Black British Intellectuals, Critical Race Theory, and Education

• In Event: Race, Power, Identity, and Higher Education

Abstract

In the USA black public intellectuals are a longstanding, if embattled, feature of national life. However, while often marginalized in public debate, the UK has its own black intellectual traditions that have sought to make black British communities agents of social change. Education is one significant field in which black British intellectual positions have been defined. This paper offers a cultural studies analysis of black British scholarship on education and the public good since the 1960s. In particular, it considers how newly transferred ideas from US Critical Race Theory might articulate with analyses of race and education developed over time by black British thinkers, to produce a historically grounded activist scholarship.

Author

• Paul Warmington, University of Birmingham