Waveney Bushell

Last updated March 09, 2023

Waveney Bushell (born 1928) is a Guyanese-born teacher, activist and "arguably the first Black educational psychologist in the UK".^[1] She is most notable for her role in exposing racism and inequality in the British educational system.

Early life

Waveney Bushell was born in 1928 in Buxton, Demerara, British Guiana. Her mother died when she was six and she was brought up by her aunt.^[2]

Bushell trained as a teacher after leaving school.^[2] In the 1950s, she travelled to Britain to teach, after applying for teaching work through the London County Council.^[2]

Training and early career

While working as a teacher in London, Bushell trained and then qualified as an educational psychologist,^[3] earning a psychology degree from Bedford College, London, before earning a postgraduate qualification in educational psychology from the Child Guidance Training Centre (the sister school to the Tavistock Clinic).^[4] Bushell was "the first black female psychologist to be admitted to the Child Guidance Training Centre" and graduated in 1965.^[4] From 1965 to 1967, she worked as an educational psychologist for Surrey local education authority.^[4] In 1967, she began work for the School Psychological Services in Croydon, where she stayed for the next twenty two years.^[1]

Criticism of intelligence tests

As a psychologist in Croydon, Bushell found it odd that large numbers of Black children were being classified as "educationally subnormal" and then sent to Educationally Subnormal (ESN) schools.^[5] Bushell argued that the IQ tests given - such as the Stanford-Binet and Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale tests - were not fair assessments as they were built upon European cultural specificities.^[6] As such, the tests "were stacked against Black Caribbean children".^[7]

Caribbean Education and Community Workers Association

Along with fellow campaigners such as Jessica Huntley and John La Rose, Bushell was a founding member of the Caribbean Education and Community Workers Association (CECWA).^[3] Bushell was also the first Chair of CECWA.^[8]

CECWA became "the initiating and co-ordinating body of black education issues".^[9] In 1971, New Beacon Books, on behalf of CECWA, published How the West Indian Child is Made Educationally Sub-normal in the British School System by Bernard Coard, which drew national attention to the issue of ESN schools.^[10] In the book, Coard acknowledges Buhsell's support in his research and writing.^[4] Bushell was interviewed in the 2021 BBC One documentary film Subnormal: A British Scandal, which describes the events surrounding the racism of a leaked school report that led to the publication of Coard's book.^[6]

CECWA was also key to the development of independent black supplementary schools.^[9]

Later career and retirement

In 1975, Bushell completed a master's degree at the Institute of Education in Child Development. However, despite working for Croydon School Psychological Services for more than two decades, she was never promoted to a senior role, which she believes was directly related to her view on intelligence testing and race.^[4]

On her retirement in 1989, Bushell began a consultancy service, which continued her work on the educational and emotional needs of black children in care.^[4]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Educational psychology</span> Branch of psychology concerned with the scientific study of human learning

Educational psychology is the branch of psychology concerned with the scientific study of human learning. The study of learning processes, from both cognitive and behavioral perspectives, allows researchers to understand individual differences in intelligence, cognitive development, affect, motivation, self-regulation, and self-concept, as well as their role in learning. The field of educational psychology relies heavily on quantitative methods, including testing and measurement, to enhance educational activities related to instructional design, classroom management, and assessment, which serve to facilitate learning processes in various educational settings across the lifespan.

Sir Cyril Lodowic Burt, FBA was an English educational psychologist and geneticist who also made contributions to statistics. He is known for his studies on the heritability of IQ. Shortly after he died, his studies of inheritance of intelligence were discredited after evidence emerged indicating he had falsified research data, inventing correlations in separated twins which did not exist, alongside other fabrications.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Psychological testing</span> Administration of psychological tests

Psychological testing is the administration of psychological tests. Psychological tests are administered by trained evaluators. A person's responses are evaluated according to carefully prescribed guidelines. Scores are thought to reflect individual or group differences in the construct the test purports to measure. The science behind psychological testing is psychometrics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">School psychology</span> Branch of psychology

School psychology is a field that applies principles from educational psychology, developmental psychology, clinical psychology, community psychology, and behavior analysis to meet the learning and behavioral health needs of children and adolescents. It is an area of applied psychology practiced by a school psychologist. They often collaborate with educators, families, school leaders, community members, and other professionals to create safe and supportive school environments.

