Colour Matters: Essays on the Experiences, Education, and Pursuits of Black Youth

Based on research conducted in Black communities, along with over thirty years of teaching experience, Colour Matters presents a collection of essays that engages educators, youth workers, and policymakers to think about the ways in which race shapes the education, aspirations, and achievements of Black Canadians. Informed by the current socio-political Canadian landscape, Colour Matters covers topics relating to the lives of Black youth, with particular, though not exclusive, attention to young Black men in the Greater Toronto Area. The essays reflect the issues and concerns of the past thirty years, and question what has changed and what has remained the same. Each essay is accompanied by an insightful response from a scholar engaging with topics such as immigration, schooling, athletics, mentorship, and police surveillance. With the perspectives of scholars from the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada, Colour Matters provides provocative narratives of Black experiences that alert us to what more might be said, or said differently, about the social, cultural, educational, political, and occupational worlds of Black youth in Canada. This book probes the ongoing need to understand, in nuanced and complex ways, the marginalization and racialization of Black youth in a time of growing demands for a societal response to anti-Black racism.

Table of Contents:
Foreword D. Alissa Trotz Introduction: Exploring the Social and Educational Experiences of Black Canadian Youth Over Time 1. Historical and Social Context of the Schooling and Education of African Canadians Response: Complicating Gender and Racial Identities within the Study of Educational History Funke Aladejebi 2. Generational Differences in Black Students’ School Performance Response:  It’s the Same with Black British Caribbean Pupils Shirley Anne Tate 3. "To make a better future": Narrative of a 1.5 Generation Caribbean-Canadian Response: Using Gender to Think Through Migration, Love, and Student Success Amoaba Gooden 4. Students "at risk": Stereotypes and the Schooling of Black Boys Response: Black Lives Matter in the USA and Canada Joyce E. King 5. More than Brains and Hard Work: The Aspirations and Career Trajectories of Two Young Black Men Response: What Folks Don’t Get: Race and Class Matter Annette M. Henry 6. Class, Race, and Schooling in the Performance of Black Male Athleticism Response: Basketball’s Black Creative Labour and the Mitigation of Anti-Black Schooling Mark V. Campbell 7. Troubling Role Models: Seeing Racialization in the Discourse Relating to "Corrective Agents" for Black Males Response: Black Role Models and Mentorship Under Racial Capitalism Sam Tecle 8. "Up to No Good": Black on the Streets and Encountering Police Response: It Could Have Been Written Today: A Montrealer’s Reflection Adelle Blackett 9. "Colour Matters": Suburban Life as Social Mobility and its High Cost for Black Youth Response: Respectability Politics and the Search for Upward Mobility in Canada Andrea A. Davis 10. Toward Equity in Education for Black Students Response: "I will treat all my students with respect": The Limits to Good Intentions Leanne Taylor Epilogue Michele A. Johnson Acknowledgements Biographies of Contributors/Respondents

About the Author :
Carl E. James is a professor of education and Jean Augustine Chair in Education, Community & Diaspora at York University.