Professor Paul Warmington

Black and minority ethnic students (BME) are a significant constituency in vocational education and training (VET) and FE in England. Despite this recent research on race and VET has become a marginal concern. Insofar as current VET research addresses social justice, race appears to be a supplementary concern. Although there is a substantial literature addressing race and education, this focuses primarily on schools and higher education. This paper examines why there is a need to develop a research agenda that analyses participation, outcomes and experiences of BME VET students, particularly those on ‘non-advanced’ programmes (equivalent to European Qualification Framework Level 1–3) with uncertain labour market outcomes and who are arguably being ‘warehoused’ in low status courses. The paper reflects on the historically specific reasons for the dearth of research on race and VET, drawing on a scoping exercise of the literature to evidence this. We conclude by offering a provisional analysis that identifies recent shifts in participation among BME groups, locating this in its socio-economic and historical context. Our analysis reaffirms that VET remains a significant educational site for BME groups, but it is a complex racialised site which makes the current neglect of race and VET in academic research deeply problematic.

Quantitative research enjoys heightened esteem among policy-makers, media, and the general public. Whereas qualitative research is frequently dismissed as subjective and impressionistic, statistics are often assumed to be objective and factual. We argue that these distinctions are wholly false; quantitative data is no less socially constructed than any other form of research material. The first part of the paper presents a conceptual critique of the field with empirical examples that expose and challenge hidden assumptions that frequently encode racist perspectives beneath the façade of supposed quantitative objectivity. The second part of the paper draws on the tenets of Critical Race Theory (CRT) to set out some principles to guide the future use and analysis of quantitative data. These ‘QuantCrit’ ideas concern (1) the centrality of racism as a complex and deeply rooted aspect of society that is not readily amenable to quantification; (2) numbers are not neutral and should be interrogated for their role in promoting deficit analyses that serve White racial interests; (3) categories are neither ‘natural’ nor given and so the units and forms of analysis must be critically evaluated; (4) voice and insight are vital: data cannot ‘speak for itself’ and critical analyses should be informed by the experiential knowledge of marginalized groups; (5) statistical analyses have no inherent value but can play a role in struggles for social justice.

Those of us teaching, researching and studying in areas that relate to race equality, anti-racism, cultural diversity or any other variation on the theme are engaged, largely against our wishes, in a dialogue with the ghost of race. We have refuted pseudo-biological notions of race and we adhere to the default position that race is a social construct. However, the deconstruction of race has also left us buckling under the weight of scare quotes, qualifiers and euphemisms. In this ostensibly post-racial context, how can we speak not just of racism or racialisation but of race itself? This paper takes issue with premature post-racial positions and conceptualises race not just as a historical residue but as a central social practice ordered by shifting boundaries, tools and categories. The paper draws upon examples from classroom practice to discuss how race is either identified or evaded as an issue for discussion. It suggests ways in which through an understanding of conceptual ‘pulsation’, race might be critiqued by teachers and learners as a social practice that is neither ‘natural’ nor merely an ideological illusion.

This paper explores the challenges for social and cultural historians of education of using documentary films on schools and schooling as a research resource. It draws upon the outcomes of the British Academy-funded Documentary Film in Educational Research project, an international study that focused on developing methodological frameworks for researching school documentaries. The paper offers definitions of the notion of documentary and considers the range of styles and forms that constitute “school documentaries”. Among the salient methodological issues examined is the potential for documentary film to be used both as a source and an object of study. These multi-dimensional possibilities raise a series of questions about different status and usages of documentary footage according to research context and about the myriad social, production, genre and technological contexts in which readings of school documentaries are embedded. The paper argues the need for historians of education to develop networks that can contribute not only to academic study of school documentaries but also to the urgent work of archiving and circulating films.

