‘You got a pass, so what more do you want?’: race, class and gender intersections in the educational experiences of the Black middle class David Gillborn*, Nicola Rollock, Carol Vincent and Stephen J. Ball Institute of Education, University of London, London, UK The article discusses the findings of an ESRC funded project (RES-062-23-1880) which used in-depth interviews to explore the edu- cational experiences and strategies of 62 Black Caribbean parents; the biggest qualitative study of education and the Black middle class yet conducted in the UK. The article focuses on the parents’ interactions with their children’ s teachers and, in particular, their experience that teachers tend to have systematically lower academic expectations for Black children (alongside a regime of heightened disciplinary scrutiny and criticism) regardless of the students’ social class background. The parents’ accounts highlight the significance of a cumulative process where a series of low level misdemeanours sometimes build into a pat- tern of seemingly incessant and unfair criticism that can have an enor- mously damaging impact on their children. Although our data suggest that these processes can involve children of both sexes and of any age, the parents report a particular concern for Black young men, whom they perceive to be especially at risk. Our findings demonstrate the continued significance of race inequality and illuminate the intersectional relation- ship between race and social class inequalities in education. This is par- ticularly important at a time when English education policy assumes that social class is the overwhelming driver of achievement and where race inequity has virtually disappeared from the policy agenda. Our findings reveal that despite their material and cultural capital, many middle-class Black Caribbean parents find their high expectations and support for education thwarted by racist stereotyping and exclusion. Keywords: teacher expectations; racism; social class; gender; intersec- tionality; parents Introduction This article draws on the largest ever qualitative study of education and the Black middle class in the UK to explore parents’ interactions with teachers and, in particular, their experience that teachers tend to have systematically lower academic expectations for Black children. Alongside a regime of *Corresponding author. Email: d.gillborn@ioe.ac.uk Race Ethnicity and Education Vol. 15, No. 1, January 2012, 121–139 ISSN 1361-3324 print/ISSN 1470-109X online Ó 2012 Taylor & Francis http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2012.638869 http://www.tandfonline.com