British Indian Educational Success: A Critical Race Theory counter-story to the Rishi Sunak celebration of racial triumph

Abstract: This presentation draws on my doctoral research exploring how British-Indian families understand, pursue, and experience educational success across four generations in the UK. Dominant narratives often position British-Indian attainment as a “model minority” story — proof of meritocracy and post-racial progress. My work challenges this framing. Using a DesiCrit approach and multi-generational interviews, I examine how families navigate racism, migration, aspiration, and responsibility within everyday life.
The research uncovers the emotional labour behind achievement: the silences around race that shape young people’s school experiences; the intergenerational pressures to succeed as protection; and the forms of love, ambition, and quiet resistance that sustain educational journeys. By centring counter-stories from British-Indian communities, this talk asks how universities and policy makers can better recognise racialised experience, move beyond celebratory narratives, and create spaces where belonging and justice are not conditional on success.

Bio: Amit Puni is a Senior Lecturer and the School Lead for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion at Kingston University London. He teaches across professional programmes in Education, Social Work and Midwifery, leading work on race equity and anti-racism across the curriculum. Amit also leads the BA (Hons) Working with Children & Young People: Social Pedagogy and delivers CPD in schools on racial literacy and responding to racism. Before joining higher education, he worked as a secondary school teacher and curriculum lead in London. He is an Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Adviser to the Association for Citizenship Teaching (ACT). His PhD examines British-Indian educational experiences across generations through a Critical Race Theory lens.

Thursday, November 13, 2025 from 10am to 12pm
Université libre de Bruxelles
44 avenue Jeanne, 1050 Bruxelles
Building S, floor 12, Room Rokkan
Registration (in-person or online) : Registration CAR seminar with Amit Puni | VUB Birmm

Critical Approaches to Race Seminar Series

The Critical Approaches to Race (CAR) lecture series was created in 2021 with the ambition to offer an academic space for young researchers in which to present their work, whether in progress or completed, and enrich their reflections. The CAR seminar invites to an approach combining decolonial and postcolonial theories and Critical Race Theory through the questioning of phenomena linked to race and racism in different contexts.

This is the first university seminar organized in Belgium on Critical Race Theories, a mainly English-speaking multidisciplinary field of study aimed at analyzing not only the forms of racialization and racism in human societies (Western and non-Western), but also the forms of subjectification that racialized people resort to in the face of racialization.

For 2025-2026, VUB and ULB have joined forces to make the CAR seminar a central space for academic exchanges on the racial question in Belgium around the presentation and discussion of scientific research, mainly carried out by doctoral and postdoctoral students but also by experienced academics, coming from Belgium and abroad.

The CAR seminar is open to all and will occur monthly between September 2025 and June 2026.

More info here