Abstract
In this extraordinary ethnography, Derron Wallace critiques the reification of culture and cultural ‘difference’ between immigrant groups in education as the ‘culture trap’. Through intricate comparative ethnographic case study research with teachers and students at schools in New York and London, he sets out the structural, historical and cultural factors that determine how and why Black Caribbeans in the USA and the UK have fared differently in relation to educational experiences and outcomes. Wallace demonstrates how young Black Caribbeans in New York and London reproduce, co-construct and challenge cultural norms and stereotypes that elide the institutional determinants of ethnoracial inequality. This review will flesh out key findings, and highlight some of the specific and important contributions this book makes to its field.
The book is separated into two parts, the historical and structural analysis of the genesis of the ‘culture trap’, followed by the analysis of how Black Caribbean students negotiate it on the ground. Wallace begins by defining the ‘culture trap’ and the phenomenon of ‘ethnic expectations’. He defines ethnic expectations as the unconscious, essentialist assumptions that rely on ethnicity to explain students’ educational performance (p. 6). Through (1) the reproduction of dominant cultural stereotypes, (2) the categorisation and hierarchisation of students by ‘ability’ and (3) the regulation of behaviours inside and outside the classroom, both teachers and students are caught in the culture trap. Wallace argues that to overcome racial inequality in schooling, we need to understand that ‘culture’ is not so much the issue than structure.
In the beginning chapters, Wallace outlines the divergent representations of, and explanations applied to, Black Caribbeans’ educational achievement. He does well to critically examine the salience of migrant histories and trajectories, and specifically colonial history, in configuring both expectations around schooling and the racialised character of British and American educational institutions. He situates the institutional bias in British schools and the flourishing of British Caribbean individuals and communities within analysis of colonial and postcolonial formations between the Caribbean, the USA and the British Empire.
Chapter 3 outlines the interplay of structure and culture. He criticises the setting system in British schools (where students are place in hierarchised ‘sets’ in core subjects like maths to separate out high, middle and low achievers) for reproducing racial disadvantage. Through mechanisms designed to support students, but ultimately reproducing racial and ethnic representation, disadvantage is conferred on Black British Caribbean students. However, Wallace’s participants are not portrayed as unwitting victims of a broken system. Wallace brings out the ‘penetrative gaze’ of the Black British Caribbean students in this study, particularly their acute understanding of the structural issues at play. For example, he quotes one of his participant’s observations that: ‘“even the Caribbean students there have parents who went to uni and . . . who help them a lot . . . It’s madness bruv . . . How is this fair?”’ (p. 90). In Chapter 6, he similarly frameworks the politics of institutional defiance (students’ small acts of resistance against low educational expectations) through the ways they challenge post-racial ‘fallacies’ – (1) the tokenistic fallacy that BAMEs (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnics) in positions of power and influence indicate the absence of racism, and (2) the fixed fallacy that racism does not change over time.
In Chapter 4, Wallace discusses how his student participants in New York construct or spotlight their individual and collective classed distinctiveness to challenge the culture trap, without explicitly articulating class. One of these is the demarcation they make between seemingly ‘underachieving’ African Americans, and Black Caribbean Americans like themselves. Wallace argues that this is because structural disinvestment that confers further disadvantage on low-income African American communities is interpreted as a cultural deficit. This, coupled with stubborn and increasingly popular neoliberal discourses that solely attribute personal responsibility and hard work to socio-economic success, reinforces the race and class-blind culture trap (p. 126).
There is a boldness and incisiveness – both during Wallace’s interactions with research participants as well as in the analysis – to the way he openly challenges the generalisations or contradictions made by the students and teachers in their construction of differential ethnic stereotypes. For example, he argues that the broad equivalence drawn by the students in New York between ‘Caribbeanness’ and academic success is better defined as immigrant Caribbeanness distinctiveness. However, non-Caribbean born students de-emphasise the immigrant/second-generation distinction in order to confer the cultural privilege of the model minority Caribbean immigrant onto them.
In Chapter 5, Wallace discusses how ethnic expectations are not just classed but gendered formulations, with different behavioural expectations for Black Caribbean boys versus girls. As with any solid ethnographic piece of work, Wallace is reflexive and honest about his interactions with the participants. He openly expresses, for example, his shame in misrepresenting one of his US student’s comments about the treatment of Black Caribbean girls. When he challenges her assertion that Black Caribbean girls are not celebrated by their teachers, he is swiftly corrected that the celebration is present, but not directed to their good behaviour. Of this, Wallace says ‘instantly, I felt ashamed’ (p. 159). Here, Wallace integrates his gendered positionality into his meaning making to thoughtfully conclude that ‘Black Caribbean boys’ complimentary deference yields rewards and Black Caribbean girls’ compulsory deference goes unrewarded, even while these young people seek to escape the culture trap’ (p. 163).
The concluding chapter is a joy to read. Structured around a conversation with a veteran Black teacher at the London school, it speaks to the key question: why is there a difference in educational achievement among Black Caribbeans in London vis-a-vis New York, and what can be done for Black Caribbean students in the UK? Wallace reiterates that the contingencies of ‘Caribbeanness’ are historically and structurally, not simply culturally, located, and misrecognition of this reproduces the culture trap. He underscores the need for ‘robust antiracist education’ (p. 204) for both students and teachers.
In this book, the rich ethnographic observations and candid conversations with research participants lay bare a range of nuanced, differential attitudes to, and experiences of, British, American and Caribbean schooling. The analysis is sufficiently complex, while the storytelling is compelling and accessible. The fieldwork notes are particularly useful at illuminating how entry to the field and trust with schools and families was gained, negotiated and maintained. These are all feats achieved by Wallace’s skill as an ethnographer and vast knowledge of the field. There is little to meaningfully critique in this book, therefore. Bearing in mind that the virtue of this book is its detailed exposition of the Black Caribbean experience, it would have been interesting to see some further reflection on cultural myth-making between the Black Caribbean community and other ethnoracial minority groups that are also implicated in the ‘culture trap’. However, Wallace is clear about the defined aims and objectives of the work and its importance to the contemporary sociologies of education, race and class. It provides a rich and politically important set of findings for academics, teachers, students and policymakers alike in the field of education.
