Systemic Inequalities in UK Child Protection: A Critical Race Theory Analysis of Challenges for Sub-Saharan African BME Families

Racial disproportionality in child protection in England is well documented, but research has focused more on statistical overrepresentation than on institutional processes through which racialised inequality is produced, interpreted and sustained. Less attention has been paid to how safeguarding is experienced and negotiated by first-generation Sub-Saharan African parents, particularly in relation to poverty, housing insecurity, immigration precarity, professional judgement and unequal credibility. Objective This thesis examines how first-generation Sub-Saharan African parents experience and navigates child protection involvement in England, and how racialised inequality is reproduced through routine safeguarding practices, professional interpretation, and wider systems of welfare, migration and institutional governance. Methods Drawing on Critical Race Theory and Critical Race Methodology, the study conducted qualitative, semi-structured interviews with 19 first-generation Sub-Saharan African parents involved in child protection in England and 5 statutory social workers. Ethical approval was granted by the University of Essex Ethics Sub-Committee 2 prior to data collection, and informed consent, confidentiality, and data protection were guaranteed. Data were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. Results Findings show that safeguarding was often experienced as a cumulative process of institutional visibility, surveillance, professional judgement and unequal credibility, rather than as isolated interventions. Pathways into child protection were shaped by referral events, poverty, housing insecurity, welfare exclusion, mental distress and immigration precarity. These conditions increased institutional visibility while limiting support. Parents described family life as judged against dominant norms of parenting, behaviour and cooperation, while structural hardship could be recast as parental inadequacy or risk. Fear, compliance, silence, emotional restraint, and strategic self-presentation emerged as forms of constrained agency within a system experienced as powerful, uncertain, and potentially punitive. Conclusions The thesis argues that racialised inequality is reproduced through routine practices structured by surveillance, interpretation, documentation and unequal epistemic authority. Fairer safeguarding requires structurally informed, anti-racist and epistemically just practice.