Caribbean Achievement in Britain: Psychosocial Resources and Lived Experiences

238 Pages·2018·2.56 MB·English

by  Winniey E. Maduro (auth.)

Caribbean
Achievement
in Britain
Psychosocial
Resources and Lived
Experiences
WINNIEY E. MADURO
Caribbean Achievement in Britain
“Building on the tradition of black anti-racist activism and critique, Maduro’s
important book provides new empirical insights into the educational achievement
of Caribbean descent young people in Britain, placing these within the broader
context of their lives - family, church, socio-economic position. Using a psycho-
social perspective, Maduro’s is a vibrant and challenging account of resilience and
success against the odds”.
—Claire Alexander, University of Manchester, UK
Winniey E Maduro
Caribbean
Achievement
in Britain
Psychosocial Resources and Lived Experiences
Winniey E Maduro
Manchester, UK
ISBN 978-3-319-65475-1 ISBN 978-3-319-65476-8 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65476-8
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017955076
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To my Grandmother Catherine E. Carbon-Andrew—from whom
I inherited the virtues of hard work, perseverance,
and personal responsibility.
Preface
Writing this book has been a fulflling experience. To its completion—and
the study upon which it is based—my acknowledgement and gratitude are
due to numerous people upon whose direction, help, and trust I depended.
I shall start with extending my sincere gratitude to the families and
individuals who shared their lived experiences for the purpose of the study,
and without whom this book would not have been possible. I received
generously from them, having immersed myself in their social world—
intruding in their lives armed with nothing but faith in the study and some
hope to access their repertoire of experiences for its purpose. Our interac-
tions over time presented me with the opportunities through which I came
to know some of them well and was permitted such access, although occa-
sionally with some reservations. With their permission, I explored their
lived experiences. Some that were preserved in distant and rarely visited
memories surfaced during our interactions, throughout which we did not
just talk about their lives. I was also allowed to develop friendships and
enjoy special freedom in my access to their families and communities.
I enjoyed these interactions with the participants and, in anticipation of
our meetings, the exquisite fsh and root-vegetable meals that they some-
times prepared with the expectation that I would share with them. It is
certain that I will preserve the integrity of their friendship, trust, and help,
upon which I depended throughout undertaking the study and writing of
this book. It is, though, less certain that my account given herein will
beneft all of them. With this in mind, in this book I have done my best to
vii
viii PREFACE
do these friends no harm. In fact, if in any way what I learned from them
and have given account of herein can do them some—even small—good,
an important objective of mine will have been achieved.
Special thanks are also due to the many friends, acquaintances, and
other people whose direction and feedback I sought throughout my
research, thinking, and writing processes. Their attention and encourage-
ment were invaluable, especially during the times when I felt trapped in
my own ideas. Remarkably, I was encouraged to draw from my lived expe-
riences, which include my work as a psychology frst-aider supporting chil-
dren and vulnerable adults of African and Caribbean heritage who beneft
from mental health services. The raison d’être was that my experience
would help me to make sense of those of the participants, with many of
whom I shared much in common. My lived experiences until then were,
however, foreshadowed by what appeared—or rather what I expressed—as
a fascinating academic and professional career.
To explain this more simply, before undertaking the study that culmi-
nated in writing this book between 2008 and 2011, I had lived and stud-
ied in Sweden, Spain, the Netherlands, and the Caribbean—where I was
born. In Sweden I studied education psychology and global change at
Linköping University. In the Netherlands I studied postgraduate political
science at Vrije University in Amsterdam, and international business man-
agement at undergraduate level at Amsterdam Business School—part of
Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences. As part of my undergraduate
education I was an exchange student at the Blekinge Institute of
Technology in Ronneby, Sweden, and a corporate-research intern at
MillwardBrown Inc. in Madrid, Spain. Before my university years, I had
attended the Clarence Fitzroy Bryant College in Basseterre, St Kitts, from
where I attained post-secondary school qualifcations in accounting, eco-
nomics, and sociology.
As one might imagine, it is with little exception that my education and
travel experiences infuence my worldview and the value in my writing.
More specifcally, throughout my educational career I became acquainted
with research authorities, some of whom I shall introduce throughout the
chapters, and seminal works that in some way address the key themes with
which I am concerned. Particularly, these are educational attainment, psy-
chosocial resources, socioeconomic progression, and lived experiences
among individuals and groups who are acutely disadvantaged within con-
temporary education and socioeconomic contexts.
PREFAC E ix
Needless to say, the works of numerous researchers have inspired me in
more ways than I can convey here. With this in mind, it becomes easier for
