240 pages
210mm x 143mm
ISBN-10: 1 905192 06 1
ISBN-13: 978 1 905192 06 9
October 2005

Bookmarks Publications and Trentham Books

Over thirty years ago Grenadian scholar Bernard Coard caused a social and political storm by telling it how it was in his seminal study How the West Indian Child is Made Educationally Subnormal in the British School System. The title alone speaks volumes, but Coard's work did far more. It exposed the plight of Black children in schools in Britain. And it fired the Supplementary Schools System and many of the antiracist and multicultural policies of the1970s and 80s.

Three decades on our schools are still failing Black children. Tell It Like It Is reprints Coard's classic text plus his new article on its relevance today. Alongside are essays and reflections from scholars, academics and activists that bring the debate about race and education firmly into the 21st century and indicate how we can move on to give Black children an equal chance in education.

'In America, during the Civil Rights Movement, Malcolm X talked about 'liberating our minds by any means necessary'. Black people need to collectively decide how strategically we can use what are our means' to achieve the rights for our children'. - Doreen Lawrence, from the Foreword

'This book is a poignant reminder of the scale of the challenge we have to address. The ongoing discrimination, dependency and disadvantage that it exposes are issues we really need to get to grips with'. - Gloria Mills, first Black woman president of the TUC

'This timely collection finds the endemic racism that pushed Black kids into Educationally Subnormal Special Schools still alive and well. Only the initials have changed: SEN (Special Educational Needs) replaces ESN. Crude pseudo-biological categories such as IQ have receded, only to be replaced by assertions about culture or parenting. Meanwhile further generations of Black and now, increasingly, Muslim children are being failed by the system. Read, weep at the problems, and cheer the brave attempts being made to overcome them'. - Steven Rose, author of The 21st Century Brain

Book of the Week - Times Educational Supplement