Kenneth Bancroft Clark and Mamie Phipps Clark were American psychologists who as a married team conducted research among children and were active in the Civil Rights Movement. They founded the Northside Center for Child Development in Harlem and the organization Harlem Youth Opportunities Unlimited (HARYOU). Kenneth Clark was also an educator and professor at City College of New York, and first Black president of the American Psychological Association.

Winston Bernard Coard is a Grenadian politician who was Deputy Prime Minister in the People's Revolutionary Government of the New Jewel Movement. Coard launched a coup within the revolutionary government and took power for three days until he was himself deposed by General Hudson Austin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Susan Sutherland Isaacs</span> British educational psychologist and psychoanalyst

Susan Sutherland Isaacs, CBE was a Lancashire-born educational psychologist and psychoanalyst. She published studies on the intellectual and social development of children and promoted the nursery school movement. For Isaacs, the best way for children to learn was by developing their independence. She believed that the most effective way to achieve this was through play, and that the role of adults and early educators was to guide children's play.

Inez Beverly Prosser was a psychologist, teacher and school administrator. She is often regarded as the first African-American female to receive a Ph.D in psychology. Her work was very influential in the hallmark Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court ruling. After growing up in Texas, Prosser was educated at Prairie View Normal College, the University of Colorado and the University of Cincinnati. She was killed in a car accident a short time after earning her doctorate.

Leta Stetter Hollingworth was an American psychologist, educator, and feminist. Hollingworth also made contributions in psychology of women; clinical psychology; and educational psychology. She is best known for her work with gifted children.

Jack Tizard CBE was a research psychologist, professor of child development, research unit director, international adviser on learning disability and child care, and a president of the British Psychological Society. Tizard was born in New Zealand but spent most of his professional life in England where, as a psychologist, he worked at the boundaries of psychology, medicine, education and the social sciences. His work on alternatives to institutional care in the 1950s and 1960s underpinned the subsequent development of 'ordinary life' models for children and adults with learning disabilities. His later work focused on developing services for young children and their families. Tizard's approach was characterised by a commitment to using high research standards to address important social problems, ensuring through his extensive advisory activities that the results of research were available to practitioners and policy-makers.

May Smith OBE was a British Industrial psychologist from Hulme, Manchester. She received a bachelor's degree in 1903 and later received a Doctor of Science degree in 1930. Throughout her career, she taught at colleges as well as performing important research in the field of industrial psychology. She subjected herself to her own trials in her research on fatigue. She worked alongside other researchers to find the effects of alcohol and opium on efficiency as well as research on telegraphist's cramp. She was an investigator at the Industrial Health Research Board from 1920 to 1944. She held several positions on the executive of the British Psychological Society.

Linda S. Siegel is an American-born psychologist and academic known for her research into the cognitive aspects of learning disabilities. She is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Educational and Counselling Psychology, and Special Education at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada where she held the Dorothy C. Lam Chair in Special Education.

Mamie Phipps Clark was an African-American social psychologist who, along with her husband Kenneth Clark, focused on the development of self-consciousness in black preschool children. Clark was born and raised in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Clark received her post-secondary education at Howard University, and she earned her bachelor's and master's degrees there.

A supplementary school is a community-based initiative to provide additional educational support for children also attending mainstream schools. They are often geared to provide specific language, cultural and religious teaching for children from ethnic minorities.

