An intersectional approach to Black parents’ experiences of autism in the UK
Published on 1 May, 2022.
This study investigates the lived experiences of Black parents caring for a child with autism. Their experiences were examined alongside familial, contextual and systemic contexts that intersect to influence parents’ psychological wellbeing. The study expanded upon Corbett and Perepa (2007) who investigated cultural influences in autism and Heer, Rose and Larkin’s study (2012) on contextual factors that influence Black and minority ethnic parents of children with learning disability. Since then, there has been minimal research on the role of culture on Black parents’ experiences of autism, so this study aimed to begin to address this gap in research. A qualitative approach was adopted using in-depth interviews with participants across England and a hermeneutic phenomenological method provided breadth and depth of findings on experiences from an often-marginalised group of people at the intersection of race, gender and disability. Following an ecological framework, the research findings identified factors at individual (i.e., mothers as primary caregivers, isolation), community (cultural beliefs and cognitive dissonance, lack of autism knowledge, stigma) and structural levels (institutional racism in education, housing; lack of cultural sensitivity during and after diagnosis) that negatively influenced parents’ experiences of autism and their wellbeing.