ABSTRACT
This chapter explores critical race theory to reveal how standardised testing acts as an institutional primer to an athleticised identity and examines how stakeholders within the education system manufacture and instill an athleticised identity on young black lives. The media often mute, or ignore entirely, the accomplishments and successes of the black middle-class, which further serves to exacerbate the ‘athleticising of black lives’ within societies on both sides of the Atlantic. The chapter outlines the powerful narratives and processes that disproportionately manufacture young black athletes in schools. It offers a critical discussion of how standardised testing agendas–as powerful state-mandated segregation systems–disproportionately exclude young black lives from realising success through ‘traditional’ academic measures. The particular need for black youth participation in sport was frequently discussed by school personnel, and was almost exclusively justified on the grounds of behaviour management and/or academic ‘failure’ of their group specifically.