Academics and activists concerned with race and racism have rightly coalesced around the sociological project to refute biologistic conceptions of race. By and large, our default position as teachers, writers and researchers is that race is a social construct. However, the deconstruction of race and its claims to theoretical intelligibility has also left us buckling under the weight of scare quotes, prefixes, suffixes, qualifiers and euphemisms. Why has race been singled out in this way? In this ostensibly ‘post‐racial’ context, how can race‐conscious scholars (to use Leonardo's term) speak not just of racism or racialization but of race itself in the work that we do? These are pedagogic questions because pedagogy is not simply a synonym for teaching and learning styles; it is also the study of connections between teaching and learning and wider social structures, cultural shifts and intellectual conditions. This paper draws upon the work of Gilroy, Winant, Leonardo and Pollock to argue the value of representing race as a central social practice ordered by shifting boundaries, tools and categories. The paper takes issue with post‐racial positions and suggests that, while race's false dimensions need to be understood, race is not simply something to be overcome. A racial analysis that incorporates imaginative and material lenses is the required tool for beginning to dismantle real and damaging racial practices. We are post‐racial in having moved beyond pseudo‐genetic notions of race; however, we are not ‘post‐racial’ per se. Therefore we must make creative use of the paradox of race‐conscious scholarship: working both with and against conceptual tools that have yet to be effectively replaced.

Abstract

In this article Paul Warmington examines the dystopian analyses pervading recent work by David Blacker, John Marsh, and Pauline Lipman. Their unsettling depictions of education under late capitalism bear witness to irreversible economic and environmental malaise, the colonization of education by neoliberalism, and the unsustainability of faith in education as the driver of economic security and social mobility. In reality, our education systems are now barely able to mask the fact that increasing numbers of people are being fitted for dispensability, that is, elimination from the socio‐educational mainstream. These three authors return neo‐Marxist structural theory to us in chastened form. They acknowledge the lessons of cultural studies, feminism, and critical theories of race, but they are unafraid to suggest that correspondence, determinism, and pessimism may again need to enter our theoretical worldviews. However, their pessimism has political value. Rather than defeating us, it may become the imperative for political and educational change.

In the USA, where Critical Race Theory (CRT) first emerged, black public intellectuals are a longstanding, if embattled, feature of national life. However, while often marginalized in public debate, the UK has its own robust tradition of black intellectual creation. The field of education, both as a site of intellectual production and as the site of political struggle for black communities, is one of the significant fields in which black British intellectual positions have been defined and differentiated. This article argues that the transfer of CRT to the UK context should be understood within this broader context of black British intellectual production. Through a critical examination of race conscious scholarship and the diverse literature produced in the UK since the 1960s, this article identifies some of the dimensions of education that have been scrutinized by black British intellectuals. In doing so, it directs attention to questions being generated by the transfer of CRT to the UK and to the local materials on which those using CRT might draw, in order to build a historically grounded base for the development of CRT in the UK.

Ask any moderately interested Briton to name a black intellectual and chances are the response will be an American name: Malcolm X or Barack Obama, Toni Morrison or Cornel West. Yet Britain has its own robust black intellectual traditions and its own master teachers, among them C.L.R. James, Claudia Jones, Ambalavaner Sivanandan, Stuart Hall and Paul Gilroy. However, while in the USA black public intellectuals are an embedded, if often embattled, feature of national life, black British thinkers remain routinely marginalized. Black British Intellectuals and Education counters this neglect by exploring histories of race, education and social justice through the work of black British public intellectuals: academics, educators and campaigners. The book provides a critical history of diverse currents in black British intellectual production, from the eighteenth century, through post-war migration and into the ‘post-multicultural’ present, focusing on the sometimes hidden impacts of black thinkers on education and social justice. Firstly, it argues that black British thinkers have helped fundamentally to shape educational policy, practice and philosophy, particularly in the post-war period. Secondly, it suggests that education has been one of the key spaces in which the mass consciousness of being black and British has emerged, and a key site in which black British intellectual positions have been defined and differentiated. Chapters explore: the early development of black British intellectual life, from the slave narratives to the anti-colonial movements of the early twentieth century how African-Caribbean and Asian communities began to organize against racial inequalities in schooling in the post-Windrush era of the 1950s and 60s how, from out of these grassroots struggles, black intellectuals and activists of the 1970s, 80s and 90s developed radical critiques of education, youth and structural racism t the early development of black British intellectual life, from the slave narratives to the anti-colonial movements of the early twentieth century how African-Caribbean and Asian communities began to organize against racial inequalities in schooling in the post-Windrush era of the 1950s and 60s how, from out of these grassroots struggles, black intellectuals and activists of the 1970s, 80s and 90s developed radical critiques of education, youth and structural racism t

