Encoding and Decoding Black and White Cultural Capitals: Black Middle-Class Experiences

Abstract

Drawing upon 23 qualitative interviews, and ethnographic work in London, this article explores how black middle-class individuals in the UK decode forms of middle-class cultural capital. This decoding is two staged. Firstly, black middle-class individuals often decode dominant or ‘traditional’ middle-class cultural capital as white. This involves a recognition that certain forms of middle-class cultural capital are marked as racially exclusive, and are reproduced and recognised in ‘white spaces’. Secondly, black middle-class individuals also decode alternative forms of cultural capital as woven into a greater project of racial uplift. Such alternative forms of cultural capital are defined as ‘black cultural capital’, and tend to be based around fulfilling a cultural politics of black representation.

Activating Controlling Images in the Racialized Interaction Order: Black Middle‐Class Interactions and the Creativity of Racist Action

“…As Anderson (:13) argues, black middle‐class people often have a “deficit of credibility”—the default assumption is that they are lower‐class, and they have to strenuously convince people otherwise. While Anderson's () research is U.S.‐based, the scarce research on Britain's black middle‐class has highlighted how black professionals are also subject to such a deficit of credibility—what Wallace (:467) refers to as a process of “class‐imaging” (see Meghji ; Rollock et al ; Wallace ). In response to this class‐imaging, research in both the United States and Britain has shown that the black middle‐class engage in strategies of impression management to “prove” their class status, such as wearing smart clothes and speaking in refined manners (see Anderson ; Lacy ; Meghji ; Rawls and Duck ; Rollock et al ; Wallace ).…”

The Racial Politics of Cultural Capital: Perspectives from Black Middle-Class Pupils and Parents in a London Comprehensive

“…And to the extent that class distinctions have been acknowledged, disproportionate attention has been devoted to the Black working classes (Gillborn, 2008; Rollock et al, 2015; Solomos, 2003; Troyna, 1984). Second, research on the Black middle classes in and out of schools focuses on the perspectives of either Black middle-class adults or children, parents or pupils (Meghji, 2019; Rollock et al, 2013; Vincent et al, 2013) – not the associated agency or the strategic collaborations of both constituencies. Of course, scores of ethnographies and survey studies have included Black middle-class pupils in their samples, but they have not necessarily offered deliberate analytical attention to the school-based experiences of Black middle-class pupils and parents (Archer, 2012; Strand, 2012).…”

“…Of course, scores of ethnographies and survey studies have included Black middle-class pupils in their samples, but they have not necessarily offered deliberate analytical attention to the school-based experiences of Black middle-class pupils and parents (Archer, 2012; Strand, 2012). Instead, the literature on the Black middle classes in Britain emphasises resistance to whiteness and misrecognition (Meghji, 2019; Wallace, 2017b, 2018b); the relationship between the Black middle classes and the Black working classes (Wallace, 2017a, 2018a); pre- and post-migration economic strivings (Bressey, 2009; Dabydeen et al, 2008; Fryer, 1984); and the expression and reproduction of Black middle-class tastes (Campbell, 2019; Meghji, 2016; Rollock, 2014). How Black middle-class pupils and parents partner strategically to call White hegemony into question in school curricula and advocate a shift in the cultural conditions of schooling have yet to surface substantively in British cultural sociology or cultural sociology of education.…”

“…For instance, in his analysis of 23 Black middle-class professionals, Meghji (2019) identifies Black cultural capital as a strategic class expression attuned to the tastes, expressive traditions and cultural mores of the African diaspora. Meghji argues that:the black middle classes learn to decipher that some forms of cultural capital have been encoded as pertaining to white or black middle-class consumers; this decoding is facilitated not only through analysing the content of the cultural capital, but also the people, institutions and practices which produce, uphold, and recognise it.…”

“…Meghji argues that:the black middle classes learn to decipher that some forms of cultural capital have been encoded as pertaining to white or black middle-class consumers; this decoding is facilitated not only through analysing the content of the cultural capital, but also the people, institutions and practices which produce, uphold, and recognise it. (2019: 4)…”