CBACS has evolved from the longitudinal personal and collaborative action research undertaken by Dr Gordon since the late 1980’s when she used academic study to inquire into the experience of what it means to be black in Britain. The goal has always been that of transformation and self-renewal. The primary findings of this research are found in her MBA and PhD dissertations:

• Unleashing Human Potential: Black Women Managers and Emancipatory Action Research, Unpublished MBA Thesis (1993)
• Towards Bicultural Competence: Researching for Personal and Professional Transformations, Unpublished PhD thesis, Centre for Action Research into Professional Practice, University of Bath, (1997)
  
  

In 2001 she submitted a claim for the National Teaching Fellowship Scheme and was short-listed for an award.

In 2002 she gained a national award and research fellowship of £50,000 acknowledging Dr Gordon as eligible for academic leadership. She has since used the fellowship to focus research on the British African-Caribbean community by introducing Academically-Based Community Service into the research portfolio of the university.

It is from this on-going research that CBACS has evolved to meet the demands of African-Caribbeans living in Britain for the type of self-knowledge and awareness that is not, to date, widely available to the descendants of enslaved Africans in the formal education system.

Many descendants of enslaved Africans have participated in the project. Activities have included consciousness-raising workshops; a series of mini-lectures and discussion forum; a student research route enabling students who are the descendants of enslaved Africans to make a contribution to their own community through research; students sharing their work at conferences; developing the human-centred passionate appreciation teaching and learning approach to meet the needs of learners who are the descendants of enslaved Africans. A central component of the research is the on-line first-, second- and third-person inquiry approaches that Dr Gordon has used to penetrate the silence which surrounds the life experience of descendants of enslaved Africans.

Her book - Towards Conscious Bicultural Competence: Beyond Black and White - and this website are the avenues chosen to bring the findings of this longitudinal research to the attention of a wider audience.

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