Building Strong Children: Examining the Educational Experiences of Working and Middle-Class Black People

Although poor and working-class students have less access to academic resources and social capital than middle-class students across races and genders, middle-class Black people still experience racism and inequality in ways similar to working-class Black people. Poor and working-class Black boys tend to sit in a more vulnerable position of this intersection. Middle-class Black people tend to live near or in the same neighborhood as working-class Black people, which makes them subject to the same neighborhood effects and social disadvantage as poor and working-class Black residents. This article centers the voices of working and middle-class Black people, the people who are at-risk to low-quality education. Relying on 34 in-depth interviews, this study employs intersectionality and coding methods rooted in grounded theory to analyze the social and cultural capital as well as educational experiences of working and middle-class Black people. Findings call attention to the notion of the classroom as a racialized socializing space used to reproduce whiteness and disconnect Black boys from the classroom. Cultural education spaces are needed to combat the racial oppression found in the larger society. This solution has been proven beneficial for Black girls, but almost nonexistent for many Black boys.