Making Sense of Racial Identity: Racial Being or Being Racialized?

What does it mean to learn while navigating race, identity, and belonging? In this striking collection, students from UCL IOE’s Sociology of Race and Education course—led by Dr Victoria Showunmi—share autobiographical essays exploring assimilation, colourism, passing, cultural appropriation, and double consciousness.With storytelling at its heart, and guided by theories like Critical Race Theory, Intersectionality, and Whiteness Studies, these essays reveal how education shapes racial identity across time and place. This volume invites leaders, educators, students or curious readers to reflect, question, and engage with the lived realities of racialised education.Section Editors are: Jill Geary, Sharon Gyimah, Stephen Hancock, Hannah Lynn, Elodie Mayo, Beatriz Ramirez, Victoria Showunmi, Julia Spence-Duclos, and Michah Wyatt.Contributors are: Joshua Agyepong, Zahra Alomani, Jo Barber, Esha Bhandari, Anna Brown, Evelyne Carlen, Raiesa Choudhury, Jessica Costa, Avili Feese, Amanda Fernando, Eleanor Garrett, Jill Geary, Sharon Gyimah, Stephen Hancock, Rachel Idowu, Samantha Jacob, Viola Kanu, Vijayakymar Kularetnam, Hannah Lynn, Katherine MacLennan, Elodie Mayo, Victoria Moore, Karishma Patel, Tahmid Rahman, Beatriz Ramirez, Julia Spence, Annalisea Whyte, Miranda Williams and Michah Wyatt.