Young black women bear all the hallmarks of a fundamentally unequal society. They do well at school, contribute to society, are good efficient workers yet, as a group they consistently fail to secure the economic status and occupational prestige they deserve. Charting the experience of a group of young black women as they leave school and enter the world of work, Heidi Safia Mirza asks why it is that young black women suffer these injustices and reveals the processes of inequality that, despite the ideology of a meritocracy, persist in this society. In arguing for a more structural understanding of inequality, Young Female and Black questions the popular, pervasive and celebratory constructions of black female identity that to date have been so prevalent in explanations of black female educational achievement. In the comparative context of research and writng from Britain, America and the Caribbean, this book re-examines what is meant by educational underachievement', the black family' and, in particular, black womanhood' in Britain. Written by a black woman sociologist, Young Female and Black provides original and scholarly insight into an area of popular enquiry too often plagued by either marginality or misinformation.