Negotiating success or settling for less? : deconstructing the underachievement of Afro-Caribbean youth in Toronto high schools

The academic underachievement of students from the African Diaspora in Canadian schools is not a recent phenomenon. Afro-Caribbean students are reported to drop out of high schools in Toronto at disproportionate rates. To uncover the social forces that contribute to these problems this paper will examine Afro-Caribbean patterns of community formation and the issue of systemic racism in Canadian society operating as a barrier to academic success. At an even greater rate Portuguese youth are leaving school prematurely. But unlike with Afro-Caribbean students racism is not an issue. Rather for the majority of Portuguese students in Canada the reasons behind chronic underachievement are rooted in the current education system, which views immigrants as different and the source of their own failure. This paper uncovers the subtle forms of racism that many underestimate and the huge role it plays in dictating the lives of many youth from the Black community.