The Culture Trap: Ethnic Expectations and Unequal Schooling for Black Youth

In The Culture Trap, Derron Wallace argues that the overreliance on culture to explain Black students' achievement and behavior in schools is a trap that undermines the historical factors and institutional processes that shape how Black students experience schooling. Drawing on rich ethnographic observations and interviews, Wallace suggests that use of culture as a proxy for gauging and justifying achievement outcomes obscures the very real ways school structures, institutional processes, and colonial and post-colonial conditions matter for the racial, class, and gender inequalities Black Caribbeans students experience in the US and Britain. Wallace shows how culture is at times used as an alibi for racism in schools, and points out what educators, parents, and students can do to change it.