This paper examines the development of Critical Race Theory (CRT) in England, in terms of impact and opposition. Since the early 2000s CRT has become a significant intellectual space for race-conscious scholars and activists in England. The current paper traces the growth of CRT in the field of education (where it has had the greatest impact since its arrival). It identifies the academic research, writing, networks and events that have established CRT in England. It discusses the substantive concerns of English CRT and how these are both similar to and distinct from CRT as developed in the USA. In England, CRT has also met with opposition. This paper examines the discourses of derision voiced by its antagonists, arguing that much of this antagonism has an atavistic quality, being rooted in long-standing antipathy towards race-conscious social analyses.

Drawing on a secondary analysis of official statistics, this paper examines the changing scale of the inequality of achievement between White students and their Black British peers who identify their family heritage as Black Caribbean. We examine a 25‐year period from the introduction of the General Certificate of Secondary Education ( GCSE ), in 1988, to the 20th anniversary of the murder of Stephen Lawrence in 2013. It is the first time that the Black/White gap has been analysed over such a long period. The paper reviews the changing place of the Black/White gap in education debates and notes that, despite periods when race equality has appeared to be high on the political agenda, it has never held a consistent place at the heart of policy. Our findings shed light on how the Black/White gap is directly affected, often in negative ways, by changes in education policy. Specifically, whenever the key benchmark for achievement has been redefined, it has had the effect of restoring historic levels of race inequity; in essence, policy interventions to ‘raise the bar’ by toughening the benchmark have actively widened gaps and served to maintain Black disadvantage. Throughout the entire 25‐year period, White students were always at least one and a half times more likely to attain the dominant benchmark than their Black peers. Our findings highlight the need for a sustained and explicit focus on race inequity in education policy. To date, the negative impacts of policy changes have been much more certain and predictable than occasional attempts to reduce race inequality.

This paper explores the personal reflections of educators and contributors to policy on the shifting status of race equality in education policy in England between 1993 and 2013. The interview participants included some of the most notable figures active in race equality work in England. Part of the paper’s significance is its focus on the perspectives of actors with longstanding involvement in the field of race equality, who have witnessed changes in policy over time. As “stakeholders” with direct involvement in education policy-making and enactment, the participants tended to focus on three historic policy moments. These were: measures aimed at closing ethnic achievement gaps that began in the early 1990s; the diversity and citizenship agenda that featured in New Labour’s term; and the Macpherson Report (1999) and the subsequent Race Relations (Amendment) Act (2000). Participants’ narratives converged in a largely pessimistic view of 1993–2013 as a period in which race equality policy had gained momentum, touched the policy mainstream – but then failed. By the end of the New Labour administration (1997–2010) and the start of the subsequent Conservative–Liberal Democrat Coalition government (2010–2015), explicit focus on race equality in education policy had, in the views of the participants, been severely diminished.

