Lattery-Lee, Marcia Angela; (2025) ‘Overcoming adversity in the context of colonial legacies’: Education, social mobility and British and Dutch African-Caribbean heritage citizens from low-socioeconomic backgrounds in the UK and The Kingdom of the Netherlands. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

This study examines the interplay between structure and agency in the educational and social mobility journey of British African-Caribbean (BAC) heritage citizens and Dutch African-Caribbean (DAC) heritage citizens, originating from low SES backgrounds living in the UK and the Netherlands. It brings an international comparative dimension to this field of study within the European context. The social construction of ‘race’, rooted in European Enlightenment philosophy, colonialism and chattel slavery, has propagated systemic ‘racist socialisation’ toward people of African descent, resulting in negative narratives in ‘Black’ identity construction, exclusion as the ‘Other’ and discrimination in access to opportunities in education and other structural domains. It is within and against this structural tapestry, the ‘colonial chains’ which linger, that BACs and DACs have to navigate the education system and other structural domains, sometimes against the odds, to achieve educational upward mobility. Critical Race Theory and Symbolic Interactionism Theory offer the theoretical lenses and methodological framework through which the intersection of ‘race’, ethnicity, social class and the interplay between human agency and social structures are explored. Using detailed semi-structured one-to-one interviews, findings from this study show that educational success was supported by structural factors such as supportive and restorative parenting (SRP), the timely intervention of ‘system advocates’, ‘fail-safe’ mechanisms within the education system to rectify the failure of schools in educating young people – the FE system in the UK and the ‘Stapelen’ process in the Netherlands. Religion played a positive role in supporting resilience but was not found to be necessary for academic success. Du Bois’s ‘Double consciousness’ is reframed and presented along with code-switching as ‘system conscious’ mechanisms, features of agentic power. This qualitative study presents ‘voices of academic success’ and has implications for policy and practice.

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