Supporting Black Pupils and Parents: Understanding and Improving

Drawing on her extensive teaching experience, Lorna Cork explores the day-to-day needs and expectations of black parents and their children in education. Exclusion rates of black children in the UK and around the world continue to rise, highlighting that something is very wrong with the way their teaching and learning is supported in today’s schools. Focusing on contemporary situations and using real-life case studies, Cork emphasises the human consequences of the true issues behind the statistics.

This topical text offers a detailed look at five key organisations that exist to support black parents. It examines their home-school interventions and discusses the central issues arising out of their efforts. The fascinating evidence offers fresh perspectives and provides much needed advice and guidance to all those seeking to improve co-operation between black families, schools and communities - all who share the goal of supporting the learning and attainment of the black child.

Any education professional, student teacher, staff at an LEA, and anyone with a serious interest in race issues is sure to find this essential reading.

Dr Lorna Cork is an adviser currently working for Birmingham LEA, going into schools and classrooms on a regular basis, providing training and support. She has just received her doctorate from the University of Cambridge.