Darrell Huff's slim volume How to Lie with Statistics (first published in 1954) has become one of the most successful and influential books ever written on the topic of statistics. Part of the book's enduring appeal is that it demystifies statistics by looking at how the everyday use of numbers (especially in news media) can give a false impression of reality. In a similar spirit, in this chapter we offer a brief guide to common problems that are encountered when statistics are used in relation to race equity and education. In particular, we work from the founding tenets of critical race theory (CRT) to propose some basic principles as a means of outlining key questions that must be asked when confronted with quantitative data on race and social justice. This is a vital task. CRT is based on a radical epistemology that gives special status to the experiential knowledge of people of color and usually draws upon qualitative methods. In stark contrast, public policy and media debates frequently dismiss qualitative data as ‘anecdotal' and prefer to trade in the assumed ‘objectivity' of statistics. The chapter argues that critical race theorists need to be aware of the countless ways in which the use of numbers can smuggle racist assumptions into the heart of debates. The chapter aims to alert critical race scholars and activists to these problems and give them the tools to use numbers towards radical ends. This chapter explores a series of principles to help guide a critical race-conscious use of statistics. It offers a brief commentary on some common problems that are encountered when statistics are used in relation to race equity, social justice and education. A social justice orientation requires researchers to be sensitive to ways in which racism might operate through the everyday assumptions and processes of education. In the UK, a landmark study was published in the early 1980s which included the first ever cross-tabulation for achievement in relation to both race and social class simultaneously. QuantCrit should work with and against numbers by engaging with statistics as a fully social aspect of how race/ racism is constantly made and legitimated in society. Even given the very best intentions at every stage there is the possibility for decisions to be taken that obscure or misrepresent issues that could be vital to those concerned with social justice.

This article examines the perceptions held by mature students on an Access to Higher Education programme at an inner-city college as to the social, cultural and economic significance of the qualifications they hoped to gain. Emphasising the critical potential of the students' voices, this ethnography depicts them mining their biographies in order to neutralise the educational site and imbue their Access projects with value sufficient to sustain them in taking the fraught step of returning to education. The voices of the group are saturated by tensions deriving from their experiences as disaffected workers on the peripheries of the labour market and their investment in further and higher education as the preferred means by which to escape social marginalisation and welfare dependence. Their motives and aspirations reveal a lived critique of the iconic notions of widening participation and social ex/inclusion in which contemporary post-compulsory education rhetoric is embedded.

News coverage of public examination results in the United Kingdom has escalated in recent years. The years 2002 and 2003, in particular, witnessed a bitter media debate over A-level results. Yet, while educationalists often deride the quality of the annual examination debate, there has been minimal research into the specific ways in which exam news issues are constructed by news media. This article discusses the critical findings of an interdisciplinary study, conducted by education and media specialists, of print and broadcast news coverage of the publication of A-level results in August 2002 and 2003. The article focuses upon three particular elements: the distribution of different headline categories and themes; the structural, narrative and presentation templates in which A-level news items were embedded, and the discursive features that have characterised the dominant template for A-level news coverage: the claim that examination standards are ‘falling’. The article concludes by briefly considering some of the broader questions about the relationship between the education sector and news media in the United Kingdom, reflecting upon the ritualistic and polarised nature of coverage, the subtext of anxieties over the ‘massification’ of post-compulsory education and the readiness (or not) of educationalists to engage in a debate being played out for increasingly high stakes.

This article draws upon, but also critiques, activity theory by combining analysis of how an activity theory derived research intervention attempted to address both everyday work practices and organisational power relationships among children's services professionals. It offers two case studies of developmental work research (DWR) interventions in UK local authorities, wherein multi‐professional teams were attempting, at operational level, to develop and stabilise new work practices. Data are derived from the series of interviews and DWR workshops conducted in each research site. The data analysis draws attention to the ways in which multi‐professional innovations and professional development were sometimes constrained by managerial structures that were still embedded in ‘traditional’ professional silos. The paper also offers conceptual discussion of activity theory's potential shortcomings in addressing ‘vertical’ divisions of labour and the contradictions embedded in relationships between operational staff and their senior managers.