Lois Holzman is director and co-founder of the East Side Institute in New York, New York, where she developed social therapy methods with Fred Newman. She is known for her research and work on play therapy, social therapy, and criticism of the medical model of mental health. She was instrumental in introducing the ideas of Lev Vygotsky to the fields of psychotherapy, organizational and community development. In 2014, Holzman received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Cultural-Historical Research Special Interest Group of the American Educational Research Association.

Nancy E. Hill is an American developmental psychologist. She is the Charles Bigelow Professor of Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Hill is an expert on the impact of parental involvement in adolescent development, cultural influences on minority youth development, and academic discourse socialization, defined as parents' academic beliefs, expectations, and behaviors that foster their children's academic and career goals.

Grace Rawlings (1909-1988) was a British educational psychologist who played a leading role in the establishment of educational psychology in Britain.

<i>How the West Indian Child Is Made Educationally Sub-normal in the British School System</i> 1971 book on racism and inequality in British education

How the West Indian Child Is Made Educationally Sub-normal in the British School System: The Scandal of the Black Child in Schools in Britain is a non-fiction book by Grenadian author Bernard Coard published in May 1971 by New Beacon Books in the United Kingdom. In the book, Coard examines educational inequality and institutional racism in the British educational system through the lens of the country's "educationally subnormal" (ESN) schools—previously called "schools for the mentally subnormal"—which disproportionately and wrongly enrolled Black children, especially those from the British Afro-Caribbean community. These students rarely advanced out of ESN schools and suffered educationally and economically. Coard also intentionally made a "critical decision" to write specifically for an audience of Black parents.

Marie Skodak Crissey was an American developmental psychologist who specialized in intelligence testing, school psychology service administration, and special education. She authored several books and articles on these subjects, and her work has often been cited in research on the development and intelligence of children in relation to adoption and child care. She was an active member of several divisions of the American Psychological Association and served as President of the Division of Consulting Psychology and the Division on Mental Retardation.

Educationally subnormal was a term used historically in the United Kingdom to refer to children with very limited intellectual abilities. Throughout much of the 20th century, British education policy focused on separating these children from the wider school population and they were often viewed as being uncapable of meaningful improvement. Children placed in this category were disproportionately boys, from less wealthy households and immigrant families.

References

1 2 "Waveney Bushell: A Black pioneering educational psychologist. Abstract of paper by O. Aiyegbayo, Liverpool Hope University given at the BPS Conference". Proceedings of the British Psychological Society. 13 (1). February 2005. Archived from the original on 2009-05-05. Retrieved 2021-07-05.
1 2 3 Grant, Colin (2020). Homecoming : voices of the Windrush generation. London: Vintage. ISBN 978-1-78470-913-6. OCLC 1134777966.
1 2 Tomlinson, Claudia (2021-06-06). "Britain revisits a racist injustice against black children in its schools". Stabroek News. Retrieved 2021-07-05.
1 2 3 4 5 6 Aiyegbayo, Olaojo (2005). "Waveney Bushell: a pioneering black educational psychologist". History and Philosophy of Psychology. 7 (1): 36–44.
↑ "The black children wrongly sent to 'special' schools in the 1970s". BBC News. 2021-05-20. Retrieved 2021-07-05.
1 2 Nicholson, Rebecca (2021-05-20). "Review | Subnormal: A British Scandal review – the racist nightmare that scarred black children for life". The Guardian. Retrieved 2021-07-05.
↑ Frazer-Carroll, Micha (2021-05-19). "'Black kids were written off': the scandal of the children sent to 'dustbin schools'". The Guardian. Retrieved 2021-07-05.
↑ "The Black Education Movement (Early Period)". catalogue.georgepadmoreinstitute.org. Retrieved 2021-07-05.
1 2 "George Padmore Institute - BLACK EDUCATION MOVEMENT". www.georgepadmoreinstitute.org. Retrieved 2021-07-05.
↑ John, Gus (2013-07-12). "John La Rose". The Independent . Retrieved 2021-07-05.