The Perceptions of African-Caribbean boys about their Educational Achievement.

Aim: This study aims to investigate The Perceptions of African-Caribbean boys about their Educational Achievement. The study wants to investigate the factors that might affect the perceptions, which this cohort has of their educational achievement. The study will look at factors such as family background and the cultural identity of African-Caribbean boys within secondary education and will also look at factors such as racism in British society, school curriculum and potential teacher racism as factors that could affect the perceptions of African-Caribbean boys about their educational achievement. Sample: Twenty African-Caribbean males within secondary education. This sample is aged 15-16 years old and is about to sit their GCSE examinations. African-Caribbean means black boys of African heritage, Caribbean heritage and mixed African and Caribbean heritage. Method: Participants engaged in semi-structured interviews of around one hour mainly about their family backgrounds, experiences at school and experiences in wider society. I was also able to get background information on all of my participants from the deputy headmaster of the sample school. Results: My sample’s perceptions varied in terms of their educational achievement. This was mainly dependent upon their family background and consequent cultural identity. These factors affected how this sample perceived racism in and outside of school and how they responded to the level of black history and culture taught at their school. Conclusion: This study looks at a black ethnically diverse sample that includes black boys of African heritage, Caribbean heritage and mixed African and Caribbean heritage, which is a rare cohort in terms of the current literature that exists on black male achievement. This study concluded that Family dynamic and cultural identity are the main factors in terms of those black boys who have identities that are conducive to the formal structure of secondary education and those black boys whose identity is not conducive to this academic environment. Black boys who have a negative learner identity are much more affected by racism and a lack of black historical-cultural knowledge within the school curriculum. Therefore both cultural identity and racism were major factors in terms of the perceptions this cohort had about their educational achievement.