Engeström’s (1987, 1999) innovations in cultural-historical activity theory emphasise the role of contradictions in analysing and transforming learning in practice. This paper considers some of the problems and possibilities contained in his analytical understanding of contradictions, in relation to activity and to what he terms ‘expansive learning’ (Engeström, 2001, 2004, 2007). In doing so, it builds upon Engeström’s stated concern with theorising activities ‘in capitalism’. Its goal is to problematise the underlying practical definition of contradictions and the claims made for his ‘contradiction-driven’ analysis of work practices as a platform for transformation. This paper suggests that the definition of contradictions that underpins Engeström’s notions of ‘expansive’ learning and his ‘developmental work research’ methodology is restrictive because it underplays the wider social contradictions and antagonisms inherent in the commodification of labour-power. As such, while Engeström’s take on activity theory offers a valuable approach to reforming configurations of labour within the bounds of capitalist efficiency, its engagement with capitalism’s internal contradictions is uneven and, therefore, its claims to produce transformative, expansive learning are heavily qualified. The framework of this argument is provided by Postone’s (1996) reading of Marx’s Capital and Grundrisse as social theories of labour within capitalism and the extensive analyses of the social reproduction of labourpower developed by Rikowski (1999, 2000a, 2000b, 2002a, 2002b), Allman et al. (2000) and Dinerstein and Neary (2002). The paper ends with a consideration of the practical research possibilities emanating from its call to ground activity theory and its concern with contradictions in a sophisticated understanding of labourpower theory. It draws upon the UK-based Learning in and for Interagency Working Project’s (2004‑2008) intervention research in multiprofessional children’s service settings. It discusses the project’s rethinking of the notion of contradictions, the need to understand the division of labour as a tool in the social production of labour-power and the sense in which historical shifts in the ways that institutions organise  collective labourpower make visible the social production of labourpower as an object of activity.

Quantitative research enjoys heightened esteem among policy-makers, media, and the general public. Whereas qualitative research is frequently dismissed as subjective and impressionistic, statistics are often assumed to be objective and factual. We argue that these distinctions are wholly false; quantitative data is no less socially constructed than any other form of research material. The first part of the paper presents a conceptual critique of the field with empirical examples that expose and challenge hidden assumptions that frequently encode racist perspectives beneath the façade of supposed quantitative objectivity. The second part of the paper draws on the tenets of Critical Race Theory (CRT) to set out some principles to guide the future use and analysis of quantitative data. These ‘QuantCrit’ ideas concern (1) the centrality of racism as a complex and deeply rooted aspect of society that is not readily amenable to quantification; (2) numbers are not neutral and should be interrogated for their role in promoting deficit analyses that serve White racial interests; (3) categories are neither ‘natural’ nor given and so the units and forms of analysis must be critically evaluated; (4) voice and insight are vital: data cannot ‘speak for itself’ and critical analyses should be informed by the experiential knowledge of marginalized groups; (5) statistical analyses have no inherent value but can play a role in struggles for social justice. This chapter presents a conceptual critique of the field with empirical examples that expose and challenge hidden assumptions that frequently encode racist perspectives beneath the facade of supposed quantitative objectivity. It draws on the tenets of Critical Race Theory (CRT) to set out some principles to guide the future use and analysis of quantitative data. Policy-makers, the media, and many academics treat quantitative material as if it is fundamentally different and superior to qualitative data. In the UK, government policy puts numbers at the heart of its proclaimed strategy to create a fairer society. The world’s capacity to store, broadcast and compute information is growing exponentially. QuantCrit recognizes that racism is a complex, fluid and changing characteristic of a society that is neither automatically nor obviously amenable to statistical inquiry. In the absence of a critical race-conscious perspective, quantitative analyses will tend to remake and legitimate existing race inequities.

Since 2020 Critical Race Theory, along with Black Lives Matter and numerous equality, diversity and inclusion initiatives, has become a powerful signifier in Britain’s culture wars. CRT, in particular, has been depicted as a divisive ideology that has captured Britain’s public bodies. This chapter utilises intertextual analysis to examine the ways in which conservative voices in media and politics have deployed CRT in constructing a public backlash against the resurgence in antiracist thought and politics that followed the police killing of George Floyd in May 2020. It argues that while immediate antagonism towards antiracism focused on BLM, CRT and contemporary ‘woke’ targets, conservative anxieties were not merely of the moment but were rooted in the long-held wish to erase the politics of race that have complicated British society since the second half of the 20th century.

