Hair and Care: Black Children and Young People's Experiences of Belonging and Exclusion in Social Care and Education in England

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"What does hair have to do with inequalities in social care and education?". This project aims to answer this question through an innovative qualitative study exploring how 'hair' and 'social care' intersect in the specific contexts of transracial adoption, mixed-race families and black pupils school exclusion in English secondary schools. Hair studies is a relatively under researched area, focussing mainly on hair as coded beauty practice in terms of gender, age, social class and racial identity. Yet there remains limited research on how hair care is more than beauty practice and can serve as a powerful way of understanding racial inequalities in social care and education. While there have been discrete studies exploring hair and care, there is yet to be coherent body of work bringing hair and care together in children and families' social work. This far reaching and ambitious set of work packages allow us to examine how hair care is conceptualised, practiced and produces structural inequalities through an examination of children and young people's experiences.Aims and Objectives1. To explore how hair care shapes experiences of black identity and belonging through a comparative study of children and families' perspectives' in the context of transracial adoption and mixed- race families in Kent and London.2. To investigate school-based exclusions of black pupils in English secondary schools based on racialized presentation and black hair practice in Kent and Manchester.The social problems the project addresses are of critical importance. In 2020, there were 80,080 looked after children, even as rates of adoption have fallen steeply since 2015 (DfE, 2020). Studies indicate that while Black and Asian care experienced children are a small percentage of all looked after children, they are much less likely to find a "forever family". Recent media accounts have also reported that English secondary schools are excluding Black children with natural hairstyles and subject them to disproportionate levels of discipline and control. In order to address the objectives outlined in the project, two distinct work packages have been designed using a range of qualitative methods. Work package 1 explores the role of hair in understanding children and families' experiences of black identity and belonging by drawing on 30 interviews with black adoptees, parents, siblings and post-adoption social workers with up to 30 transracial adoption (TRA) and mixed-race family settings. Using a holistic approach all family members will be captured through interviews with the adoptees, siblings and individual interviews with parents. Comparing TRA and mixed-race families will help to highlight commonalities and differences in young people's experiences in biologically constituted and socially reconstituted families. Participatory methods will be used which will be accessible to children including interviews and asking them to take photographs of their everyday lives. Work package 2 seeks to understand black pupils' experience of exclusion and belonging in secondary schools in Kent and Manchester, through interviews and focus groups with young people, school teachers and social work trainees in school settings. Six schools in Medway and Manchester will be sampled based on the racial and ethnic diversity of the schools. We will approach Head teachers, teachers unions and recruit pupils directly through social media. A total of 60 interviews (30 in Manchester and 30 in Medway) will be conducted with black pupils and teachers along with 15 focus group discussions to understand young people's peer group experiences. Young people will also be given cameras to record video diaries of their experiences of belonging in school settings.This research project is significant in exploring racial inequalities in social care and education.