This book offers unique insights into elite Nigerian parents' engagement with and use of the
international secondary education market as they attempt to retain their social standing - via
their children - under today's shifting global conditions. Throughout the book tackles two
important albeit uncomfortable questions: Why does whiteness hold the highest possible value
in postcolonial societies such as Nigeria? And more importantly why do black people accept
the hegemonic discourse that West white is best? Combining the theoretical frameworks of Pierre
Bourdieu and Frantz Fanon the book reveals 'Whiteness' as a highly valuable form of cultural
and symbolic capital that plays a crucial role in the formation of and struggle for elite
status and distinction in modern-day Nigeria. Drawing on rare qualitative data sets along with
postcolonial literatures the book reveals how British whiteness is used by those working at
and for British private schools in Nigeria (BPS-NIG) as an informal but powerful mechanism of
'quality' control and in constructing the image of 'world-class' educational establishments.
