From Their Point of View: A collaborative approach to exploring the educational experiences of Black Caribbean boys in secondary school.

Historically, Black Caribbean children have faced disadvantage in education. From the 1970s Black Caribbean pupils received fewer O levels than white pupils and were over-represented among those classed as educationally subnormal. In the last decade, a continued trend of Black Caribbean boys over-represented in permanent exclusions in comparison to their white counterparts. Research also shows that Black Caribbean boys are disproportionally identified with SEMH in secondary schools. This research aimed to provide Black Caribbean boys with a unique opportunity to share their lived experience of secondary school within the UK. A collaborative element was used. 4 Black Caribbean boys formed a focus group to construct the interview questions. The study adopted a qualitative design with semi-structured interviews. Four boys between 14 and 15 years of age were interviewed. The researcher adopted an interpretivist epistemological stance and used Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis to interpret the data.
Seven superordinate themes were identified across the participants: ‘Positive influence of peers’, ‘The perceived negative perceptions of black people’, ‘Dealing with the perception of teachers’, ‘Effective support from teachers’, ‘The impact of school policy and initiatives’ ‘The influence of family’ and ‘The impact of teachers of the same ethnicity’. The researcher identified from the findings experiences which fostered the resilience of the participants. Collaborating with the students ensured that their voices are foregrounded in the research. Implications for Educational Psychologists and school professionals are suggested, along with suggestions for further research.