporting their children’s education..................................................................18 1.3.2 The academic attainment of Black African heritage children in England..............21 1.3.3 My background ......................................................................................................29 1.3.4 Deficit discourses that blame Black parents for the underachievement of Black children in England.........................................................................................................34 1.4 Literature Review................................................................................................36 1.4.1Migration/asylum seeking/refugee experience in England....................................36 1.4.2 Black migrant people and their subsequent employment experiences in the UK...................................................................................................................................49 5 1.5 Deficit discourse around migrant Black parents and their children’s education.......................................................................................................................52 1.5.1 Black parents’ perceived lack of interest in their children’s education/low value on education/low aspirations of their children’s education ................................................ 54 1.5.2 Language deficiency and educational attainment..................................................57 1.5.3 Cultural capital/Social capital............................................................................61 1.6 What we know about the educational attainment of Black children in England...........................................................................................................................66 1.6.1 Deprivation/ Social-economic status (SES)/Social class and education attainment.....................................................................................................................67 1.6.2 Racism in the English education system/Low teacher expectations of Black children’s education......................................................................................................73 1.6.3 Ethnicity and educational achievement, policy context.........................................81 1.7 Parental support/engagement/involvement in children’s learning/education...82 1.7.1 Parental support of, parental engagement and parental involvement in children’s learning definitions.......................................................................................................83 1.7.2 Social class and parental involvement................................................................87 1.7.3 Concerted cultivation/Accomplishment of Natural Growth.................................89 1.7.4 Black middle class and parental involvement in England..................................93 1.7.5 The concept of ‘funds of knowledge’.................................................................94 1.8 Children’s career aspirations...............................................................................97 1.9 How this study fills the gap in knowledge.............................................................98 1.9.1 Academic attainment of Black African children in England.................................98 6 1.9.2 Researching families in their home environments.............................................100 1.9.3 Parental support of children’s learning............................................................100 1.10 Thesis outline.....................................................................................................101 1.11 Summary..........................................................................................................104 Chapter Two: Methodology........................................................................................105 2.1 Introduction...........................................................................................................105 2.2 Ethnography justification.....................................................................................105 2.3 Sample.....................................................................................................................111