This article offers an analysis of The Primary, a television documentary broadcast in the UK in 2008 as part of a BBC series exploring multicultural Britain. The film documents a term at an inner-city primary school. It depicts school leadership, cultural diversity, relationships between the school and the local community, pupils’ friendships, parents and out of school activities. The article discusses The Primary as a product of British television documentary-making in the early twenty-first century and examines the historical context in which it was broadcast. It then analyses the relations between the film’s visual and aural narrative dimensions and the possible disruptions in historical meaning produced by these relations. Discussion focuses on the film’s shifts between “ethnographic” and “editorial” registers; its depiction of a multicultural urban school setting; and the possibilities offered by reading the film as cultural inventory.

Why should we, as Marxist educators, expend energy examining the news media’s construction of education issues? In the UK vast quantities of education coverage emerge each year. Stories include hardy annuals, such as the predictable August uproar over exam results, perennials, such as the relative performance of boys and girls, and sudden sproutings of concern over, say, the fall in the numbers of undergraduates studying sciences or modern languages. Despite this, the body of academic literature exploring the relationship between the UK’s education sector and news media processes is fairly modest. This is unsurprising. As with other public services, relationships between the education sector and largely right-wing news media remain fractious; the quality of education news coverage is generally held in low regard by educationalists. It is important, though, that our wariness of the media should not lead us to ignore the role of news coverage within contemporary capitalism’s education settlement.

Quantitative research enjoys heightened esteem among policymakers, media, and the general public. Whereas qualitative research is frequently dismissed as subjective and impressionistic, statistics are often assumed to be objective and factual. We argue that these distinctions are wholly false; quantitative data is no less socially constructed than any other form of research material. The first part of the paper presents a conceptual critique of the field with empirical examples that expose and challenge hidden assumptions that frequently encode racist perspectives beneath the façade of supposed quantitative objectivity. The second part of the paper draws on the tenets of Critical Race Theory (CRT) to set out some principles to guide the future use and analysis of quantitative data. These ‘QuantCrit’ ideas concern (1) the centrality of racism as a complex and deeply rooted aspect of society that is not readily amenable to quantification; (2) numbers are not neutral and should be interrogated for their role in promoting deficit analyses that serve White racial interests; (3) categories are neither ‘natural’ nor given and so the units and forms of analysis must be critically evaluated; (4) voice and insight are vital: data cannot ‘speak for itself’ and critical analyses should be informed by the experiential knowledge of marginalized groups; and (5) statistical analyses have no inherent value but can play a role in struggles for social justice. Quantitative research enjoys heightened esteem among policymakers, media, and the general public. Whereas qualitative research is frequently dismissed as subjective and impressionistic, statistics are often assumed to be objective and factual. This chapter argues that these distinctions are wholly false; quantitative data is no less socially constructed than any other form of research material. It presents a conceptual critique of the field with empirical examples that expose and challenge hidden assumptions that frequently encode racist perspectives beneath the façade of supposed quantitative objectivity. The chapter focuses on the tenets of Critical Race Theory to set out some principles to guide the future use and analysis of quantitative data. In the UK, government policy puts numbers at the heart of its proclaimed strategy to create a fairer society. ‘Big Data’ is an increasingly popular phrase used to describe sets of numeric data that are, according to its advocates, simply too huge for traditional forms of human analysis.

It is a cherished belief within physical education and sport communities that participation in sport/physical activity has the potential to offer young people a range of physical, psychological and social benefits. More recently in the UK, this belief has become prominent in government policies that, among other things, are seeking to re‐engage disaffected young people in order to increase their life chances and minimise the impact of anti‐social behaviours upon others. Yet, the link between physical activity interventions and developing pro‐social behaviours is not straightforward, and there is a lack of credible research evidence to support many of the claims made for physical activity to or to inform decisions about effective intervention design. This paper reviews key literature, focusing particularly on disaffected young people and physical activity interventions in the school context, and identifies six key issues that, we would argue, warrant consideration when planning physical activity programmes to re‐engage disaffected young people. In particular, it is argued that the unprecedented levels of public and private funding available for physical activity related programmes in the UK, and the high expectations placed upon them to deliver specific measurable outcomes, mean that the need for credible monitoring and evaluation is pressing.