me to acknowledge that you will fnd in this book a diversity of infuences
that have shaped my thoughts and writing. Even so, the main focus remains
on matters surrounding people’s experiences in the settings in which they
are socialised, and how such experiences feature in their life outcomes. I am
aware, although not comfortably, that my writing exhibits a certain crude
honesty about people’s lived experiences that could induce strong emo-
tions, and even aversion. Since some of the experiences about which I write
are naturally distressing, such responses would be natural too. However, I
trust you will fnd that I have attempted to ease this emotional burden
through my objectiveness in engaging with and relaying the impact of the
more adverse experiences—through which too many individuals and groups
live—for the purpose of education and social change. This is not to deny
that throughout undertaking the study and writing this book my objective-
ness in dealing with such experiences presented emotional challenges.
I  believe these challenges were inevitable, and I refected upon them,
accepted them, and came to view them as just as invaluable as my objective-
ness. Otherwise, I might not have succeeded. Moreover, the challenges
were compounded by the integrative approach that characterises the study,
which draws from distinct bodies of literature and the disciplines of eco-
nomics, education, ethnography, geography, psychology, and sociology.
• The economics literature explores labour market trajectories and
performance among discernible groups in Britain. Some of it is polit-
ically orientated and may be referred to as political-economics
literature.
• The education literature statistically documents the trajectories of
performance among and within social groups in formal education.
• The geography literature offers insights into the origin of social
groups and the evolution of the local communities that they call their
own and in which they live.
• The sociology literature situates social groups’ experiences within
the context of a dynamic British society, which since the Second
World War has been tethered to a relatively fuid global industrial
economy, a knowledge economy, and, more recently, a corporate
economy.
x PREFACE
• The psychology literature offers insights into the roles that social and
cultural contexts play in psychological responses in education and
socioeconomic domains.
• The ethnography literature offers insights into theoretical and practi-
cal approaches that are often adopted in social-science research that
involves the concepts and themes that feature throughout this book.
I want to stress that the individuals whose experiences are explored
throughout the following chapters are all unique personalities; neverthe-
less, they share important identities. Two of these are: their common
background, which is characterised by educational and socioeconomic dis-
advantages; and, while not depreciating their many other identities, a
dominant Caribbean ethnicity to which they all subscribe. They are
Caribbeans. From this point of departure, it is anticipated that the reader
will come to appreciate the internally diverse and culturally heterogeneous
group that is identifed as Caribbeans. Diversity in the literature from
which I draw insights while exploring the experiences of members of this
group—and to which I refer throughout the text—ensures that, in addi-
tion to being multidisciplinary, my account is cross-cultural and compre-
hensive. Furthermore, in an effort to mitigate an overly academic tone,
I have adopted a slightly unconventional referencing style. This involves
italics to indicate referenced work and an extensive bibliography in addi-
tion to short vignettes of the authorities who appear throughout the text.
Another worthy forewarning is that some rather emotive anecdotes and
intimate insights to which the reader will become exposed are derived
from my ethnographic experiments, observations, and introspections. The
latter, particularly, infuse my interpretations and account of some implica-
tions of psychosocial resources for educational attainment and socioeco-
nomic progression.
I welcome questions and comments at my website: www.drwinniey-
maduro.com
Manchester, UK Winniey E Maduro
April 2017
synoPsIs
In a somewhat broad way, this book explores psychosocial resources and
discusses such resources in relation to lived experiences and outcomes in
educational and socioeconomic domains. More specifcally, it offers
close insights into the relationship between a set of psychosocial
resources and educational attainment and socioeconomic progression in
Britain. This is done through the lived experiences of a sample of partici-
pants in an empirical inquiry, all of whom shared membership of one of
Britain’s most internally diverse but discernibly disadvantaged social
groups—Caribbeans.
In addition to the Preface, there are fourteen fairly short chapters,
which are divided into four parts.
Part I IntroductIon: InsPIratIon and InsIghts
Chapter One begins with an introduction that sets the tone of the book.
The reader will come to know something about me, my purpose, and my
motivation for writing the book—through a short autobiographical
account. More crucially, however, is that the chapter introduces Caribbeans
as a poorly represented social group in education and socioeconomic
domains.
The introduction is promising—albeit tentative—in that it makes a case
for understanding educational attainment and socioeconomic progression
from the point of view of lived experience and socialisation in settings in
which psychosocial resources are developed and deployed. By this, the
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