Teachers challenging language discrimination in England’s schools: a typology of resistance

Cushing, Ian ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1752-1411 (2024) Teachers challenging language discrimination in England’s schools: a typology of resistance. Journal of Language, Identity and Education. ISSN 1534-8458 (In Press)

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Abstract

Recent media coverage and academic scholarship has repeatedly demonstrated that language discrimination is embedded and normalised in England’s schools. We consider language discrimination as a structural phenomenon underpinned by language ideologies which frame the language practices of racialised and working-class communities as deficient. In this article we report on project where we worked closely with a group of teachers who identified as critical, activist educators who were seeking to challenge language discrimination in their classrooms and wider institutions. Our data stems from in-depth interviews and case studies with teachers, where we explored their anti-language discrimination efforts at individual, departmental, and institutional levels. We present a typology for anti-language discrimination efforts, capturing the importance of teacher positionality and stance; research informed practice; community organising; locating local issues of language stigma within broader geopolitical patterns of inequality; individual classroom efforts, and institutional support for critical language work.