The work of internal verifiers (IVs) is integral to ensuring that the operation of vocational qualifications meets the local needs of learners and employers, while also maintaining reliable quality nationally and throughout occupational sectors. Arguably, though, the role of IVs in the management of vocational learning often remains narrowly defined and under-utilised. This article examines the benefits accruing to organizations when their employees act as IVs, as well as the benefits accruing to those who undertake the role. Drawing principally upon interview data, the article describes and classifies prevalent variations of the IV's role within workplaces, training providers and colleges. It identifies six key areas of impact in which the benefits derived from the work of IVs can be measured. The article concludes by suggesting a minimum framework necessary for IVs to impact effectively upon quality assurance, and for IVs themselves to feel professionally supported and developed.

Historically, to be a black public intellectual in Britain has, almost by definition, meant being located on the liberal-left spectrum, in terms of analyses of race and class. However, in the past decade a number of high-profile black British thinkers have explicitly positioned themselves at odds with black liberal and radical traditions of thought. This has been particularly apparent in their critiques of multiculturalism, youth and education. This paper uses recent documentary sources to analyse the discursive features of this emergent black social conservatism, examining its claims to authenticity, its claims to offer rethinking of multiculturalism and identity, and its objects of racialization. Drawing upon critical discourse analysis and critical theories of race and black intellectual production, it identifies internal tensions in this emergent discourse.

The term ‘chumocracy’ has been used to describe a tendency within the UK's Conservative government to appoint friends and allies to key public positions; this image seriously underestimates the scale and influence of networks that shape policy and supply individuals to key roles. This paper maps networks that converge around conservative and sometimes extreme views on race and education. These networks include media figures, academics, public officials and a range of campaigning organisations. They are characterized by an authoritarian ideology, including hereditarian and pseudoscientific beliefs, that views Black and working-class populations as unstable and threatening. They shape policies that seek to silence critical debate about structural racism, while promoting an education characterised by intensified testing, selection, curricular control and strict discipline.

Activity theory is customarily defined as offering object-orientated analyses of individual and collective activity. In this chapter, which draws upon the Learning in and for Interagency Working (LIW) Project’s research into professional learning in ‘multiagency’ children’s services settings, object-orientation is considered in relation to the problematic intimacy between ‘learning’ and ‘labour’ in activity theory. Daniels and Warmington (2007) have argued that, regardless of the specified, momentary object of any particular activity (that is, the development of specified projects, practices, services or goods), the object of any activity system also comprises the social production of labour-power, or rather labour-power potential. In using the term labour-power we refer, unfashionably, to Marx, for whom labour-power is the constellation of skills, knowledge and dispositions that constitutes the capacity of individuals and collectives for productive labouring action. Labour-power remains merely a potential resource until it is submitted to the labour process, wherein it becomes actual, value-creating labour (in other words, labouring action). In liquid, post-bureaucratic, service-orientated economies, as Rikowski (2002 a) and Dinerstein and Neary (2002) have argued, education, training, management and organisational strategies are increasingly orientated to the social production of labour-power (that is with the production of labour-power through means other than just increased recruitment). This is apparent, not least, in the concern across policy, curriculum, managerial and academic fields with qualities such as ‘responsiveness’, ‘flexibility’ and ‘hybridity’ or with ‘interprofessionalism’, ‘generic skills’ and ‘upskilling’.

This Companion offers a comprehensive account of the influence of contemporary British Black and Asian writing in British culture. While there are a number of anthologies covering Black and Asian literature, there is no volume that comparatively addresses fiction, poetry, plays and performance, and provides critical accounts of the qualities and impact within one book. It charts the distinctive Black and Asian voices within the body of British writing and examines the creative and cultural impact that African, Caribbean and South Asian writers have had on British literature. It analyzes literary works from a broad range of genres, while also covering performance writing and non-fiction. It offers pertinent historical context throughout, and new critical perspectives on such key themes as multiculturalism and evolving cultural identities in contemporary British literature. This Companion explores race, politics, gender, sexuality, identity, amongst other key literary themes in Black and Asian British literature. It will serve as a key resource for scholars, graduates, teachers and students alike.