The Culture Trap: Ethnic Expectations and Unequal Schooling for Black Youth by Derron Wallace is a brilliant and powerful book. It will no doubt achieve the status of a classic in the sociology of education and in fields interested in the processes that maintain racial, social and educational inequalities. Drawing on a rich body of painstakingly collected ethnographic data, Wallace shows how the lives and educational experiences of Black Caribbean youth in London and New York are structured by ethnic expectations. In doing so, the book shows ‘how cultural explanations of racial and ethnic inequalities affect schooling’ (13). In sharp contrast to much of the popular discourse surrounding the role of culture in explaining racial and class inequalities, The Culture Trap brings carefully laid-out arguments and incisive theoretical analysis. It is important to note that he does not argue that culture has no explanatory value, but that its role is dramatically overstated when mobilised to explain racial inequalities in educational outcomes.
Wallace shows the power of comparative cross-national ethnographic research for identifying a seeming sociological puzzle, and for understanding how racial inequalities emerge and are perpetuated across contexts. By studying youth in both London and New York, he offers a powerful challenge to simplistic cultural explanations of educational achievement. In New York, Black Caribbean students are often stereotyped as ‘model minorities’ who typically do well in school, with attendant high expectations from teachers. In stark contrast, Black Caribbean youth in London are often faced with insulting and crude assumptions from teachers regarding their abilities and commitment to education. As Wallace notes ‘In Britain, by contrast, Black Caribbean culture is often presented negatively, as an ethnic penalty’ (13). This raises a challenge to the explanatory relevance of culture, as it’s typically used, because it is being deployed to explain both the ‘successes’ of Black Caribbean youth in one setting (New York) and their position as ‘underachievers’ in another (London).
For Wallace, racialised assumptions and expectations form part of what he calls the ‘Culture Trap’. This is defined as ‘instances in which loose understandings of ethnic culture distort perceptions of students’ achievement’ (3). They are consequential for students because they provide a framework through which teachers reproduce racialised cultural beliefs, shape their behaviours towards, and interactions with, students, and influence how institutions sort and classify students along lines of supposed academic ability. Some of the expectations may be ‘negative’ or ‘positive’, but whatever evaluative and normative content they may have, they are nevertheless restrictive and controlling and negatively impact on the educational experiences of Black youth. In developing his arguments, Wallace draws inspiration from a wide range of theoretical traditions and scholars, including Stuart Hall, Diane Reay, Bernard Coard and Prudence Carter.
The book is beautifully written and gripping from first page to last – including the appendix which provides crucial reflections on the process of conducting fieldwork. The core of the book is comprised of six chapters and Wallace moves gracefully across a range of critical issues – from questions of culture and the legacies of empire to the social organisation of schooling, and the relevance gender and social class. Each chapter begins with a vignette and story that foregrounds the voices of his participants. This approach to sociological writing is not only engaging, but it also brings theoretical depth and texture to the book. Wallace’s approach shows there is no tension whatsoever between clear writing and theoretical sophistication. Importantly, the book also shows how Black Caribbean youth adopt cultural strategies of resistance and defiance to combat the damage done by ethnic expectations and racism.
The book ends by considering how the Culture Trap can be dismantled. Wallace makes a range of suggestions such as promoting ‘mixed ability’ grouping and reforming teacher education. Whilst these smaller scale changes may be necessary, the book is also clear about the scale of the challenges facing us and the deep-rooted nature of racism and economic inequality. The book ends on a more expansive and radical note:
The consistent investment in this work is to change ideologies and institutions, beliefs and behaviors, and attitudes and actions is how we eliminate ethnic expectations and dismantle the culture trap. (207)
This seems exactly right. Overall, this is an outstanding and necessary book that will appeal to a wide range of audiences inside academia and beyond. It deserves the widest possible readership. Derron Wallace is a crucial voice in debates about the formation of racial inequalities in education and how they can be tackled.