The URF study will examine the discursive representations of ‘blackness’ in the British public imaginary – how African and African descended communities come to be understood in British culture . The study postulates that notions of ‘British blackness’, while displaying continuities and ruptures over time, fundamentally maintain an idea of ‘blackness’ as external to the national community. This has repercussions for those of Black heritage in education. The study is guided by the overarching question: In what ways are notions of ‘blackness’ discursively constituted in the British public imaginary? Informed by scholarship from nationalism studies, cultural studies, and black critical theory, and drawing on methods from corpus linguistics and critical discourse analysis (CDA) the URF will conduct a diachronic analysis of British print media over the last 75 years. This period reflects the mass migration of and establishment of black populations in the UK.